In honor of the 59th Annual Grammy Awards this past weekend, we’re throwing it back to 1971 when the Father of Chicago Blues, Muddy Waters, won his first Grammy for his album They Call Me Muddy Waters.

Muddy Waters was born on April 4, 1913, in Issaquena County, Mississippi as McKinley Morganfield. He was raised by his grandmother after his mother’s death in 1918. His grandmother nicknamed him Muddy Waters because he frequently played in a muddy creek.

Muddy Waters began playing guitar at the age of 17. In 1940, he visited St. Louis and later joined the Silas Green tent show as a harmonica player and singer.
In 1943, Waters moved to Chicago where he worked in a paper mill. Soon thereafter, he began playing guitar at South Side clubs. He signed with Aristocrat Records in 1946 and recorded several singles. He recorded his first hit single, “Rollin’ Stone,” in 1950.

Muddy Waters helped pioneer the Chicago blues style, which earned him the nickname of the Father of Chicago Blues.

Muddy Waters went on to record a number of blues classics including “Honey Bee” in 1951, “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” in 1954, “I’m Ready” in 1954 and “Mannish Boy” in 1955. In the 1960s he performed at concerts and festivals across the country and recorded several albums.

Waters made three of his best-selling albums in the late 1970s with producer and guitarist Johnny Winters. They performed together throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Muddy Waters won his first Grammy for They Call Me Muddy Waters in 1971. He won the following year for The London Muddy Waters Session and at the awards ceremonies in 1975, 1978, 1979 and 1980.

Muddy Waters’s last public performance was in 1982. He died the following year of a heart attack in his home in Westmont, Illinois.

Muddy Waters was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992.

On Feb. 8, 1910, Chicago publishing tycoon William D. Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America. Boyce had earned his fortune at the Chicago Ledger, where he employed the first newspaper boys.

Boyce came across scouting while in London in 1909. After getting lost in the London fog, Boyce was aided by a young British Boy Scout. Once the boy had led him to his destination, Boyce offered to tip the boy but the boy refused. The boy stated that he was a Scout and could not accept a tip for Good Turns. Boyce was impressed and set out to learn more about scouting.

Boyce gathered scouting literature from the founder of the British Boy Scouts, Lord Robert Baden-Powell. Baden-Powell decided to develop the British Boy Scouts after being stationed in India with the Army, where he discovered that his troops did not possess basic means of survival outdoors or first aid skills.

Once Boyce returned from London, he set about founding the Boy Scouts of America.

There were two other groups in the United States that had sought to train boys in scouting. After the Boy Scouts were incorporated, the leaders of those groups joined the leadership of the Boy Scouts of America.

Boyce donated $4,000 to the Boy Scouts of America and partnered with groups like the YMCA to recruit members. The purpose of the Boy Scouts was “to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in Scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred virtues, using the methods which are in common use by Boy Scouts.”

The Boy Scouts of America grew quickly. In 1910 there were 2,000 Boy Scouts and today there are millions.

In 1930, the Boy Scouts of America formally launched Cub Scouting. Over 5,000 boys registered within the first year. Cub Scouts would meet weekly to play games and make crafts in a member’s home. This differed from programs in other countries because of the American focus on activities in the home and neighborhood.

Today there are more than 2.4 million participants in the Boy Scouts of America making it the largest scouting organization in the United States.

On Feb. 1, 1865, Illinois became the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, which officially ended slavery and involuntary servitude. Ratifying the 13th Amendment was one of President Lincoln’s top priorities. Unfortunately, he was not alive to see the amendment become law. 

In order to propose a constitutional amendment, both the House and the Senate have to approve a resolution to amend the Constitution by a two-thirds majority. Then the proposal goes to the state legislatures to ratify. In order for an amendment to become law, three-fourths of the state legislatures must approve it.

The amendment was not formally adopted until Dec. 6, 1865, when Georgia became the 27th of 36 states to ratify the amendment. Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865.

The amendment was drafted by Senator Lyman Trumbull, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, in Alton. Senator Trumbull was an old friend of President Lincoln.

The 13th Amendment wasn’t the first step toward ending slavery. President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, freeing slaves across the South. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order and was issued during the Civil War as a war measure to suppress rebellion in non-Union states. The 13th Amendment solidified freedom from slavery and indentured servitude once the Civil War ended.

Abraham Lincoln gave a speech titled “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions” to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield on Jan. 27, 1838. Lincoln talked about the dangers of slavery in the United States because its existence could corrupt the federal government.

During this time, Lincoln was unmarried and in his late 20s serving as a novice lawyer and a state representative. Historians believe the speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln was inspired by an event that roused and divided the nation on the topic of slavery. In the fall of 1837, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist newspaper editor, was murdered by a pro-slavery mob while trying to defend himself and his printing press near Alton. The arguments for and against slavery were being made in the time of Lincoln, and he was far from shy when it came to expressing his misgivings of its continuance in the United States.

In this speech, he warned against mob behavior and urged Americans to keep their faith in law. He believed that the injuries of slavery could not be contained within select states.