DATE=08/14/03

TYPE=English Feature

NUMBER=7-37743

TYPE=English Programs Feature

TITLE=AMERICAN MOMENTS 08-16-03 - 08-31-03

EDITOR=Ted Landphair

TELEPHONE=619-3515

DATELINE=Washington

CONTENT=

(For Use 8/16)

Elvis is Dead 1977

NARR: On August 16th, 1977, the American singer known throughout the world as the "King of Rock-'n'-Roll" died. Here's how one radio network, the Mutual Broadcasting System, reported the story:

TAPE: REPORTER JOHN MEYER (:23)

(MUSIC) "Elvis Presley dead at the age of 42. I'm John Meyer. Elvis Presley died today at Baptist Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Presley was forty-two years old. He parlayed a four-dollar visit to a recording studio into a multi-million-dollar career. He was rushed to the hospital late this afternoon suffering from what officials say was 'respiratory distress.'"

NARR: The entertainer died of an irregular and insufficient heartbeat. A coroner's report later suggested that Elvis Presley's death was due to a fatal combination of prescription drugs and alcohol.

TAPE: MUSIC "LOVE ME TENDER" (ttl :53)sneak for :03, up full as need and under (out by ** below)

NARR: Presley, whose music combined elements of country, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues genres, could make female fans scream and swoon when he sang love songs such as "Love Me Tender."** He was also condemned by parents for sexually suggestive pelvic thrusts on certain tunes. Presley's passionate performance style and his flamboyant jewelry and costumes personified some of the defiance of post-World War Two young people. At the time of his death, Elvis Presley was the most highly paid performer in the United States. He had sold five hundred-million recordings, more than any other singer, and he had starred in more than thirty movies. However, during his last years, especially after his 1972 divorce, Elvis became reclusive, obese -- and reportedly dependent on drugs. (BEGIN OPT) Large numbers of fans visit Graceland, the Presley home in Memphis, Tennessee, and Elvis's grave there, on each anniversary of his death. [END OPT]

Democrats Nominate Adlai Stevenson -- Again! 1956

NARR: On August 16th, 1956, the Democratic Party turned to its unsuccessful candidate of 1952 and re-nominated former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson for president. To win the nomination, Stevenson overcame opposition from former president Harry Truman, who favored another candidate, and southern delegations who did not like Stevenson's support of the party's policy against racial discrimination. Although Stevenson and his running mate, Senator Estes Kefauver [Pron: ES-tes Keef-awver] of Tennessee, conducted a spirited campaign, they overwhelmingly lost the 1956 election to the Republican incumbents, President Dwight Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon. Stevenson was an erudite and witty politician, well-liked by most Americans. But his popularity could not compare with that of the genial president -- who had commanded the Allied victory over the Axis powers in World War Two.

(For Use 8/17)

The Alliance for Progress 1961

NARR: On August 17th, 1961, the United States and Latin American nations, meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay, signed documents establishing the Alliance for Progress. President John F. Kennedy suggested the alliance to organize and manage long-range cooperative efforts to combat Latin America's chronic economic and social problems. On one level, the plan was also aimed at curbing Fidel Castro's campaign to make Cuba a bastion and exporter of communism in the Western Hemisphere. The Alliance for Progress survived for about eleven years before it began to disintegrate. The program did not substantially reduce unemployment in Latin America, and the goals of improving and increasing housing always seemed just out of reach. Eventually, the U-S government began to emphasize increased trade, rather than direct aid, as a means of helping solve Latin America's economic problems.

Fulton sails steamboat 1807

NARR: On August 17th, 1807, American inventor and engineer Robert Fulton began the first American steamboat trip between Albany, New York, and New York City on a boat called the Clermont [pronCLAIR-mont]. After years of promoting submarine warfare, Fulton engaged in a partnership with Robert Livingston, the U-S minister to France, which enabled him to design and construct a steamboat. His first success came in August 1803 when he launched a steam-powered vessel on the river Seine in France. That same year the U-S Congress granted Livingston and Fulton exclusive rights to operate steamboats on New York waters during the next twenty years. The first Albany-to-New York trip took thirty-two hours to travel the 240-kilometer course. Although his opponents labeled his efforts "Fulton's Folly," his success allowed the partnership to begin commercial service, and steam power revolutionized marine commerce.

(For Use 8/18)

Women's Suffrage Attained 1920

NARR: On August 18th, 1920, the Tennessee legislature approved the proposed Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This ratification meant enough states had approved the amendment to give American women the right to vote. The vote ended a national debate that had lasted more than a century. In 1787, the U-S Constitution had given individual states the right to determine voting requirements. Most states had limited the right to vote to white, property-holding men. In 1869, the Fifteenth Amendment said states could not make race a voting factor, effectively extending the right to vote to black men. The campaign for the right of women to vote finally succeeded when the following words were added to the U-S Constitution:

TAPE: STUDIO VOICE (RUNS :10)

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

NARR: Although a few states already had awarded suffrage to women, it was against the law in most states for a woman to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment changed that -- and American politics -- just in time for the 1920 presidential election.

James Meredith Graduates, U. of Mississippi 1963

NARR: Forty years ago today, on August 18th, 1963, James Meredith became the first black graduate of the University of Mississippi in the American Deep South. The graduation ceremony at the 115-year-old university was peaceful and dignified. That was in contrast to the raucous days Meredith had experienced when he first transferred to the school nearly a year earlier. At that time -- the early 1960s -- racial segregation was rigidly, and often violently, imposed at various levels of Mississippi society.

(BEGIN OPT]) Before Meredith enrolled in 1962, President John F. Kennedy sent more than ten-thousand federal troops to the Oxford, Mississippi, campus to enforce a federal court ruling that ordered the university to accept its first black student. State officials, including the governor, had tried to prevent Meredith from attending the university. (END OPT)

James Meredith said thoughts of his legacy helped him endure the harrowing year at the previously segregated university.

TAPE: JAMES MEREDITH (:42)

"My son was a key inspiration. I kept asking myself: 'What am I going to tell him when he grows up?' (BEGIN OPT]) I know what my father did. I know he spent his life trying to make a better life for us. And it kept bothering me, if my son was going to [wonder whether] I had done all I could do to change the circumstances." (END OPT)

NARR: James Meredith, the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi. He now [fyi 2003] operates a small publishing company in Mississippi's capital city of Jackson.

(For Use 8/19)

"Old Ironsides" 1812

NARR: On August 19th, 1812, the U-S-S Constitution, a forty-gun frigate in the American Navy, got its nickname "Old Ironsides." Naval legend and tradition tell us that during a battle between the Constitution and the British ship H-M-S Guerriere (gair-ee-AIR) in the War of 1812, a member of the U-S ship's crew saw a British cannonball bounce off the Constitution's oak hull. He shouted, "Hooray, her sides are like iron!" The American ship went on to win the engagement and served with distinction during the remainder of the war. The vessel later was converted into a training ship, and in 1830 was scheduled to be scrapped. However, many Americans believed the historic vessel ought to be preserved. One of them was the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, father of the future Supreme Court justice who bore his name. One of the elder Holmes's contributions to a successful preservation campaign was a poem to protest the fate of the legendary vessel. He used the 1812 seaman's characterization of the vessel, "Old Ironsides," as the poem's title. [BEGIN OPT] The ship was saved from the ruin of old age again in 1925 when a national fund-raising campaign paid for a badly needed restoration.[END OPT] Now a national historic monument, the U-S-S Constitution -- "Old Ironsides" -- is berthed at the Boston Navy Yard in Massachusetts.

Waging Neutrality 1914

NARR: On August 19th, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson spoke to a joint session of Congress and proclaimed to loud cheers that the United States would remain neutral in the war in Europe. He emphasized that American neutrality must be total, without pretense, saying, "The United States must remain neutral in fact as well as in name." President Wilson was able to keep the United States out of the war for more than three years, offering only to act as a mediator for peace. However, he altered his stand after a series of incidents, including German submarine attacks in the Atlantic that began taking American lives. On April second, 1917, President Wilson went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Imperial Germany so that the United States could, in his words, "help make the world safe for democracy."

(For Use 8/20)

Lend-Lease Program 1941

NARR: On August 20th, 1941, the United States leased fifty World War One-era destroyers to England under the terms of the recently enacted "Lend-Lease" program. In turn, England gave the United States the sites for four military bases on islands in the Atlantic Ocean, as well as ninety-nine-year rent-free leases on six other British bases elsewhere in the Atlantic. This was one of the first transactions under the Anglo-American Lend-Lease agreement, which was intended to help the British survive Nazi Germany's blockade of England in World War Two. The law authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials "... to the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States." In a 1940 speech to a joint session of Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt said that the United States should supply guns, ships and aircraft to England and other American allies:

TAPE: PRES. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT (:25)

"Let us say to the democracies: 'We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our resources and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world.'"

NARR: (BEGIN OPT]) After this speech, the U-S Congress overwhelmingly supported President Franklin Roosevelt on Lend-Lease. [END OPT] Lend-Lease enabled the British to keep fighting until America entered the war late in 1941. The British purchases also helped American industry gear up so it would be ready to produce what the United States needed when it entered the war.

Equal Opportunity Act is Law 1964

NARR: On August 20th, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Equal Opportunity Act that would provide nearly one-(b)billion dollars in aid to help low income Americans during the next year. The key part of the measure was the Job Corps, a government agency that set up special education centers across the nation. Previously unemployable young people who entered the Job Corps lived at the centers, where they were paid minimum wages and received vocational training and work experience. The Equal Opportunity Act was part of Johnson's "Great Society" war on poverty. (BEGIN OPT]) He had introduced the Great Society concept in a speech several months earlier. [END OPT]

TAPE: PRESIDENT L.B. JOHNSON (:47)

"We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice to which we are totally committed in our time. [APPLAUSE] (BEGIN OPT]) But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind, and to enlarge his talents." (END OPT)

NARR: Some historians assert that no congressional session since the Great Depression had matched the mid-1960s' legislative efforts to overcome social and economic problems in the United States.

(For Use 8/21)

Dumbarton Oaks Conference 1944

NARR: On August twenty-first, 1944, representatives from the United States, England, China and the Soviet Union began a conference to write a draft charter for the as yet-unborn United Nations organization. The delegations met together and separately for forty-seven days at the Dumbarton Oaks mansion in Washington, D-C. Anticipating the anti-Communist policies of other member nations, the Soviet Union was determined to have a veto in the United Nations' proposed Security Council. This obstacle to agreement was not resolved at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. However, at the 1945 Yalta Conference, President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin reached a compromise on future United Nations voting procedures; ultimately the Soviet Union would have a veto in the U-N Security Council. The call went out from Yalta for an international conference to be held in San Francisco, California, to transform the Dumbarton Oaks draft into the Charter of the United Nations.

HAWAII BECOMES AMERICA'S 50TH STATE 1959

NARR: On August twenty-first, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation making the islands of Hawaii the fiftieth state of the United States of America. [BEGIN OPT] President Eisenhower also ordered the American flag redesigned, with fifty stars arranged in staggered rows: five six-star rows and four five-star rows - its current design. [END OPT] Polynesian voyagers are believed to have been the first settlers in Hawaii, arriving sometime in the eighth century. The first Americans arrived in Hawaii in the late eighteenth century to collect the islands' valuable sandalwood. Later, the sugar- and pineapple-growing industries were introduced to Hawaii -- and American missionaries arrived, bringing about changes in the islands' culture. In 1893, the last remaining monarch of Hawaii was deposed, and one year later, the Republic of Hawaii was established as a U-S protectorate. In 1900, Hawaii became a U-S territory, and during World War Two, its Pearl Harbor naval base was attacked by Japan.

(For Use 8/22)

Slave revolt of Nat Turner, 1831

NARR: On August 22nd, 1831, the African-American slave Nat Turner led a revolt of slaves in the Virginia countryside. Turner believed that he had been chosen by God to lead his people to freedom. He began his insurrection with five followers, but after two days the number had grown to about seventy slaves. The plan was to terrorize Southampton County, Virginia, and free as many slaves as possible. The plan worked for about forty-eight hours as the slaves killed at least fifty-seven whites, including men, women and children. However, within the next twenty-four hours, local whites, reinforced by the militia, crushed the revolt. Nat Turner escaped but was captured six weeks later. He was tried, convicted of leading a slave revolt, and hanged in November 1831. (BEGIN OPT) The so-called Nat Turner Insurrection succeeded in sowing terror among whites of the region. They reacted with tougher slave laws and rejected future efforts to abolish slavery. (END OPT)

Henry Kissinger: Secretary of State 1973

NARR: Thirty years ago today, on August 22nd, 1973, President Richard Nixon announced that he would nominate Henry Kissinger to be U-S secretary of state. Born in Germany, Professor Kissinger was the first U-S secretary of state who was not born in America. Kissinger replaced Secretary of State William Rogers, a long-time Republican associate of President Nixon. Professor Kissinger had been Nixon's chief White House foreign-policy adviser. (BEGIN OPT) Some political observers in Washington believed that President Nixon had come to depend more on Kissinger than on Secretary Rogers. (END OPT) Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Nixon said he had accepted William Rogers' resignation with regret. Nixon urged the Senate to quickly confirm Henry Kissinger.

TAPE: PRES. RICHARD NIXON (:17)

"Dr. Kissinger's qualifications for this post, I think, are well-known by all of you ladies and gentlemen [reporters] as well as those looking to us and listening to us on television and radio. He will [also] retain the position, after he becomes secretary of state, of assistant to the president for national security affairs."

NARR: Henry Kissinger was confirmed by the Senate, and his dual roles as secretary of state and national security adviser had the effect of tightening White House control over the State Department.

(For Use 8/23)

Open Rebellion in the Colonies 1775

NARR: On August 23rd, 1775, England's King George the Third declared Britain's colonies in America to be in open rebellion. Hostilities between the colonists in America and the mother country had turned violent over what the Americans called "intolerable" taxes imposed by the British Parliament. The colonists said the taxes on tea, legal documents, newspapers, and exported products were illegal because as British citizens, they had not been represented in the Parliament when the measures were enacted. But at this time, most colonists still thought of themselves as English. They hoped the fight being waged by separatist radicals would be brief and would end with the British government recognizing the colonists' full rights as English citizens. However, as the clashes continued, the relationship between the colonies and England grew more bitter, and revolution and American calls for independence came within a year.

Rudolph Valentino 1926

TAPE: MUSIC -- ROGER BELLON, MUSIC FOR "THE SHEIK" (TOTAL TIME 1:01), IN FULL TO :14, THEN FADE UNDER TEXT

NARR On August 23rd, 1926, silent-movie star Rudolph Valentino died at age thirty-one. He had suffered from a perforated ulcer. Hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of women around the world mourned his death. During his five years of stardom in Hollywood, Valentino's fame was nearly unrivaled in the film industry. The Italian-born actor had become the stereotypical, darkly handsome lover in such films as "Blood and Sand," "The Eagle" and his most famous movie, "The Sheik." Valentino worked as a gardener before becoming a dancer in vaudeville. Starting with small film roles in 1918, he got his big break in the movies in 1921 with the leading role in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." In his best-known films, Valentino portrayed a haughty but passionate lover, and he transfixed his screen lovers -- and women in theaters -- with a smoldering stare. He was in New York City for the premiere of "The Son of the Sheik" when he died. (BEGIN OPT) Women, and some men, lined up for eleven blocks to view the body at a special memorial service before it was returned to California for a lavish Hollywood funeral. (END OPT)

(For Use 8/24)

Amelia Earhart Non-stop Coast-to-Coast 1932

NARR: On August 24th, 1932, Amelia Earhart [AIR' hart] became the first woman to fly an airplane on a non-stop transcontinental flight across the United States. The forty-three-hundred-kilometer flight from Los Angeles, California, to Newark, New Jersey, took about twenty hours. Earhart made the flight in a twin-engine Lockheed "Electra" that had been built to her specifications. This was not Ms. Earhart's first record-setting flight, nor would it be her last. She was the first woman passenger on a transatlantic flight and the first woman to fly solo from the Hawaiian Islands to the American mainland. (BEGIN OPT]) She also became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. [END OPT] Although she was a woman ahead of her time, Amelia Earhart did not consider herself an activist in the women's movement. However, she believed that women could compete with men in the twentieth century, especially in the relatively new industry of aviation.

TAPE: AMELIA EARHART :20

"While still greatly outnumbered, they are finding more and more opportunities for employment in the ranks of this latest transportation medium. May I hope this movement will spread throughout all branches of applied science and industry and that women may come to share with men the joy of doing."

NARR: Amelia Earhart was thirty-eight years old when she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared in 1937 while on a flight from New Guinea to Howland Island in the South Pacific. (BEGIN OPT]) It was the longest leg of their attempt to fly around the world. Their exact fate remains a mystery. (END OPT)

British Troops Burn Washington, D.C. 1814

NARR: On August 24th, 1814, British troops in Washington, D-C, burned the president's mansion, which was not yet called the White House. They also burned the Capitol and many other government buildings. The invasion and burning of the capital city represented the most serious defeat suffered by the United States in the so-called "War of 1812" with England. The conflict was the result of a dispute over freedom of the seas. The British were at war with the French and were intercepting American merchant ships that were thought to be carrying cargo to France. When the Royal Navy ships stopped American vessels, they sometimes forced members of American crews into the British navy. Occasionally cargoes were seized, even if they were not bound for France. The American government went to war to protect U-S merchant vessels and freedom of the seas for American ships and sailors. The War of 1812 lasted until a peace treaty was signed in December 1814 and ratified by the U-S Senate in February 1815. (BEGIN OPT]) Under terms of the treaty, any territory that had been captured by either side was returned, and conditions were to be much as they had been before the war.

(For Use 8/25)

PRESIDENT TRUMAN SEIZES THE RAILROADS 1950

NARR: On August twenty-fifth, 1950, President Harry Truman signed a government order to seize and operate the nation's 195 railroads. Truman issued the order because of a threatened strike by three hundred thousand railroad workers who were members of labor unions. The unions immediately ordered their members to cooperate with the government. President Truman said that even the threat of a railroad strike would hurt defense production and jeopardize American servicemen fighting in the Korean War. Army transportation troops took over the railroads two days later, but railroad company managers continued the actual operation of the trains. In May 1952, workers agreed to a new contract with the railroads, and President Truman returned official control of the railroads to their owners.

FIRST U-S AIR MAIL 1918

NARR: Eighty-five years ago today, on August twenty-fifth, 1918, the United States Post Office initiated airmail service. However, the first day of airmail turned out more like a silent film comedy than an important new government function. An Army pilot, Lieutenant George Boyle, took off from a polo field near the White House in Washington, D-C, with sixty-three kilograms of mail in his biplane. But he unwittingly flew south instead of heading north for New York City. Eventually, his wood, wire and canvas biplane ran out of fuel, and he was forced to land at a farm in Virginia. The farmer there had no fuel for Lieutenant Boyle, so the lost airman walked to the nearest town and called his headquarters. An Army truck was sent to the farm to pick up the mail and Lieutenant Boyle. The aircraft would later be fueled and returned to Washington. Lieutenant Boyle was not entrusted with another aircraft. He was assigned to drive a mail truck. Another pilot flew the mail to New York.

(For use 8/26)

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 1916

TAPE: CUT ONE MUSIC: RANDY NEWMAN, "PROLOGUE 1915-1923" (FROM "THE NATURAL" SOUNDTRACK) (1:33), IN FULL TO :16, FADE UNDER TEXT

NARR: On August twenty-sixth, 1916, the United States Congress established the National Park Service to preserve wilderness areas and protect historic sites in America. The new federal agency hired fifty employees to oversee parks, monuments and historic landmarks. They included Yellowstone Park, the world's first national park, which lies mostly in the western state of Wyoming. Today the National Park Service has thousands of employees and oversees hundreds of sites covering almost thirty-three-million hectares. They range from the tropical Everglades in Florida to Alaska's frozen Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America. Sites under the protection of the National Park Service include the White House, the Statue of Liberty, and various canyons, deserts, seashores and river systems.

LEE DE FOREST BORN 1873

NARR: The American physicist Lee De Forest, known as "The Father of Radio," was born one hundred-thirty years ago today, on August twenty-sixth, 1873. The electron tube, also called a "triode" (TRY-ode), which he invented in 1906, was recognized as the single most significant development in the field of electronics to that time. The tube's vast potential to detect and amplify radio signals and generate controlled amounts of power was the basis for the rapid growth of the electronics and communications industries. De Forest also invented electronic components that were critical to the development of telephones, short-wave broadcasting, phonographs, sound motion pictures, and, later, radar and television.

(For Use 8/27)

YELLOW FEVER DISCOVERY 1900

NARR: On August twenty-seventh, 1900, in Havana, Cuba, U-S Army physician James Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on his blood in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever. Doctor Carroll developed a severe case, helping his colleague, Army pathologist Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes transmit the often deadly disease. [BEGIN OPT] Yellow fever causes fever, chills, jaundice and -- in severe cases -- internal hemorrhaging, coma and death. [END OPT] Prior to these findings, epidemics of yellow fever were common in the American South and other tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world. The theory of mosquito transmission developed by Walter Reed and his team led to the first mosquito-eradication and sanitation procedures to control the disease in Cuba. Half a century later, American microbiologist Max Theiler [THILE-er] won the 1951 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his research on yellow fever, leading to the eventual development of a vaccine against the disease in humans.

TARZAN 1912

NARR: The adventure novel "Tarzan of the Apes," by American author Edgar Rice Burroughs, was published in the United States ninety years ago today, on August twenty-seventh, 1912. The mythical Tarzan character was the infant son of an English lord who had died during a safari in Africa. The boy was raised by apes. Burroughs' Tarzan book was a best-seller and was followed by other stories about the jungle man who was called "king of the apes." Books about Tarzan have sold more than twenty-five-million copies in more than fifty languages around the world. Tarzan adventures have appeared in comic books, on radio, on television and in a series of movies.

[BEGIN OPT] The former Olympic swimming star Johnny Weissmuller portrayed Tarzan in a dozen films between 1932 and 1948. Many other actors played the role as well, but Weissmuller remains the best-known. His parents had emigrated to the United States from Austria and settled in a German neighborhood in Chicago. On Sundays Weissmuller's family would attend picnics where there were yodeling contests. It was there that young Johnny learned a skill he later needed to make Tarzan's distinctive jungle call. Weissmuller spoke about the call in a radio interview:

TAPE: JOHNNY WEISSMULLER (RUNS :17)

"So twenty-five years later when [movie directors] wanted this horrible cry and this yell, I said, 'I know one: (screech-yell)' [they said] 'Hey, do that again,' so I did it again and they put (edited) the front to the back and the middle and it took me six months to learn the thing. But I got it and that was the 'Tarzan yell.'" (END OPT)

NARR: Actor Johnny Weissmuller, the movies' best-known Tarzan, died in 1984. Tarzan is still a popular figure in the movies. As recently as June 1999, the Walt Disney Company released a new Tarzan feature-length cartoon. It was a critical and financial success.

(For Use 8/28)

CONFRONTATION IN ALBANY, GEORGIA 1962

NARR: On Wednesday, August twenty-eighth, 1962, police in Albany, Georgia, arrested seventy-five clergymen who were praying together on the steps of the city hall. The clergy had gone to the southern city to support local citizens who wanted to dismantle the rigid tradition of racial segregation there. The city's mayor and police chief said they would not negotiate with "law violators" or "outside agitators," as they derisively called the civil-rights demonstrators. Between October 1961 and August 1962, Albany, Georgia, police arrested about eleven hundred civil-rights activists. Police charged the demonstrators with blocking traffic, holding marches without permits and refusing orders to disperse.

THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON 1963

NARR: Forty years ago today, on August twenty-eighth, 1963, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington, D-C, for a civil-rights rally that capped the day-long "March on Washington." The Wednesday march was led by a civil-rights crusader, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior. During the day, delegations of participants met with members of Congress and government leaders to speak against racial discrimination and lobby for equal rights and equal employment opportunities. Speakers and performers at the rally included civil-rights activists and folksingers. The rally took on the tone of a crusade when Reverend King delivered what became known as his "I have a dream" speech, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:

TAPE: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (RUNS :17) FADE OUT IN CHEERS

"I have a dream -- that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today." [applause runs :04]

NARR: The "March on Washington" energized civil-rights leaders and helped convince President John Kennedy to use the power of the federal government to work against racial injustice in the United States. Within the next several years the U-S Congress would pass some of the most far-reaching civil-rights legislation in history.

(For Use 8/29)

THE JONES ACT: AFFIRMING PHILIPPINE SELF-RULE 1916

NARR: On August twenty-ninth, 1916, the United States Congress passed the Jones Act, a measure that reaffirmed the nation's commitment to grant independence to the Philippines. Filipinos had been chafing under American rule since the United States won the Spanish-American War in 1898 and took over the Pacific island nation as part of the peace settlement with Spain. Philippine insurrectionists, led by Amilio Aguinaldo [pron: uh-MEE-lee-oh ogg-gui-NALL-doh], had been fighting a guerrilla war for independence since 1899. The Jones Act recognized the aims of the revolutionaries and sought to speed the time when the Philippines could assume self-rule. The law said the United States would recognize Philippine independence as soon as a stable government was in place. The Jones Act also extended voting rights to male Filipinos to establish an elected Senate. The Senate would replace the American commission that had been administering that territory of many islands. Filipinos effectively controlled their domestic affairs after the enactment of the Jones Act. [BEGIN OPT] World War Two delayed independence, but on July Fourth, 1946, documents were signed in Washington that gave the Philippines its long-sought sovereignty. [END OPT]

HUBERT HUMPHREY ACCEPTS DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION 1968

NARR: On August twenty-ninth, 1968, in Chicago, Illinois, Hubert Humphrey accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States.

TAPE: HUMPHREY :15 (ENDS WITH APPLAUSE), IN FULL TO :12, THEN FADE UNDER TEXT

"I say to this great convention tonight, and to this great nation of ours, I am ready to lead our country." (APPLAUSE AND FAINT MUSIC)

NARR: The Democratic Party was deeply divided in 1968 between supporters of Humphrey, who was the incumbent vice president, and backers of candidates who opposed the war in Vietnam, such as Senator Eugene McCarthy and the assassinated Senator Robert Kennedy. Some delegates at the Chicago convention -- and demonstrators outside the convention hall -- saw Humphrey as a symbol and supporter of the Vietnam policies of outgoing president Lyndon Johnson. The protestors clashed with Chicago police, with each side accusing the other of instigating the violence. There were also charges that the police had beaten news reporters and photographers, and that they had covered or removed their police badges so they could not be identified. Chicago's Democratic Mayor Richard Daley attempted to defend the conduct of his city's police force, in a statement that included a memorable mistake:

TAPE: DALEY :12

"The confrontation was created by the people who charged the police. Gentlemen, get the thing straight, once and for all: the policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder."

NARR: Some historians say the divisions and violence at the Chicago convention cost Hubert Humphrey the election. In November he narrowly lost to Republican Richard Nixon.

(For Use 8/30)

JUSTICE THURGOOD MARSHALL 1967

NARR: On August thirtieth, 1967, the United States Senate confirmed the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the U-S Supreme Court. Marshall, who was the first black named to the court, had been the chief lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. [BEGIN OPT] He had represented the association in the landmark case of "Brown versus Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education" in which the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. [END OPT] While serving on the nation's highest court, Justice Marshall supported a broad interpretation of the Constitution's guarantee of a free press. He stood against racial segregation and maintained a liberal record on most social issues that came before the court. Citing age and ill health, Justice Marshall retired from the Supreme Court in June 1991 after twenty-four years on the bench.

[BEGIN OPT] University of Virginia law professor A.E. Howard is among the constitutional scholars who cite the 1954 school desegregation case as Marshall's single most important accomplishment as an attorney:

TAPE: A.E. HOWARD (RUNS :18)

"Most justices, historically, don't really have that much impact - There are a few that stand out as giants - to the extent that Thurgood Marshall is remembered as a giant, it will be because he was the spearhead that brought about school desegregation and, in general, the advancement of civil rights in America."

NARR: Law professor A.E. Howard. (END OPT)

Former Supreme Court justice and civil-rights champion Thurgood Marshall died in 1993.

BENEDICT ARNOLD: TRAITOR 1780

NARR: On August Thirtieth, 1780, Benedict Arnold, a general in America's Revolutionary Army, committed one of the most infamous acts of treason in American history. General Arnold made secret contact with the British and agreed to permit the capture of the fort at West Point, New York, and three-thousand American troops under his command. His price for treason was twenty-thousand British pounds and a commission in the British Army. The plot was discovered, and Arnold fled to the protection of the British in New York City. [BEGIN OPT] The British sent him to England in 1781. There he lived the remaining ten years of his life in humiliation. [END OPT] Ironically, General Arnold had been a true hero of the American war for independence before he turned traitor. He had bravely led his troops to victory in many encounters with the British. He was, however, said to be a greedy man who had a weakness for fine living. Reportedly the deal to surrender West Point was based on Arnold's need for money to keep up the lavish lifestyle he wanted but could not afford. In the United States, the name "Benedict Arnold" became synonymous with betrayal and treason.

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CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE 1886

NARR: On August thirty-first, 1886, the most disastrous earthquake to strike North America east of the Mississippi River devastated Charleston, South Carolina. The epicenter of the quake was about twenty-four kilometers northwest of the coastal city, where only a few buildings were left standing. The earthquake opened deep cracks in the ground, out of which poured sulfurous clouds. Many of the estimated one hundred fatalities were people who, after the first tremors, rushed out into Charleston's streets. Not familiar with earthquakes, they expected to witness the end of the world. Instead they were killed by falling debris. The Charleston jolt was felt as far away as Cuba, Canada, and the American Midwest.

DANBURY HATTERS' SUIT 1908

NARR: Ninety-five years ago today, on August Thirty-first, 1908, the United States Supreme Court dealt a blow to the boycott -- a tactic that unions had used during strikes. The high court ruled unanimously that the United Hatters of North America had violated certain anti-trust laws when they sponsored a nation-wide boycott of the Danbury Hat Company. At issue was the right of unions to impose expanded boycotts against the products of the companies they were striking. The company maintained in court that the boycott, observed by members of other unions because of labor solidarity, had cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Supreme Court decision threatened to weaken national labor unions by making them responsible for damage suits by private companies affected by their tactics. [BEGIN OPT] Many of the United Hatters Union members had to sell their homes to help pay their share of the fine imposed by the lower courts. [END OPT] In 1918 Congress passed a law that specifically exempted organized labor from criminal prosecution or civil suits for violation of anti-trust laws.