Archie Walter Willis Jr.
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Archie Walter Willis Jr.
Archie Walter Willis Jr. (March 16, 1925 - 1988) was a lawyer, businessman, and state representative in Tennessee. He was the first African American elected to state office in Tennessee in more than 70 years. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He moved to Memphis in 1953 and helped establish the city's first integrated law firm. He represented James Meredith who was being blocked from attending the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. Part of Auction Avenue in downtown Memphis is named in his honor. The A. W. Willis Bridge is named for him. He was married to the educator and activist Miriam DeCosta-Willis from 1972 until his death in 1988. See also *African Americans in Tennessee African Americans are the second largest ethnic group in the state of Tennessee after whites, making up 17% of the state's population in 2010. African Americans arrived in the region prior to statehood. They lived both as slaves and as free cit ... * African-American officeholder ...
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Tennessee House Of Representatives
The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Constitutional requirements According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to consist of 99 members elected for two-year terms. In every even-numbered year, elections for state representative are conducted simultaneously with the elections for U.S. Representative and other offices; the primary election being held on the first Thursday in August. Seats which become vacant through death or resignation are filled by the county commission (or metropolitan county council) of the home county of the member vacating the seat; if more than a year remains in the term a special election is held for the balance of the term. Districts Members are elected from single-member districts. The districts are traditionally numbered consecutively from east to west and north to south across the state; however, in recent redistricting this conv ...
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Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% from the 2020 Census, making it Alabama's third-most populous city after Huntsville and Montgomery. The broader Birmingham metropolitan area had a 2020 population of 1,115,289, and is the largest metropolitan area in Alabama as well as the 50th-most populous in the United States. Birmingham serves as an important regional hub and is associated with the Deep South, Piedmont, and Appalachian regions of the nation. Birmingham was founded in 1871, during the post- Civil War Reconstruction period, through the merger of three pre-existing farm towns, notably, Elyton. It grew from there, annexing many more of its smaller neighbors, into an industrial and railroad transportation center with a focus on mining, the iron and steel industry, ...
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Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee, after Nashville. Memphis is the fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-largest overall, as well as the largest city bordering the Mississippi River. The Memphis metropolitan area includes West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the Southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods. The first European explorer to visit the area of present-day Memphis was Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. The high Chickasaw Bluffs protecting the location from the waters of the Mississipp ...
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James Meredith
James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississippi after the intervention of the federal government (an event that was a flashpoint in the civil rights movement). Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi.Bryant 2006, p. 60. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans. In 1966, Meredith planned a solo March Against Fear from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi; he wanted to highlight continuing racism in the South and encourage voter registration after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He did not want major civil rights organizations involved. The second day, he was shot by a white gunman and su ...
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University Of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment. The Mississippi Legislature chartered the university on February 24, 1844, and four years later it admitted its first 80 students. During the Civil War, the university operated as a Confederate hospital and narrowly avoided destruction by Ulysses S. Grant's forces. In 1962, during the civil rights movement, a race riot occurred on campus when segregationists tried to prevent the enrollment of African American student James Meredith. The university has since taken measures to improve its image. The university is closely associated with writer William Faulkner, and owns and manages his former Oxford home Rowan Oak, which with other on-campus sites Barnard Observatory and Lyceum–The Circle Historic District, is listed on the National Reg ...
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Oxford, Mississippi
Oxford is a city and college town in the U.S. state of Mississippi. Oxford lies 75 miles (121 km) south-southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, and is the county seat of Lafayette County. Founded in 1837, it was named after the British city of Oxford. The University of Mississippi, also known as "Ole Miss" is located adjacent to the city. Purchasing the land from a Chickasaw, pioneers founded Oxford in 1837. In 1841, the Mississippi State Legislature selected it as the site of the state's first university, Ole Miss. Oxford is also the hometown of Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner, and served as the inspiration for his fictional Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, who served as a US Supreme Court Justice and Secretary of the Interior, also lived and is buried in Oxford. As of the 2020 US Census, the population was 25,416. History Oxford and Lafayette County were formed from lands ceded by the Chickasaw people in the Treaty of Pontotoc ...
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Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Miriam DeCosta-Willis (November 1, 1934 – January 7, 2021) was an American educator, writer, and civil rights activist. The first African-American faculty member at Memphis State University, having previously been denied admission to the school as a graduate student due to her race, she spent her career as a professor of Romance languages and African-American studies at a variety of colleges in Memphis, Tennessee, and the Washington, D.C., area. She published more than a dozen books throughout her career, largely dealing with Black Hispanic and Latino Americans, Afro-Latino literature and Black Memphis history. Early life and education Miriam DeCosta-Willis was born Miriam Dolores DeCosta in Florence, Alabama, in 1934. The granddaughter of Zachary Hubert, who had been Slavery in the United States, enslaved in Georgia, Alabama, Georgia, Alabama, she was born to a pair of African-American educators. Her mother, Beautine Hubert DeCosta, had graduated from Spelman College and Cla ...
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African Americans In Tennessee
African Americans are the second largest ethnic group in the state of Tennessee after whites, making up 17% of the state's population in 2010. African Americans arrived in the region prior to statehood. They lived both as slaves and as free citizens with restricted rights up to the Civil War. The state, and particularly the major cities of Memphis and Nashville, have been important sites in African-American culture and the Civil Rights Movement. The majority of African Americans in Tennessee reside in the western part of the state, which had a concentration of large cotton plantations in the antebellum period. Many freedmen stayed in the region after emancipation and the abolition of slavery. Historically there have been much smaller Black populations in the Middle Tennessee and East Tennessee (Appalachian) regions, because of the different geography and agricultural patterns. Demographics In the 2010 Census, 1,057,315 Tennessee residents were identified as African American ...
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African-American Officeholders During And Following The Reconstruction Era
More than 1,500 African American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) after passage of the Reconstruction Acts in 1867 and 1868 as well as in the years after Reconstruction before white supremacy, disenfranchisement, and the Democratic Party fully reasserted control in Southern states. Historian Canter Brown, Jr. noted that in some states, such as Florida, the highest number of African Americans were elected or appointed to offices after 1877 and the end of Reconstruction. The following is a partial list some of the most notable of the officeholders pre–1900. U.S. Senate * Hiram Rhodes Revels ( R), Senator from Mississippi (1870-1871) * Blanche Bruce (R), Senator from Mississippi (1875-1881) *P. B. S. Pinchback was elected to the U.S. Senate by the Louisiana legislature in 1873, but the Senate refused to seat him. U.S. House Alabama State Senate *Alexander H. Curtis - Perry County 1872-1874 * James K. Greene - Hale County *Jeremiah Haralson - ...
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Members Of The Tennessee House Of Representatives
Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in a database ** Member variable, a variable that is associated with a specific object * Limb (anatomy), an appendage of the human or animal body ** Euphemism for penis * Structural component of a truss, connected by nodes * User (computing), a person making use of a computing service, especially on the Internet * Member (geology), a component of a geological formation * Member of parliament * The Members, a British punk rock band * Meronymy, a semantic relationship in linguistics * Church membership, belonging to a local Christian congregation, a Christian denomination and the universal Church * Member, a participant in a club or learned society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an ...
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1925 Births
Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music * 19 (band), a Japanese pop music duo Albums * ''19'' (Adele album), 2008 * ''19'', a 2003 album by Alsou * ''19'', a 2006 album by Evan Yo * ''19'', a 2018 album by MHD * ''19'', one half of the double album ''63/19'' by Kool A.D. * ''Number Nineteen'', a 1971 album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron * ''XIX'' (EP), a 2019 EP by 1the9 Songs * "19" (song), a 1985 song by British musician Paul Hardcastle. * "Nineteen", a song by Bad4Good from the 1992 album '' Refugee'' * "Nineteen", a song by Karma to Burn from the 2001 album ''Almost Heathen''. * "Nineteen" (song), a 2007 song by American singer Billy Ray Cyrus. * "Nineteen", a song by Tegan and Sara from the 2007 album '' The Con''. * "XIX" (song), a 2014 song by Slip ...
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