Abraham, Martin, and John Dion

[Botany]

[Stellar]

1. Love it! nt

[Trust Buster]

2. One of my favorite all time songs.....Thank you.

[mobeau69]

3. I shook JFK's and RFK's hands.

I'll think back about that the day I die.

[FailureToCommunicate]

4. Terrible, unimaginable losses to our country. All taken from us by guys with guns.

Thank you for posting this. It fits with these times, with our county going to hell in a handbasket (of deplorables)

[grantcart]

5. It seems like we fight like hell to simply run in place.

http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/residents-visitors/notable-visitors/notable-visitors-frederick-douglass-1817-1895/

“Reaching the Capitol, I took my place in the crowd where I could se the presidential procession as it came upon the east portico, and where I could hear and see all that took place,” Douglass later wrote. “The whole proceeding was wonderfully quiet, earnest, and solemn. From the oath, as administered by Chief Justice Chase, to the brief but weighty address delivered by Mr. Lincoln, there was a leaden stillness about the crowd. The address sounded more like a sermon than a state paper.” Douglass described events later that day when he tried to attend the Inaugural levee at the Executive Mansion:


For the first time in my life, and I suppose the first time in any colored man’s life, I attended the reception of President Lincoln on the evening of the inauguration. As I approached the door, I was seized by two policemen and forbidden to enter. I said to them that they were mistaken entirely in what they were doing, that if Mr. Lincoln knew that I was at the door he would order my admission, and I bolted in by them. On the inside, I was taken charge of by two other policemen, to be conducted as I supposed to the President, but instead of that they were conducting me out the window on a plank.

‘Oh,’ said I, ‘this will not do, gentlemen,’ and as a gentleman was passing in I said to him, ‘Just say to Mr. Lincoln that Fred. Douglass is at the door.’

He rushed in to President Lincoln, and almost in less than half a minute I was invited into the East Room of the White House. A perfect sea of beauty and elegance, too, it was. The ladies were in very fine attire, and Mrs. Lincoln was standing there. I could not have been more than ten feet from him when Mr. Lincoln saw me; his countenance lighted up, and he said in a voice which was heard all around; ‘Here comes my friend Douglass.’ As I approached him he reached out his hand, gave me a cordial shake, and said: ‘Douglass, I saw you in the crowd today listening to my inaugural address. There is no man’s opinion that I value more than yours; what do you think of it?’ I said: ‘Mr. Lincoln, I cannot stop here to talk with you, as there are thousands waiting to shake you by the hand’; but he said again: ‘What did you think of it?’ I said: ‘Mr. Lincoln, it was a sacred effort,’ and then I walked off. ‘I am glad you liked it,’ he said. That was the last time I saw him to speak with him.5

[jg10003]

6. Music trivia: Dion was the 4th act in the Winter Dance Party tour that resulted....

in the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Booper.