It’s time, once again, to turn back the calendar and revisit the news of The Baldwin Times of yesteryear.

This week in 1896, our Victorian predecessors were gearing up to head to the polls within a few days of reading The Times. The publication’s founder and then editor, Abner J. Smith, helped Baldwin County residents ready for the election with a front-page guide to voting. According to the instructions, voters were to mark their selection with an “X” within five minutes of stepping into a voting booth alone.

“If you cannot read or write, you may have the assistance of an inspector to be selected by you or of the person appointed for that purpose by the inspectors,” the article stated.

Along with a voting guide, the weathered publication also included some last-minute digs at those seeking public offices.

“Over half of the candidates are bald headed,” Smith quipped. “It remains to be seen whether this is a good or bad year on the bald heads.”

An additional article in the 19th century newspaper is a reminder that the struggle for racial equality is by no means anything new. The article is a published speech that Booker T. Washington, renowned orator, author, educator and civil rights activist, presented earlier in the week. In that speech, Washington said each region of the country should be treated equally, which would be a nationwide benefit. He also warned that repression of the South, which had been ongoing since the Civil War, would have nationwide negative effects.

“When the South is poor, you are poor,” Washington said. “When the South is ignorant, you are ignorant. When the South commits crime, you commit crime.”

The slave-born Virginia native next said he had no intention of being part of dissention, himself.

“I propose that no man shall drag me down by making me hate him,” Washington said. “No one can hate or oppress another without itself being narrowed or hated.”

He concluded the speech with a challenge for national unity.

“The time has come, it seems to me, when in this matter, we should rise above party or race or color or sectionalism,” Washington said this week in 1896.

This issue of The Times contained less weighty issues, as well. An example is a report from Bay Minette of a man visiting his girlfriend and her family, who got his head caught in the rocking chair.

“It took the head of the family and three of the young ladies to extricate him from the awkward position,” corresspondent “H—x” wrote.

As with today, summer sales were included in the aged newspaper. According to an advertisement, Stuart and Co., in Mobile offered the following discounts: boys knee pants for 25 cents a pair, black umbrellas for 50 cents, dresden parasols for $1.25, ladies’ shirt waits for 50 cents and gents’ white shirts for 25 cents.

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s it for this edition. Check back next week to peruse for news from The Baldwin Times of yesteryear.