“The state of Michigan told you eight years ago you may not practice medicine. You may not treat patients. You may not possess – let alone inject – drugs into another human being. And you had the audacity to go on national television, show the world what you did and dare the legal system to stop you.
Well, sir, consider yourself stopped.”
~Judge Jessica Cooper


1873– Approximately 150 black men were murdered by white Southern Democrats on Easter Sunday in Colfax, Louisiana.
The bloodiest single instance of racial carnage in the Reconstruction era, the Colfax riot was an example of the lengths to which some opponents of Reconstruction would go to regain their accustomed authority.
In the wake of the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and local offices, a group of white Democrats – many of whom claimed allegiance to the “White League”, a supremacist organization similar to the KKK – overpowered Republican freedmen and state militia (also black) occupying the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax.
Armed with a cannon, the whites began shooting and killing the unarmed blacks, then fired at the black militia, who returned fire through the courthouse windows. The white vigilantes torched the courthouse, and several militia men burned in the fire; Most of the blacks were shot or butchered after they surrendered and their bodies were thrown into the river or dumped in a mass grave.
Three white vigilantes died in the conflict, and as seen in the photo above, the town actually erected a monument to them in 1921:
“Erected to the memory of the heroes,
Stephen Decatur Parish, Jame West Hadnot, Sidney Harris,
who fell in the Colfax Riot fighting for white supremacy
April 13, 1873“
Ninety-eight members of the white mob were indicted. One man was acquitted while a mistrial was declared in the cases of the others. In the next trial, three men were found guilty of sixteen charges.
However, the presiding judge, Joseph Bradley, dismissed the convictions, ruling that the federal law they were charged under was unconstitutional. When the federal government appealed the case, it was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
That court ruled that the Enforcement Act of 1870 (which was based on the Bill of Rights and 14th Amendment) applied only to actions committed by the state and that it did not apply to actions committed by individuals or private conspiracies.
So while the Federal government could not prosecute cases such as the Colfax killings, states could. Louisiana chose not prosecute any of the perpetrators of the Colfax riot.


1898– Fueled by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst’s outrageous reporting on the sinking of the USS Maine (employing tactics that would be labeled “yellow journalism” today), pressure increased on Congress to take action.
On this date, Congress agreed to President McKinley’s request for intervention in Cuba, but only approved it without recognition of the Cuban Government.
The Spanish government declared that the sovereignty of Spain was jeopardized by U.S. policy and prepared a special budget for war expenses.
On April 19, Congress, by vote of 311 to 6 in the House and 42 to 35 in the Senate, adopted a Joint Resolution for war with Spain.
Included in the Resolution was the Teller Amendment, named after Senator Henry Moore Teller (Colorado), which disclaimed any intention by the U.S. to exercise jurisdiction or control over Cuba except in a pacification role and promised to leave the island as soon as the war was over.
The story continues on April 20…


1943– The Jefferson Memorial was officially dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson’s birthday.
At that time, the statue had not yet been finished. Due to material shortages during World War II, the statue that was installed at the time was a plaster cast painted to look like bronze.
The finished bronze statue was installed in 1947.


1953– CIA director Allen Dulles launched the mind-control program Project MK-Ultra, a mind control program of experiments on human subjects.
Experiments on humans – often conducted without the subjects’ knowledge or consent – began in May and were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations in order to weaken the individual and force confessions through mind control.
Its aim was to develop mind-controlling drugs for use against the Soviet bloc in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War.
The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives, and they were interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques.
The program was not officially halted until 1973.
Idle Thought: I may have said this before but let me repeat it … Allen Dulles was a very dangerous man.


1948– A 10-vehicle convoy bringing medical and military supplies and personnel to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus in North Jerusalem, was ambushed by Arab forces in Sheikh Jarrah, a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
In the attack, 78 Jewish doctors, nurses, students, patients, and faculty members were killed by gunfire or were burnt when their vehicles were set on fire by Arabs.


1964– Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as a construction worker who helped build a chapel in Lilies of The Field.
With his historic Oscar win, Poitier became only the second African American to win an Academy Award. The first was Hattie McDaniel, who won in the Best Supporting Actress category in 1939 for Gone With The Wind.


1964– The Beatles recorded Help!
The song was originally conceived as a ballad but performed faster in the studio because it was believed that would have more commercial appeal; a decision that rankled songwriter John Lennon.
John may have regretted the faster tempo but the public enjoyed the end result. The single shot to #1 on both the UK and U.S. singles charts.


1965– Roger Miller won five Grammy Awards.
Those awards included Best New Country Artist, Best Country Song, Best Country Performance, Best Country Recording, Best Country Album (all for Dang Me).
Rock Factoid: Record of The Year honors to The Girl From Ipanema (Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz) and Song of The Year To Hello Dolly!
Rock Factoid #2: Best Rock & Roll Recording went to Downtown (Petula Clark) as she beat out fellow nominees Bobby Vinton (Mr. Lonely), Roy Orbison (Oh Pretty Woman), The Beatles (A Hard Day’s Night) and The Righteous Brothers (You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling).
Rock Factoid #3: In one of the most outrageous moments in Grammy history, the award for Best Folk Recording went to Chipmunks Sing The Beatles when the other nominees were Gale Garnett (We’ll Sing In The Sunshine), Bob Dylan (The Times They Are A-Changin’), Harry Belafonte (Belafonte At The Greek Theatre), Miriam Makeba (The Voice Of Africa), The New Christy Minstrels (Today), Peter, Paul & Mary (In Concert) and Woody Guthrie (Library of Congress Recordings).


1970– Disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up on Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission.
Astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise had left Earth two days before and were headed for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon but were forced to turn their attention to simply making it home alive.
Approximately six and a half minutes after the end of a live TV broadcast from the spacecraft, Houston flight controllers asked Swigert to turn on the hydrogen and oxygen tank stirring fans in the Service Module. Two minutes later, the astronauts heard a “pretty large bang,” accompanied by fluctuations in electrical power.
What supposedly happened next (“Houston, we have a problem”) has been a nice myth, but a myth nonetheless.
The words actually spoken, initially by Jack Swigert, were “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” After being prompted to repeat the transmission by CAPCOM Jack R. Lousma, Lovell responded, “Uh, Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth. The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its air supply, and providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Navigation was another problem, and the spacecraft’s course was repeatedly corrected with dramatic and untested maneuvers.
On April 17, with the world anxiously watching, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean.


1990– “The Soviet side expresses deep regret over the tragedy, and assesses it as one of the worst Stalinist outrages.”
With those words – after forty-seven years of denials – the Soviet government officially accepted blame for the Katyn Massacre of World War II, when nearly 22,000 victims – including 5,000 Polish military officers – were murdered and buried in the Katyn Forest in Smolensky, Russia.
In 1943, German troops reported the discovery of the graves. Although Germany was initially blamed for the killings, they claimed the Soviets were responsible.
They were right.


1975– Actor Larry Parks died of a heart attack at the age of 60.
His career saw him rise from a bit player in supporting roles all the way to top billing (as Al Jolson in The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again).
That meteoric rise virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist Party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.


1997– Bryant William Bowles died of congestive heart failure at the age of 77.
Bowles, a white supremacist bitterly opposed to racial integration of public schools, founded the National Association for the Advancement of White People after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional.
Bowles held rallies and gave speeches in several different states. At one such rally Bowles said that his daughter “will never attend a school with Negroes as long as there is breath in my body and gunpowder will burn.”
Charged for making inflammatory statements, Bowles was tried in 1955. After a brief deliberation the jury found Bowles not guilty.
A 1999 article in Delaware Lawyer stated that “many years later it was learned that one of the jurors was a member of Bowles’ organization.”


1997– At the age of 21, Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament at Augusta National.
He did it at an event that did not invite a black player to play until the year he was born – and at a club that didn’t invite a black person to join until 1990.
Woods finished at 18 under par, twelve strokes ahead of runner-up Tom Kite. It was – and still is – the widest margin of victory in Masters history.


1999– A Michigan jury found Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree homicide for administering a controlled substance (a lethal injection to Thomas Youk who was in the final stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Kevorkian had allowed the airing of a videotape he made on September 17, 1998, which depicted the voluntary euthanasia of Youk.
Judge Jessica Cooper sentenced Kevorkian to serve 10–25 years in prison, but before she did, she lambasted him, as shown in the quote at the top of this column.
Kevorkian was denied parole repeatedly until 2007. He died in 2011.


2005– Johnnie Johnson died at the age of 80 from a kidney ailment and pneumonia.
Johnson spent twenty years playing piano with Chuck Berry’s band but the public wasn’t aware he was doing a hell of a lot more than just playing on Berry’s recordings. He actually co-wrote many of them … but was never credited.
In 2000, at the urging of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards – Johnson sued Berry for credits and royalties on more than fifty Berry songs (including Wee Wee Hours, Maybellene, Nadine, Brown-Eyed Handsome Man, Roll Over Beethoven, Almost Grown and You Never Can Tell), but a federal judge dismissed the case, saying too much time had passed since the songs were written and recorded.
Johnson maintained his argument with Berry was not about money but recognition for his contributions.
In 2001, he finally received the credit he deserved when after a long campaign spearheaded by Keith Richards, Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Sideman category.


2009– Producer Phil Spector was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson at his home in Alhambra, CA
Rock Factoid: Spector was formally sentenced the following month to 19 years-to-life in the California State Prison. Spector will be 88 years old before becoming eligible for parole.


2017– The U.S. dropped the largest ever non-nuclear weapon in its arsenal on Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), a 22,000 pound, GPS-guided bomb, was launched with the goal of destroying tunnel complexes used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province, a branch of the Syria-based ISIS.
One senior Afghan security official claimed the bombing killed 96 Islamic State militants – 13 of them major commanders – but the actual (verifiable) results are not known.
President Donald Trump did not say whether he specifically authorized the use of the MOAB, simply remarking he had given the military “total authorization”

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2020 RayLemire.com / Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.