Friday / Weekend Open Lines

Friday, May 15th. Today is National Bike to Work Day, ending Bike to Work Week, but just about the middle of May’s National Bike Month. From coast-to-coast, cycling enthusiasts are expected to take part in a wide range of activities sponsored by environmental and civic groups, and police departments. About 18 percent of the population over age 16 does at least some bike riding during the year, with an estimated 9 million bike trips in the country every day. Even in the face of stubbornly high gas prices, more than three-quarters of American worker commute by driving alone. About 5 percent use public transportation, with women slightly more likely to do so. Nearly 3 percent of Americans walk to work; 0.8 percent of men and 0.3 percent of women commute by bicycle. Profile America is beginning its 19th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Saturday, May 16th. The first criminal case in the U.S. in which fingerprint evidence alone won conviction occurred this month in New York City in 1911. Burglary suspect Caesar Cella, alias Charles Crispi, was undone by prints identified by detective Joseph Faurot. Just a few months earlier, a murder conviction was obtained in Chicago with the aid of fingerprint evidence. The first known crime case solved by fingerprint matching occurred in 1898 in India, but the unique pattern of each person’s fingerprints had been known since ancient China. The Census Bureau’s national prisoner statistics program reported to the Justice Department that at the end of 2013, there were 1,574,700 inmates in U.S. federal and state prisons. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.

Sunday, May 17th. On this date in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of its most historic decisions, changing the social landscape of the nation. The justices ruled unanimously in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation of public schools based solely on race was unconstitutional. The ruling effectively did away with the “separate but equal” concept that had legitimized segregation for several decades. The case was argued on behalf of the NAACP by Thurgood Marshall, who later became the first African-American Supreme Court justice. In the early 1950s, about 14 percent of adult blacks were high school graduates. That figure is now over 83 percent. Then, barely over 2 percent had college diplomas; now the rate has risen to over 19 percent. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy from the American Community Survey at <www.census.gov>.