November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

Streetcars

November 26, 1832: in New York City, the first public streetcar line in the U.S. began carrying passengers. The fare was 12½¢.  (see March 18, 1834)

Cloverleaf interchange

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

November 26, 1931: the first cloverleaf interchange to be built in the United States, at the junction of NJ Rt. 25 (now U.S. Rt. 1) and NJ Rt. 4 (now NJ Rt. 35) in Woodbridge, New Jersey, was featured on the cover of the Engineering News-Record. (see February 16, 1937)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Newark, NJ fire kills 19

November 26, 1910: six young women burn to death and 19 more die when they leap from the fourth-story windows of a blazing factory in Newark, N.J. The floors and stairs were wooden; the only door through which the women could flee was locked. (see March 25, 1911)

Portland Teacher Strike

November 26, 2023: the union representing teachers, counselors and other school employees in Portland, Ore., reached a tentative deal with the city’s public school district on Sunday, ending a strike that had kept nearly 45,000 students out of classes for more than three weeks in Oregon’s largest district. [NYT article] (next LH, see )

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH/book burning

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

November 26, 1935: New York City on this day burned “tons” of allegedly obscene books and magazines, with an estimated retail value of $150,000. The material had been seized and burned at the instigation of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, the anti-obscenity organization founded by Anthony Comstock, author of the infamous Comstock Act (enacted on March 3, 1873). The burned material included 476 books, 11,450 magazines, and about 100,000 pamphlets. Not all of the burned books were confiscated because of sex-related themes. Fifteen copies of the book The Man in the Monkey Suit were seized and burned because it presented policemen in “an unfavorable light.”

The burning of the books took place despite the publicity surrounding the burning of “offensive” books by the new Nazi regime in Germany over the previous year and a half. (see Dec 18)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

November 26, 1960: on NBC’s nationally televised program “The Nation’s Future,” the Martin Luther King Jr. debated James J. Kilpatrick on the subject of sit-in demonstrations. Kilpatrick, editor of The Richmond News Leader at the time, was a prominent segregationist. The subject: “Are Sit-In Strikes Justifiable?”

Kilpatrick: “… it is an interesting experience to be here tonight and see Mr. King assert a right to obey those laws he chooses to obey and disobey those he chooses not to obey and insist the whole time that he has what he terms the highest respect for law, because he is abiding by the moral law of the universe.”

King: “… I think in disobeying these laws, the students are really seeking to affirm the just law of the land and the Constitution of the United States. I would say this — that all people should obey just laws, but I would also say, with St. Augustine, than an unjust law is no law at all. And when we find an unjust law, I think we have a moral obligation to take a stand against it …” (BH, see Dec 5; MLK, see May 13, 1961)

Rodney King

November 26, 1991: Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered the trial of the four officers charged in the Rodney King beating [Sgt. Stacey Koon and officers Laurence Michael Powell, Timothy Wind, and Theodore Briseno ] to be moved to Simi Valley. [LAT article on riots] (BH, see March 31, 1992; King, see April 29, 1992)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

November 26 Music et al

November 26, 1962: Beatles record their second single, “Please Please Me.”

From Beatles Bible: At the end of the session George Martin addressed the group over the studio’s talkback system. “Congratulations, gentlemen,” he told them, “You’ve just made your first number one.”(see Dec 7)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Memorandum 273

November 26, 1963: the administration of new President Lyndon B. Johnson administration issued National Security Action Memorandum 273, which officially reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the Republic of Vietnam and pledged “to assist the people and Government of that country to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy.” Johnson also gave his personal sanction for a stepped-up program of “clandestine operations by the GVN (Government of Vietnam) against the North.” (document) (see Dec 24)

“Alice’s Restaurant”

November 26, 1965: Arlo Guthrie arrested in Great Barrington, MA for littering on Thanksgiving in the nearby town of Stockbridge. The resulting events and adventure would be immortalized in the song “Alice’s Restaurant.” (see Nov 27)

John Lennon, MBE

November 26, 1969: John Lennon returned his MBE to the Queen on this day, as an act of protest against the Vietnam war. His typical Lennon-esque note to the Queen read:

Your Majesty,

I am returning my Member of the British Empire as a protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.

                With love. John Lennon of Bag

[Beatles Bible entry] (see Thanksgiving in the Vietnam War for both Guthrie and Lennon; also  for Lennon, see November 29; for Vietnam, see Dec 1)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Plymouth Rock protest

November 26, 1970: a group of about 200 Native-Americans protested Thanksgiving with a demonstration at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. Representatives from 25 tribes from around the country declared it a “national day of mourning.” One leader stated that the landing of the Pilgrims from England in 1620 “was the start of everything bad that has happened to the American Indian.” Several members of the group attempted to “bury” the original Plymouth Rock by pouring sand over it. Another 25 boarded the replica of the Mayflower, the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America. (see June 12, 1971)

Baby Veronica

November 26, 2013: with custody of the girl Veronica awarded to Matt and Melanie Capobianco, the South Carolina couple has filed a motion to collect more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees from Brown and his tribe. Court documents filed by the Cherokee Nation state it would be “inappropriate, unreasonable and unconscionable” for the adopted parents of a 4-year-old Cherokee girl to seek the legal fees.

The tribe claims federal and state law gives the tribe sovereign immunity. But that would not apply to Dusten Brown, the biological father who had custody of Veronica for two years and fought a legal battle to keep her in Oklahoma.

The Tulsa World reported that a judge in Nowata County, where the Brown family lives will likely have a hearing on the issue. (see BV for expanded chronology)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Watergate Scandal

November 26, 1973: President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she’d accidentally caused part of the 18 1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape. Arlo Guthrie will later claim it was Nixon listening to Arlo’s “Alice’s Restaurant.”(see Watergate for expanded chronology)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme

November 26, 1975, a federal jury found Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, guilty of trying to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford. (see Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme for more)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Iran hostage crisis

November 26, 1978:  Muslim religious leaders and politicians seeking to topple Shah of Iran called a general strike that virtually paralyzed the country. (see Dec 2)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Iran–Contra Affair

November 26, 1986: President Ronald Reagan announced that on December 1 former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft would serve as members of the Special Review Board looking into the scandal (they became known as the Tower Commission). Reagan denied involvement in the scandal. (see Dec 19)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Jack Kevorkian

November 26, 1994: hours after Michigan’s ban on assisted suicide expired, 72-year-old Margaret Garrish died of carbon monoxide poisoning in her home in Royal Oak. She had arthritis and osteoporosis. Kevorkian was not present when police arrived. (see JK for expanded chronology)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

2000 Presidential election

November 26,, 2000: Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified Republican George W. Bush the winner over Democrat Al Gore in the state’s presidential balloting by 537 votes. (see Dec 13)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

November 26, 2010: federal agents arrested nineteen-year-old Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud during a sting in Portland, OR. Mohamud was accused of planning to detonate van of explosives during Christmas tree lighting ceremony. [NPR story on sentencing] (see January 8, 2011)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News & ICAN

November 26, 2011: the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons [ICAN] welcomed am historic resolution adopted by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement in favor of an international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons. (Nuclear, see January 30, 2012; ICAN, see March 5, 2012)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

November 26, 2013: the U.S. Supreme Court accepted for review two cases challenging the federal contraception rule, which required the inclusion of contraception coverage in health plans. One of the cases was brought by Hobby Lobby, an arts and crafts supply chain with over 13,000 employees. The other case was brought by Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Pennsylvania wood furniture company.  [ACLU article] (see Dec 31)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Space

November 26, 2018: InSight [Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport] sent back acknowledgment of its safe arrival on Mars. That was the end of a journey of more than six months and 300 million miles (launched on May 5).  It set down at Elysium Planitia, near the Equator in the northern hemisphere.

As InSight descended and each milestone of the landing process was called out, “the hairs on the back of my neck would start rising a little bit higher, a little bit higher,” Tom Hoffman, the project manager for the mission, said at a news conference after the landing. “And then when we finally got the confirmation of touchdown, it was completely amazing. The whole room went crazy. My inner four-year-old came out.”  [NYT article] (see Dec 13)

November 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Life Sentence

On November 26, 1975, a jury found Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme guilty of attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford on the previous September 5. The judge sentenced her to life in prison.

Fromme was a follower of then jailed (now dead) Charles Manson, cult leader of the infamous Manson Family whose members had murdered Sharon Tate (8 months pregnant) and her friends: Folgers coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring at Roman Polanski’s home in Los Angeles, California on August 9, 1969 as well as killing Leno and Rosemary LaBiana, wealthy Los Angeles residents, the following day.

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Early life

Lynette Alice Fromme was born  in Santa Monica, California on October 22, 1948. In 1967, often an outsider whose didn’t fit into the traditional academic settings her parents wanted her to succeed in, she met Charles Manson in Venice, California. She joined his “family” and traveled with them.

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Squeaky

Back in California, the family lived as caretakers on the Spahn Ranch. The 80-year-old George Spahn nicknamed Fromme “Squeaky” because of the sound she made when he would touch her.

Fromme was not charged with involvement in the August 1969 murders. During the trial, Fromme and other family members “camped” outside the Los Angeles County courtroom where the Manson family trial occurred.

After a jury convicted Manson, authorities moved him from prison to prison, Fromme moved from town to town to be near him.

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Assassination attempt

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

In 1972, Fromme moved to Sacramento, CA and it was there on September 5, 1975 that she aimed a loaded pistol an President Gerald Ford in Sacramento. Fromme was concerned about the cutting of redwood trees in California and felt that her actions would bring attention to that concern. The gun didn’t go off, and Secret Service agents wrestled Fromme to the ground.

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Escape

On December 23, 1987, Fromme escaped from the Federal Prison Camp, Ain Alderson, West Virginia. She hoped to meet the still-imprisoned Manson whom she heard was ill. Authorities captured her two days later and sent her to the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Parole

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

She was released on August 14, 2009 at the age of 60, after serving 34 years.

Under parole, Fromme moved to Marcy, NY to live with her boyfriend. Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara confirmed that, but officials would not release her exact address.

With the death of Manson, the surviving members of his cult briefly became newsworthy again.

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced

Reflexion

In August 2018, the Peasenhall Press published Reflexion. 

From the Manson Blog site: In nearly 500 pages Fromme vividly chronicles her life with Charles Manson from the time she met him in May of 1967 to the final arrest of the so-called “Manson Family” in Death Valley in October of 1969. From Venice Beach, to the redwoods around Mendocino, to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, to Topanga Canyon and the Spiral Staircase and Condemned Houses, to Dennis Wilson’s Sunset Drive mansion, to Spahn’s Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, and finally to the Myers and Barker Ranches in Goler Wash in the Mojave Desert — everything is here in Fromme’s reflexion on her extensive travels and experiences with Manson and the like people around them who were “preparing to survive either a revolution, or the static institutions that were systematically trading all of our vital necessities for money.”

Lynette Squeaky Fromme Sentenced