Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History
On December 6, 1809, Jacob Henry, North Carolina's first Jewish legislator, delivered a rousing speech about religious liberty to the General Assembly.
On December 5, 1770, the Upper House of Assembly first met in the Council Chamber of the newly-constructed “Government House” in New Bern.
On December 5, 1854, the first lots of Oakdale Cemetery in Wilmington were sold.
Oakdale, Wilmington’s first municipal burial ground, is one of the most beautiful and scenic graveyards in the Old North State. It remains the town’s largest cemetery, and is noted for the abundance of prominent Wilmingtonians and other North Carolinians who are buried there.
On December 5, 1962, a U.S. district court dismissed a suit against two Greensboro hospitals challenging “separate but equal” treatment in private, non-profit hospitals. The case was ultimately overturned on appeal.
The suit, now known as Simkins v. Cone, was brought by African American medical professionals and their patients against the Moses H. Cone Memorial and Wesley Long Community Hospitals. Their objective was to gain admission privileges for themselves and their patients.
On December 5, 1902, the Hall of History—predecessor of the North Carolina Museum of History—opened in a small room inside the old Agriculture Building in downtown Raleigh. “Curiosities” collected from across the state by former newspaperman Frederick Augustus Olds and historical artifacts from the State Museum (now the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences) filled the Hall’s walls and exhibit cases, constituting the core of its collection.
On December 4, 1994, Charlotte Smith, then a member of the UNC Tar Heels women’s basketball team, became the second collegiate women’s player ever to dunk. The first dunk had come nearly 10 years earlier when West Virginia University player Georgeann Wells accomplished the feat in a game against the University of Charleston.
(Image: African American Heritage Commission Chair Harry Harrison, Historical Commission Chair Jerry Cashion, Secretary of Cultural Resources Linda Carlisle, and N.C. Council of Women Executive Director Jill Dinwiddie unveil plaques commemorating the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.)
Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery.
On December 4, 1837, a branch of the United States Mint opened in Charlotte.
On December 3, 1820, Omar Ibn Said, one of the best-documented practicing enslaved Muslims in America, joined the First Presbyterian Church, in Fayetteville.
On December 3, 1679, a North Carolina law was passed directing local juries to investigate “felonies, witchcraft, enchantments, sorceries, and magick arts, among other crimes.”