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Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers

Los Angeles Sentinel - August 1, 1940

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August 1, 1940: Los Angeles Sentinelcalls for abolition of poll tax.
August 2, 1958: Ghanian Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah welcomed in Harlem, reported in Norfolk Journal and Guide.
August 3, 1939: Clark University octet performs at Seventh World’s Poultry Congress and Exposition in Cleveland, reported in Call and Post.
August 4, 1983: Los Angeles Sentinel profile of Janice Darling, owner and fitness director of Sweat Shop in Culver City.
August 5, 1939: Singer Maxine Sullivan prepares for jazz version of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” photo in New York Amsterdam News.
August 6, 1966: Advertisement for news carriers in Norfolk Journal and Guide.
August 7, 1909: Tenth Cavalry returns to New York City from Philippine Islands, reported in Baltimore Afro-American.
August 8, 1936: Jesse Owens dominates the 1936 Berlin Olympics, reported in Chicago Defender.
August 9, 1975: Chester Commodore editorial cartoon on black unemployment featured in Pittsburgh Courier.
August 10, 1946: World War II veteran Maceo Snipes killed for voting in Georgia, editorial in New York Amsterdam News.
August 11, 1964: Mothers of slain civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner at funeral, reported in Philadelphia Tribune.
August 12, 1972: “Page One Miss” Betty Jean Thomas in Chicago Defender.
August 13, 1955: “On the Divorce Docket” column in Cleveland Call and Post.
August 14, 1947: Los Angeles Sentinel welcomes Zetas, Kappas, Sigmas, Doctors, and Witnesses to city for conferences.
August 15, 1966: James Brown and Muhammad Ali ride in Chicago Defender’s Bud Billiken Parade.
August 16, 1975: Dawn Magazine supplement in Pittsburgh Courier and Baltimore Afro-American.
August 17, 1932: Langston Hughes and two dozen African-American artists stranded in Moscow after film project is cancelled, reported in Atlanta Daily World.
August 18, 1917: Great Migration in the Norfolk Journal and Guide.
August 19, 1911: Lynching of Zachariah Walker in Pittsburgh Courier.
August 20, 1931: Philadelphia Tribune advertisement boasting about paper’s printing technology, staff, and service to citizens of Philadelphia.
August 21, 1943: East Bronx merchants screen Stormy Weather, weeks after Harlem riot, reported in New York Amsterdam News.
August 22, 1950: Black troops in 24th Infantry Regiment fighting in Korean War, reported in Atlanta Daily World.
August 23, 1924: Dr. Robert Russa Moton speaks in Chicago, covered in Norfolk Journal and Guide.
August 24, 1939: “Dark Night” protest against discriminatory practices by Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light, reported in Los Angeles Sentinel.
August 25, 1917: National Medical Association moves annual meeting from Memphis to Philadelphia in response to lynching of Ell Persons.
August 26, 1961: Fifteen-year-old Preston Cobb Jr. sentenced to death in Georgia, reported in Cleveland Call and Post.
August 27, 1977: New York Amsterdam News highlights what Elvis Presley took from black musicians.
August 28, 2001: Philadelphia Tribune mourns death of Aaliyah.
August 29, 1953: Philadelphia Tribune announces engagement of pianist Eunice Waymon (Nina Simone).
August 29, 1960: NAACP Youth Council stages “wade in” at Rainbow Beach, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Nick Juravich, Ph.D. candidate in the department of History at Columbia University.
August 30, 1930: Riot breaks out at National Baptist Convention, reported in Baltimore Afro-American.
August 31, 1963: Philadelphia Tribune on the death of W.E.B. Dubois and a white mob harassing a black family for moving into all-white neighborhood in Folcroft, PA.
August 1, 1940 On August 1, 1940, the Los Angeles Sentinel ran a front page editorial calling for the abolition of the poll tax. “The poll tax is one of the most effective and vicious instruments for disfranchisements ever devised,” the editors wrote. “In the southern states, as in all tenant farming areas, there is a scarcity of cash and many voters simply cannot spare a dollar to pay the poll tax. In effect, the poll taxes disfranchise the poorer elements in the community and restrict voting to the well to do.Thus officials are always elected by a minority of the voters...As a result, a southerner can perpetuate himself in congress for years by reason of seniority [and] can rise to head of all-important committees where he can, and does, work to throttle all progressive legislation.”

The Sentinel concluded, “We will never be able to enforce our citizenship rights until our right of suffrage is secure and we will never have that right of suffrage until the poll tax is wiped off the statute books of every state.”

The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified in January 1964) outlawed poll taxes for federal elections. At the time five states maintained poll tax laws: Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. The Supreme Court banned poll taxes in state elections in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966)