MID-SOUTH MEMORIES

25 years ago — 1997

After four years of work and $38.4 million from the city government, Detroit, the United States’ largest city with a Black majority, opened the nation’s largest museum of African American history on Saturday. It is an ambitious survey of the Black experience in the United States. At the center of the Museum of African American History is a model slave ship with 40 life-size figures of slaves in its hold. Surrounding the vessel are nine roomsize exhibits, each using a dozen or more artifacts to illustrate subjects from 14th century African history to contemporary Black culture in the United States. Arrayed around that core are two galleries for temporary exhibitions, a 317-seat theater, an indoor amphitheater for school groups and collections of documents for researchers. The museum has gained influence since the Smithsonian Institution

decided two years ago not to build an African American history museum in Washington, choosing instead to put its exhibits in existing buildings.

50 years ago — 1972

WASHINGTON – Mrs. Paul E. Gilly, who has pleaded guilty in the murder of Joseph A. Yablonski, said in a confession read in court here Thursday that her father had told her the murder of the mine union official had the approval of the “big man” and to her “that meant Tony Boyle, president of the United Mine Workers.”

75 years ago — 1947

A quick-thinking Illinois Central Railroad engineer probably averted a rail disaster when he flagged the speeding Panama Limited near Millington as it headed straight into the path of 31 derailed freight cars. A.W. Harrington, engineer on the 50-car I.C. freight train, said he was running the train about 45 or 50 miles an hour toward Memphis

when he felt the brakes go on and knew something had happened. The engineer said he saw a red light on the northbound tracks, on which the Panama Limited was headed from Memphis to Chicago. Mr. Harrington said, “We put fuses (flares) on the track and flagged it down before it piled into the wreckage.” 100 years ago — 1922

Dr. George Booth Malone, an outstanding figure in the history of Memphis and its civic welfare for more than 50 years, has been called to his reward. He died yesterday morning at 9:30 o’clock at St. Joseph’s Hospital after an illness of five months. A third stroke of paralysis coming in December caused him to enter the hospital, where he died at the age of 77.

125 years ago — 1897

Howland yesterday won the twoyear-old handicap at Montgomery Park, which was packed with race admirers.

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FILES A cyclist rides along South Main Street as Chicago artists Sterling “Pugs Atomz” Price, top, and Damon Lamar Reed, right, paint a mural called “The Sound of Memphis.” In the mural, a man is walking while carrying a guitar case that has symbols representing Memphis’ past and present.