Born Black in the segregated South in 1934, Birmingham native Shelley Stewart endured many setbacks in his life. He was five years old when he watched his alcoholic father attack and kill his mother with an axe. Afterward, Stewart and his younger brothers were left to fend for themselves until relatives took them into their homes. But the relatives turned out to be cruel themselves, subjecting the children to both physical abuse and psychological trauma. Stewart, however, survived and overcame the racism around him to eventually launch a successful career in radio. He became a popular radio talk show host and DJ, and, eventually, a station owner. He also founded a public relations firm and earned many awards and accolades. In Mattie C.’s Boy, biographer Don Keith tells the story of Stewart’s inspiring journey and amazing rise from a life of poverty and tragedy to one of triumph and hope. (New South Books)

Shelley Stewart’s long and arduous climb to success began at age five. That is the year he witnessed his mother’s murder at the hands of his alcoholic father. Family members shuffled young Shelley from house to house, but when he could no longer stand living with an abusive relative, he ran away at age six. Stewart endured homelessness, racial discrimination and depression, but he overcame those early hardships years later when he found his calling in radio. While working in Birmingham, the popular DJ became known as “Shelley the Playboy.” He also earned the unofficial title as “the voice of the civil rights movement” in the 1960s. During those years he made a practice of playing certain songs and repeating phrases on the air as secret codes that told teen activists where to meet up for protest demonstrations and rallies. In his memoir, The Road South, Stewart recounts his remarkable life, from child abuse survivor to celebrity radio host, entrepreneur and community leader.

 (Grand Central Publishing)

When the Missouri Territory first applied for statehood in 1818, it was clear that many in the territory wanted to allow slavery in the new state. Part of the more than 800,000 square miles bought from France in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Missouri was known as the Louisiana Territory until 1812, when it was renamed to avoid confusion with the newly admitted state of Louisiana.

Missouri’s bid to become the first state west of the Mississippi River—and to allow slavery within its borders—set off a bitter debate in a Congress that was, like the nation itself, already divided into pro- and anti-slavery factions.

During the debate, Rep. James Tallmadge of New York proposed an amendment to the statehood bill that would have eventually ended slavery in Missouri and set free the existing enslaved workers living there. The amended bill passed narrowly in the House of Representatives, where Northerners held a slight edge. But in the Senate, where free and slave states had exactly the same number of senators, the pro-slavery faction managed to strike out Tallmadge’s amendment, and the House refused to pass the bill without it.

After this stalemate, Missouri renewed its application for statehood in late 1819. This time, Speaker of the House Henry Clay proposed that Congress admit Missouri to the Union as a state that allowed slavery, but at the same time admit Maine (which at the time was part of Massachusetts) as a free state.

In February 1820, the Senate added a second part to the joint statehood bill: With the exception of Missouri, slavery would be banned in all of the former Louisiana Purchase lands north of the 36º 30’ latitude, which ran along Missouri’s southern border.

In March 3, 1820, the House passed the Senate version of the bill, and President James Monroe signed it into law four days later. The following month, the former President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that the “Missouri question...like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.”

Though the Missouri Compromise managed to keep the peace at the time, it failed to resolve the pressing question of slavery and its place in the nation’s future. Pro-slavery citizens who opposed the Missouri Compromise did so because it set a precedent for Congress to make laws concerning slavery, while abolitionists disliked the law because it meant slavery was expanding into new territory.

The Missouri Compromise would remain in force for just over 30 years before it was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that the compromise was unconstitutional, setting the stage for the Civil War.

​Source

​History.com - Missouri Compromise