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Article: Momentous anniversaries.(From the General Editor's Desk)(birth anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin)(Editorial)
- Article from:
- Marg, A Magazine of the Arts
- Article date:
- June 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Marg Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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2009 is turning out to be a remarkable year for anniversaries. It began in January with bell-ringing at Cambridge (UK) to celebrate the 800th year of the University's foundation by a bunch of renegade Oxonians, about which more later.
On February 12 Americans observed the 200th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-61); a couple of weeks after, in one of those extraordinary coincidences, the first man of African-American descent was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. I came to the States in the summer of 1964--the year of the passage of the Civil Rights Bill--and witnessed firsthand the racial prejudice that prevailed in ...