October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
BILL OF RIGHTS
October 19, 1765: The Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, drew up a declaration of rights and liberties. (see December 15, 1791)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
Emma Goldman
October 19, 1890: Goldman spoke in Baltimore to members of the International Working People’s Association in the afternoon. She later spoke in German to the Workers’ Educational Society at Canmakers’ Hall. Michael Cohn and William Harvey also spoke. (see Goldman for expanded story)
Jessie Wallace Hughan
October 19, 1923: the 48-year-old New York City educator Jessie Wallace Hughan (1875-1955) wrote, “Tracy [Mygatt] to dinner—had hair done—organized real War Resisters League …”
Hughan was describing the formal founding of WRL as the successor organization to the Anti-Enlistment League, which had opposed armed forces enlistment during World War I. [Swarthmore article] (see January 1925)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
NAACP a “threat”
October 19, 1955: the Attorney General of Georgia on this day called the NAACP a “threat” to the state, charging “subversion” in its anti-segregation drive. The civil rights organization was a “threat to the peace, tranquility, government and way of life of our states,” he added. (see Oct 21)
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR
October 19, 1960: King was arrested along with students, eventually numbering 280, after conducting mass sit-ins at Rich’s Department Store and other Atlanta stores. The others were freed, but the judge sentenced King to four months in prison. Legal efforts secured his release after eight days. A boycott of the store followed, and by the fall of 1961, Rich’s began to desegregate. (BH, see Oct 20; MLK, see May 13, 1961)
March to Montgomery
October 19, 1965: State Attorney General, Richmond M Flowers, interrupted the second Liuzzo trial and asked the Alabama Supreme Court to purge some jurists, a number of whom stated during jury selection that they believed white civil rights workers to be inferior to other whites.
The request was denied. (see Liuzzo for expanded story)
Stop and Frisk Policy
October 19, 2011: New York City called for a federal probe of the NYPD’s stop and frisk strategy. Speaking at a news conference Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and state Senator Eric Adams said federal prosecutors needed to step in to protect the rights of minorities.
By December 2011 police had stopped 684,330 New Yorkers [402,308 were black (59 percent); 176,165 were Latino (26 percent); 62,033 were white (9 percent)] (see February 8, 2012)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
The Cold War
October 19, 1960: the United States imposed an embargo on exports to Cuba. (NYT article) (see January 3, 1961)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
October 19 Music et al
Simon & Garfunkel
October 19, 1964: Simon & Garfunkel released Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Initially a flop, but after release of their second album, Sounds of Silence in 1966, it hit #30 on the Billboard charts. (see Wednesday for more)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
October 19, 1969: Vice President Spiro T. Agnew referred to anti-Vietnam War protesters “an effete corps of impudent snobs.” (NYT article) (see Nov 3)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
Oil embargo
October 19, 1973: President Nixon requested Congress to appropriate $2.2 billion in emergency aid for Israel. Libya, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states proclaim an embargo on oil exports to the United States. (NYT article)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
TERRORISM
October 19, 1987: two U.S. warships shelled an Iranian oil platform in the Persian Gulf in response to Iran’s Silkworm missile attack on the U.S. flagged ship MV Sea Isle City. [LAT article] (see Nov 29)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
Iraq War II
October 19, 2003: a yearlong State Department study predicted many of the problems that have plagued the American-led occupation of Iraq, according to internal State Department documents and interviews with administration and Congressional officials. [NYT, 10/19/03] (see Dec 13)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
Cannabis
Ogden memo
October 19, 2009: the Department of Justice issued a memo, known subsequently as the Ogden memo, to “provide clarification and guidance to federal prosecutors in States that have enacted laws authorizing the medical use of marijuana.” In an effort to make the most efficient use of limited resources, the DOJ announced that prosecutorial priorities should not target “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.” Specifically, individuals with cancer or other serious illnesses who use medical marijuana and the caregivers who provide the medical marijuana in accordance with state law should not be the focus of federal prosecution.
The memo clarified that “prosecution of commercial enterprises that unlawfully market and sell marijuana for profit continues to be an enforcement priority.” It is also explicitly stated that the memo “does not ‘legalize’ marijuana or provide a legal defense to a violation of federal law.” [DoJ PDF](next Cannabis, see Nov 10 or see CCC for expanded chronology)
Medical marijuana
October 19, 2015: medical marijuana dispensaries scored a major win when Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that the Department of Justice cannot prosecute legal providers of medical cannabis.
In his ruling, Breyer lifted an injunction against a California dispensary, the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, and its founder, Lynette Shaw, ruling that a budget amendment Congress approved last year requires the federal government to respect state marijuana laws. The DOJ is thus precluded from criminally prosecuting organizations like MAMM that comply with state regulations. [HuffPost article] (next Cannabis see Nov 9 or see CCC for expanded chronology)
Legalizing marijuana
October 19, 2016: according to a Gallop poll, public support for legalizing marijuana use reached 60% — the highest level since Gallop began the poll in 1969. (see July 5 – 9, 2017)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
October 19, 2010: US Federal Judge Virginia Phillips said that she was inclined to deny the government’s request to allow the Pentagon to enforce its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay and bisexual members of the military while her injunction against it is being appealed. “My tentative ruling is to deny the application for a stay,” Judge Virginia A. Phillips said at a hearing on the government’s request, (see Oct 20)
October 19 Peace Love Art Activism
Sexual Abuse of Children
October 18, 2018: the US Justice Department opened an investigation into Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania accused of covering up sex abuse for decades.
It may have been the first statewide investigation by the federal government of the church’s sex abuse problems. And it came two months after the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office released a grand jury report charging that bishops and other church leaders had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 people over a period of more than 70 years. [NYT article] (see Nov 8)
Environmental Issues
October 19, 2023: a study, published in Scientific Reports, found that in recent decades Atlantic hurricanes were far more likely to dial up from weak Category 1 to major Category 3 or higher storms in only 24 hours. Storms from 2001 to 2020 had done so at more than twice the rate as the same types of storms between 1970 and 1990. [Smithsonian article] (next EI, see Dec 13)