Today in history

August 28, 1955: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American boy, allegedly whistles at the wife of a white grocer, whose store Till had stopped in to buy some candy, in Money, MS. That night, Till is dragged from his home, beaten and shot. His body was tied to a heavy piece of metal with barbed wire and dropped in a river. Three days later his body was found. His face was too distorted from the beating and he could only be identified by a ring he wore.

August 28, 1963: Hundreds of thousands of Americans descend on Washington, D.C., for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march is organized by a coalition of religious, civil rights, and labor organizations. In front of at least 200,000 people, a man named Martin Luther King, Jr. makes a speech about his dreams of equality and peace and freedom. This man was an ordained minister and held a Ph.D. in theology and had already had his house bombed by white supremacists, been stabbed in the chest, been repeatedly arrested, and had his phone tapped by the FBI. In October 1964 he would become the youngest person to ever be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

August 28, 2010: Thousands of Americans descend on Washington, D.C. for the "Restoring Honor" march. The march is led primarily by Glenn Beck, who has stated his goal as to "reclaim the Civil Rights movement." Beck is a talk-show host with both a nationally-syndicated radio show and a TV show on Fox News; in the past year he made an estimated $32 million dollars from his shows, speaking engagements, and profits from several books. After graduating high school, Beck got into radio, initially as a morning DJ. His higher education consists of one class at Yale University. He holds an honorary doctorate from Liberty University, an Evangelical Christian university founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell.

One of these things is not like the others, I think.