February 12, 2021 • 12 mins
On this day in 1909, an interracial group of American leaders met in New York to call for an organization that would fight for African American civil and political rights. This event is considered the founding meeting of the NAACP. / On this day in 1974, Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested and charged with treason.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today. With that said, on with the show
hi Um Eves. Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that reveals a little bit more about history
day by day. The day was February twelfth, nineteen o nine,
(00:27):
in New York City, a group of black and white
people meant to talk about the status of black people
in the United States. There were sixty people at the meeting,
including suffragists, philanthropists, journalist, clergyman, educators, and people from other
traditions and attendance, and some of them have been part
of the Abolitionist movement. Many of the people there had
(00:51):
also been part of the Niagara Movement, which was a
civil rights group founded in nineteen o five by sociologists
and activists W. E. B. Du Bois, an editor and
activist William Monroe Trotter. The date of this meeting was
notable because it was the hundredth anniversary of former US
President Abraham Lincoln's birth, which many found meaningful because Lincoln
(01:14):
issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but anti black violence was still
endemic in the United States, and the people who met
in New York on this day were committed to fighting
racism and discrimination in the US by starting what was
sometimes called a new abolition movement. At the time, Jim
(01:35):
Crow laws enforced racial segregation in the South, though discrimination
on the basis of race was a constant throughout the
United States. Thousands of black people were being lynched by
white mobs at public events that were made into spectacles,
and deadly race riots were taking place across the country.
(01:55):
In the period after the Reconstruction era. Interpersonal and institutionalized
racism were plaguing American society, but activists, reformers, and revolutionaries
were organizing and fighting to combat the rampant racism and
violence in the country. In August nineteen o eight, there
was a violent race riot in Springfield, Illinois, where mobs
(02:19):
of white people destroyed the homes and businesses of black
people in the community and killed and lynched others. Author
and activist Anna Strunsky and her husband William English Walling,
a socialist and journalist, went to Springfield to investigate the riot,
and in September a magazine called The Independent published an
(02:41):
article while Walling titled the Race War in the North.
In the article, he wrote that people must revive the
spirit of the abolitionists and treat black people as social
and political equals, or else the race war would continue
to spread across the country, and Walling went on to
write the following the day these methods become general in
(03:05):
the North, every hope of political democracy will be dead.
Other weaker races in classes will be persecuted. In the North,
as in the South, public education will undergo an eclipse,
and American civilization will await either a rapid degeneration or
another profounder and more revolutionary civil war, which shall obliterate
(03:30):
not only the remains of slavery, but all other obstacles
to a free, democratic evolution that have grown up in
its wake. Who realizes the seriousness of the situation, and
what large and powerful body of citizens is ready to
come to their aid. Marie White Ovington, a social worker
(03:52):
and writer, heated Walling's call and sent him a letter
in support. So in January nine, eighteen o nine, she
met with Walling and social worker Henry Moskovitz at Walling's
New York apartment to discuss proposing an organization that would
fight for the civil and political rights of black people.
(04:14):
So Oswald Garrison Valar grandson of the Abolitionist William Lloyd
Garrison wrote the call, which was a summons for civil
rights activists to form an organization that would advocate for
ending racial injustice in America and fight for African Americans rights.
The call was endorsed by sixty people, including W. E. B.
(04:37):
Du Bois, journalists and activist Ida B. Wells, philosopher and
reformer John Dewey, and activist Jane Adams. And on February twelve,
nineteen o nine, a group including Mary Church Terrell, Charles
Edward Russell, and Florence Kelly, among others, met for a
national conference, but they didn't hold their first large meeting
(05:01):
until May, when they organized as the National Negro Committee.
There was some conflict at that first session as leaders
tried to get the more conservative book or T. Washington
to join in on the meetings. Also, tensions rose between
white and black members and the press fear the radical
nature of the conference. But by nineteen ten, members of
(05:24):
the Committee had formed the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People or the INN Double A c P.
The n Double A cp S mission was quote to
promote equality of rights and to eradicate cast or race
prejudice among the citizens of the United States, to advance
(05:46):
the interests of colored citizens, to secure for them impartial suffrage,
and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts,
education for the children, employment according to their ability, and
complete equality before law. The organization established its national office
in New York City and named a board of directors
(06:08):
and president. More filled story. At this time W. E. B.
Dubois was the only black executive in the organization, but
that same year Dubois started The Crisis, a journal that
offered discussion on race relations, politics, and black life, and
presented black intellectual and artistic work. In Double A CP
(06:32):
members went on to challenge segregation laws, stage Boycott's, start
an anti lynching campaign, and lobby and advocate for new legislation.
The Double A CPS methods aren't loved by people who
use more direct action tactics, but the organization did make
gains in the movement for black civil rights, and it's
(06:54):
still going today. I'm Eves, Jeff Coote, and hopefully you
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
We'll see you tomorrow. Hi, everyone, I'm Eves. Welcome to
this day. In History Class, a podcast for folks who
can never have enough history knowledge. The day was February twelfth,
(07:23):
nineteen seventy four. Russian author Alexander Solja Neetson was arrested,
charged with treason and stripped of his citizenship. The year prior,
Solja Neetson had published The Gulag Archipelago, a book on
the communist Soviet forced labor camp system. Solja Neetson was
(07:43):
born in nineteen eighteen in Russia, the year after the
Russian Revolution took place and the Russian Civil War began.
He was raised by his mother as his father was
killed in an accident. He studied at the University of Rostov,
majoring in physics and mathematics. It was in the nineteen
forties when he began to get negative attention from Soviet authorities.
(08:05):
During World War Two, Solja Neetson was drafted into the
Soviet Union's Red Army. In nineteen five, he was arrested
for writing letters to a friend that criticized Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin. He spent the next eight years in prison
in labor camps for political prisoners. His sentence ended in
nineteen fifty three and his first day without armed guard
(08:29):
was March five, the same day that Stalin died, But
after he served his sentence, he was sent into exile
for life in Kazakhstan. There he taught math and physics
and wrote poems, plays, sketches, and a novel. In the
following years, Solja Neetson underwent treatment for cancer and survived.
(08:49):
He began writing down the experiences he had as a prisoner.
Nikita Khrushchev, the new Soviet premier, denounced Stalin. Solja Neetson
was then free from exile, and he moved back to Russia,
where he continued teaching and writing. His novel One Day
in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, about life in one
(09:09):
of Stalin's labor camps, was published in the Soviet literary
journal Novemir in November of nineteen sixty two. The novel
was popular with its Soviet readers for the way it
depicted that everyday struggles of life in a forced labor camp.
The book inspired others to depict their own hardships in
Soviet labor camps and gained a global audience. It was, however, controversial,
(09:33):
as sol Jannetzen was accused of being anti Soviet The
book aggravated the rift between anti Stalinists and conformists. Khrushchev
fell from power in nineteen sixty four. Sol Jansen was
increasingly targeted by authorities as he continued to write short
stories and denounce government policies. After nineteen sixty seven, his
(09:56):
work wasn't published again in the Soviet Union until ninete.
For years, the KGB, the Soviet Union's security agency, collected
information about him and seized his writing as he was
deemed an enemy of the state. In nineteen sixty nine,
Soljian Netson was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers.
(10:16):
The next year, Solja Neatson won the Nobel Prize for
Literature for quote the ethical force with which he has
pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature, but Soviet authorities
did not let him go to the awards ceremony. They
continued to harass him, with the KGB even attempting to
assassinate him with rice In in nineteen seventy one, but
(10:39):
he continued to publish his work. In nineteen seventy three,
he published The Gulag Archipelago abroad after the KGB seized
a copy of the manuscript in the Soviet Union. The
word gulag refers to the network of labor camps in
the Soviet Union. The book provides a record of the arrest, interrogation, conviction,
(11:00):
and imprisonment of people in the system, along with Soljia
Neatson's personal accounts. The Soviet press denounced him as a trader,
and on February twelve, nineteen seventy four, he was arrested
and charged with treason. The next day, he was exiled
from the Soviet Union. He proceeded to travel throughout Europe,
(11:22):
and by nineteen seventy six he had settled in the US.
He lived in the US until nineteen ninety four, when
he returned to Russia after the Soviet Union dissolved. Back
in Russia, he praised the leadership of President Vladimir Putin.
He died in Moscow in two thousand eight, remembered for
writing works that criticized the Soviet Union and communism and
(11:45):
revealed the conditions people faced in the forced labor camp system.
I'm Eve jeffco and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. If you've seen
any good history means lately you can send them to
us on social media at t d I h C podcast,
(12:06):
or if you want to get a little more fancy,
you can send us an email at this day at
i heart media dot com. Thanks for tuning in and
we'll see you again tomorrow. For more podcasts from I
(12:27):
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today. With that said, on with the show
hi Um Eves. Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that reveals a little bit more about history
day by day. The day was February twelfth, nineteen o nine,
(00:27):
in New York City, a group of black and white
people meant to talk about the status of black people
in the United States. There were sixty people at the meeting,
including suffragists, philanthropists, journalist, clergyman, educators, and people from other
traditions and attendance, and some of them have been part
of the Abolitionist movement. Many of the people there had
(00:51):
also been part of the Niagara Movement, which was a
civil rights group founded in nineteen o five by sociologists
and activists W. E. B. Du Bois, an editor and
activist William Monroe Trotter. The date of this meeting was
notable because it was the hundredth anniversary of former US
President Abraham Lincoln's birth, which many found meaningful because Lincoln
(01:14):
issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but anti black violence was still
endemic in the United States, and the people who met
in New York on this day were committed to fighting
racism and discrimination in the US by starting what was
sometimes called a new abolition movement. At the time, Jim
(01:35):
Crow laws enforced racial segregation in the South, though discrimination
on the basis of race was a constant throughout the
United States. Thousands of black people were being lynched by
white mobs at public events that were made into spectacles,
and deadly race riots were taking place across the country.
(01:55):
In the period after the Reconstruction era. Interpersonal and institutionalized
racism were plaguing American society, but activists, reformers, and revolutionaries
were organizing and fighting to combat the rampant racism and
violence in the country. In August nineteen o eight, there
was a violent race riot in Springfield, Illinois, where mobs
(02:19):
of white people destroyed the homes and businesses of black
people in the community and killed and lynched others. Author
and activist Anna Strunsky and her husband William English Walling,
a socialist and journalist, went to Springfield to investigate the riot,
and in September a magazine called The Independent published an
(02:41):
article while Walling titled the Race War in the North.
In the article, he wrote that people must revive the
spirit of the abolitionists and treat black people as social
and political equals, or else the race war would continue
to spread across the country, and Walling went on to
write the following the day these methods become general in
(03:05):
the North, every hope of political democracy will be dead.
Other weaker races in classes will be persecuted. In the North,
as in the South, public education will undergo an eclipse,
and American civilization will await either a rapid degeneration or
another profounder and more revolutionary civil war, which shall obliterate
(03:30):
not only the remains of slavery, but all other obstacles
to a free, democratic evolution that have grown up in
its wake. Who realizes the seriousness of the situation, and
what large and powerful body of citizens is ready to
come to their aid. Marie White Ovington, a social worker
(03:52):
and writer, heated Walling's call and sent him a letter
in support. So in January nine, eighteen o nine, she
met with Walling and social worker Henry Moskovitz at Walling's
New York apartment to discuss proposing an organization that would
fight for the civil and political rights of black people.
(04:14):
So Oswald Garrison Valar grandson of the Abolitionist William Lloyd
Garrison wrote the call, which was a summons for civil
rights activists to form an organization that would advocate for
ending racial injustice in America and fight for African Americans rights.
The call was endorsed by sixty people, including W. E. B.
(04:37):
Du Bois, journalists and activist Ida B. Wells, philosopher and
reformer John Dewey, and activist Jane Adams. And on February twelve,
nineteen o nine, a group including Mary Church Terrell, Charles
Edward Russell, and Florence Kelly, among others, met for a
national conference, but they didn't hold their first large meeting
(05:01):
until May, when they organized as the National Negro Committee.
There was some conflict at that first session as leaders
tried to get the more conservative book or T. Washington
to join in on the meetings. Also, tensions rose between
white and black members and the press fear the radical
nature of the conference. But by nineteen ten, members of
(05:24):
the Committee had formed the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People or the INN Double A c P.
The n Double A cp S mission was quote to
promote equality of rights and to eradicate cast or race
prejudice among the citizens of the United States, to advance
(05:46):
the interests of colored citizens, to secure for them impartial suffrage,
and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts,
education for the children, employment according to their ability, and
complete equality before law. The organization established its national office
in New York City and named a board of directors
(06:08):
and president. More filled story. At this time W. E. B.
Dubois was the only black executive in the organization, but
that same year Dubois started The Crisis, a journal that
offered discussion on race relations, politics, and black life, and
presented black intellectual and artistic work. In Double A CP
(06:32):
members went on to challenge segregation laws, stage Boycott's, start
an anti lynching campaign, and lobby and advocate for new legislation.
The Double A CPS methods aren't loved by people who
use more direct action tactics, but the organization did make
gains in the movement for black civil rights, and it's
(06:54):
still going today. I'm Eves, Jeff Coote, and hopefully you
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
We'll see you tomorrow. Hi, everyone, I'm Eves. Welcome to
this day. In History Class, a podcast for folks who
can never have enough history knowledge. The day was February twelfth,
(07:23):
nineteen seventy four. Russian author Alexander Solja Neetson was arrested,
charged with treason and stripped of his citizenship. The year prior,
Solja Neetson had published The Gulag Archipelago, a book on
the communist Soviet forced labor camp system. Solja Neetson was
(07:43):
born in nineteen eighteen in Russia, the year after the
Russian Revolution took place and the Russian Civil War began.
He was raised by his mother as his father was
killed in an accident. He studied at the University of Rostov,
majoring in physics and mathematics. It was in the nineteen
forties when he began to get negative attention from Soviet authorities.
(08:05):
During World War Two, Solja Neetson was drafted into the
Soviet Union's Red Army. In nineteen five, he was arrested
for writing letters to a friend that criticized Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin. He spent the next eight years in prison
in labor camps for political prisoners. His sentence ended in
nineteen fifty three and his first day without armed guard
(08:29):
was March five, the same day that Stalin died, But
after he served his sentence, he was sent into exile
for life in Kazakhstan. There he taught math and physics
and wrote poems, plays, sketches, and a novel. In the
following years, Solja Neetson underwent treatment for cancer and survived.
(08:49):
He began writing down the experiences he had as a prisoner.
Nikita Khrushchev, the new Soviet premier, denounced Stalin. Solja Neetson
was then free from exile, and he moved back to Russia,
where he continued teaching and writing. His novel One Day
in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, about life in one
(09:09):
of Stalin's labor camps, was published in the Soviet literary
journal Novemir in November of nineteen sixty two. The novel
was popular with its Soviet readers for the way it
depicted that everyday struggles of life in a forced labor camp.
The book inspired others to depict their own hardships in
Soviet labor camps and gained a global audience. It was, however, controversial,
(09:33):
as sol Jannetzen was accused of being anti Soviet The
book aggravated the rift between anti Stalinists and conformists. Khrushchev
fell from power in nineteen sixty four. Sol Jansen was
increasingly targeted by authorities as he continued to write short
stories and denounce government policies. After nineteen sixty seven, his
(09:56):
work wasn't published again in the Soviet Union until ninete.
For years, the KGB, the Soviet Union's security agency, collected
information about him and seized his writing as he was
deemed an enemy of the state. In nineteen sixty nine,
Soljian Netson was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers.
(10:16):
The next year, Solja Neatson won the Nobel Prize for
Literature for quote the ethical force with which he has
pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature, but Soviet authorities
did not let him go to the awards ceremony. They
continued to harass him, with the KGB even attempting to
assassinate him with rice In in nineteen seventy one, but
(10:39):
he continued to publish his work. In nineteen seventy three,
he published The Gulag Archipelago abroad after the KGB seized
a copy of the manuscript in the Soviet Union. The
word gulag refers to the network of labor camps in
the Soviet Union. The book provides a record of the arrest, interrogation, conviction,
(11:00):
and imprisonment of people in the system, along with Soljia
Neatson's personal accounts. The Soviet press denounced him as a trader,
and on February twelve, nineteen seventy four, he was arrested
and charged with treason. The next day, he was exiled
from the Soviet Union. He proceeded to travel throughout Europe,
(11:22):
and by nineteen seventy six he had settled in the US.
He lived in the US until nineteen ninety four, when
he returned to Russia after the Soviet Union dissolved. Back
in Russia, he praised the leadership of President Vladimir Putin.
He died in Moscow in two thousand eight, remembered for
writing works that criticized the Soviet Union and communism and
(11:45):
revealed the conditions people faced in the forced labor camp system.
I'm Eve jeffco and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. If you've seen
any good history means lately you can send them to
us on social media at t d I h C podcast,
(12:06):
or if you want to get a little more fancy,
you can send us an email at this day at
i heart media dot com. Thanks for tuning in and
we'll see you again tomorrow. For more podcasts from I
(12:27):
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class News
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