Martin Luther King Jr. Day-Arizona Civil Rights History

[saidsimplesimon]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/martin-luther-king-jr-day-how-much-do-you-know-about-arizonas-civil-rights-history/ar-BBZ9oYo

Kaila White, Arizona Republic
1/20/20

Calvin Goode still lives on the property he bought in central Phoenix in 1955, in a small home at Jefferson and 15th streets, steps away from historic Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church.

At the time, it was one of the few neighborhoods where black Arizonans were allowed to buy homes. Now, it's jutted up against a light-rail line, near a prestigious Great Hearts charter school, on the edge of an upscale apartment housing boom.

After growing up attending segregated schools in Gila Bend and Phoenix in the 1940s, Goode in 1972 became the second black person to serve on the Phoenix City Council. He held the position for 22 years.

He said he remembered once, when he was a young man, he applied for a job at a Phoenix high school and was denied because the principal did not want him supervising white women.
...snip
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1988, an estimated 15,000 people gathered in downtown Phoenix for a march to the Arizona State Capitol protesting the state's refusal to recognize the holiday. It was a rainy, cold, windy day, but so many people attended that the crowd flooded three lanes of traffic.

Years of political fighting over the holiday created a national image of Arizona as a state locked in a racial battle.

Several big-name musicians and national conventions canceled their Arizona events. After two ballot propositions to make the day a state holiday failed, the National Football League relocated the 1993 Super Bowl from Sun Devil Stadium to Pasadena, California.

Finally, voters approved a state King holiday in November 1992, making Arizona the only state that put it to a vote of the people and saw it pass.

.....much more at the link, excellent piece, imo

[CaptYossarian]

1. Please read te entire article. This excerpt didn't mention racist

governor and professional low-life Evan Mecham by name.

Reagan had signed the Dr. King Day into law and Mecham said he wouldn't recognize it because "state workers didn't need another paid holiday". At least that's what he said in public.

[Ptah]

2. Evan Mecham is unforgettable.

As governor, Mecham was plagued by controversy almost immediately after his inauguration and became the first U.S. governor to simultaneously face removal from office through impeachment, a scheduled recall election, and a felony indictment. He was the first Arizona governor to be impeached.

<snip>

While Governor, Mecham became known for statements and actions that were widely perceived as insensitive to minorities. Among these actions were the cancellation of the state's paid Martin Luther King Jr. Day and creating an unpaid King holiday on a Sunday, attributing high divorce rates to working women, and his defense of the word "pickaninny" in describing African American children. In reaction to these events, a boycott of Arizona was organized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham

[CaptYossarian]

3. So he's the other one who used that term.

My Norwegian grandmother said that a lot when I was a kid. I could tell by context that it wasn't nice.

Now, my wife's 54-year old "kid" sister uses jigaboo, a term she learned from her abusive ex-husband.

My guess is that this crap will never end.