March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Civilization Fund Act

March 3, 1819: the United States Congress enacted the Civilization Fund Act, authorizing the President, “in every case where he shall judge improvement in the habits and condition of such Indians practicable” to “employ capable persons of good moral character” to introduce to any tribe adjoining a frontier settlement the “arts of civilization.”

With a budget of $10,000 per year, missionaries and church leaders partnering with the federal government would establish schools in Indian territories to teach Native children to replace tribal practices with Christian practices. In 1824, the federal government established the Bureau of Indian Affairs to oversee the fund and implement programs to “civilize” the Native people. In the following years, as the United States systematically removed tribes from their homelands to land west of the Mississippi River, the United States turned to policies purportedly aimed at achieving “the great work of regenerating the Indian race.”

According to Indian Commissioner Luke Lea, it was “indispensably necessary that they be placed in positions where they can be controlled, and finally compelled by stern necessity…until such time as their general improvement and good conduct may supersede the necessity of such restrictions.” Over the ensuing decades, the United States’ orientation to Native peoples changed from adversarial to paternalistic. (see November 17, 1828)

Indian Appropriation Act

March 3, 1871: Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act, which revoked the sovereignty of Indian nations and made Native Americans wards of the American government. The act eliminated the necessity of treaty negotiating and established the policy that tribal affairs could be managed by the U.S. government without tribal consent. (see July 2, 1874)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Carriage of Passengers Act of 1855

March 3, 1855: the Carriage of Passengers Act of 1855 repealed Steerage Act of 1819, and all the other Acts regulating conditions of travel passed after that.

The Carriage of Passengers Act imposed a wider range of regulations on the conditions of travel than the original Steerage Act, combining and extending regulations introduced in the many other Acts passed starting 1847. Specifically, in addition to modifying the limits based on tonnage and food and water provisions, it added many regulations on such topics as deck space, hospitals, berths, ventilators, cambooses and cooking ranges, discipline and cleanliness, and privies.[8][9] The additional regulations were designed and motivated by the goal of reducing the spread of infections and deaths on board, after experience with epidemics of cholera, typhus, and typhoid in recent years. (next IH, see March 3, 1875)

Immigration Act of 1875

March 3, 1875: Congress approved the Immigration Act of 1875. The first immigration law to bar certain groups of people from entering the US. It prohibits the importation of Chinese laborers without their consent and the importation “of women for the purposes of prostitution.” The unstated purpose was to prevent single Chinese women from immigrating and marrying Chinese men already in the US, since their US-born children would have been citizens under the 14th amendment. (see July 23, 1877)

1903 Immigration Act

March 3, 1903: the 1903 Immigration Act banned the entry into the U.S. of anarchists, beggars, epileptics, and importers of prostitutes. Enacted on this day, it became a model for subsequent restrictive, anti-immigrant laws in the years and decades ahead. The 1918 Immigration Act, passed on October 16, 1918, expanded the definition of an “anarchist,” allowing the government to deport more alleged radicals. The most notorious law was the 1924 Immigration Act, passed on May 26, 1924, which included a “national origins” quota system that discriminated against people seeking to come to the U.S. from Eastern and Southern Europe. The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, passed on June 27, 1952, was a Cold War law that barred the immigration of alleged “subversives” and allowed the government to deport immigrants who were deemed subversive.

The 1965 Immigration Act replaced the 1924 law, the 1965 act abolished the quota system. President Lyndon signed it into law on October 3, 1965, in a ceremony at the Statue of Liberty. (Immigration, see January 4, 1904; Anarchism, see June 27, 1905)

Japanese Internment Camps

March 3, 1992: Manzanar was one of ten Relocation Centers in the infamous evacuation and detention of the Japanese Americans during World War II (authorized by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942). It held just over 10,000 detainees. On this day, Manzanar became a National Historic Site, managed by the National Park Service. Two other Relocation Centers also have national landmark status: Tule Lake (designated on February 17, 2006) and Heart Mountain (designated on September 20, 2006). (see Camps for expanded story) 

Immigrant Housing

March 3, 2014:  the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear two cases involving anti-immigrant local ordinances in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and Farmers Branch, Texas that would have denied housing to immigrants that the cities considered “illegal aliens.” The decision will let stand lower court rulings in the 3rd and 5th Circuits, respectively, that found the ordinances unconstitutional and permanently prohibited the ordinances from taking effect. (see Mar 11)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

“the weeping time”

March 3, 1859: largest sale of human beings in US history, known as “the weeping time” occurred. The sale took place at a racetrack in Savannah, Georgia. During the two-day auction 436 men, women, and children were auctioned off to meet the debts of Pierce Butler. (see Oct 16 – 17)

Muhammad Ali

March 3, 1964: according to a story published by The Louisville Courier‐Journal, Muhammad Ali failed by a slight margin to pass the psychological tests, which he had taken January 24 in Coral Gables, Fla. The Defense Department said only that the tests were being forwarded to Washington for “processing.” (see Mar 4)

George Whitmore, Jr.

March 3, 1965: At a hearing before Justice Dominic S. Rinaldi, before whom the Minnie Edmonds case was pending, defense lawyers moved to suppress Whitmore’s confession on the ground that police lacked probable cause to arrest him and that, in any event, the confession was unworthy of belief in view of Whitmore’s false confession in the Wylie-Hoffert case.

On the probable cause issue, Detective Richard Aidala testified that he erred when he told the grand jury that he had arrested Whitmore on the street. In fact, Aidala asserted, he merely asked Whitmore to go to the station, Whitmore “willingly agreed,” and the arrest was not made until Borrero identified Whitmore.  (see Whitmore for expanded story)

Rodney King

March 3, 1991: Los Angeles police officers beat Rodney Glen King, an African-American construction worker,  following a high-speed car chase. George Holliday, a resident in the nearby area, witnessed the police brutality and videotaped much of it from the balcony of his nearby apartment.  

King was taken to Pacifica Hospital immediately after his arrest, where he was shown to have suffered a fractured facial bone, a broken right ankle, and numerous bruises and lacerations. (see Mar 4)

Ferguson, Missouri

 

March 3, 2015: after a six month inquiry, the DOJ found that the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department had routinely engaged in unconstitutional and unlawful activity that targeted the city’s majority African-American population. The bias was so pervasive that city officials sometimes used racial slurs in their emails. President Barack Obama would not stay in office, wrote one city official, since “what black man holds a steady job for four years.”

Black residents were twice as likely as whites to be searched during a routine traffic stop, although they were 26 percent less likely to carry contraband. African-Americans make up 67 percent of the city’s population but constitute 93 percent of its arrests.

Municipal courts heavily favored whites in deciding if cases would be dismissed. And the city used heavy fines to send many impoverished black residents to jail, part of a system that created a debtors’ prison. (see Mar 6)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

Free Speech

March 3, 1873: named after Anthony Comstock, a U.S. postal inspector, the Comstock Act amended the Post Office Act [enacted June 8, 1872]. It formally incorporated the US Post Office Department into the US Cabinet. It is also notable for §148 which made it illegal to send any “obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious” materials through the mail, including contraceptive devices and information. In addition to banning contraceptives, this act also banned the distribution of information on abortion for educational purposes.

Comstock founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1873 and led its anti-obscenity crusade until his death, on September 21, 1915. He was succeeded as head of the Society by John Sumner, who continued his crusade. (Embryo Project article) (FS, see December 24, 1908: WH, see March 1914)

Mary Ware Dennett

March 3, 1930: Mary Ware Dennett was a leading birth control and sex education advocate in the 1920s and 1930s. She was prosecuted under the Comstock Act (March 3, 1873) for mailing her sex education pamphlet, The Sex Side of Life. She originally wrote the pamphlet for her children, and then decided to publish it after receiving many requests for copies. Her prosecution and then conviction on April 23, 1929 became a national cause célèbre, with many prominent Americans coming to her defense. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, on this day, overturned the conviction in a decision that expanded First Amendment protections for other sexuality related publications.

The Court: “It may be assumed that any article dealing with the sex side of life and explaining the functions of the sex organs is capable in some circumstances of arousing lust. The sex impulses are present in every one, and without doubt cause much of the weal and woe of human kind. But it can hardly be said that, because of the risk of arousing sex impulses, there should be no instruction of the young in sex matters, and that the risk of imparting instruction outweighs the disadvantages of leaving them to grope about in mystery and morbid curiosity and of requiring them to secure such information, as they may be able to obtain, from ill-informed and often foul-minded companions, rather than from intelligent and high-minded sources.”

Mary Ware Dennett was also a leading advocate of birth control. In the 1920s and 1930s, working through the Voluntary Parenthood League, she was Margaret Sanger’s chief rival on the issue.  (see Aug 15)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

United States Geological Survey

March 3, 1879: Congress established United States Geological Survey for the “classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain” (see June 4, 1892)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Belva Lockwood

On February 15, 1879 President Rutherford B. Hayes had signed legislation allowing women to be admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court. Ten years later, on March 3, 1889 Belva Lockwood became the first woman admitted to practice under the new law admitting women before the US Supreme Court.

Matilda Josyln Gage

In 1880: Gage wrote “Who Planned the Tennessee Campaign of 1862?” Gage argued that a woman, Anna Ella Carroll, planned that campaign in detail. [In the fall of 1861, Carroll had traveled to St. Louis to work with secret agent, Judge Lemuel Dale Evans, who had been appointed by Secretary of State William H. Seward. Carroll gathered information and based on it and in late November 1861 wrote a memorandum that she sent to Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott and Attorney General Edward Bates, advocating that the combined army-navy forces change their invasion route from the Mississippi to the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers.] (see November 9, 1882)

Voting Rights

March 3, 1913: 8,000 women’s suffrage marchers walked down Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, D.C.  This was the first large protest for women’s Suffrage in the city. They were met with large crowds of unruly men blocking their paths and shouting derogatory remarks. Many marchers were injured and congressional hearings would later remove the Chief of DC Police. (see March 17)

Congressional Union

March 3, 1914: Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage participated in suffrage hearing before House Judiciary Committee. (see Mar 19)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

Schenck v. United States

March 3, 1919: Schenck v. United States, the Supreme Court decision upheld the Espionage Act of 1917 and concluded that a defendant did not have a First Amendment right to express freedom of speech against the draft during World War I. Ultimately, the case established the “clear and present danger” test, which lasted until 1969. (Oyez article) (Anarchism, see Mar 10; FS,  see Nov 10)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Seamen’s Act

March 3, 1915: Congress approved the Seamen’s Act, providing the merchant marine with rights similar to those gained by factory workers. Action on the law was prompted by the sinking of the Titanic three years earlier. The Act included provisions to:

• abolish imprisonment for desertion
• reduce penalties for disobedience
• regulate the working hours of seamen both at sea and in port
• establish a minimum quality for rations supplied to seamen
• regulate the payment of wages to seamen
• establish a harsh penalty of double wages per daythat any wages remained unpaid upon a sailor’s discharge (which resulted in one case where the U.S. Supreme Court awarded $302,790.40 to a sailor who had been discharged with $412.50 in unpaid wages.
• set safety requirements, including the provision of lifeboats
• require a minimum percentage of the seamen aboard a vessel to be qualified able seamen.
• require at least 75% of the seamen aboard a vessel to understand the language spoken by the officers (see Nov 19)

Davis-Bacon Act

March 3, 1931: The Davis-Bacon Act required that federal contractors pay their workers the wages and benefits prevailing in the local market when working on a public works project. The law aimed at keeping employers from importing cheaper workers from outside the region. (see July 15)

WV Teacher Strike

March 3, 2018: the West Virginia teachers strike continued after state legislators passed a bill late Saturday that would give educators a smaller raise than the governor had told them they would get. (see Mar 6)

Oakland Teacher Strike

March 3, 2019: Oakland teachers ended their seven-day strike after approving a new contract that won them salary increases and concessions on class sizes and staff workloads.

The deal gives 3,000 teachers and staff members an 11 percent raise spread over four years, plus a one-time 3 percent bonus, but many teachers and their union said they felt that their fight for educational improvements was just beginning. (see Mar 8)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

see March 3 Music et al for expanded story

Woody Guthrie

March 3, 1940, activist and American Communist Party member, Will Geer, introduced 27-year-old Woody Guthrie to 21-year-old Pete Seeger.

Roots of Rock

March 3 or 5, 1951: Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm , recorded “Rocket 88” (originally written as Rocket “88”) at Sam Phillips’s Sun Studio. The record reached no.1 on the Billboard R & B chart. Many experts acknowledge its importance in the development of rock and roll music as the first rock and roll record. (see March 21, 1952)

Fear of Rock

March 3, 1957: Samuel Cardinal Stritch banned rock ‘n’ roll from Chicago archdiocese Roman Catholic schools. (see “In July”)

The Beatles

March 3, 1963: The Beatles were at the bottom of the bill in the last show of their tour supporting Helen Shapiro. Other acts ahead of them included The Kestrels, The Honeys, Dave Allen, Kenny Lynch and Danny Williams. (see Mar 15)

LSD

March 3, 1965: former chemistry student Owsley Stanley began to provide L.S.D. in large quantities for San Francisco “happenings.” (see Mar 30)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Cold War

Feinberg Law

March 3, 1952: in a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Feinberg Law, a New York state statute that prohibited communists from teaching in public schools. (Red Scare, see Apr 10; Feinberg Law, see January 23, 1967)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Crime and Punishment

Trop v. Dulles

March 3, 1958: in the case of Trop v. Dulles, decided on this day, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for the government to revoke the citizenship of a U.S. citizen as a form of punishment. While serving in the Army in 1944, Albert Trop escaped from the stockade where he was being held for misbehavior. The next day, he and a companion were walking along the road near Casablanca, Morroco, and were stopped by an Army truck. Trop willingly got into the truck and was returned to the Army base. Thus, his “desertion” lasted for only some hours. He was then court martialed and given a dishonorable discharge. In 1952 he applied for a passport and was then informed that, under a 1940 law, he had lost his citizenship because of his dishonorable discharge. (see May 27, 1964)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Space Race

Pioneer 4

March 3, 1959: the U.S. sent the unmanned Pioneer 4 by the moon in the first American lunar flyby. (NASA article) (see Apr 9)

Apollo 9

March 3 – 13, 1969: the American Apollo 9 mission tested the Lunar Module for the first time, in Earth orbit. (see May 18 – 26)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Irish Troubles

Humphrey Atkins

March 3, 1981:  Humphrey Atkins, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, made a statement in the House of Commons in which he said that there would be no political status for prisoners regardless of the hunger strike. (see Troubles for  expanded story)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

March 3, 1998: Vernon Jordan Jr. testified before the grand jury. (see Clinton for expanded story)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

BSA

March 3, 1998: the New Jersey Appeals Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when it ousted James Dale, an Eagle Scout, because he was gay. The Court ruled that the Boy Scouts were essentially a public accommodation like a hotel or restaurant. (BSA, see June 28, 2000; LGBTQ see Mar 4)

District of Columbia

March 3, 2010: the District of Columbia’s same-sex marriage law went into effect (CNN article) (see Mar 11)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

March 3, 2005:  death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq hit 1,500 (see Mar 24)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

Religion and Public Education

March 3, 2014: the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a family seeking asylum in the United States because homeschooling was not allowed in their native Germany. The case involved Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, Christians who believe German schools would have a bad influence on their six children. The family’s case became a rallying point for many American Christians. (see Mar 14)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

Florida

March 3, 2016: with Florida’s capital punishment system at a standstill, the state Senate passed a compromise bill that would overhaul Florida’s death sentencing law, allowing the state to resume death penalty prosecutions by making it harder for juries to send someone to death row.

Alabama

March 3, 2016: an Alabama state court judge ruled that Alabama’s death penalty law was unconstitutional because its use of aggravating factors was so similar to Florida’s old system, among other things. The judge said Alabama’s law was even worse than Florida’s because it allowed judges to override a jury’s life sentence in favor of death, noting that judges did that all too often. Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange said that the judge’s decision applied only to four cases in the Birmingham area. (see May 9)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

March 3, 2017: federal authorities charged , Juan Thompson, a St. Louis man with making more than half a dozen bomb threats against Jewish community centers, schools and a Jewish history museum Thompson, made some of the threats in his own name and others in the name of a former girlfriend, apparently in an attempt to intimidate her, according to a federal complaint filed by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.

In one threat, made on Feb. 1 against a Jewish school in Farmington Hills, Mich., the complaint said, Mr. Thompson claimed that he had placed two bombs in the school and was “eager for Jewish newton,” an apparent reference to the December 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Conn., in which a gunman killed 20 students and six school employees.

Thompson was not believed to be responsible for the majority of recent threats made against Jewish centers around the country. (December 20, 2017 sentencing article) (see Aug 5)

March 3 Peace Love Art Activism

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Importation of slaves banned

March 2, 1807: Congress approved a bill to ban the importation of slaves into the United States. President Jefferson signed the bill into law on March 3.

The act took effect on January 1, 1808, and provided that violators were to be fined up to $2000 or imprisoned. The act was poorly enforced; the government often refused to allow the British Royal Navy to search and seize American slave ships and rarely imposed serious punishments against captains, officers, and owners of slave ships participating in illegal slave trading. Consequently, Africans continued to be smuggled into the country, but in smaller numbers. In the two decades following the ban, approximately 10,000 enslaved Africans were brought to the Gulf region, compared to the 73,000 enslaved Africans who arrived in the United States between 1801 and 1808. Mobile, Alabama, holds the distinction of being the port of entry for the last cargo of African slaves kidnapped and brought into the United States in 1859.

The act did not hinder the domestic sale of slaves within the United States and it failed to provide a remedy for illegally trafficked Africans. It freed them from the control of the smuggler but left their fates to the mercy of the state where the ship docked which, in most cases, condemned them to slavery. Slavery would not be legally abolished until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution on December 6, 1865. (see April 1, 1808)

Voter Suppression

March 2, 1948: on the eve of a primary election in Wrightsville, Johnson County, Georgia, at least 300 white men and women belonging to the Ku Klux Klan held a parade in the town’s center. The gathering featured speeches inciting racial hatred and violence, and participants burned crosses on the lawn of the county courthouse. The event was organized to threaten and intimidate the county’s 400 registered Black voters into not voting in the next day’s primary, and the terror tactics worked: fearing for their safety and knowing they had no expectation of protection from law enforcement, not a single Black citizen of Wrightsville cast a vote in the primary. [EJI article] (next BH, see July 14)

Claudette Colvin

March 2, 1955:  nine months before the Rosa Parks arrest, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin boarded a city bus after school to head home. As it filled up, a white woman was left standing, and the bus driver ordered the 15-year-old Colvin to get up and move to the back. She refused, police were called. They dragged Colvin off the bus in handcuffs.

In a 2013 interview, Colvin stated, “I tell—one of the questions asks, “Why didn’t you get up when the bus driver asked you, and the policemen?” I say, “I could not move, because history had me glued to the seat.” And they say, “How is that?” I say, “Because it felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on another shoulder, and I could not move. And I yelled out, ’It’s my constitutional rights,’” because I wasn’t breaking a law under the state’s law, separate but equal; I was sitting in the area that was reserved for black passengers. At that time, we didn’t even want to be called “black,” because black had a negative connotation. We were called “coloreds.” So I was sitting in the coloreds’ section. But because of Jim Crow law, the bus driver had police force, he could ask you to get up. And the problem was that the white woman that was standing near me, she wasn’t an elderly white woman. She was a young white woman. She had a whole seat to sit down by—opposite me, in the opposite row, but she refused to sit down; because of Jim Crow laws, a white person couldn’t sit opposite a colored person. And a white person had to sit in front of you. The purpose was to make white people feel superior and colored people feel inferior”. (see Claudette Colvin for more) (see In April 1955)

Alabama State College

March 2, 1960: Alabama State College expelled the nine student leaders of the March 1 courthouse sit-in.

More than 1000 students immediately pledged a mass strike, threatened to withdraw from the school, and staged days of demonstrations; 37 students were arrested. Montgomery Police Commissioner L.B. Sullivan recommended closing the college, which he claimed produced only “graduates of hate and racial bitterness.” Meanwhile, six of the nine expelled students sought reinstatement through a federal lawsuit.(next BH, see Mar 29; see G4 for expanded chronology)

Segregated bus seating

March 2, 1962: U.S. District Court Judge William Bootle ruled that the segregated bus seating laws were unconstitutional, and ordered the Bibb Transit Company to comply with his judgment. Two days later the Macon bus boycott ended. (see Mar 27)

George Whitmore, Jr.

March 2, 1965: District Attorney Aaron Koota conceded that George Whitmore, Jr. deserved a new trial in the Borrero case, but Justice Malbin reserved ruling. (see Whitmore for expanded story)

Stephon Clark

March 2, 2019: the Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced that officers Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet, who shot and killed Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s backyard would not face criminal prosecution.

“Was a crime committed? There’s no question that a human being died,” Schubert said. “But when we look at the facts and the law, and we follow our ethical responsibilities, the answer to that question is no. And as a result, we will not charge these officers.” (see Mar 5)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Sea transportation for migrants

March 2, 1819: the US government passed the first legislation regulating the conditions of sea transportation for migrants. The legislation was known as the Steerage Act of 1819 and also as the Manifest of Immigrants Act, the latter name because one of its provisions was a requirement for passenger ships to submit a manifest of immigrants on board. Other regulations of the Act had to do with…

• Limiting the number of passengers
• Penalties for exceeding that maximum number
• Amount of provisions for each passenger (next IH, see February 22, 1847)

Feminism

March 2, 1907: The Expatriation Act, which became law on this day, contained a provision that stripped the citizenship from U.S. women who married foreign nationals. This provision was repealed by the Cable Act on September 22, 1922.

During the Cold War, in the case of Trop v. Dulles (March 3, 1958), the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the government to revoke the citizenship of a U.S. citizen as a form of punishment.  (next IH, see March 26, 1910; Act, see December 6, 1915)

Feminism & Voting Rights

In 1908: while studying in England, American Alice Paul meets Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, leaders of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Paul will bring their more militant tactics in pursuit of women’s suffrage back to America in 1910. (Feminism, see February 24, 1908; Voting Rights, see July 21, 1908)

Jones-Shafroth Act

March 2, 1917: just before the US entry into World War I, President Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act, under which Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory and Puerto Ricans were granted statutory citizenship, meaning that citizenship was granted by an act of Congress and not by the Constitution (thus it was not guaranteed by the Constitution). (see May 19, 1921)

The act also created a bill of rights for the territory, separated its government into executive, legislative and judicial branches, and declared Puerto Rico’s official language to be English. The Bill furthermore constructed a government and bill of rights for the island and allowed its residents to serve in the U.S. military. (next IH, see October 16, 1918; IH reform, see October 3, 1965

Japanese Internment Camps

March 2, 1942: General John L. DeWitt ordered evacuation from most of California, western Oregon and Washington, and southern Arizona. A few Germans, Italians, and other Caucasians were evacuated, but only the people of Japanese ancestry were moved en masse. (see Camps for expanded story)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Indian Appropriations Bill

March 2, 1889: Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Bill, proclaiming unassigned lands in the public domain. An amendment by Illinois Representative William McKendree Springer authorized President Benjamin Harrison to open two million acres in the Oklahoma Territory for settlement. (see Apr 22).

Fishing rights

March 2, 1964: The Puyallup Tribe and the National Indian Youth Council challenged limitations on Native-American fishing rights in the state of Washington by engaging in what was called a “fish-in.”

Marlon Brando was arrested during the protest. Brando later refused to accept his Academy Award for his performance in The Godfather on March 27, 1973, in protest of the treatment of Native-Americans, both in society at large and in Hollywood movies. (see Mar 8)

Wounded Knee II

March 2, 1973: federal forces surround Wounded Knee, South Dakota, which the American Indian Movement were holding hostages. (see Mar 7)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Postal workers

March 2, 1913: postal workers granted 8-hour day. (see Mar 4)

WV Teachers

March 2, 2018:  the statewide teacher strike in West Virginia entered its seventh day with teachers defying efforts by the state’s governor and union leaders to end the walkout with a deal to raise pay. (see Mar 3)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Fourth Amendment

March 2, 1925: Carroll v. United States. The US Supreme Court upheld that the warrantless search of an automobile. It is known as the automobile exception.

George Carroll and John Kiro were arrested for the transportation of alcohol in violation of the Volstead Act  and subsequently convicted. In a 6-2 decision, Chief Justice William H. Taft rejected the argument that there was no basis to search their car and that the resulting evidence should have been excluded from trial. This case made a distinction between a person’s dwelling and a moving vehicle, holding that such a distinction was consistent with Fourth Amendment guarantees. (see June 27, 1949)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh

March 2, 1946: Ho Chi Minh elected President of Vietnam. (see Mar 6)

Operation Rolling Thunder

March 2, 1965: Operation Rolling Thunder began as over 100 American fighter-bombers attacked targets in North Vietnam. Scheduled to last eight weeks, Rolling Thunder will instead go on for three years. (Vietnam, see Mar 8; Rolling Thunder, see November 1, 1968)

RFK’s three-point plan

March 2, 1967: Senator Robert Kennedy (D-New York) proposed a three-point plan to help end the war. The plan included suspension of the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam and the gradual withdrawal of U.S. and North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam with replacement by an international force. Secretary of State Dean Rusk rejected Kennedy’s proposal because he believed that the North Vietnamese would never agree to withdraw their troops. (see Mar 20)

Sons and Daughters In Touch

March 2, 2003: Sons and Daughters In Touch led an historic two week journey to Vietnam. Guided by Vietnam combat veterans and nurses who served in the war, more than 50 Gold Star ‘sons and daughters’ were able to stand in the precise location where their fathers were lost. While in Vietnam, the SDIT delegation also visited Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta, Cu Chi, Da Nang, Quang Tri, Khe San, China Beach, Hue City and Hanoi. (see August 20, 2009)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

March 1 Music et al

Walk Like a Man

March 2 – 22, 1963: “Walk Like a Man” by the Four Seasons #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was their 3rd #1 hit. The song “Walk Like a Man” is part of the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list.

Paul Mauriat

March 2 – April 5, 1968: Paul Mauriat and His Orchestra’s Blooming Hits is the Billboard #1 album

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Wisconsin

March 2, 1982: Wisconsin becomes the first U.S. state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. (see Aug 3)

R. Albert Mohler, Jr

March 2, 2007: evangelical R. Albert Mohler, Jr., PhD, president of the Southern Baptist Theological stated:  “If a biological basis [for homosexuality] is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin…

“Christians must be very careful not to claim that science can never prove a biological basis for sexual orientation. We can and must insist that no scientific finding can change the basic sinfulness of all homosexual behavior. The general trend of the research points to at least some biological factors behind sexual attraction, gender identity, and sexual orientation. This does not alter God’s moral verdict on homosexual sin (or heterosexual sin, for that matter), but it does hold some promise that a deeper knowledge of homosexuality and its cause will allow for more effective ministries to those who struggle with this particular pattern of temptation.” (see Mar 30)

Nebraska’s gay marriage ban

March 2, 2015: U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon blocked Nebraska’s gay marriage ban and the attorney general’s office immediately appealed the decision to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska sued the state in November on behalf of seven same-sex couples challenging the ban, which passed with the approval of 70 percent of voters in 2000. In addition to prohibiting gay marriage, the ban also forbids civil unions and legalized domestic partnerships.

 Same-sex couples miss out on medical and financial benefits that are available to heterosexual married couples, Bataillon said in issuing the injunction, which takes effect March 9.

“All of the plaintiffs have further demonstrated psychological harm and stigma, on themselves and on their children, as a result of the non-recognition of their marriages,” he said in his 34-page ruling. “The plaintiffs have been denied the dignity and respect that comes with the rights and responsibilities of marriage.” (Omaha dot com article) (see Mar 2)

Alabama Supreme Court

March 2, 2015: the Alabama Supreme Court ordered probate judges around the state to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, ruling in direct opposition to a federal judge that the state’s ban on same sex marriage did not violate the United States Constitution.

In a 7-to-1 decision, the court ruled that “Alabama law allows for ‘marriage’ between only one man and one woman,” and that the state’s probate judges “have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary to this law.”

While the court found that the state’s probate judges were not legally bound by the multiple rulings by a Federal District Court judge, Callie V. S. Granade, in favor of same-sex marriage, it also delivered a long and forceful rebuttal of her decision and the findings of federal judges across the country on same-sex marriage.

“Government has an obvious interest in offspring and the consequences that flow from the creation of each new generation, which is only naturally possible in the opposite-sex relationship, which is the primary reason marriage between men and women is sanctioned by state law,” the court ruled. (see Mar 17)

Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson

March 2, 2016: Burlington, Iowa police discovered the body of 16-year-old Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, a black gender-fluid person. at approximately 11:30 p.m. Johnson had been shot several times, and the body was left in an alley. (LGBTQ, see Mar 4; Johnson, see Dec 30)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

AIDS

March 2, 1985: the federal government approved a screening test for AIDS that detected antibodies to the virus, allowing possibly contaminated blood to be excluded from the blood supply. (see June 30)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Bailout

March 2, 2009: failing insurance giant AIG reports nearly $62 billion in losses during the fourth quarter of 2008, and the US government gave it $30 billion more in aid in a new bailout.

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

Westboro Baptist Church

Snyder v. Phelps

March 2, 2011: Snyder v. Phelps. On March 3, 2006, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder was killed in a non-combat-related vehicle accident in Iraq. On March 10, 2006 Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) picketed Snyder’s funeral in Westminister, Maryland, as it had done at thousands of other funerals throughout the U.S. in protest of what they considered America’s increasing tolerance of homosexuality. Picketers displayed placards such as “America is doomed”, “You’re going to hell”, “God hates you”, “Fag troops”, “Semper fi fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers”.[3] Members of the Patriot Guard Riders, a group of motorcyclists who separate WBC protesters from those who attend military funerals, were present in support of the Snyder family.[4] WBC published statements on its website that denounced Albert Snyder and his ex-wife for raising their son Catholic, stating they “taught Matthew to defy his creator”, “raised him for the devil”, and “taught him that God was a liar”.

Albert Snyder, Matthew Snyder’s father, sued Fred Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church and two of Phelps’s daughters, Rebekah Phelps-Davis and Shirley Phelps-Roper, for defamation, intrusion upon seclusion, publicity given to private life, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.

In an 8–1 decision (with the judges ruling the same way as they did in United States v. Stevens in 2010), the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Phelps, upholding the Fourth Circuit’s decision. Chief Justice John Roberts (as in the Stevens case) wrote the majority opinion stating “What Westboro said, in the whole context of how and where it chose to say it, is entitled to ‘special protection’ under the First Amendment and that protection cannot be overcome by a jury finding that the picketing was outrageous.” (Oyez article)

Middlebury College

March 2, 2017: hundreds of students at Middlebury College in Vermont shouted down Charles Murray, disrupting a program and confronting the speaker in an encounter that turned violent and left a faculty member injured.

Laurie L. Patton, the president of the college, issued an apology to all who attended the event and to Murray whose book “The Bell Curve,” published in 1994, linked lower socio-economic status with race and intelligence. (Inside Higher Ed article) (FS &  Middlebury, see May 23)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

March 2, 2015: citing concerns about the drug to be used in a lethal injection, corrections officials in Georgia postponed the execution of the state’s only female death row inmate for the second time in a week.

The execution drug was sent to an independent lab to check its potency and the test came back at an acceptable level, but during subsequent checks it appeared cloudy, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said. Corrections officials called the pharmacist and decided to postpone Kelly Renee Gissendaner’s execution “out of an abundance of caution,” she said. No new date was given. (see Mar 19)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Stop and Frisk Policy

March 2, 2015: New York City cops were given new step-by-step instructions on how to conduct stop and frisks, as well as when it should be applied. The new guidelines were sparked by federal Judge Shira Scheindlin’s August 2013 ruling that the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactics violated the rights of minorities.

The updated rules hammer home the point that cops can’t stop-and-frisk people for merely making “furtive movements,” such as reaching for their waistband or acting nervous, or for being in a high-crime area — reasons that were allowed in the past.

Cops were also barred from stopping people because of race or if a person “matches a generalized description of a crime suspect, such as an 18- to 25-year-old black male.” Stop-and-frisks must be based on “more than a mere suspicion. (see Mar 19)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Space

March 2, 2019: the first American spacecraft [and the first commercially developed crew capsule] capable of carrying astronauts since the retirement of the space shuttles launched from from NASA’s Kennedy Space Flight Center in Florida

There were no people on the demonstration flight, a SpaceX vehicle called Crew Dragon.

Five days later, after a successful docking and undocking from the International Space Station, the vehicle splash downed safely in the Atlantic Ocean off the northeast coast of Florida. [NYT article] (see Oct 18)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment aftermath

March 2, 2020:  the NYT reported that President Trump withdrew the nomination of Elaine McCusker to a top Defense Department post. Ms. McCusker had questioned the suspension of assistance to Ukraine. (next TI, see Apr 3 or see TIA for expanded chronology)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children & BSA

 

March 2, 2021: the debt-saddled Boy Scouts of America, faced with tens of thousands of sex-abuse claims, will sell its collection of Norman Rockwell art.

In a reorganization plan filed in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, the Boy Scouts listed nearly 60 of pieces of art by Rockwell whose sale would help raise money for a settlement fund of at least $300 million for sexual abuse victims.

The names of the paintings include “The Right Way,” “On My Honor” and “I Will Do My Best.” The years that they were completed range from 1916 to a lithograph in 1976, two years before Rockwell’s death in 1978.

The association between the Boy Scouts of America and Norman Rockwell spanned more than six decades, yielding dozens of commissioned coming-of-age portraits that evoke virtue, bravery, and Americana. [CBS News article] [NYT article] (next SAC & BSA, see July 1)

March 2 Peace Love Art Activism