Milestones: February 9, 2024

February 9, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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NEW MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITUTION — MASSACHUSETTS, ON FEB. 9, 1780, GRANTED AFRICAN AMERICANS THE RIGHT TO VOTE. Capt. Paul Cuffe and six other African American residents of Massachusetts petitioned the state legislature for the right to vote. They had earlier adopted the slogan of the white colonists, “No taxation without representation,” and refused to pay taxes. According to the Commonwealth’s government and history page, Massachusetts slaves were considered both as property and as persons before the law. This allowed slaves to initiate lawsuits against their masters for their freedom, and by 1780, nearly 30 Black slaves had done so. Massachusetts’ legislature had drafted a constitution in 1778 that would have enshrined slavery as a right. However, voters rejected that. The constitution drafted in 1780 was starkly different in that it gave Blacks the right to vote.

Mass.gov points out that “the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recognized the supremacy of the Massachusetts Constitution,” which had been “conceived and ratified by a unique and democratic process.” It was ratified six years before the U.S. Constitution and five years before Massachusetts was designated as a Commonwealth.

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CONGRESS DECIDED 1824 PRESIDENTIAL RACE — THE U.S. CONGRESS ON FEB. 9, 1825, DECIDED THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1824 because no candidate had received a majority of electoral votes. At the time, a presidential candidate needed at least 131 electoral votes, just over half of the 261 total, to win. The vote count on Dec. 1, 1824, revealed that Andrew Jackson of Tennessee won 99 electoral and 153,544 popular votes; John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts received 84 electoral and 108,740 popular votes; Secretary of State William H. Crawford, who had suffered a stroke before the election, received 41 electoral votes; and Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky won 37 electoral votes. The 12th Amendment stipulated that the House of Representatives decides the election based on the top three candidates. The House of Representatives voted to elect John Quincy Adams (son of second president and Founding Father John Adams) even though he had fewer electoral votes than Jackson. Henry Clay, now out of the running, endorsed Adams.

The election did have one precedent in that the popular vote was counted for the first time in U.S. history, even though it did not factor into the outcome.

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SATCHEL PAIGE MAKES HALL OF FAME — PITCHER LEROY “SATCHEL” PAIGE BECAME ONE OF THE FIRST NEGRO LEAGUE VETERANS TO BE NOMINATED FOR THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME, on Feb. 9, 1971. Paige had started with the Negro League, as professional baseball was segregated when he started playing during the 1920s. He pitched with the Negro League teams for most of his career but then was able to join the Major League, signing with the then-named Cleveland Indians. He thus became baseball’s oldest rookie at age 42. In his first year, Paige helped the Cleveland Indians, now named the Guardians, win the pennant. Paige later played for the St. Louis Browns and Kansas City A’s. Although he retired in 1953, he returned 12 years later to pitch three innings for the Kansas City A’s. At the time, he was 59 years old, the oldest player in the Major League.

Paige earned his nickname, Satchel, as a boy when he earned money carrying passengers’ bags at train stations.

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NASA DOCTOR HELPED ASTRONAUTS ADAPT TO SPACE — NASA ASTRONAUT BERNARD HARRIS BECOMES THE FIRST BLACK MAN TO WALK IN SPACE, ON Feb. 9, 1995, when he stepped out of the shuttle Discovery. He was known for his work on an unusual collaboration between otherwise-rivals United States and Russia in space exploration following the collapse of the Soviet Union a few years earlier. Harris had earned his medical degree and completed a residency at the Mayo Clinic before joining NASA as a flight surgeon. As a NASA physician, Harris researched the impact of space flight on human bone, and he designed medical devices to help astronauts’ bodies adapt.

Harris’ 1995 mission — STS-63, nicknamed the “near Mir” mission — was an early example of American-Russian cooperation after the fall of the Soviet Union. After decades of rivalry during the Cold War space race, the two world powers began to collaborate on space exploration and, eventually, created the International Space Station, which reached orbit in 1998.

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NORMANDIE OCEAN LINER SINKS — THE NORMANDIE, FRANCE’S LARGEST AND MOST LUXURIOUS OCEAN LINER, CAUGHT FIRE ON FEB. 9, 1942, while being converted for military use. Built in 1931, the Normandie was the first to comply with the guidelines from the 1929 Convention for Safety of Life at Sea. Launched in 1932, the Normandie made its first transatlantic crossing in 1935; however, in 1937, she was reconfigured, and, in the process, the ship’s internal firefighting system and water pumps were deactivated. The fire broke out within New York’s nautical jurisdiction, and the FDNY brought its ground units and boats to help fight the blaze. Even though they put out the fire, the extensive damage to the Normandie caused her to capsize and sink.

Later, the Normandie’s doors got a new home and a new chance to display their magnificence. The newly-founded Our Lady of Lebanon Church in Brooklyn Heights, outbidding many others, purchased the doors for $1,025, although they have been valued up to $15,000.

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CHURCH REDEEMS NORMANDIE’S DOORS — THE NORMANDIE’S SINKING AND OUR LADY OF LEBANON’S LATER AQUIRING HER DOORS MAY HAVE BEEN PREDESTINED. THE CHURCH WAS FOUNDED ON FEB. 9, 1944, ON THE FEAST DAY OF ST. MARON, exactly two years after the Normandie fire. Father Mansour Stephen (the nephew of Father Khairallah Stephen) had signed a contract two months earlier to purchase the former Church of the Pilgrims (Congregational) at the southeast corner of Henry Street and Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights for $70,000. The Maronites finally got to take possession of the former Church of the Pilgrims at Henry and Remsen Streets. As part of the work undertaken to renovate the Church, Father Stephen purchased a pair of bronze doors from the Normandie, a famed French luxury liner, with 10 great medallions, which had to be rearranged because the doors did not fit the church openings.

Nine of the medallions show Norman cities, and one shows a sister ship, the Ile de France.

See previous milestones, here.