May 22

By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion

100 Years ago – 1924

Josephus Daniels, statesman, orator journalist and lecturer, spoke at the Farmers Warehouse. He was Secretary of the Navy during the Wilson administration. Admission was $1. The subject was “Passing the Buck.” An audience of about 250 was called “disappointingly small” by the Friday, May 23, edition of The Henry Bulletin.

75 years ago – 1949

It was announced that a second organization (the NAACP was the first) has taken an interest in the seven black Martinsville men who were sentenced to die in the electric chair after being convicted of criminally assaulting a white woman [now referred to as the Martinsville Seven). Attorney Emmanuel H. Block had been reviewing the case and told people in Martinsville that he was working on behalf of the Civil Rights Congress to represent Francis DeSales Grayson, the oldest of the seven men.

1960

Albert Harris High School hosted An Evening of Music, featuring Moses L. Taylor, assistant director of bands and woodwind instructor at A&T College in Greensboro and former principal saxophonist with the Michigan Symphony, and Priscilla Hairston, soprano. The AHHS band and choruses also performed several numbers and combined for Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus for the finale.

A Roanoke Business College student sustained throat lacerations requiring several stitches in a Go-Kart accident at the new Fieldale Kart Track after he lost control of the kart on a turn and was thrown into the wire surrounding the track.

50 years ago – 1974

The Henry County Board of Supervisors made 23 changes to the highly contested proposed subdivision ordinance and scheduled a vote on it for the next week. Adoption of the changes came after a 5-hour talk between them and about 50 citizens. One of the major changes was about giving land to family. An earlier recommended change was to allow parents to give a lot to each son and daughter without it coming under the ordinance. The change would include also the wife, husband, mother, father, stepchildren, stepparents, bother, sister and grandchildren.

25 years ago – 1999

Wanda Jones and others from New Jerusalem Apostle Church on Blue Knob Road brought lunch to the nurses at Stanleytown Health Care Center, Blue Ridge Rehab Center, Beverly Healthcare and in 5 West, the hospice area of Memorial Hospital. Jones was inspired to organize that after appreciating how her mother was cared for at Blue Ridge.

— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.