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July 16

07-16 TABLE of CONTENTS: She sued a railroad for refusing to seat her correctly Barnett's militant editorial DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTE by Irmgard Flügge-Lotz.Irmgard Flügge-Lotz She sued a railroad... B. 07-16-1862, Ida B. Wells Barnett, noted militant black leader who often criticized black male leaders for being too accommodating. Her basic philosophy was that black people could only gain their equality through their own efforts.       She sued a railroad company over its refusal to allow her to ride first class because of her color. She won the case in the lower courts, but in 1887 the Tennessee State Supreme Court overturned the ruling.       Her outspoken article about black school deficiencies got her fired from her public school position in Memphis, TN. She was co-founder of the Free Speech and Headlighter that was destroyed by a mob after a 03-09-1892 editorial about the lynching of three black youths.       In several studies she proved that the lynching of black men (and women) was not tied to sexual assault, but a retribution by those who felt their white, male social structures were economically threatened by blacks.       Black women were also lynched (or killed in other ways and raped) with amazing regularity that even today seems to escape historical notice. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | In one of Ida Wells' publication, she makes the strong condemnation of the Southern lynchings: "Not all or nearly all of the murders done by white men, during the past thirty years in the South, have come to light, but the statistics as gathered and preserved by white men, and which have not been questioned, show that during these years more than ten thousand Negroes have been killed in cold blood, without the formality of judicial trial and legal execution. As yet, as evidence of the absolute impunity with which the white man dares to kill a Negro, the same record shows that during all these years, and for all these murders only three white men have been tried, convicted, and executed. "If the Southern people in defense of their lawlessness, would tell the truth and admit that colored men and women are lynched for almost any offense, from murder to a misdemeanor, there would not now be the necessity for œthe defense that Negroes had to be killed to avenge their assaults upon white womenil. But when they intentionally, maliciously and constantly belie the record and bolster up these falsehoods by the words of legislators, preachers, governors and bishops, then the Negro must give to the world his side of the awful story. "The question must be asked, what the white man means when he charges the black man with rape. Does he mean the crime which the statutes of the states describe as such? Not by any means. The Southern white man says that it is impossible for a voluntary alliance to exist between a white woman and a colored man, and therefore, the fact of an alliance is a proof of force. In numerous instances where colored men have been lynched on the charge of rape, it was positively known at the time of lynching, and indisputably proven after the victim s death, that the relationship sustained between the man and the woman was voluntary and clandestine, and that in no court of law could even the charge of assault have been successfully maintained. "It was for the assertion of this fact, in the defense of her own race, that the writer hereof became an exile; her property destroyed and her return to her home forbidden under penalty of death, for writing the following editorial which was printed in her paper, the Free Speech, in Memphis, Tenn., May 21, 1892: "Nobody in this section of the country believes the old threadbare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful, they will over-reach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women. "It is not the purpose of this defense to say one word against the white women of the South. Such need not be said, but it is their misfortune that the white men of that section to justify their own barbarism assume a chivalry which they do not possess. True chivalry respects all womanhood, and no one who reads the record, as it is written in the faces of the million mulattoes in the South, will for a minute conceive that the southern white man had a very chivalrous regard for the honor due the women of his race or respect for the womanhood which circumstances placed in his power." | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 07-16 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 07-16-1194, Saint Clare of Assisi, Abbess and founder of the Poor Clare religious order of women. B. 07-16-1821, Mary Baker Eddy - founder of the Christian Science movment. Eddy is the only woman to found a major religion.       In 1874 she founded the Christian Science movement after recovering from illnesses with the use of spiritual healing. She studied the process and developed her own system that preached that the mind is the only reality and that illnesses and infirmities of the body are merely illusions and can be cured by mental effort, chiefly the reading of Jesus's words in the New Testament. B. 07-16-1836, Marietta Holley - U.S. humorist whose very popular books featured Samantha, a level-headed women's rights advocate who served as an effective foil for more conventional-thinking characters. B. 07-16-1849, Clara Shortridge Foltz - U.S. reformer, attorney, editor, and publisher who changed California's sexist laws. She had read law and then found out California did not allow non-male attorneys.       Together with Laura D. Gorden, they got that law changed. When she was denied admission to a San Francisco law school, she brought suit and along with Ms Gorden argued it to victory to the California Supreme Court. B. 07-16-1863, Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler, Austrian-U.S. pianist who met with critical international acclaim in a 50-year career. B. 07-16-1880, Kathleen Norris - highly popular U.S. author. KN wrote 81 novels and many short stories that made her one of the most popular writers in the U.S.       Needless to say, critics did not approve of her, dismissing her work as "womanish," as if half the reading public wasn't interested in women's stories. B. 07-16-1899, Eunice Hunton Carter - U.S. attorney, secretary of the Committee on conditions in Harlem appointed by the mayor of New York following the Harlem riots of 1935. Born on this date in 1907, Barbara Stanwyck who made more than 80 motion pictures and won two Emmys for her work on TV; and in 1911, Ginger Rogers who won the academy award for her leading role in Kitty Foyle but will forever be best known dancing partner with Fred Astair... "(Ginger Rogers did) everything that Fred Astaire did, only she had to do it backwards and on high heels," has become one of feminism's truisms. B. 07-16-1908, Frances Rappaport Horwich - a whole generation of U.S. children were awed and helped become good citizens. As Miss Frances, FRH treated children as if they were going to be adults, not just big pocketbooks on her wonderful TV program Ding Dong School. (The compiler of WOAH thanks Ms. Frances for helping raise her three children. They were mesmerized and I thank her for helping making us all better people.) B. 07-16-1928, Bella Davidovich - Soviet pianist who won the stellar "Deserving Artist of the Soviet Union" award. Her mother Lyusya was a pianist who worked as an opera accompanist. B. 07-16-1942, Margaret Court - Australian tennis player who dominated the sport in the1960s. She won 66 grand-slam championships, more than any other woman and the second woman to win the grand slam of tennis singles. Event 07-16-1995: Retired journalist Marj Carpenter, 68, was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the church's highest elected position. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR FLÜGGE-LOTZ, IRMGARD:       "I wanted a life which would never be boring. That meant a life in which always new things would occur... I wanted a career in which I would always be happy even if I were to remain unmarried."            -- Irmgard Flügge-Lotz, engineer, mathematician who in 1929 became researcher at Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt at Góttingen and developed the Lotz method for calculating the spanwise (wingtip to wingtip) distribution of a wing's lifting force, even for wings of diverse shapes.       After WWII she and her husband moved to the U.S. where he was appointed professor of engineering, and she became a lowly lecturer in engineering and research although she was by far the more important scientist.       In 1970 she was named a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and received the Society of Women Engineers achievement award. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |