There are 3 entries for this date: Pat Tillman, Vashti Cromwell McCollum and Francis Ellingwood Abbot.

Pat Tillman

On this date in 1976, Pat Tillman, millionaire NFL Arizona Cardinals player, was born to Mary and Patrick Tillman in San Jose, Calif., the first of three sons. Pat began walking by eight and a half months. He grew up in a household without a television, where he and his brother largely read or played outdoors. In his senior year in high school, he led his team to the Central Coast Section Division I Football Championship and earned co-Player of the Year honors for the Central Coast Section. He helped lead the Sun Devils at Arizona State University to the 1997 Rose Bowl after an undefeated regular season. He graduated summa cum laude from ASU's W.P. Carey School of Business in three and a half years, with numerous athletic honors. He soon became the Arizona Cardinal's starting safety and broke the franchise record for tackles in 2000 with 224. He also competed in marathons and the Ironman triathlon, and volunteered in youth groups and schools, while pursuing a master's degree in history. Pat married his high school sweetheart, Marie, in the spring of 2002. He soon made his stunning announcement that he was placing his NFL career on hold to become a U.S. Army Ranger with his brother, Kevin. They served tours in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2004. They were recipients of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 11th Annual ESPY Awards in 2003. Pat died from "friendly fire," as he tried to provide cover for fellow soldiers escaping from an ambush in a canyon in Afghanistan. It took the military five weeks to disclose the truth to his family: that Pat died from fratricide. When his antiwar views--he soon considered the war "illegal"--were documented by his family, they were attacked by right-wingers.

The May 3 memorial program featured a quote by Emerson, which had been found underlined in Tillman's belongings: "But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

In an article in October 2006 appearing in Truthdig, Richard Tillman wrote that the best way to honor his brother's birthday was by choices made on "the day After Pat's Birthday" (Nov. 7, 2006, Election Day). Tillman wrote: "Somehow suspension of habeas corpus is supposed to keep this country safe. Somehow torture is tolerated. Somehow lying is tolerated. Somehow reason is being discard for faith, dogma, and nonsense." D. 2004.

Vashti Cromwell McCollum

On this date in 1912, champion of the First Amendment Vashti McCollum, nee Cromwell, was born in Lyons, New York, the daughter of Arthur G. and Ruth Cromwell. Arthur was a noted atheist activist in New York State. Vashti was named by her mother for the biblical character who was "the first exponent of woman's rights." She studied at Cornell and the University of Illinois, but on the verge of graduation married John Paschal ("Pappy") McCollum in 1934. They had three children before she completed her degree in political science and law in 1944. The couple's idyllic life as a faculty family in Champaign, Illinois, changed radically when their oldest boy, Jim, entered the fourth grade, and was pressured to participate in religious instruction. When she withdrew Jim from the class, he was put in what amounted to detention. After filing suit to stop the unconstitutional instruction, Vashti was branded "that awful McCollum woman" and their family became community pariahs. Despite losing at both trial and appellate level, Vashti did not given up. On March 8, 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision delivered by Justice Hugo Black, vindicated Vashti and the constitution in a lovely 8-1 decision that is still precedent. Vashti wrote her classic account, One Woman's Fight, in 1951. She went on to serve two terms as president of the American Humanist Association, also receiving its "distinguished service" award. She earned her master's degree in mass communication as a returning student, and by the late 1950s became a world traveler, often going "surface," visiting nearly 150 countries and all seven continents, including Antarctica. She was an honorary officer of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and was featured in the Foundation's 1988 film, "Champions of the First Amendment." A nonagenarian, she had been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. D. 2006.

Francis Ellingwood Abbot

On this date in 1836, freethought writer Francis Ellingwood Abbot was born into a family of Transcendentalists. Educated at Harvard and Meadville Theological School, Abbot became a Unitarian minister. By 1868, he was forced to leave the pulpit because of his too-radical views. Abbot was taken to court for using a meeting house to form a more liberal society, and eventually was barred by the New Hampshire Supreme Court from ever preaching in any Unitarian Church in the state without the consent of all members. He moved to Toledo, Ohio, to found the Independent Society and its journal, the The [Free Religious] Index, initially described as a journal of "free religious inquiry" or "scientific theism." Abbot continued editing the very fine newspaper from Boston until 1880. (B.F. Underwood and and a co-editor replaced Abbot as joint editors of The Index and published it through 1886, when Underwood went on to found another great freethought journal of record, The Open Court in Chicago.) Abbot was a noted freethought lecturer who also wrote Impeachment of Christianity in 1872. He became the first president of the American National Liberal League in 1877. He parted company with many fellow Liberals by preferring to push for the amendment of the Comstock Law, rather than its complete repeal, after D.M. Bennett was arrested by Anthony Comstock in Syracuse in 1878. Abbot, known as a dedicated family man, died at his wife's gravesite on the tenth anniversary of her death. D. 1903.