October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
October 9, 1635: religious dissident Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court of Massachusetts. Williams had spoken out against the right of civil authorities to punish religious dissension and to confiscate Indian land. (see March 22, 1638)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Bob Hudson killed
October 9, 1893: according to reports, in Weakley County, Tennessee the wife of a Bob Hudson, both African-American, had filed charges of assault and battery against a white man, who was subsequently arrested and fined
On this date, ten masked white men dragged Mrs. Hudson from her home and whipped her severely. When Bob Hudson ran to his wife’s defense, the mob shot and killed him. Including Bob Hudson, at least five African American victims of racial terror lynching were killed in Weakley County, Tennessee, between 1877 and 1950. (next BH, see Dec 13; next Lynching, see Dec 20, or see 19th century for expanded lynching chronology)
Timothy Coggins’s body found
October 9, 1983: the body of Timothy Coggins, 23, was found abandoned in a grassy roadside area of Sunny Side, Ga., The sheriff’s office conducted an exhaustive, but the case went cold. (BH, see Nov 2; Coggins, see July 25, 2017)
Laquan McDonald
October 9, 2019: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot released an inspector general’s report that found that officers took part in a massive cover-up after the 2014 police shooting of Laquan McDonald. (next Black and shot, see below; next LMc, see Oct 15)
Stephon Clark
October 9, 2019: the city of Sacramento agreed to $2.4 million to the children of Stephon Clark under a settlement signed by a federal judge.
The agreement settled the minors’ end of the $20 million wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Clark family. [CNS article] (next B & S, see Oct 12; next SC, see )
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Feminism
World Women’s Party
October 9, 1938: at National Women’s Party convention Detroit, the NWP established the World Woman’s Party, headquartered in Geneva; initiated fund-raising scheme to sell equal rights seals–similar to Easter seals; restructured NWP hierarchy. (see July 22. 1939)
Malala Yousafzai
October 9, 2012: a Taliban gunman shot and seriously wounded Malala Yousafzai a 14-year-old schoolgirl and activist in the Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan, singling out a widely known champion of girls’ education and a potent symbol of resistance to militant ideology. (NYT article) (see Oct 15)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Technological Milestone
October 9, 1951: RCA demonstrated its “all-electronic” color system for the first time. The test was also broadcast on WNBT, and because RCA’s system was compatible with existing black and white television sets, viewers were able to watch the demonstration (in black and white, of course) (see Oct 25)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
October 9 Music et al
Ray Charles
October 9 – 22, 1961: “Hit the Road Jack” by Ray Charles #1 Billboard Hot 100.
Yesterday
October 9 – November 5, 1965, The Beatles: “Yesterday” #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (see Oct 26)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Che Guevara
October 9, 1967: after capturing Che Guevara the day before, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered Guevara executed but made to look like Guevara had died in battle.
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
DRAFT CARD BURNING
October 9, 1967: the Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of the amendment to the Selective Service Act that makes draft card burning a crime. (Draft Card Burning, see Oct 15; Vietnam, see Oct 16)
Peace negotiation
October 9, 1972: according to Hanoi, the United States proposed the following schedule: on Oct. 18 American bombing and mining of North Vietnam would be halted; on Oct. 19 both the United States and North Vietnam would initial the text of the cease‐fire agreement, and on Oct. 26 the foreign ministers of both countries would formally sign the agreement in Paris. (see Oct 10)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans
October 9, 1969: the American Indian Center in San Francisco burned down. It had been a meeting place that served 30,000 Indian people with social programs. The loss of the center focuses Indian attention on taking over Alcatraz for use as a new facility. (see November 9, 1969)
Japanese Internment Camps
October 9, 1990: On August 10, 1988, President Reagan had signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. It had provided for a Presidential apology and appropriates $1.25 billion for reparations of $20,000 to most Japanese internees, evacuees, and others of Japanese ancestry who lost liberty or property because of discriminatory wartime actions by the government. Civil Liberties Public Education Fund created to help teach the public about the internment period. On this date at a Washington, D.C. ceremony, the first payments were issued. 107-year-old Reverend Mamoru Eto was the first to receive his check. (see Internment for more)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Nobel Peace Prize
October 9, 2009: President Obama unexpectedly won the Nobel Peace Prize.
STAND YOUR GROUND LAW
October 9, 2012: Kalispell, Montana. County attorney Ed Corrigan decided not to prosecute Brice Harper for the killing of Dan Fredenberg, saying that Montana’s “castle doctrine” law, which maintains that a man’s home is his castle, protected Harper’s rights to vigorously defend himself there. Corrigan decided that Mr. Harper had the right to fetch his gun from his bedroom, confront Mr. Fredenberg in the garage and, fearing for his safety, shoot him. “Given his reasonable belief that he was about to be assaulted, Brice’s use of deadly force against Dan was justified.” [text of Corrigan’s entire statement] (see Dec 26)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Voting Rights
October 9, 2014: the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin from implementing a law requiring voters to present photo IDs, overturning a lower court decision that would have put the law in place for the November election.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had declared the law constitutional. [CT article] (see Oct 15)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Environmental Issues
October 9, 2017: the Trump administration announced that it would take formal steps to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, setting up a bitter fight over the future of America’s efforts to tackle global warming.
At an event in eastern Kentucky, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that his predecessors had departed from regulatory norms in crafting the Clean Power Plan, which was finalized in 2015 and would have pushed states to move away from coal in favor of sources of electricity that produce fewer carbon emissions.
“The war on coal is over,” Mr. Pruitt said. “Tomorrow in Washington, D.C., I will be signing a proposed rule to roll back the Clean Power Plan. No better place to make that announcement than Hazard, Ky.” [NYT article] (see Oct 22)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH & BSA
October 9, 2017: Scout leaders told their Cub Scouts den members to prepare questions before meeting with Colorado State Senator Vicki Marble. Many of the questions dealt with some of the most controversial topics in the nation: gun control, the environment, race and the proposed border wall between the United States and Mexico.
One scount, Ames Mayfield, 11, asked Marble she would not support “common-sense gun laws.”
“I was shocked that you co-sponsored a bill to allow domestic violence offenders to continue to own a gun,” Ames said and continued, “Why on earth would you want somebody who beats their wife to have access to a gun?” On October 14 at a meeting Lori Mayfield, Ames Mayfield’s mother, attended a private meeting that an unidentified leader requested she attend. The leaders told Ms Mayfield that Ames was no longer welcome in the den. [NYT article] (FS, see Oct 13; BSA, see Oct 11)
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History & Trump’s Wall
October 9, 2020: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers to allocate millions of dollars in funding for the construction of a southern border wall was illegal, the latest blow to the Trump administration’s effort to limit immigration.
In the 2-1 decision, the court upheld a December 2019 district court summary judgment in favor of a request from the advocacy groups the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition against Defense Secretary Mark Esper, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and “all persons acting under their direction … from using military construction funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall.” [The Hill article] (next IH, see Nov 14; see TW for expanded chronology)