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On this day in 1915, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote by a vote of 204 to 174. This vote was an important moment in the long struggle for women’s suffrage. The galleries were packed with suffragists who watched a 10-hour debate on the proposal. The defeat highlighted the challenges faced by activists who sought a federal amendment, leading many to continue their efforts at the state level as well as pushing for national action. 

In 1914 the constitutional amendment proposed by Sargent, which was nicknamed the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment”, was once again considered by the Senate, where it was again rejected. In April 1917 the “Anthony Amendment”, which eventually became the Nineteenth Amendment, was reintroduced in the House and Senate. Picketing NWP members, nicknamed the “Silent Sentinels”, continued their protests on the sidewalks outside the White House. On July 4, 1917, police arrested 168 of the protesters, who were sent to prison in Lorton, Virginia. Some of these women, including Lucy Burns and Alice Paul, went on hunger strikes; some were force-fed while others were otherwise harshly treated by prison guards.

The suffrage amendment did not pass the House of Representatives until May 21, 1919, which was quickly followed by the Senate, on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification, achieving the requisite 36 ratifications to secure adoption, and thereby went into effect, on August 18, 1920. The Nineteenth Amendment’s adoption was certified on August 26, 1920.

Suffragist Helena Hill looks out from her cell.

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women installing an engine in a Douglas Aircraft Plant in 1942

Today is the birthday, in 1993, of Zayn Malik from English-Irish pop boy band One Direction who formed after finishing third in the seventh series of The X Factor in 2010. Scored the 2011 UK No.1 single ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ and the 2013 No.1 ‘One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E

Today is the birthday, in 1908, of Simone de Beauvoir, French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she considered one at the time of her death, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.

She was best known for her “trailblazing work in feminist philosophy”, The Second Sex (1949), a detailed analysis of women’s oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. She was also known for her novels, the most famous of which were She Came to Stay (1943) and The Mandarins.

Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre met during her college years. Intrigued by her determination as an educator, he intended to make their relationship romantic. However, she had no interest in doing so. She later changed her mind, and in October 1929, Jean-Paul Sartre and Beauvoir became a couple for the next 51 years, until his death in 1980. She and Sartre entered into a lifelong “soul partnership”, which was sexual but not exclusive, nor did it involve living together. She chose never to marry and never had children. This gave her the time to advance her education and engage in political causes, write and teach, and take lovers.

The Second Sex, first published in 1949 in French as Le Deuxième Sexe, turns the existentialist mantra that existence precedes essence into a feminist one: “One is not born but becomes a woman” (French: “On ne naît pas femme, on le devient”). With this famous phrase, Beauvoir first articulated what has come to be known as the sex-gender distinction, that is, the distinction between biological sex and the social and historical construction of gender and its attendant stereotypes.

Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir at the Balzac Memorial

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Today is the birthday, in 1941, of American folk singer, songwriter, musician, and activist Joan Baez. She scored the 1971 US No.3 & UK No.6 single with a cover of the Band’s ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ and was one of the first major artists to record the songs of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s. Baez also performed at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFA5JgwdEy4

Today is the anniversary of the The 1811 German Coast uprising. It was a slave rebellion which occurred in the Territory of Orleans from January 8–10, 1811. It occurred on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the modern-day Louisiana parishes of St. John the Baptist, St. Charles and Jefferson. The rebellion was the largest of its kind in the history of the United States, but the rebels only killed two white men. Confrontations with U.S. military personnel and local militiamen who were sent to suppress the rebellion, combined with post-trial executions, resulted in the deaths of 95 rebels.

On January 8, between 64 and 125 slaves ignited a fight for freedom and marched from plantations in and near present-day LaPlace, Louisiana on the German Coast towards New Orleans. More people escaped slavery and joined them along the way, and some accounts claimed a total of 200 to 500 people escaped and participated in the rebellion. During their two-day, 20 mi (32 km)-long march, the rebels, armed mostly with improvised weapons, burned five plantations along with several sugarhouses and crop fields.

White settlers led by U.S. officials formed militia companies, and in a battle on January 10 killed 40 to 45 of the people escaping slavery while suffering no fatalities themselves, then hunted down and killed several other people without trial. Over the next two weeks, White planters and U.S. officials interrogated, tried, executed, and decapitated an additional 44 people escaping slavery who had been captured.

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For those of us who are ‘older’…

We keep electing them…

Another Trophy!

Good selling point:

Today is the birthday, in 1947, of English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, painter and actor David Bowie, (born David Robert Jones). His first UK Top 40 single was the 1969 ‘Space Oddity’ which became a UK No.1 in 1975, plus Bowie had over 50 other UK Top 40 hits, including five No.1’s. Bowie has also scored two US No.1 singles, the 1975 ‘Fame’ and 1983 ‘Let’s Dance’. His music and stagecraft significantly influenced popular music, and during his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world’s best-selling music artists. Bowie died from liver cancer at his New York home on 10 January 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbD_kBJc_gI

On this day in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt shut down the post office in Indianola, Mississippi to protest the town’s refusal to accept Minnie Cox, a black woman, as their postmistress. When Cox resigned under duress, Roosevelt refused to accept her resignation, kept paying her salary, and ordered the U.S. Attorney General to prosecute those threatening her.

Minnie M. Geddings was born in Lexington, Mississippi, in March of 1869 to former slaves, William and Elizabeth Geddings. Few details exist about her early life, but it appears that she lived a life of some privilege compared to most other African Americans living in the Mississippi Delta at the time. As business owners, Minnie’s parents were able to send her to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she was part of one of the largest cohorts of women (over 100) attending Fisk during the period. While at Fisk, she recognized the leadership potential of educated African American women. Geddings graduated from Fisk’s normal school program around 1888, and she moved to Indianola to teach in the new segregated public school. Her future husband, Wayne Wellington Cox, helped establish the school in the early 1880s and served as its principal. The two married in October of 1889, and they later had one daughter, Ethyl.

When Republican William McKinley won the presidential election in 1897, he appointed Cox as postmistress of Sunflower County. Cox operated the Sunflower County post office that served over 3,000 patrons a year and operated out of the Cohen’s Brooklyn Bridge Store in Indianola’s central business district. She installed a telephone for customers’ use, at her own expense, and also opened the post office for a few hours on Sundays after church services for her customers’ convenience.

James, Vardeman, candidate for governor, berated white Indianolans for allowing a “negro wench” to handle their mail. Whites from all classes and backgrounds signed petitions urging Roosevelt to remove Cox from her position as postmistress and replace her with a white man. The town’s white civic and business elite deployed language rooted in racial and sexual stereotypes that disempowered African American women and justified sexual and mob violence against them.

Fearing that a white mob would destroy the post office, Minnie Cox wrote a U. S. Postal Inspector in early December of 1902 “if I don’t resign there will be trouble.” Her fears were not without merit. In 1898, mobs had burned the post offices and homes of two African American postmasters in South Carolina and Georgia. The mobs then murdered both postmasters, as well as the infant daughter of one of the postmasters.

On December 4, 1902, Cox tendered her resignation that would take effect on January 1, 1903. President Roosevelt refused to accept it, later stating, “I cannot consent to take the position that the door of hope—the door of opportunity—is to be shut upon any man, no-matter [sic] how worthy, purely on the grounds of race and color.” Roosevelt’s tender sentiments, however, held no power to stop a lynch mob and did little to limit white Democrats’ control in the state and region. Cox’s resignation was public knowledge, but her situation grew more perilous. Whites in Arkansas and other nearby Southern states threatened to come to Indianola and kill her. A fearful Cox refused to return to the post office, and it remained closed.

Minnie Cox, circa 1900.

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Today is the birthday, in 1936, of Roger Miller singer, guitarist and TV star. (1965 UK No.1 & US No.4 single ‘King Of The Road’). He won four Grammy awards in 1965 including Best Country & Western Album. Roger died of lung cancer on October 25th 1991, aged 56. Scottish duo The Proclaimers had the 1990 UK No.9 hit with their version of ‘King Of The Road.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKF-712iz9w

Today is, of course, New Year’s Eve – the last day of 2025. It is the birthday of Henri Matisse, General George Marshall (Marshall Plan), Simon Wiesenthal, Charles Cornwallis (loser at the Battle of Yorktown) and many others. The Vandals began the invasion of Gaul, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease and started brewing Guinness, Baltimore was incorporated as a city, Karl Benz filed for a patent on a gasoline engine, Brooklyn’s last day as a city before becoming a part of New York City, The AT&T/Bell System is broken up by the US Government, The World Health Organization is informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause, detected in Wuhan, China. and many more things.

The Republic seems to have survived another year, although it’s been tough going. We’re looking forward to adventures in 2026. Happy New Year!

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WE HAVE PLANS!!!

Happy New Year! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3sXVxqDbFk