In today’s blog post, the Center for Social Solutions takes a look back at the historic events that occurred during the month of December. While these occasions are now matters of the past, each one has had a significant impact on contemporary America. Events related to each of the center’s four initiatives—Diversity and Democracy; Slavery and Its Aftermath; Water, Equity and Security; and the Future of Work—are included.

 

December 1, 1955

Rosa Parks’ infamous arrest for her refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama sparked the modern American civil rights movement. Just days later, the African American community began a year-long boycott of the city bus system, resulting in the legal termination of segregationist policies on municipal buses throughout the South.

 

December 5, 1955

The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to create the AFL-CIO, making it representative of one-third of all nonagricultural workers in the U.S. Their voice in the labor movement has not only shaped the rights of the workplace and workers, but also enhanced and protected the diversity of the workforce.

 

December 6, 1865

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified almost a year after it was passed by Congress (delayed by the assassination of President Lincoln). The amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime, thus marking what many refer to as the official end of American slavery, but slavery itself and its impact on American culture and society was far from over.

 

December 8, 1765

Inventor Eli Whitney was born in Westboro, Massachusetts. Although he is most famous for creating the cotton gin, which grew the Southern economy while reinforcing the institution of slavery, he also created a foundation for American mass production with his concept of machine-made, interchangeable parts and legislative lobbying efforts.

 

December 10, 1830

Emily Dickinson, one of the most famous American poets, was born in Amherst, Massachusetts to an influential family. Although she was not the first female American poet, she is one of the most well-known from the pre-modern era in part due to her subversion of expectations of women’s subservience to men and focus on their role as a wife and mother.

 

December 12, 1870

Joseph Hayne Rainey becomes a U.S. Representative of South Carolina and the first African American to serve in the House. A former slave, he used his position to advocate for civil rights for African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants until he retired from Congress in 1879. 

 

December 29, 1890

Up to 300 Native Americans are massacred at Wounded Knee in South Dakota by the U.S. Army, an event that effectively concluded resistance to the federal government’s enforcement of reservation settlement and assimilation into white American culture. The site was the focus of a 71-day occupation in 1973 by the American Indian Movement, a militant civil rights and identity group, in an attempt to pressure the United States to honor the treaties that would have granted land and rights to the Native Americans.

 

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