Bob Booker is a columnist with the News Sentinel.
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Robert Booker: Mechanicsville had to push for annexation
Published 6/4/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 1 comment
Yesterday marked the 131st anniversary of when the people of Mechanicsville voted to be annexed into the city of Knoxville. That vote of June 3, 1882, was the second time the citizens of that area had voted. Less than four ...
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Robert Booker: Spotlight on Knoxville College's McMillan Chapel again
Updated 5/28/2013 at 12:52 p.m. 0 comments
McMillan Chapel, the church at Knoxville College, will celebrate its centennial with a program reminiscent of the days when it was the only facility on campus that could host musical acts and noted speakers. At 6:30 p.m. June 9, the ...
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Robert Booker: Aftermath of Korean conflict is still felt
Published 5/7/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 5 comments
When President Harry Truman committed American troops to fight in Korea on June 27, 1950, I was a 10th-grader washing dishes at Mother’s Cafe in Happy Holler. I had never heard of the place and was not affected by that ...
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Robert Booker: Luminaries celebrated 15th Amendment
Published 4/30/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 0 comments
The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave black men the right to vote, was ratified Feb. 3, 1870. Knoxville’s black community turned out in large numbers to celebrate the occasion 143 years ago on April 20, 1870, with ...
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Robert Booker: YMCA has a long history in Knoxville
Published 4/23/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 0 comments
An old building on West Depot Avenue that always caught my attention was the Railroad YMCA. During the summer days of my teen years, I often walked from my house on Georgia Street to my aunt’s apartment in Doll Flats ...
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Robert Booker: Blacks instrumental in party's founding
Published 4/16/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 4 comments
One of my columns last November discussed how blacks began their voting opportunities in 1867 by supporting the Republican Party. By the presidential election of 1936, most blacks were voting for the Democratic Party. I find it most interesting how ...
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Robert Booker: Bethel can trace its history back to 1883
Published 4/9/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 0 comments
As a student of history, I am constantly looking for information of interest and importance. Since 1980 I have had a special interest in the establishment of black churches in our city and have done columns on several of them ...
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Robert Booker: Black schools were a source of pride
Published 4/2/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 6 comments
I made my first public statement in early 1953, when I was a 17-year-old senior at Austin High School, as editor of the school newspaper, “The Page,” that I had recently created.
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Robert Booker: Folk, church songs tell of black history
Published 3/26/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 3 comments
A few months ago I received a book, “Folk Songs of the American Negro,” published in 1907 by Fisk University Press. Compiled by John W. Work and Frederick J. Work, it was sold by H.A. French at 408 Church St. ...
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Robert Booker: Patti Page waltzed throughout charts
Published 3/19/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 0 comments
A few days after I finished my recent column on Elvis Presley, Patti Page died. While she live to be 85, Elvis died at a young 42. Page had her first hit record, “Confess,” in 1948, while Presley entered the ...
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Robert Booker: Elvis Presley's music aided race relations
Published 3/12/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 3 comments
When I first heard Elvis Presley on the radio in the early 1950s, I thought he was black. His voice and the music he chose pointed to that ethnicity. I believed that until I saw a picture of the white ...
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Robert Booker: Papers tell story of Oak Ridge, bombs
Published 3/5/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 5 comments
A few months ago I spoke to the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge. I used old newspaper clippings and excerpts from books on the Atomic City to recall how it had been established and how the people who lived in ...
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Robert Booker: Frederick Douglass made first visit to Knox in 1881
Published 2/26/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 7 comments
Frederick Douglass, the former slave, abolitionist and former marshal of the District of Columbia, spoke in Knoxville Nov. 21, 1881, at Staub’s Opera House for the first of his two visits to this city. He arrived by train the day ...
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Robert Booker: Taking the pulse of presidents' health
Published 2/19/2013 at 3:06 a.m. 4 comments
Yesterday was Presidents Day according to some calendars, but it was, in fact, George Washington’s birthday. It is a federal holiday that is observed the third Monday in February to honor our first president. Many people believe that the day ...
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Robert Booker: Lincoln's life is an inspiration for all
Published 2/12/2013 at 3:00 a.m. 7 comments
During my grades school years, one of the American heroes we heard about most was President Abraham Lincoln.
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