Author: Mark Thomas
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East St. Louis Race Riot – 1917
The history of the 1917 East St. Louis Race Riot intersects many themes. The Great War put an abrupt halt to immigrant labor from Europe while creating a new demand for African-American workers in America’s northern manufacturing cities. War in Europe brings opportunity and conflict at home First thousands and then tens of thousands of…
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Biloxi Wade-Ins
Today, the beaches of Biloxi, Mississippi are temporarily closed in response to the Novel Coronavirus pandemic. But until the late 1960s, nearly all of Biloxi’s twenty-six miles of public beaches were open to all but African American citizens. This closure to some was not temporary, but rather one of the scores of racial restrictions throughout…
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The Battle of Horseshoe Bend – March 27, 1814
Much of what we learn about Andrew Jackson and the War of 1812 centers almost exclusively around the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. However, what is now the Lower South was the site of some of the most sanguinary fighting of the war. It was on this date in 1814 that militia forces under the…
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The Great Midwest Flood of 1913
Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, is generally considered to mark the beginning of a five-day period during which the Ohio River and its major tributaries overflowed their banks, causing cataclysmic flooding across its entire watershed. When the local waters began to recede and Mississippi helped carry away floodwaters, more than a thousand people were dead.…