•Frederick Douglass, disguised as a sailor escapes from slavery
Dream Street is the second studio album by American singer Janet Jackson, released in September 1984, by A&M Records. More pop than her debut album's "bubblegum soul" feel, the album was not the runaway success that Janet's father Joseph thought it would be, peaking at No. 147 on the Billboard in 1984.
NAACP leader, Charles Hamilton Houston was born on this day.
Geraldine Washington Travis was born in Albany, Georgia on September 3, 1931, the daughter of Joseph and Dorothy Washington.
Cottonpickers organized union and strike
Sep 3, 1891 Cottonpickers organized union and staged strike for higher wages in Texas.
National Welsh Rarebit Day
John Stephens Durham, assistant editor of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, named minister to Haiti.
Houston was born on September 3, 1895 in Washington, DC to parents William Houston, an attorney, and Mary Houston, a hairdresser and seamstress.
Five soldiers hanged for alleged participation in Houston riot of 1917
• St. Gregory the Great, patron of educators, musicians and stone masons.
• UK: (Sept 1-5, 2025)
On this day in:
1752 This day did not exist in Great Britain, nor did the next 10 days.
1783 Anna Maria Russell, 7th Duchess of Bedford was born (died July 3, 1857). Originator of British Afternoon Tea during the late 1830s.
1875 Ferdinand Porsche was born. He was an Austrian engineer who designed the VW Beetle in 1935.
1881 Lorenzo Delmonico, famed restaurateur died. Born 1813 in Marengo, Switzerland. In 1831 he joined his uncles in their catering and pastry shop in New York. He transformed the business into one of the most famous restaurants in the country.
1912 The first cannery opened in England. It was to supply food to the Royal Navy.
1960 Wilbur Hardee opened the first Hardee's restaurant in Greenville, North Carolina. It had no tables, and only a few items on the menu, but the drive-thru restaurant was an immediate success. The main attraction was a 15-cent fresh-ground, lean beef burger made to order on a custom-built charcoal broiler.
1964 'The House Of The Rising Sun' by the Animals is #1 on the charts.
1966 The last episode of the TV show 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet' airs.
1967 Sweden switches from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right.
1970 Alan Wilson of the music group 'Canned Heat' died.
1970 Record Hailstone falls in Coffeyville, Minnesota. It weighed 1 2/3 pounds and measured 17 1/2 inches in circumference.
1991 A fire destroyed the Imperial Food Products chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. The fire killed 25 people and injured 54, many of whom were unable to escape due to locked exits.
2004 'The Cookout,' a movie about an out of control backyard barbecue opened in U.S. theatres.
2012 The Black Bear Casino Resort in Carlton, Minnesota created a record breaking Bacon Cheeseburger weighing in at 2,014 pounds. At 10 feet in diameter, the burger was topped with 60 lbs of bacon, 40 lbs of cheese, 50 lbs of sliced onions, 50 lbs of lettuce and 40 lbs of pickles.
2018 Italy's Florence bans people from pausing in the historic center to eat food on sidewalks, roadways and on the doorsteps of shops and houses. The restrictions are aimed at reducing litter and keeping streets clear of the crowds that form around eateries, making the narrow streets hard to navigate.
African Methodist Episcopal minister and later Bishop Henry McNeal Turner emerged immediately after the Civil War as one of the most ardent defenders of African Ameriacn rights. Turner was also among the first group of Reconstruction-era African American elected officials. In July 1868, Turner was among the two state senators and twenty-five black Republican state representatives elected to serve in the Georgia legislature. Less than two months later, Georgia Democrats, the majority of the legislature, boldly expelled all of the black members. On September 3, 1868, Turner stood before the assembled representatives and denounced the legislators who had refused to seat the African American senators and representatives. That speech appears below.
Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding to argue this question upon its intrinsic merits, I wish the members of this House to understand the position that I take. I hold that I am a member of this body. Therefore, sir, I shall neither fawn nor cringe before any party, nor stoop to beg them for my rights. Some of my colored fellow members, in the course of their remarks, took occasion to appeal to the sympathies of members on the opposite side, and to eulogize their character for magnanimity. It reminds me very much, sir, of slaves begging under the lash. I am here to demand my rights and to hurl thunderbolts at the men who would dare to cross the threshold of my manhood. There is an old aphorism which says, fight the devil with fire, and if I should observe the rule in this instance, I wish gentlemen to understand that it is but fighting them with their own weapon.
The scene presented in this House, today, is one unparalleled in the history of the world. From this day, back to the day when God breathed the breath of life into Adam, no analogy for it can be found. Never, in the history of the world, has a man been arraigned before a body clothed with legislative, judicial or executive functions, charged with the offense of being a darker hue than his fellow men
Harrison Laverne Caldwell, the first African American principal in the Seattle Public Schools District, was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1909. Very little is known about his personal life. By the time of his death, he had become one of the most important educational leaders in the states of Kansas and Washington.
Caldwell had taught for twenty-three years in Kansas, briefly worked as dean of Swift Memorial College in Rogersville, Tennessee, and was director of education for black students in Coffeyville and Topeka in the years before the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In those years, he worked alongside others to aid desegregation efforts. In 1954, he moved to Seattle with his wife, Valeria and his son, Lynn. There, welcomed by the school district, he served as vice principal under Edgar A. Stanton at both Gatewood and Roxhill Elementary Schools in West Seattle. Two years later, upon Stanton’s retirement from Seattle Public Schools, Caldwell was nominated and confirmed by the school board as principal of Roxhill. All nine teachers and four hundred and fifty students that attended the school at that time were white.
During his tenure as principal, The Seattle Times referred to Caldwell as “The Negro Principal.” In 1957, the newspaper published an article that showcased the harmony and cooperation between Caldwell, his students, and his teachers at Roxhill. Caldwell once expressed that he never experienced any problems with race while being principal of the school and firmly believed that “Roxhill is a living example of how people can get along. It can be done-It is being done!”
While working at Roxhill, he was also a strong community leader. He was elected to the Board of Theatre Supervisors and the Y.M.C.A. He also served as a member of the Seattle Urban League, Seattle Housing Authority, Red Cross, Juvenile Protection Association, Seattle Principals’ Association, Washington Education Association, Kiwanis International, the Boy Scouts.