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Timeline of Events Leading to Wedding Band by Arminda Thomas
TIMELINE OF EVENTS LEADING TO WEDDING BAND
ARMINDA THOMAS
Events in bold refer to characters from Wedding Band.
1848 John C. Calhoun, Senator from South Carolina, gives speech in opposition to the Oregon Bill (which prohibited slavery in the territory), in which he refutes the Declaration of Independence to make the case for the expansion of slavery.
1851 Calhoun’s A Disquisition on Government is published posthumously.
1860 After Lincoln’s election, South Carolina is the first state to secede from the Union on December 20. It formally joins the CSA in February, 1861.
c1861 Herman’s Mother is born as the Civil War begins
Union forces take control of the Sea Islands. Enslaved African-Americans flee to the area, especially to Edisto Island, where Union troops consider blacks to be free because they are the "contraband of war."
1862 Robert Smalls sails The Planter through Confederate lines and delivers it and its cargo to Union forces off the South Carolina coast. He volunteers to help the Union Navy guide its ships through the dangerous South Carolina coastal waters for the rest of the war.
1868 A convention of 48 whites and 76 blacks meet and write a very progressive constitution that includes representation based on population, a complete bill of rights, protection of a married woman's property rights, a homestead exemption, and a right to a public education.
State Senator and presidential elector B.F. Randolph is murdered by radical whites in Abbeville County.
c1868 Fanny is born.
1869 Joseph Rainey becomes the first African-American in South Carolina to become a U.S. Representative in Congress. He is followed by seven others before African-Americans are driven out of elected office: Robert C. DeLarge, Robert Brown Elliott, Richard H. Cain, Alonzo Ransier, Robert Smalls, Thomas E. Miller, and George W. Murray.
c1873 Lula is born
1877 South Carolina agrees to give its electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for agreement to end the Reconstruction and recognition of Wade Hampton as the duly elected governor of the State.
c1878 Herman is born.
1879 Back in power, SC Democratic legislature invalidates any marriages that may have occurred between “a white person and an Indian, Negro, mulatto, mestizo, or half-breed” and makes such marriages a misdemeanor, fined a minimum of $500, or imprisoned for not less than twelve months, or both.
In support of the Liberia Emigration Movement (1877-1878), the Rev. Richard H. Cain, a local and national AME leader and politician, sponsors a bill to pay passage for those who desire to return to the African continent. As a result, the ship, Azur, leaves from Charleston with 206 Black emigrants en route to Liberia, West Africa.
c1883 Julia is born; Herman wins $20 for memorizing Calhoun’s speech. Annabelle is born, sometime between 1883-1888.
1886 Largest earthquake to hit the southeastern U.S. (est. 7.3) hits Charleston, killing 100+ and causing approximately $5 million in damages.
c1888 Bell Man is born. Mattie is born, sometime between 1888-1893 on Edisto Island.
1891 Rev. Daniel Jenkins establishes the Jenkins Colored Orphanage. Over the course of decades, Jenkins Orphanage Band builds an international reputation for musical excellence and its ability to raise funds for economic and social well-being of impoverished children.
c1893 Nelson is born, sometime between 1893-1898, and placed in Jenkins Colored Orphanage, where he is later adopted by Lula.
1895 South Carolina’s rewritten state constitution enshrines segregation in education, prohibits marriage between a white person and Negro (including anyone > 1/8th “Negro Blood”), and effectively disenfranchises its Black residents. Though 60% of the state population, they make up 5% of voters.
1897 Dr. Lucy Hughes Brown is the first African American female doctor licensed to practice in South Carolina, and the first woman doctor in Charleston. She co-founds the Cannon Street Hospital and Training School for Nurses in 1897.
1908 Julia and Herman fall in love.
1910 Suspected of murder and attempted assault, Flute Clark is lynched by a mob “of thousands” in Little Mountain (Newberry County), SC.
1914 Rosa Richardson (or Rose Carter) is dragged from an Elloree, SC and lynched for allegedly beating to death the young daughter of her white employers. She is one of nine known female victims of lynching in the state.
1915 Jules Smith is murdered by a mob on the courthouse steps in Winnsboro, SC. The sheriff and deputy sheriff escorting Smith to his trial are also murdered.
1917 Charleston chapter of the N.A.A.C.P established.
U.S. enters World War I. A draft is established to increase the number of soldiers.
The 371st Infantry Regiment, an all African-American unit composed of many South Carolinians, trains at Ft. Jackson. A year later it is attached to the famous "Red Hand Division" of the French army in Europe, earning the nicknames of "black devils" and "hell fighters" from their German adversaries. Almost half of all South Carolinians serving in the first World War are African-American.
1918 In March, more than 100 soldiers at Camp Funston in Fort Riley, Kansas become ill with flu. Within a week the number of flu cases quintuples. Sporadic flu activity spreads unevenly through the United States, Europe, and possibly Asia over the next six months.
