September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes

September 29, 1910: the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes formed. A year later, it merged with other groups to form the National Urban League “to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.” [Theodore Roosevelt site article] (see Dec 5)

Jim Crow

September 29, 1915: the Jim Crow racial segregation laws enacted and enforced in the American South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries enforced the strict boundaries of a legalized racial caste system and worked to restore and maintain white supremacy in the region. Even after the Civil War and Reconstruction amendments had ended slavery and declared black people to be citizens with civil rights and the power to vote, many Southern state and local lawmakers passed laws forbidding blacks and whites from playing checkers or pool together, entering a circus through the same entrance, or being buried in the same cemetery.

In some instances, these laws interfered with the provision of very important services, including education and health care. On September 29, 1915, the Alabama legislature passed a law forbidding any “white female nurse” from treating a black male patient in any public or private medical facility. Punishment for violation of the law included a fine of $10-$200 and up to six months incarceration or hard labor. An outgrowth of the long-held Southern fear that white women were at risk of attack and assault whenever in the presence of black men, similar action was taken in Georgia in 1911. (see Dec 4)

Houston Revolt (August 23, 1917)

September 29, 1918: five more soldiers hung. (next BH, see February – August 1919; RR, see May 10 – 11, 1919; next HR, see November 13, 2023)

Barratry

September 29, 1956: in an attempt to restrict the activities of the NAACP, Virginia passed a set of laws against barratry, champertry, and maintenance. Barratry is defined as “stirring up” litigation by encouraging people to sue when they might not have done so on their own.

The laws were a blatant attempt to prevent the NAACP from pursuing civil rights cases in the state.

School Desegregation

September 29, 1956: Virginia passed a School Placement Law similar to the one passed by North Carolina on March, 30, 1955. Both laws were intended to bypass the Brown decision of 1954. (BH, Oct 20 ; next SD, see Dec 4; Virginia, see April 2, 1963)

James H Meredith

September 29, 1962

• President Kennedy dispatched the Federal Marshals to Mississippi – lightly armed men clad awkwardly in suits, ties and gas masks. At the same time, JFK wanted Gov Ross Barnett to assure him that Mississippi patrolmen would help maintain law and order as the threat of a race riot on the university campus in Oxford grew.
• Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett spoke at halftime of the University of Mississippi’s game against Kentucky. Barnett whipped up the crowd, with some later comparing it to a Nazi Nuremberg rally. Interrupted by cheers, Barnett told those gathered, “I love Mississippi. I love her people. Our customs. I love and respect our heritage.” [2014 NYT article] (see Sept 30)

Orangeburg Massacre

In late September/early October 1970: after the trial, a jury found Cleveland Sellers guilty  of participating in a riot two nights before the Orangeburg shootings.

He was the only person tried in relation to the the 1968 event.  [Black Past article on Sellers] (BH, see Oct 26; OM, see September 1, 1973)

SOUTH AFRICA/APARTHEID

September 29, 1986: the House of Representatives overrides the President Reagan’s veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. (see Oct 2)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

September 29, 1957: The Mayak or Kyshtym nuclear complex (Soviet Union). A fault in the cooling system at the nuclear complex, near Chelyabinsk, results in a chemical explosion and the release of an estimated 70 to 80 tonnes of radioactive materials into the air. Thousands of people are exposed to radiation and thousands more are evacuated from their homes. It is categorized as Level 6 on the seven-point International Nuclear Events Scale (INES). [2017 Stanford U article] (see Oct 7)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

September 29 Music et al

Bob Dylan

September 29, 1961: Robert Shelton of the New York Times reviewed Dylan’s Gerde’s performance. With the headline, Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Folk-Song Stylist, Shelton wrote, “A bright new face in folk music is appearing at Gerde’s Folk City. Although only 20 years old, Bob Dylan is one of the most distinctive stylists to play in a Manhattan cabaret in months.” (see Oct 25)

West Side Story

September 29 – October 19, 1962: West Side Story soundtrack returns to Billboard’s #1 album.

see John Lennon and George Harrison for more

September 29, 1967: John Lennon and George Harrison took part in an interview with David Frost for The Frost Programme. It was recorded before a studio audience between 6pm and 7pm at Studio One at Wembley Studios in London. Among their comments:

Lennon: “Buddha was a groove, Jesus was all right.”

Harrison: “I believe in reincarnation. Life and death are still only relative to thought. I believe in rebirth. You keep coming back until you have got it straight. The ultimate thing is to manifest divinity, and become one with The Creator.” (see Oct 17)

Okie from Muskogee

September 29, 1969, Merle Haggard released single, “Okie from Muskogee.” By November 15, it reached No. 1 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart, where it remained for four weeks. It also became a minor pop hit as well, reaching number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. “Okie from Muskogee” — along with the album, Okie from Muskogee — was named the Country Music Association Single of the Year in 1970.

The song’s lyrics typified the view that many Americans felt toward the changes that had occurred during the decade.

We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee; We don’t take our trips on LSD We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street; We like livin’ right, and bein’ free. I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee, A place where even squares can have a ball We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse, And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all We don’t make a party out of lovin’; We like holdin’ hands and pitchin’ woo; We don’t let our hair grow long and shaggy

Like the hippies out in San Francisco do. And I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee, A place where even squares can have a ball. We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse, And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all. Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear; Beads and Roman sandals won’t be seen. Football’s still the roughest thing on campus, And the kids here still respect the college dean. We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse, In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Operation Popeye

September 29 1966 — October 28 1966:  the US military began Project Popeye in a strip of the Laos panhandle east of the Bolovens Plateau in the Se Kong River valley. Naval personnel eventually conducted 50 seeding cloud experiments. Project leaders claimed that 82% of the clouds produced rain within a brief period after having been seeded and that one of the clouds drifted across the Vietnam border and dropped nine inches of rain on a US Special Forces camp over a four hour period. (next V, see “In October” ; see OP for expanded story)

LBJ commitment

September 29, 1967: LBJ spoke about American commitment to US involvement in Vietnam  (see Oct 9)

Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest

September 29, 1970:  Vice President Agnew charged that the Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest had indulged in “‘scapegoating’ of the most irresponsible sort” in saying that only the President could offer the moral leadership needed to reunite the country. (NYT article) (see Oct 12; FS, see June 7, 1971)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

September 29, 1969: Alcatraz Takeover: the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a plan by Lama Hunt to turn the Federal prison site of Alcatraz Island into a monument to the US space program. (see Oct 9)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Watergate Scandal

September 29, 1972: John Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats, the Post reports. (see Watergate for expanded story)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Jack Kevorkian

September 29, 2005: in an MSNBC interview, Kevorkian said that if he were granted parole, he would not resume directly helping people die and would restrict himself to campaigning to have the law changed. (see JK for expanded story)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

September 29, 2011: the Log Cabin Republicans is an organization of lesbian and gay Republicans, working within the Republican Party to advocate for lesbian and gay rights. It operates in the face of hostility from the vast majority of GOP leaders who have been beholden to the Religious Right in opposition to lesbian and gay rights. In Log Cabin Republicans v. United States, the organization challenged the constitutionality of the Pentagon’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, under which the military would not ask about sexual orientation, and homosexuals would be allowed to serve in the military as long as they did not mention their sexual orientation. In early September 2010 a U.S. District Court declared the DADT policy an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fifth Amendments, but on this day, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the decision on the grounds that the legislative repealed of DADT, in December 2010, rendered the case moot. As a consequence, the District Court decision had no value as legal precedent.

President Barack Obama signed the DADT repeal act into law on the 22nd of December 2010, and the repeal took effect on September 20, 2011. (see Dec 6)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

September 29, 2021: US federal wildlife officials announced that 22 animals and one plant should be declared extinct and removed from the endangered species list.

The announcement also offered a glimpse of the possible future. It came amid a worsening global biodiversity crisis that threatened a million species with extinction, many within decades. Human activities like farming, logging, mining and damming were taking habitat from animals and pollute much of what’s left. People poached and overfished. Climate change added new peril.

“Each of these 23 species represents a permanent loss to our nation’s natural heritage and to global biodiversity,” said Bridget Fahey, who oversaw species classification for the Fish and Wildlife Service. “And it’s a sobering reminder that extinction is a consequence of human-caused environmental change.” [NYT article] (next EI, see Oct 2)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

September 29, 2023: the archdiocese of Baltimore filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy two days before a new Maryland state law went into effect which allowed child sexual abuse victims to sue organizations no matter how long ago the abuse took place.

In a letter to the archdiocese Archbishop William E. Lori attributed the filing directly to the law’s effect on the archdiocese, which was facing “a great number of lawsuits” that were previously prohibited by state law.

Filing for bankruptcy, Lori said, is “the best path forward to compensate equitably all victim-survivors, given the archdiocese’s limited financial resources, which would have otherwise been exhausted on litigation.” [NYT article] (next SAC, see October 16, 2024)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Feminism

September 27, 1909: New York shirtwaist strike of 1909, also known as the Uprising of the 20,000, was a labor strike primarily involving Jewish women working in New York shirtwaist factories. Led by Clara Lemlich and supported by the National Women’s Trade Union League of America (NWTUL). [JWA article] (Labor, see Nov 22; Feminism see Jan 2, 1910)

Change to Win

September 27, 2005: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Teamsters, and other activist unions leave the AFL-CIO to form a new labor coalition called Change to Win. The move represents a new emphasis on organizing workers to bring them into a labor movement starved for members. (January 2, 2006)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Emma Goldman

September 27, 1919: Goldman posted bond and was released from federal prison. She left for Rochester, NY, knowing she would soon receive deportation orders. [NYT article] (see Goldman for expanded story)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Gary Indiana School Desegregation

September 27, 1927: in Gary Indiana, the crowd swelled to about 800 students. Superintendent Wirt hedged his bets by telling the angry crowd that “possibly when a new black school was erected on the east side, Emerson would be again segregated.” (see Sept 28)

A Philip Randolph

September 27, 1940:  civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House to demand racial integration of the U.S. Armed forces. Congress had created a draft in response to the outbreak of war in Europe, which was to take effect on October 16, 1940. The law contained a provision prohibiting race discrimination, but Randolph felt the military was not honoring it. The meeting with Roosevelt did not go well, and afterwards the administration issued a false report that Randolph had accepted the president’s plan, for which it quickly had to apologize.

U.S. armed forces remained segregated during World War II. Winfred Lynn’s challenge to the segregated draft was unsuccessful (Armed services, see December 4, 1942 &  February 3, 1944). (next BH, see Nov 13)

School Desegregation

SEPTEMBER 27, 1958: following the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, school boards across the country were ordered to draft desegregation plans. The school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, drafted a plan and agreed to implement it during the 1957-1958 school year. When nine black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, made their way to Central High School as part of Arkansas’s gradual desegregation plan, they were met by angry crowds and the Arkansas National Guard blocking their entry. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus encouraged the protesters and did everything in his power to hinder integration. Eventually, President Dwight Eisenhower deployed federal troops to Arkansas and commanded the Arkansas National Guard to escort the students to school.

Not yet through with his attempts to thwart integration, Faubus devised another plan. Following the 1957-1958 school year, the Little Rock School Board petitioned for a delay in the implementation of its desegregation plan. A federal district judge granted a delay until 1961, which the NAACP promptly appealed. The case made its way to the Supreme Court where, on September 12, 1958, the Court ordered immediate integration.

By that time, the Arkansas Legislature had passed a law allowing Governor Faubus to close public schools and later hold a special election to determine public support. Immediately after the Supreme Court released its decision, the governor ordered all four public high schools closed pending a public vote. On September 27, 1958, the people of Arkansas voted overwhelmingly (19,470 to 7561) to keep the schools closed rather than integrate. The schools would remain closed for the entire 1958-1959 academic term, known as “the lost year.” (BH, see Oct 14; SD, see Oct 25)

James H Meredith

September 27, 1962: a fourth attempt to enroll. Meredith in the University of Mississippi was canceled after it became evident that his life would be endangered. (see September 28, 1962)

Medgar Evers

September 27, 1973: New Orleans police arrested Byron De La Beckwith who had a bomb and several rifles in his car. He stated he had come to New Orleans to sell china. Police stated that De La Beckwith intended to blow up the home of A I Botnick, head of the New Orleans chapter of B’nai B’rith. It was the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Botnick had moved his family out of New Orleans several days earlier after receiving threatening calls. (see Oct 11)

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

September 27, 2007: the Senate passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act  as an amendment to another bill. President George W Bush indicated he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk. The amendment was dropped by the Democratic leadership because of opposition from conservative groups and President George Bush, and due to the measure being attached to a defense bill there was a lack of support from antiwar Democrats. (LGBTQ, see Nov 8; BH, see March 26, 2008; Shepard, see April 2, 2009)

NY Met/1st Black Composer

September 27, 2021: the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the country’s largest performing arts institution, opened in 1883, and in its 138 years had put on some 300 titles. Not one had been by a Black composer.

On this date, the Met opened its 2021 – 22 season with with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” by Terence Blanchard, a Black jazz trumpeter and composer. [NYT article]  (next BH, see Nov 18)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Religion and Public Education

September 27, 1948: Circuit Judge Grover Watson ordered the Champaign school board to stop all religious education in all public school buildings. NYT article (see November 20, 1948)

Environmental Issues

September 27, 1962: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring published. The book is widely credited with helping to launch the contemporary American environmental movement. The New Yorker magazine had started serializing Silent Spring in June 1962. Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read—especially after its selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the New York Times best-seller list—and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. Silent Spring facilitated the ban of the pesticide DDT[3] for agricultural use in 1972 in the United States. NYT article (see Dec 7)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War  & Nuclear/Chemical News

September 27, 1962: Soviet Union above ground nuclear test. 10 – 30 megaton. (CW, see Oct 7; NN, see Oct 22)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

JFK Assassination

September 27, 1964: the report of the Warren Commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren on the Kennedy assassination was released. The report essentially concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. [text of report] (see October 5, 1966)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

September 27, 1967: an advertisement headed “A Call To Resist Illegitimate Authority,” signed by over 320 influential people (professors, writers, ministers, and other professional people), appeared in the New Republic and the New York Review of Books, asking for funds to help youths resist the draft.

“A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority” was one of the most powerful and important indictments of the Vietnam War by the anti-war movement. It declared that “the war is unconstitutional and illegal. Congress has not declared a war as required by the Constitution.” Additionally, “this war violates international agreements, treaties and principles of law which the United States Government has solemnly endorsed.” The Call was published in the New York Review of Books, The Nation, and other publications. [text] (see Sept 29)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

September 27, 2004: Bishop Thomas Dupre was indicted on child rape charges, becoming the first bishop to face charges in the church sex abuse scandal. Dupree was the head of the Springfield, Mass., diocese, but resigned in February after the allegations came to light. His two alleged victims have said Dupre sexually abused them for years in the 1970s and asked them to keep quiet about the abuse when he was made auxiliary bishop in 1990. (NYT article) (see Nov 15)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Affordable Care Act

September 27, 2017

• US Senators Cory Booker, Brian Schatz, Chris Murphy, and Elizabeth Warren wrote to Seema Verma, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In the letter they expressed concern for the Trump administration’s decision to shut down the Affordable Care Act website for 12 hours nearly every Sunday during the upcoming open enrollment. [Star Advertiser article]
• the Department of Health and Human Services told stated that for the first time it would not be sending its regional directors to help states with planning for the upcoming open enrollment period. [BuzzFeed article]  (see Dec 21)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Trump blocked (1)

September 27, 2019: Judge Dolly Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California  rejected new regulations that would have allowed the government to hold children and their parents in detention for indefinite periods, one of the Trump administration’s signature efforts to curtail the large number of families arriving from Central America.

Describing the government’s defense of its proposed new policy as “Kafkaesque” in some of its reasoning, Gee said it was up to Congress, not the administration, to supplant a 20-year-old consent decree that requires children to be held in state-licensed facilities and released in most cases within 20 days. [NYT article]

Trump blocked (2)

September 27, 2019: U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson blocked the Trump administration’s effort to expand use of a process that had fast-tracked undocumented immigrants for deportation without the involvement of immigration courts.

The “expedited removal” procedure had previously been used to quickly send recent border-crossers back to Mexico, with policies limiting its use to individuals apprehended within 100 miles of the U.S. border and who were determined to have crossed into the U.S. illegally in the past two weeks.

Jackson halted the policy shift, declaring that the Trump administration’s decision-making process leading to the change appeared to have violated federal law.   She said the decision seemed arbitrary and faulted officials for failing to carry out a formal notice-and-comment practice required for major changes to federal rules.

“Government actors who make policy decisions in their official capacities cannot succumb to whims or passions while rulemaking,” wrote Jackson. “If a policy decision that an agency makes is of sufficient consequence that it qualifies as an agency rule, then arbitrariness in deciding the contours of that rule—e.g., decision making by Ouija board or dart board, rock/paper/scissors, or even the Magic 8 Ball—simply will not do.” (next IH, see Oct 4)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment Inquiry

September 27, 2019: Kurt Volker, the US special envoy for Ukraine, stepped down, which meant a key player in Trump’s interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had left the administration. (see TII for expanded chronology)

September 27 Peace Love Art Activism