1957: Ku Klux Klansmen accuse Alabama grocery-chain truck driver Willie Edwards, 25, of having made remarks to a white woman and force him at pistol point to jump to his death from the Tyler Goodwin Bridge into the Alabama River. It was Edwards's first day on the truck route.

1985: Philadelphia police try to dislodge members of MOVE, an organization of armed blacks They firebomb a house from the air on May 13 and the fire spreads to adjacent houses, killing 11 and leaving 200 homeless.

Today: A black woman, previously on public assistance, organizes a million woman rally in Philadelphia. This variant on the 1996 million-man march on Washington D.C. draws more than one million black women in a show of strength and solidarity.

1957: The Motown Corporation is founded in Detroit, Michigan, by entrepreneur Barry Gordy Jr, 30, who invests $700 to start a recording company whose "Motown Sound" will figure...