August 11 · This Day in America
Cindy Campbell wants back-to-school money, so she rents the rec room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue for twenty-five dollars and writes the invitations by hand. Her brother Clive — DJ Kool Herc — works the turntables. That night he does something simple and seismic: instead of playing a record through, he runs two copies of the same song and loops just the break, the drum-heavy stretch where the crowd goes hardest, stitching one into the next so the beat never stops. Dancers fill that gap. Voices start riding the rhythm. From a single August party in the South Bronx — a borough then written off as burning and broke — comes a sound that would become the most influential music on Earth. Congress later named this day Hip Hop Celebration Day. It started with a girl who needed school clothes and a brother who would not let the groove end.
Source: www.npr.org
Also on this day · 1965
A traffic stop on a hot night in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles flares into six days of fire, after years of segregated housing, jobs, and policing went unanswered. Thirty-four people die; thousands are arrested. A presidential commission later names the causes plainly. The Voting Rights Act had been law for less than a week. The distance between a right written down and a life actually lived was on fire for everyone to see.
Source: www.history.com