50 years ago in Expo history: The fair’s Pan-African Pavilion was expected to offer a ‘much-needed’ lesson

Julian Bond, civil rights leader and Georgia state legislator, toured Expo ’74’s Afro-American Pavilion (sometimes called the Pan-African Pavilion) and called it “very impressive.”

He said it presented a “much-needed” commentary on Black Americans, and was “particularly impressive if you consider there has never been anything like it before.” He said some previous exhibitions he had seen were more like lectures.

He said visitors to Expo ’74 would be on holiday and “need not be lectured.”

“The fair will tend to attract a lot of middle Americans,” said Bond, who was in Spokane to present talks at Gonzaga University and Spokane Falls Community College. “These are the kind of people who are badly in need of exposure to the history and contributions of Black people.”

From 100 years ago: A convicted Spokane bigamist, George Carr, aka Frank Clay, was the subject of a new manhunt after he kidnapped Rose Fahey, 21, in Seattle and threatened her with death. Spokane police were asked to be on the lookout for the two, since Spokane was his former hometown.

Carr/Clay had been sentenced to one-to-five years in Walla Walla in 1912 for having married several women in Spokane and the region. He had been out of prison for years. Now, Seattle police believed he was keeping Fahey at gunpoint after he forced her into his car.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1770: British explorer Captain James Cook sights Australia. He writes in his log book, “What we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the country green and woody, but the sea shore is all a white sand.”