June 7 History National Cancer Survivors Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not—June 7, 2015 Trust your Sunday is a great one. As always, I hope you enjoy the holidays and observances (another tough day and near skunk for holidays and observances), factoids of interest,  music videos by the Johnny Horton, a relevant quote by Justice Harlan, looking forward to enjoying a bowl of chocolate ice cream and your favorite frozen yogurt, blessed with a positive attitude and secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any memorable event like Fathers’ Day, birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries, you know that the Alaskanpoet can provide you with a unique customized poem at a great price tailored to the event and the recipient. You need only contact me for details.
       1. VCR Day —celebrating the introduction of the Beta Max by Sony in 1975 enabling us never to miss a show and ultimately delete commercials from our favorite shows.

       2. National Cancer Survivors Day—celebrated since 1987 to raise awareness that life does not necessarily end with a diagnosis of cancer.     

        3. 1959 Number One Song—celebrating the number one song in 1959 on an six week run Battle of New Orleans by the Johnny Horton, great pop music star of the 50’s who sadly was killed far too early at age 26 by a drunk driver but fortunately after he had recorded one of the Alaskanpoet’s favorite songs—North to Alaska. Here is a link to the Johnny Horton performing Battle of New Orleans and as a bonus North to Alaska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL7XS_8qgXM   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSt0NEESrUA

       4.  National Chocolate Ice Cream/National Frozen Yogurt Day—celebrating two great dessert options which are too difficult to choose so the only solution is to have both.

       5.  A Poet and She Knows It—commemorating the birthday on this day in 1917 of Gwendolyn Brooks, the U.S. Poet Laureate in 1985 who published her first poem at the age of 13.    

On this day in:                                           

       a. 1776 Richard Henry Lee presented the Lee Resolution, seconded by John Adams, to the Continental Congress which passed and led to our Declaration of Independence.  

       b. 1882 the President Benjamin Harrison became the first president to attend a baseball game.     

       c. 1892 Homer Plessy was arrested for refusing to vacate a “whites only” train car; the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the conviction under a misplaced doctrine of “separate but equal,” which condemned blacks in the South to enduring separate and unequal schools, accommodations and transportation until the Supreme Court rectified its mistake in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education.    

       d. 1965 the Supreme Court in the case Griswold v. Connecticut finds the constitutional right of privacy and strikes down laws banning the sale of contraceptives to married couples.

       e. 1982 Priscilla Presley opened Graceland to the public; the bathroom where Elvis died five years earlier remained off limits.                        

Reflections on Plessy v. Ferguson from the dissent of John Harlan: “If evils will result from the commingling of the two races upon public highways established for the benefit of all, they will infinitely less than those that will surely come from state legislation regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race.  We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples.  But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with the state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow citizens, our equals before the law.  The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done.” Astute observations by Justice Harlan.     

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© June 7, 2015 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
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