Alice Walker wrote the biography for children Langston Hughes: American Poet (1974).
In it, poet and novelist Walker told the story of her predecessor in the African-American literary tradition.
Hughes was at the center of the influential Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
Walker is known for such works as the novel The Color Purple (1982).
Supreme Court received the disparaging epithet “Nine Old Men” when they opposed President Franklin Roosevelt’s reforms during the Great Depression. The Nine Old Men was the title of a 1936 book on the Supreme Court by Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen.
“American Independent” candidate George Wallace, with his running mate Curtis LeMay, got 13.6 percent of the popular vote and 8.6 percent of the electoral vote. Richard Nixon won against both Wallace and Hubert Humphrey. How many electoral votes did independent candidate John Anderson get in 1980? None, but John Anderson did win 6.6 percent of…
Harvey Milk (1930-78) was the first openly homosexual candidate to be elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. An advocate of gay rights and urban issues, Milk was elected in 1977, representing the Castro district. He was assassinated, with Mayor George Moscone, by a former supervisor on November 27, 1978.
Malcolm X was shot dead on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem where he was preparing to speak. It is widely alleged that his assassins were members of the Nation of Islam.
The Spanish-American War was called “that splendid little war” by then U.S. Secretary of State John Hays.
A Yavapai from Arizona, Carlos Montezuma (1865-1923) was a physician who became a prominent advocate for Native Americans. In his newsletter Wassaja and elsewhere, he spoke out for Indian rights. He helped to found the Society of American Indians in 1911.