On April 9, 1947, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sent 16
Black and white activists on a bus ride through the American
South to test a recent Supreme Court decision striking down
segregation on interstate bus travel. The so-called Journey of Reconciliation, which lasted two weeks, was an important
precursor to the Freedom Rides of the 1960s.
On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th
career home run, breaking Babe Ruth’s legendary record of 714
homers. A crowd of 53,775 people, the largest in the history of
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, was with Aaron that night to
cheer when he hit a 4th inning pitch off the Los Angeles Dodgers’
Al Downing.
However, as Aaron was an African American who had received
death threats and racist hate mail during his pursuit of one of
baseball’s most distinguished records, the achievement was
bittersweet.
Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021), nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin’ Hank."
On April 7, 1949, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South
Pacific opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway in New
York City. The romantic musical about World War II, which
touches on controversial racial themes, went on to run for
almost five years, becoming one of the most popular musicals
of the 1950s.
The show won 10 Tony Awards, and six decades later, its
Lincoln Center revival would earn another seven, making
it the most Tony Award-winning show in New York theater
history.
On April 7, 1970, the legendary actor John Wayne won his
first—and only—acting Academy Award, for his star turn
in the director Henry Hathaway’s Western True Grit.
Wayne appeared in some 150 movies over the course of
his long and storied career. He established his tough,
rugged, uniquely American screen persona most vividly
in the many acclaimed films he made for the directors
John Ford and Howard Hawks from the late 1940s into the
early 1960s.
He earned his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Actor
category, for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). The Alamo (1960),
which Wayne produced, directed and starred in, earned a
Best Picture nomination.
Wayne’s Oscar for True Grit at the 42nd annual Academy
Awards in 1970 was generally considered to be a largely
sentimental win, and a long-overdue reward for one of
Hollywood’s most enduring performers.
The Academy had failed to even nominate Wayne for any
of his most celebrated performances, in films such as
Stagecoach (1939), Red River (1948), The Quiet Man (1952),
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and especially
Ford’s The Searchers (1956), considered by many to be
the greatest Western ever made.
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On April 6, 1841, John Tyler was sworn in as president. Tyler
was elected as William Harrison’s vice president earlier in
1841 and was suddenly thrust into the role of president when
Harrison died one month into office.
He was the first vice president to immediately assume the role
of president after a sitting president’s untimely exit and set the
precedent for succession thereafter.
This 1888 engraving depicts a messenger delivering the news of President William Henry Harrison’s death to Vice President John
Tyler at his Williamsburg home on April 5, 1841.
