May 3 Birthday
On May 3, 1948, the Supreme Court decided Shelley v. Kraemer, holding that courts could not enforce racially restrictive covenants in property deeds. The Shelleys, a Black family, had bought a house in St. Louis. The property had a covenant prohibiting sale to "people of the Negro or Mongolian Race." The case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that while private parties could discriminate, government enforcement of discrimination violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision did not ban discrimination in housing — it made covenants unenforceable. The Fair Housing Act, which actually banned housing discrimination, would not pass for another twenty years. But Shelley was the beginning of the end of legally enforced segregation in housing. Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Gone with the Wind on this day in 1937. The novel, published in 1936, sold one million copies in six months. Mitchell had written it over ten years while recovering from an ankle injury. She had no intention of publishing it until an editor visited and insisted. The novel's depiction of the Civil War South — heroic plantation owners, loyal happy slaves, savage Yankees — shaped how millions of Americans understood the war. Mitchell was hit by a car in Atlanta in 1949 and died five days later. She was forty-eight. Columbus sighted Jamaica on May 3, 1494, during his second voyage. He called it Santiago, but the indigenous Taíno name, Xaymaca ("land of wood and water"), persisted. The Spanish enslaved the Taíno and imported African slaves to work sugar plantations. Jamaica was a British colony from 1655 to 1962. It is the third-largest island in the Caribbean and has produced Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, and the fastest sprinters in the world. James Brown, born this day in 1933, was born in a one-room shack with no electricity. He was raised by an aunt in a brothel, dropped out of school, and was convicted of armed robbery at sixteen. He went to prison, joined a gospel group, and became the Godfather of Soul. "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (1965) is considered the first funk record. He performed for troops in Vietnam and refused to perform in segregated venues. He died on Christmas Day, 2006. People born on May 3 fall under the zodiac sign of Taurus. The birthstone is Emerald and the birth flower is Lily of the Valley. Historical events on May 3 include 1494: Christopher Columbus first sights the island of Jamaica, 1937: Margaret Mitchell wins Pulitzer Prize for Gone with the Wind, 1948: Supreme Court decides Shelley v. Kraemer, banning racially restrictive housing covenants. Famous people born on May 3 include Bing Crosby (1903), Pete Seeger (1919), James Brown (1933).