Capital City Free Press

08/08/2025

https://capcityfreepress.blogspot.com/2025/08/thank-you.html

The Capital City Free Press has ceased publication as of August 8, 2025. We would like to thank everyone for 24 extraordinary years! We de...

08/08/2025

The ruling deems the government's termination of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities "unlawful" and allows a lawsuit brought by humanities groups to move forward.

07/08/2025

The Department of Justice hired a former Jan. 6 defendant who was caught on tape urging rioters to "kill" police. The department calls him a "valued member" of the administration.

07/08/2025

https://capcityfreepress.blogspot.com/2025/08/teaching-our-children-to-be-better-than.html

Do parents have moral standing to impose standards on their children that they themselves did not follow when they were kids? Is it ever e...

07/08/2025

On August 7, 1997, the Space Shuttle Discovery launched with Alabama astronaut Jan Davis onboard as the payload commander. This photograph shows Davis on the Discovery's flight deck, during her third and final mission. While in space, she used the shuttle's robotic arm to deploy and retrieve a satellite developed jointly by Germany and the United States to study Earth's middle atmosphere. Davis graduated from Huntsville High School in 1971, and then earned a bachelor of science degree in applied biology in 1975 from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. She earned a second bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Auburn University, and later a master's degree and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Davis joined NASA in 1979 as an aerospace engineer at the Marshall Space Flight Center. She qualified as an astronaut in June 1987. As an astronaut she logged more than 673 hours and 11 million miles in space and orbited the earth 445 times on three Space Shuttle flights, one aboard the Endeavor and two on the Discovery, in the 1990s. After her final flight, Davis became the director of the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS), Independent Assurance Office for the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. She returned to the Marshall Space Flight Center, in 1999, as director of the Flight Projects Directorate, which managed the International Space Station (ISS) Payload Operations Center, ISS hardware, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Program. In 2001, she was inducted into both the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame and the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 2002. Davis retired from NASA in 2005. (Photograph courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Click here to read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/jan-davis/

07/08/2025

Abbeville, Alabama is a charming small town that's filled with many historic places that'll take you back in time.

06/08/2025

https://capcityfreepress.blogspot.com/2025/08/yosemite-embodies-long-war-over-us.html

The Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service’s budget and staffing have raised concerns among park advocates and the pub...

06/08/2025

The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum marks the 400th anniversary of the Yamaki Pine, an ancient tree that survived the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and has since become a symbol of peace.

06/08/2025

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) becoming law. After decades of fighting discriminatory and unfair voting laws and practices, the VRA effectively enforced voting rights for all U.S. citizens. Voter registration for minority groups, particularly Black Americans, skyrocketed following the passage of the VRA.

Voting rights have expanded throughout the country’s history. In the beginning, with few exceptions, White males who owned a certain amount of property could vote. By the mid-1850s, the property ownership qualification had been erased, but virtually only White males could vote. After the Civil War, voting rights were extended to U.S. citizens regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” with the 15th Amendment in 1870. In 1920, the 19th Amendment allowed for every U.S. citizen of voting age to vote regardless of s*x. Despite this history, many states, particularly in the Deep South, had restrictions on who could vote.

These restrictions included poll taxes, literacy tests, and even follow-up questions from voting registrars designed to discourage voter registration of “undesirable” people, specifically targeting Black Americans. After the events of Bloody Sunday and the Selma to Montgomery marches, many across the country were encouraged to support the 1965 Voting Rights Act working its way through the legislative branch. Before signing the VRA, President Lyndon B. Johnson called it, “one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom.”

Today, the 1965 Voting Rights Act lies dormant following the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. The 5-4 decision ruled that Section 4(b) of the VRA was unconstitutional, which determined whether voting jurisdictions covered in the VRA required federal preclearance for any new voting laws or practices. Proponents of the VRA have raised concerns voting restrictions previously outlawed could return or new restrictions would be put in place. Even with these concerns, the impact of the VRA and history of the expansion of voting rights in the United States should be remembered and celebrated.

Photo courtesy of the LBJ Library.

06/08/2025

Helen Adams Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama and happens to be one of the state's most famous natives.

05/08/2025

A delicious dinner idea that everyone will love!

Beautiful Eats & Things

Recipe ➡️ https://alabamanewscenter.com/2025/08/02/recipe-sweet-spicy-ginger-sesame-meatballs/

05/08/2025

The Battle of Mobile Bay, which was the last major naval engagement of the Civil War, began on the morning of August 5, 1864. The city of Mobile was a strategically significant rail center and port, and Mobile Bay was one of the most well-defended of southern ports. Mobile Bay's main entrance was flanked by Fort Morgan on Mobile Point and Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island, both defended by artillery batteries of 47 and 16 guns, respectively. In addition, the channel was protected with a triple line of mines, commonly called torpedoes at the time, that were suspended below the surface and could sink or cripple any ship that hit one of them. n 1864, it remained the last major Confederate port not taken by federal forces. U.S. military commanders felt an infantry assault against the city would be disastrous, due to a triple line of entrenchments (earthen fortifications to protect the position and soldiers against enemy fire), and made plans to concentrate on capturing the bay first. The battle began when Confederate guns from Fort Morgan opened fire on the U.S. Navy's advancing fleet. Within a few hours the federal naval force had defeated the those of the Confederacy. Fort Gaines was captured by the United States on August 8, and on August 23, the commander of Fort Morgan surrendered. Image shows the 1886 painting, Battle of Mobile Bay ... Passing Fort Morgan and the Torpedoes, by J. O. Davidson. (Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center) Click here to read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/battle-of-mobile-bay/