January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Immigration History

January 31, 1848: the US Congress passed an  act exempting vessels employed by the American Colonization Society in transporting emigrants from the United States to the coast of Africa from the provisions of the acts of  February 22 1847 regulating the carriage of passengers in merchant vessels. (next IH, see Feb 2; BH, next BH, see Feb 15)

13th Amendment

January 31, 1865
  1. US Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
  2. U.S. Army commissioned the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, a combat unit made up of those that escaped slavery. They helped to capture Jacksonville, Florida, in 1863 and were the first unit of African-American soldiers in the Civil War. (see Feb 24)
Friendship Junior College

 

Lunch counter demonstration

January 31, 1961: students from Friendship Junior College and others picketed McCrory’s on Main Street in Rock Hill, North Carolina to protest the segregated lunch counters at the business. They walked in, took seats at the counter and ordered hamburgers, soft drinks and coffee. The students were refused service and ordered to leave. When they didn’t, they were arrested. (see Feb 1)

Herbert Lee murder
Louis Allen

On September 25, 1961, E.H. Hurst – a local white state legislator – shot and killed Herbert Lee in an Amite County, Mississippi, cotton gin in front of several eyewitnesses. Louis Allen was the witness who came forward.  Allen had resigned himself to leaving Mississippi for his own safety.

On January 31, 1964, the night before he was set to move to Milwaukee, he was ambushed outside his property and shot twice in the face with a shotgun. Allen died almost instantly. Sheriff Daniel Jones was the main suspect, and later told Louis Allen’s widow, “if Louis had just shut his mouth, he wouldn’t be layin’ there on the ground.”

No one was ever charged or convicted for the murder. (see Mar 17)

Sharecropper demonstration

January 31, 1966: upset at poverty in the Mississippi Delta, civil rights activists joined forces with sharecroppers evicted from plantations, 50 of them entered the defunct Greenville Air Force base.

When a lone Air Force officer ordered them to leave, they told him, “We are here because we are hungry and cold, and we have no jobs or land. We don’t want charity. We are willing to work for ourselves if given a chance.”

A day later, Air Force officials escort or drag away the protesters. The story brought national attention to the plight of poverty. (see Feb 12)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31, 1930: Richard Dew of the 3M Company developed Scotch tape. (see Mar 6)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31, 1938: in San Antonio, Texas Emma Tenayuca led some 12,000 pecan shellers—mostly Latino women—off their jobs at 400 factories protesting against wage cuts. Pecan shellers Strike at the Southern Pecan Shelling Company were protesting a wage reduction of one cent per pound of shelled pecans. Mexicana and Chicana workers who picketed were gassed, arrested, and jailed. The strike ended after thirty-seven days when the city’s pecan operators agreed to arbitration. In October that year, the National Labor Relations Act raised wages to twenty-five cents an hour. (see May 16)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Japanese Internment Camps

January 31, 1942: Caleb Foote, a pacifist and West Coast staff member for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), on this day denounced the developing plans to evacuate and intern all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast as “nothing could be more Hitlerian.”

Foote’s comment was one of the few during the war to draw the obvious comparison between the government’s plan and Adolph Hitler’s Nazi policiest: The very idea of stereotyping an entire group on the basis of their race, assuming that all members of the group posed a threat, and confining them to concentration camps without a trace of due process.

Foote went on to a distinguished civil liberties career. As a pacifist, he refused to cooperate with the draft, and was convicted and sentenced to prison. He later became a law professor and, in the 1950s, wrote path-breaking articles on how the money bail system in America discriminated against the poor. His articles stirred interest in the problems with the American bail system and helped pave the way for the historic 1966 Bail Reform Act, signed on June 22, 1966. (see JIC for expanded chronology)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

Private Eddie Slovik

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31, 1945: Private Eddie Slovik became the first American executed for desertion since the Civil War. During the Second World War 2,648 soldiers were tried by General Courts Martial, 49 being sentenced to death. They were all reprieved, their sentences being commuted to varying terms of imprisonment, but it was obviously felt that an example had to be made in Slovik’s case, and all appeals for clemency were denied. (see Mar 5)

Illinois death penalty

January 31, 2000: Illinois Governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on the death penalty in response to the exonerations that revealed persistent errors in capital punishment’s administration. Since Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1977, 12 death row inmates had been executed and 13 were exonerated. In 2003, Ryan granted clemency to all 167 persons on the state’s death row. His actions were fiercely attacked by capital-punishment advocates who accused him of abusing his power but were applauded both by legal scholars across country and by the growing movement to abolish the death penalty. (see Dec 21)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

January 31 Peace Love Activism

January 31, 1946: the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was adopted, creating six internal republics. The constitution, modeled on that of the Soviet Union, would serve at the supreme law of Yugoslavia throughout the Cold War.  (Red Scare, see Mar 5; Yugoslavia, see December 23, 1990)

Hydrogen bomb

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31, 1950:  President Truman announced that he had directed the Atomic Energy Commission to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb. Truman’s directive came in response to evidence of an atomic explosion occurring within USSR in 1949.  (Red Scare  & NN, see Feb 3; Hydrogen bomb, see January 7, 1953)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Space Race

Explorer 1

January 31, 1958: Explorer 1, the first successful American satellite, entered orbit around Earth. (see July 29)

Ham the Chimp

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31, 1961: NASA launched Ham the Chimp aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket from Cape Canaveral; Ham was recovered safely from the Atlantic Ocean following his 16½-minute suborbital flight. (Ham bio via  Space Answers dot com) (see Apr 12)

Apollo 14

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31 – February 9, 1971: Alan Shepard, the first American in space, commanded  Apollo 14 for the third lunar landing, on February 5. (Lunar Module Pilot, Edgar D Mitchell; and Stuart A Roosa, Command Module Pilot.) . (NYT article) (see July 26 – Aug 7)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31 Music et al

Bob Dylan

January 21, 1959: Dylan attended a Buddy Holly concert  in Duluth, MN. Holly was a big favorite of Dylan. He stood right at the stage and was sure that at a point during the concert Holly looked down and made eye contact. That Holly died only two days later made the event even more memorable. (see June 5)

For the benefit…

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31, 1967: while looking through different kinds of shops and stores in Sevenoaks, Kent, England, John Lennon visited an antique shop and purchased a circus poster from 1843. (see Feb 10)

Dead arrested

January 31, 1970: 19 members of the Grateful Dead and crew were busted at a French Quarter hotel at 3 AM after returning from a concert at “The Warehouse” in New Orleans, Louisiana for a combination of drugs. Everybody in the band, except Pigpen and Tom Constanten, was included in the bust, along with several members of their retinue, including Owsley Stanley. Stanley was charged with illegal possession of narcotics, dangerous non-narcotics, LSD, and barbiturates. Stanley had identified himself to the police as “The King of Acid” and technician of the band. From this incident, the song “Truckin'” was written by the Grateful Dead that same year.  (LSD, see June 12; GD, see Apr 1)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

LBJ/bombing

January 31, 1966: President Johnson announce that bombing of North Vietnam would recommence. (NYT article) (see Feb 6)

Winter Soldier Investigation

January 31 – February 2, 1971: the Winter Soldier Investigation. Members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) met in a Detroit hotel to discuss war crimes they claimed to have participated in or witnessed during their combat tours in Vietnam. During the next three days, more than 100 Vietnam veterans and 16 civilians gave anguished, emotional testimony describing hundreds of atrocities against innocent civilians in South Vietnam, including rape, arson, torture, murder, and the shelling or napalming of entire villages. The witnesses stated that these acts were being committed casually and routinely, under orders, as a matter of policy. (see Feb 8)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

January 31, 1968: Nauru independent from Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom. (see Mar 12)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

January 31 Peace Love Activism

January 31, 1969:  The radical feminist group, Redstockings employed consciousness raising tactics to address issues of sexism and abortion. They asserted their principles in “The Bitch Manifesto.” Their name combined the term bluestocking, a pejorative term for intellectual women, with “red”, for its association with the revolutionary left. (see Redstockings for more) (next Feminism, see Feb 14)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

January 31 Peace Love Activism

January 31, 1975: George Maynard didn’t want “Live Free or Die” on his New Hampshire license plate. Police pulled him over and ticketed him. Before that court appearance, he received a second ticket.

On this date he appeared in court  and chose to represent himself; he was found guilty, fined $50, and sentenced to six months in the Grafton County House of Corrections. The court suspended this jail sentence but ordered Maynard to also pay the $25 fine for the first offense. Maynard informed the court that, as a matter of conscience, he refused to pay the two fines. The court thereupon sentenced him to jail for a period of 15 days. He served the full sentence. (see Free Speech v License Plates for the whole story or this NPR story)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

January 31, 1998: immunity discussions between Monica Lewinsky’s attorney, William Ginsburg, and Ken Starr’s office stalled. Ginsburg says Lewinsky plans to go to California in the coming week to visit her father. (see CI for expanded chronology)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

January 31, 2006: two federal appeals courts upheld rulings that the Partial Birth Abortion Act passed by Congress in 2003 was unconstitutional because it did not include an exception when the health of a pregnant woman was at risk. (see April 18, 2007)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Illinois same-sex marriage

January 31, 2011: Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a civil union bill into law after its approved by the state Senate and House of Representatives. Later in 2011, civil union laws were also approved in Hawaii, Delaware, and Rhode Island. (see Feb 23)

Virginia same-sex marriage

January 31, 2014:  U.S. District Court Judge Michael Urbanski certified as a class action a lawsuit filed by two Shenandoah Valley couples challenging the Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriages. The order added to growing momentum to end the state’s prohibition of same-sex marriage. Urbanski said in the order that same-sex couples seeking to marry in the state as well as those married in states where gay marriage is legal could challenge Virginia’s ban as a group. (see Feb 5)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Syrians given reprieve

January 31, 2018: in an acknowledgment that Syria continued to be rattled by conflict, the Trump administration announced that the nearly 7,000 Syrians granted temporary permission to live and work in the United States as a civil war devoured their country will be allowed to stay for at least another 18 months.

The decision came as a major relief to Syrians and their advocates. Over the past year, the administration has ended Temporary Protected Status, as the humanitarian program is known, for Salvadorans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, decisions that would collectively expose more than 326,000 people to deportation. (see Feb 8)

Increased travel restrictions

January 31, 2020: President Trump added six countries to his list of nations facing stringent travel restrictions, a move that will virtually block immigration from Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, and from Myanmar, where the Muslim minority is fleeing genocide.

Beside Nigeria, three other African countries, Eritrea, Sudan and Tanzania, will face varying degrees of restrictions, as will one former Soviet state, Kyrgyzstan. Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims could also be caught in the crossfire.

All six countries have substantial Muslim populations. The total number of countries now on the restricted travel list stands at 13.

Immigrant visas, issued to those seeking to live in the United States, will be banned for Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea and Kyrgyzstan. The ban will also prevent immigrants from Sudan and Tanzania from moving to the United States through the diversity visa lottery, which grants green cards to as many as 50,000 people a year. [NYT article] (next IH, see Feb 5)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Cannabis

January 31, 2018:  San Francisco district attorney’s office announced that thousands of people with misdemeanor convictions for marijuana possession dating back 40 years would have their criminal records cleared. San Diego also forgave old convictions.

When recreational marijuana became legal in California the law allowed those with prior low-level offenses to petition for expungement, a process that could be costly, but in San Francisco and San Diego, people need not ask. George Gascón, San Francisco’s district attorney, said his office would automatically erase convictions there, which total about 3,000.

An additional 4,900 felony marijuana charges would be examined by prosecutors to determine if they should be retroactively reduced to misdemeanors.

San Diego had identified 4,700 cases, both felonies and misdemeanors, that would be cleared or downgraded. (see Feb 26 or see CCC for expanded chronology)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment

January 31, 2020: from the NYT, the Senate brought President Trump to the brink of acquittal of charges that he abused his power and obstructed Congress, as Republicans voted to block consideration of new witnesses and documents in his impeachment trial and shut down a final push by Democrats to bolster their case for the president’s removal.

In a nearly party-line vote after a bitter debate, Democrats failed to win support from the four Republicans they needed. With Mr. Trump’s acquittal virtually certain, the president’s allies rallied to his defense, though some conceded he was guilty of the central allegations against him.

The Democrats’ push for more witnesses and documents failed 49 to 51, with only two Republicans, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, joining Democrats in favor. The vote on the verdict was planned for February 5. (see Trump for expanded chronology)

January 31 Peace Love Art Activism

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

Sunday Bloody Sunday music

Ironically, there are too many Never Forget events to remember.

The more history changes…

Most of my posts deal with events that occurred in the United States. Of course as we see and hear continuously today, when the United States sneezes, the world catches a cold. Or at least it tries to duck.

Sometimes an international event is too meaningful and close to home to not include. Such was the tragedy in Derry, Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972.

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

Derry, Northern Ireland

The sectarian crisis in Northern Ireland escalated in 1969 when the British government sent troops to Northern Ireland to suppress the Irish Republican Army’s nationalist activity and to quell religious violence between Protestants and Catholics.

The Catholic nationalist community in town of Derry had initially welcomed the troops as a preferable alternative to what they saw as the discrimination of the local Northern Ireland security forces, but continued opposition to policies such as detention of terrorist suspects without trial and the alleged gerrymandering of electoral districts to favor Protestant voters  had inspired a civil rights movement across Northern Ireland. With support for the demands of the civil rights movement so strong among local people, Derry was an obvious choice for a mass demonstration.

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

30 January 1972

The protesters, all Catholics, marched  in spite of the banning of such marches.  British authorities  sent troops to confront the demonstrators when it went ahead.

About ten thousand people gathered. The army set up barricades to prevent the march reaching its intended destination  of Guildhall Square in the heart of the city. Paratroopers moved in to make arrests. During this operation, they opened fire on the crowd, killing thirteen (five of whom were shot in the back), and wounding 13 others.

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

The dead were all male, aged between seventeen and forty-one. Another man, aged fifty-nine, died some months later from injuries sustained on that day. The wounded included a fifteen-year-old boy and a woman.

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

Exoneration

British Army said it had responded after coming under fire. The British government announced it would conduct an official inquiry.

The report of British Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery exonerated the army and cast suspicion on many of the victims, suggesting they had been handling bombs and guns.

The families of the victims and others campaigned for a new public inquiry, which was finally granted by then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998.

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry took 12 years and finally reported in 2010. It established the innocence of the victims and laid responsibility for what happened on the army.

Prime Minister David Cameron called the killings “unjustified and unjustifiable”.  (BBC article on Sayville Inquiry)

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

Legacy

Musicians wrote song after song inspired by the event and its initial cover up. 

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

Paul McCartney/Linda Eastman

While it would  be a stretch to describe Paul McCartney as a protest song writer, his and wife Linda’s “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” certainly falls within that genre. They recorded the song only two days after the shootings and released it with their band Wings in late February.  The BBC banned the song. It was the first time that Henry McCullough played with Wings.

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

John Lennon

John Lennon–partially Irish–had already written and performed “Luck of the Irish” before January 30,  but the song became associated with that Sunday afterwards.

If you had the luck of the Irish
You’d be sorry and wish you were dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you’d wish you was English instead!

In response to the actual event, Lennon also wrote “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” 

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

Others…

  • Roy Harper “All Ireland” in 1973.

  • Of course, U2’s most famous “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in 1983. 

  • Christy Moore “Minds Locked Shut” in 1996 

  • “Bloody Sunday” by Cruachan in 2004. 

  • The Wolfe Tones “Sunday Bloody Sunday

Sunday Bloody Sunday Music

January 30 Music et al

January 30 Music et al

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

January 30 – February 12, 1961: “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by the Shirelles #1 Billboard Hot 100. Carole King and Jerry Goffin’s first #1 hit. Also, the first song to reach #1 by an all-girl group.

And did you know that Bertell Dache, a demo singer for the Brill Building songwriters, recorded an answer song entitled “Not just Tomorrow, But Always.”

The Satintones also recorded an answer song

January 30 Music et al

White Light/White Heat

January 30, 1968: Velvet Underground released White Light/White Heat album.  One of the album’s songs, “Sister Ray,” concerns drug use, violence, homosexuality and transvestism. Reed said of the lyrics: “‘Sister Ray’ was done as a joke—no, not as a joke—but it has eight characters in it and this guy gets killed and nobody does anything. It was built around this story that I wrote about this scene of total debauchery and decay. I like to think of ‘Sister Ray’ as a transvestite smack dealer. The situation is a bunch of drag queens taking some sailors home with them, shooting up on smack and having this orgy when the police appear.

The recording engineer is famously rumored to have walked out while recording the song. Lou Reed recalled: “The engineer said, ‘I don’t have to listen to this. I’ll put it in Record, and then I’m leaving. When you’re done, come get me.‘”

Duck and Sally inside
They’re cooking for the down five
Who’re staring at Miss Rayon
Who’s busy licking up her pig pen
I’m searching for my mainline
I said I couldn’t hit it sideways
I said I couldn’t hit it sideways
Oh, just like Sister Ray said
Live it onRosey and Miss Rayon
They’re busy waiting for her booster
Who just got back from Carolina
She said she didn’t like the weather
They’re busy waiting for her sailor
Who says he’s just as big as ever
He says he’s from Alabama
He wants to know a way to earn a dollar
I’m searching for my mainline
I said I couldn’t hit it sideways
I couldn’t hit it sideways
Oh, just like Sister Ray said
Play onCecil’s got his new piece
He cocks and shoots between three and four
He aims it at the sailor
Shoots him down dead on the floor
Oh, you shouldn’t do that
Don’t you know, you’ll stain the carpet?
Now don’t you know you’ll stain the carpet
And by the way, have you got a dollar
Oh, no, man, I haven’t got the time time
 Too busy sucking on a ding-dong
She’s busy sucking on my ding-dong
Oh, she does just like Sister Ray said
I’m searching for my mainline
I said I couldn’t hit it sideways
Oh, couldn’t, couldn’t hit it sideways
Oh it, it just, just all over the floor, the floor

 

Now, who’s that knocking
Who’s that knocking on my chamber door
Now could it be the police
They come to take me for a ride ride
Oh, but I haven’t got the time time
Hey, hey, hey she’s busy sucking on my ding-dong
She’s too busy sucking on my ding-dong
Oh, now, just like Sister Ray said
I’m searching for my mainline
I couldn’t hit it sideways
I couldn’t hit it sideways
Oh, just like
And, just like
And, just like, yea, Sister Ray said, do it!

Duck and Sally inside
They’re cooking for the down five
Who’re staring at Miss Rayon
Who’s busy licking up her pig pen
I’m searching for my mainline
I said I couldn’t hit it sideways
I said I couldn’t hit it sideways
Oh, just like
Now, just like
I said oh, just like
Am-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-phetamines!

January 30 Music et al

More!

As if those 17 minutes aren’t enough amazing rock and roll for you, here’s a 37-minute live version for you. More than twice as amazing. Really!

January 30 Music et al

The Beatles

January 30 Music et al

January 30, 1969: The Beatles (w Billy Preston) gave their final live performance atop the Apple building at 3 Savile Row, London, in what became the climax of their Let It Be film.  George Harrison later said, “We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert idea, because it was much simpler than going anywhere else; also nobody had ever done that, so it would be interesting to see what happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social study. We set up a camera in the Apple reception area, behind a window so nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in. The police and everybody came in saying, ‘You can’t do that! You’ve got to stop.’

It was a cold day, and a bitter wind was blowing on the rooftop by midday. To cope with the weather, John Lennon borrowed Yoko Ono’s fur coat, and Ringo Starr wore his wife Maureen Starkey’s red mac. The 42-minute show was recorded onto two eight-track machines in the basement of Apple, by George Martin, engineer Glyn Johns and tape operator Alan Parsons.

From a Rolling Stone magazine articleHere are little-known facts about the Beatles’ famed 1969 rooftop concert,

January 30 Music et al