"I lived through it," Roy S. Hieatt, my father, tells me. The year was 1959, and he was on a racially segregated bus from Biloxi, Mississippi to Corbin, Kentucky, his birthplace. A year later in Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and two others from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College sat in the whites only section of an F. W. Woolworth's diner. Their seemingly small initial protest against the hypocrisy of "separate but equal" was a brushfire that ignited a civil rights movement across the nation. Although Roy was on a bus headed … [Read more...]

Dayton History and Carillon Park are proud to announce the grand opening of the Heritage Center of Dayton Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship on August 20 from 9:30 am – 5:00 pm. It will mark the largest single public opening of new exhibits and attractions at Carillon Park since the Park’s debut in 1950. The Heritage Center will showcase nearly 1,000 rarely seen artifacts as well as the restored original Deeds Barn, renovated ARMCO steam locomotive, brightly painted Carousel of Dayton Innovation, the We Progress Through Change Theatre, Dayton made toys, plus the evolution of Huffy, NCR, … [Read more...]

In 1910, Orville and Wilbur Wright opened the first civilian aviation school in Montgomery, Alabama. The Wright brothers hoped to find a climate warmer and more hospitable to flying than their company base in Dayton, while leaders in Montgomery heralded the school as a way to rise above the shadow of the Civil War. Author and journalism professor Julie Hedgepeth Williams will speak on the short life of this flight school as seen mainly through the eyes of the Alabama press. Their reporting--and sometimes misreporting--“reflected the misconceptions, hopes, dreams, and fears about aviation in … [Read more...]