Jim Kershner’s This Day in History

From our archives, 100 years ago

A Lapwai, Idaho, correspondent reported that the Nez Perce Tribe was gaining in numbers and prosperity.

The story reported that the tribal census increased by 139 over the last five years, a striking figure considering that the numbers had been falling for many years before that.

The story also reported increases in grain production and stock raising. One family was “supplying the town with blackberries grown in their home orchard.”

From the movie beat: “The Birth of a Nation” was continuing for another sold-out week at the Clemmer Theater, and a letter to the editor presented the reasons why Spokane’s black community objected to the movie. 

Letter writer E.L. Robinson said that “the entire Negro race (was) slandered and made to appear beastly, vicious and irredeemable.” He also said the story was intended to “create a feeling of abhorrence for colored men in the hearts of white people, especially white women, in order to stop intermarriage.”

The decision to protest the movie was “made only after a calm and careful study of the effect (the movie) would produce and was intended to produce.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1965: Rioting and looting that claimed 34 lives broke out in the predominantly black Watts section of Los Angeles.