February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Sons of Vulcan

February 13, 1865: a national eight-month strike by the Sons of Vulcan, a union of iron forgers, ends in victory when employers agreed to a wage scale based on the price of iron bars—the first time employers recognized the union, the first union contract in the iron and steel industry, and what may be the first union contract of any kind in the United States (see August 20, 1866)

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones

February 13, 1913: after West Virginia Governor William E. Glasscock declared martial law to put down the coal miners’ strike in in Kanawha county, 83-year old activist and organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones was arrested. She was tried and convicted by a military court and sentenced to twenty years in prison. “Whatever I have done in West Virginia,” she said, “I have done it all over the United States. And when I get out, I will do it again.” She was released and pardoned after serving 85 days. (see Mar 2)

American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers

February 13, 1914: the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) was founded in New York City. The organization’s purpose was–and remains–to protect the copyright and performance rights of the works of its members: composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers. ASCAP’s first director was composer and musician Victor Herbert, a supporter of musicians’ right to receive royalties for the use of their work. (see Apr 20)

Hollywood Writers Strike Ends

February 13, 2008: some 12,000 Hollywood writers returned to work today following a largely successful three-month strike against television and motion picture studios. They won compensation for their TV and movie work that gets streamed on the Internet. (see January 7, 2009)

Foxconn

February 13, 2012: Apple said that it had asked an outside organization to conduct special audits of working conditions inside Chinese factories where iPhones, iPads and other Apple products are manufactured. (see Mar 28)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

February 13, 1913: Tibet became independent from China, but China will invade and occupy Tibet in October 1950. (see April 24, 1916)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Japanese Internment Camps

February 13, 1942: Pacific Coast Congressional group recommended evacuation. (see JIC for expanded chronology)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Bob Douglas

February 13, 1923: Bob Douglas, often referred to as the “Father of Black Basketball” formed the New York Renaissance (the “Rens”). The Rens became the first professional black basketball team in the nation.

Douglas became the first Afro-American inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame (in 1972!) as a contributor. (2017 Undefeated site article) (see Feb 19)

Montgomery Bus Boycott

February 13, 1956: Judge Eugene Carter directed the Montgomery county grand jury to determine whether the boycott of Montgomery buses violated Alabama’s anti-boycott law. (see MBB for expanded chronology)

Diane Nash and James Bevel

February 13, 1960: inspired by Rev. James Lawson’s philosophy of nonviolence, Diane Nash and James Bevel led 100 African-American students from Fisk University and Tennessee A&I University (now Tennessee State University) and began a sit-in to desegregate public facilities in Nashville. (BH, see Feb 15 – 21; Nashville, see May 10)

College demonstrations

February 13, 1968: civil rights demonstrations at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (see Feb 20)

Emmett Till

February 13, 2013: Airickca Gordon-Taylor, director of the Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation, requested that Lil Wayne remove Emmett Till’s name from his verse on Future’s “Karate Chop.” Gordon-Taylor called Wayne’s use of Till’s name “disappointing, dishonorable, and outright disrespectful to our family.”

Guesting on “Karate Chop,” a new single by Atlanta rapper Future, Lil Wayne (aka Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.) contributed the third verse of the remix, which began:

Pop a lot of pain pills ‘Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels Beat that p—y up like Emmett Till Pop a lot of pain pills ‘Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels Beat that p—y up like Emmett Till

(BH & ET, see Feb 18)

Race Revolt

February 13, 1973: Airman William E Boon, the only white crewman charged in connection with racial violence aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk last October, was found not guilty of assault. Fifteen black crewmen were tried, six of them at sea. Nine were convicted. (Vietnam, see Mar 17; BH, see Mar 8; RR, see June 12, 1974)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

February 13, 1960:  France exploded its first atomic bomb. (CTBTO article) (see Aug 19)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

February 13 Music et al

Exodus

February 13 – 19, 1961: soundtrack from the movie Exodus is Billboard #1 album. 

Calcutta

February 13 – 26, 1961: “Calcutta” by Lawrence Welk & His Orchestra #1 Billboard Hot 100.

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Operation Rolling Thunder

February 13, 1965: President Johnson authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing offensive. Its aim was to force North Vietnam to stop supporting Vietcong guerrillas in the South. It will begin on March 2. (see Feb 18)

Post Tet Offensive

February 13, 1968: as an emergency measure in response to the 1968 communist Tet Offensive, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara approved the deployment of 10,500 troops to cope with threats of a second offensive. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had argued against dispatching any reinforcements at the time because it would seriously deplete the strategic reserve, immediately sent McNamara a memorandum asking that 46,300 reservists and former servicemen be activated. Not wanting to test public opinion on what would no doubt be a controversial move, Johnson consigned the issue of the reservists to “study.” Ultimately, he decided against a large-scale activation of the reserve forces. (see Feb 18)

STUDENT ACTIVISM

February 13, 1969: 33 students arrested at University of Massachusetts Administration building sit-in. (Vietnam, see Feb 16; SA, see Feb 18)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Russell C Means, Wounded Knee II

February 13, 1974: the Wounded Knee trial opened with statements from the two defendants, Russell C. Means and Dennis J. Banks, that Indians were ready to revolt against having their heritage and traditions crushed by an unfeeling Federal bureaucracy. (see March 6)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

AIDS & Ryan White

February 13, 1986: Howard County health officer determined White was fit for school. (see White for expanded story)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Cultural Milestone

February 13, 2000: Charles M. Schulz‘s last original Sunday “Peanuts” comic strip appeared in newspapers. Schulz had died the day before. (see August 31, 2001)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

February 13, 2012:  according to the U.S. Department of Defense, there were 4,408 total deaths (including both killed in action and non-hostile) and 31,922 wounded in action (WIA) as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom. (see March 20, 2015)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Washington State

February 13, 2012: Washington Governor Chris Gregoire signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Washington was the 7th state to legalize gay marriage. (see Feb 16)

Virginia

February 13, 2014: U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen ruled Virginia’s ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. 

Wright Allen, an Eastern District of Virginia judge in Norfolk, wrote that the constitutional right to equality should apply to all, including same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses. “Our Constitution declares that ‘all men’ are created equal. Surely this means all of us. She continued, “While ever vigilant for the wisdom that can come from the voices of our voting public, our courts have never long tolerated the perpetuation of laws rooted in unlawful prejudice. One of the judiciary’s noblest endeavors is to scrutinize law that emerge from such roots.”

Wright Allen stayed her order to allow an appeal, meaning nothing immediately changes for same-sex couples in the state. (see Feb 24)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

Pennsylvania suspends penalty

February 13, 2015: Pennsylvania Governor. Tom Wolf announced that he had suspended the death penalty until he reviewed a report on capital. punishment in the state. “This moratorium is in no way an expression of sympathy for the guilty on death row, all of whom have been convicted of committing heinous crimes,” Wolf said in a statement. “This decision is based on a flawed system that has been proven to be an endless cycle of court proceedings as well as ineffective, unjust, and expensive.”  (Death Penalty Information Center article) (see Feb 17)

Oklahoma resumes penalty

February 13, 2020: the NYT reported that Oklahoma officials announced plans to resume putting inmates to death using lethal injection drugs, five years after officials had halted all executions in the wake of a series of botched procedures that drew national attention to the state’s death penalty protocol.

The officials said that they had access to the drugs necessary to carry out capital punishment, though when the next execution would be scheduled remained unclear. It would be the first execution in Oklahoma since a string of errors and problematic executions in 2014 and 2015 that President Barack Obama had described as “deeply troubling.” (next DP, see Mar 23)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Trump’s travel ban

February 13,  2017: U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Virginia issued a preliminary injunction to bar the enforcement of President Donald Trump’s travel ban to and from seven Middle Eastern countries, based significantly on its singling out of Muslim individuals as its target.

Brinkema made Virginia the third state to stop the enforcement of Trump’s executive order blocking travel to and from the countries, ruling the executive order was unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment. (Washington Post article) (see Feb 16)

Trump DACA

February 13, 2018: U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn blocked President Donald Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that protects immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children from deportation.

Garaufis in Brooklyn ruled that DACA, cannot end in March as the Republican administration had planned, a victory for Democratic state attorneys general and immigrants who sued the federal government.

The decision was similar to a January 9 ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco that DACA must remain in place while litigation challenging Trump’s decision continues. (IH, see Feb 22; DACA, see Feb 26)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

February 13, 2018: Judge Richard M. Berman sentenced Ahmad Khan Rahimi, the Afghan-born immigrant planted the bomb that exploded in Manhattan in 2016, to two life terms in prison.

Berman handed down the sentence in Federal District Court in Manhattan, ending the prosecution of Rahimi, who was convicted of the high-profile act of jihad-inspired terrorism that was widely considered a near miss, injuring dozens without killing anyone. Rahimi was convicted by a jury on October 16, 2017 setting off weapons of mass destruction. (see Feb 14)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Space

February 13, 2019: after 15 years on Mars, the mission of NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity appeared to have come to an end. The wheeled explorer was only supposed to function for 90 days, but it went on to assist in many discoveries about ancient conditions on Mars, becoming the longest-lasting robotic explorer sent to another planet.

The rover had been silent since June 2018 when a planet-wide dust storm prevented sunlight from reaching its solar panels; lacking energy, Opportunity could not stay awake. The hope was that the rover would revive when the skies cleared, but it had not responded after months of efforts to contact it.

The space agency is expected to announce that it is wrapping up the mission. [NYT article] (see Mar 2)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

February 13, 2019: Roman Catholic bishops in New Jersey named nearly 200 priests who had been found credibly accused of sexually abusing a child. As with many of the other lists recently published, most of the priests identified by the New Jersey bishops were dead, and the accusations involve alleged abuse that happened decades ago. [NYT story] (see Feb 15)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

February 13, 2024: NBC Sports California announced that it had chosen Jenny Cavnar, a broadcasting veteran with nearly two decades of baseball experience, as the primary play-by-play voice for the Oakland Athletics’ games.

“It is a dream come true to join the broadcast team for the Oakland A’s and their rich baseball history,” Cavnar said in a release. “Growing up the daughter of a baseball coach, I have loved the game from a young age, along with the stories, history, and relationships the game provides.”

Cavnar would be the first woman to hold such a position in Major League Baseball. [CNN article] (next Feminism, see June 12)

February 13 Peace Love Art Activism

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Quakers

February 11, 1790: The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, composed mostly of Quakers and Mennonites, petitioned Congress for emancipation of all slaves. Benjamin Franklin served as president of the society. (see Mar 1)

George Whitmore, Jr

February 11, 1965: Whitmore’s attorney, Stanley J Reiben filed a motion asking Justice Malbin to set aside George Whitmore, Jr.’s conviction in the Elba Borrero attempted rape/robbery case on the grounds that police lacked probable cause to arrest Whitmore and that his confession, therefore, whether voluntary or involuntary, should have been suppressed at the trial. The motion stated that Detective Aidala had testified before the grand jury that he had arrested Whitmore on a Brooklyn street — a concession that police lacked probable cause.

The motion also stated that, in an unrelated case, Detective Edward Bulger (the detective who had incorrectly said the picture Whitmore had in his possession was one of  the murdered Janice Wylie) had obtained a confession from 22-year-old David Coleman to the 1960 murder of a 77-year-old woman in Brooklyn — a crime for which Coleman is on death row. (see Whitmore for expanded story)

Michael Griffith

February 11, 1988: Jason Ladone received a sentence of five to fifteen years imprisonment for the death of Michael Griffith. (BH, see October 2; Howard Beach, see July 31, 1989)

Nelson Mandela

February 11, 1990: Nelson Mandela, 71, released from Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town, South Africa, after 27 years behind bars. (2015 NY Daily News article) (see June 10)

Stop and Frisk Policy

February 11, 2013: federal District Judge Shira Shindlin granted class-action status to a lawsuit seeking to stop the New York Police Department from conducting some “stop and frisk” searches of people outside certain residential buildings in the city’s Bronx borough. Shindlin found that a group of black and Latino residents in the Bronx could bring claims on behalf of a class of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people at risk of being stopped outside the buildings. (see March 5)

Yale

February 11, 2017: yielding to a swelling tide of protests, the president of Yale announced that the university would change the name of a residential college commemorating John C. Calhoun, the 19th-century white supremacist statesman from South Carolina. The college will be renamed for Grace Murray Hopper, a trailblazing computer scientist and Navy rear admiral who received both a master’s degree and a doctorate from Yale.

The decision was a stark reversal of the university’s decision last spring to maintain the name despite broad opposition. Though the president, Peter Salovey, said that he was still “concerned about erasing history,” he said that “these are exceptional circumstances.” (see June 17)

Malcolm X

February 11, 2021: 55 years after Malcolm X’s assassination on February 21, 1965, the Manhattan district attorney’s office began to review whether to re-investigate the murder.

Some new evidence came from a six-part Netflix  documentary  called “Who Killed Malcolm X?” posited that two of the men convicted could not have been at the scene that day.

Instead it suggested that four members of a Nation of Islam mosque in Newark, N.J. were responsible, depicting their involvement as an open secret in their city. [NYT article] (next BH & MX, see Feb 21)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

Anarchism

Emma Goldman

February 11, 1916: Goldman was scheduled to lecture on the “Philosophy of Atheism” at Vorwart Hall,  \NYC. She was arrested as she was about to enter the building, and charged with violating Section 1142 of the New York State Penal Code for lecturing the previous Tuesday on a medical question (birth control) in defiance of the law. Goldman released on $500 bail. (see March 1, 1916; also see Goldman for expanded story)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

February 11, 1937: the sit-down strike against General Motors ended with the company agreeing to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union. (see Feb 27)

Denver Teacher Strike

February 11, 2019: Denver teachers went on strike. The Denver Classroom Teachers Association and Denver Public Schools made a last-ditch effort to settle their differences two days earlier, but the talks went nowhere. 92,000 students were affected. (see Feb 14)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

February 11 Music et al

The Beatles

February 11, 1963: at 10:00 am the Beatles and George Martin started recording what was essentially their 1963 live act and in three three-hour sessions. That day they produced an authentic representation of the band’s Cavern Club-era sound as there were very few overdubs and edits. (next Beatles, see Feb 22;  see Please Please Me for more about album)

February 11, 1964: because of bad weather, The Beatles took a train to Washington, DC, rather than the scheduled plane to play their first US concert, A crowd of 8,092 fans, most of whom were girls, attended. The Beatles took to the stage at 8.31 pm, and performed 12 songs: Roll Over Beethoven, From Me To You, I Saw Her Standing There, This Boy, All My Loving, I Wanna Be Your Man, Please Please Me, Till There Was You, She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Twist And Shout and Long Tall Sally. 

Also on the bill at the Coliseum were The Chiffons and Tommy Roe. However, The Chiffons were unable to make it due to the previous day’s snowstorm. Instead, the opening acts were Jay & The Americans, The Righteous Brothers and Tommy Roe. (see The Beatles Meet Washington) (next Beatles, see Feb 12)

Monkees

February 11 – June 16, 1967: the Monkees More of the Monkees is the Billboard #1 album. Their first two albums occupied the #1 album position for 31 consecutive weeks.

Beat Generation

February 11, 2015: Montreal-based publisher Les Éditions du Boréal announced that it would release previously unseen texts by Jack Kerouac after striking a deal with his estate. The collection included a novella that is different from — but also titled — “On the Road” (“Sur le chemin”). Also published would be the beginning chapters of an unfinished novel entitled “La Nuit est ma femme.”

“None of them have been published until now, except for a few passages that appeared in his English novels,” the  publisher Les Éditions du Boréal said in a statement.

The texts were written in Kerouac’s native French and will also be translated into English for the non-profit Library of America by University of Pennsylvania. (Star article) (next BG, see February 22, 2021)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

POW release

February 11, 1973: North Vietnam released the first American prisoners of war. (see Feb 13)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental  Issues

February 11, 1974:  Washington Energy Conference opens. Attended by 13 industrial and oil producing nations. Called by U.S. to resolve the international energy problems through economic cooperation among nations. Henry Kissinger unveiled Nixon Administration’s seven-point “Project Independence” plan to make the U.S. energy independent. (see December 15, 1976)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

“Longest Walk”

February 11 to July 1978: Indian participants embarked on the “Longest Walk” from Alcatraz Island to Washington, D.C. to symbolize the forced removal of Indians from their homelands and to draw attention to continuing problems. They present a manifesto to the Carter administration. (see Mar 6)

“Walk for Justice”

February 11 – July 15, 1994: AIM leaders undertook a nationwide “Walk for Justice” beginning on Alcatraz Island to bring attention to the continued imprisonment of Leonard Peltier. (Peltier, see October 8, 2012; Native Americans, see May 24, 1996)

Longest Walk of 2008

February 11, 2008: more than 800 participants from many Indian nations repeated the Longest Walk of 1978 to draw attention to protection of sacred sites, youth empowerment, and Native American rights. The walk begins with a ceremony on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, and the promise to “sit around the campfires along the way, tell our stories, hear the tales that people on our route have to tell us.” (see July 11)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

Iran hostage crisis

February 11, 1979: followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrew Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi and seized power in Iran, nine days after the religious leader returned to his home country following 15 years of exile. (see Iran hostages for expanded story)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

February 11, 1989: Barbara Clementine Harris was consecrated as the first female bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA. (see  March 9, 1990)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

February 11, 1998: First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton predicted the allegations against her husband “will slowly dissipate over time under the weight of its own insubstantiality.” A retired Secret Service uniformed guard, Lewis C. Fox, claimed in an interview he saw Monica Lewinsky come to the West Wing on weekends with documents she said were for the president. (see CI for expanded chronology)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

February 11, 2008: the Defense Department charged Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. (related NYT article) (see July 27)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ, Feminism, Sexual Abuse of Children, & Women’s Health

February 11, 2013: citing health reasons, the Roman Catholic Church’s Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would resign the papacy at the end February. According to the NY Times, “When he took office, Pope Benedict’s well-known stands included the assertion that Catholicism is “true” and other religions are “deficient;” that the modern, secular world, especially in Europe, is spiritually weak; and that Catholicism is in competition with Islam. He had also strongly opposed homosexuality, the ordination of women priests and stem cell research.” (LGBTQ, see Feb 19; Feminism, see Feb 22; Women’s Health, see April 29; Sexual Abuse, see Dec 5)

LGBTQ/Fair Housing

February 11, 2021:  consistent with President Biden’s Executive Order that implemented the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 15, 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County,  the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) put forth a memorandum to enforce the Fair Housing Act to prevent and combat sex discrimination including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. [HRC.org article) (next FH, see June 1; next LGBTQ, see Feb 24)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

February 11, 2014: the governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, announced that no executions would take place in the state while he remained in office, despite the fact that the death penalty was legal there.

Citing “problems that exist in our capital punishment system,” Mr. Inslee, a Democrat, said he would issue a reprieve in any death penalty case that crossed his desk, though he would not let any death row prisoners go free. A future governor could reverse this action, he noted, and order an execution to be carried out. (see Mar 11)

 

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Undocumented arrested

February 11, 2017: U.S. immigration authorities announced that they had arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants in at least a half-dozen states between Monday February 6 and Friday February 10 in a series of raids that marked the first large-scale enforcement of President Trump’s January 25 order to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living here illegally.

Officials said the raids targeted known criminals, but they also netted some immigrants without criminal records, an apparent departure from similar enforcement waves during the Obama administration. Trump’s order substantially broadened the scope of who the Department of Homeland Security can target to include those with minor offenses or no convictions at all. (see Feb 13)

Trump’s Wall

February 11, 2019: Gov. Gavin Newsom of California ordered the withdrawal of nearly 400 of his state’s National Guard troops from deployment along the border with Mexico and assigned them to other duties.

The step to rescind state authorization for the border deployment was a sharp rebuke of President Trump’s continued warnings that undocumented migrants present a national security risk to the United States.

Under a “general order,”110 California National Guard troops would be redirected to support the state’s central fire agency, Cal Fire, and another 100 will work on statewide “intelligence operations” aimed at international criminal drug gangs. (see TW for expanded chronology)

Immigrant families sue

February 11, 2019:  lawyers for eight immigrant families separated under Trump administration policy filed claims against the US government, demanding $6m each in damages for what they describe as “inexplicable cruelty” and lasting trauma.

In claims filed to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, the parents accuse immigration officers of taking their children away without giving them information, sometimes without even a chance to say goodbye.

The claims alleged the children remained traumatized, including a seven-year-old girl who would not sleep without her mother and a six-year-old boy who is reluctant to eat. (IH, see Feb 15)

February 11 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

February 11, 2017:

• North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the sea off its eastern coast in what South Korea called the North’s first attempt to test President Trump’s policy on the isolated country. The missile was believed to be a modified version of the North’s intermediate-range ballistic missile Musudan.
• President Trump and his top aides coordinated their response to North Korea’s missile test  in full view of diners at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Floridal, af presidential activity that was almost always conducted in highly secure settings. The scene — of aides huddled over their computers and the president on his cellphone at his club’s terrace — was captured by a club member dining not far away and published in pictures on his Facebook account. The images also show Mr. Trump conferring with his guest at the resort, Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister. (see Feb 14)
  

  February 11 Peace Love Art Activism