April Peace Love Art Activism

April Peace Love Art Activism

I try to be precise and factual with my the many events I attach to a date, but sometimes the best I can find is that something occurred in a month. Such are today’s entries. All the following happened in some past April. If you have the actual date, please let me know.

April Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Dred Scott

In April 1838: the Scotts joined Dr & Mrs Emerson in Louisiana. When the Scotts arrived in Louisiana they might have sued for their freedom in that state. For more than twenty years Louisiana courts had upheld the freedom claims of slaves who had lived in free jurisdictions. Had the Scotts claimed their freedom in Louisiana in 1838, theirs would have been an open-and-shut case. But, once again, they did not seek their freedom. It is likely that they simply had no knowledge that the Louisiana courts routinely freed slaves who had lived in free jurisdictions. (BH, see September 3, 1838; see Scotts for expanded story) 

School Desegregation

In April 1850: the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued its ruling in Roberts v. Boston regarding Sarah Roberts, a black child. Chief Justice Shaw decided the case on narrow legal groups, ruling in favor of the right of the school committee to set education policy as it saw fit. Shaw could find no constitutional reason for abolishing Black schools. Boston’s schools would remain segregated.  (see Sarah for expanded story)(BH, see Sept 18; SD, see April 28, 1855)

Leonidas C Dyer

In April 1918: Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer (R-Missouri) introduced an anti-lynching bill in the House of Representatives, based on a bill drafted by NAACP founder Albert E. Pillsbury in 1901. The bill called for the prosecution of lynchers in federal court. State officials who failed to protect lynching victims or prosecute lynchers could face five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The victim’s heirs could recover up to $10,000 from the county where the crime occurred. (Bio Guide dot Congress bio) (next BH & Lynching, see May 18; next Dyer bill, see October 20, 1921; for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)

Aurelia Browder

In April 1955:  police arrested Aurelia Browder (36 years old) for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white rider in Montgomery, AL. She will be the lead plaintiff in the Browder v. Gayle action lawsuit.  (1998 Washington Post article) (BH, see May 7; Feminism, see Oct 21; B v G, see February 1, 1956; see Boycott for expanded )

Muhammad Ali
Passion of Muhammad Ali cover by George Lois

In April 1968: Esquire magazine’s cover portrayed Muhammad Ali as a martyr akin to St Sebastian. Kurt Andersen, host of NPR’s Studio 360, stated that “George Lois’s covers for Esquire in the 60s are classic. His April 1968 image of Muhammad Ali to dramatize the boxer’s persecution for his personal beliefs, is the greatest magazine cover ever created, making a political statement without being grim or stupid or predicable.” (BH, see Apr 3; Ali, see, April 6, 1969) (see Passion of Muhammad Ali for expanded story)

Nathan Bedford Forrest Rangers

In April 1973: the Pontiac, Michigan school bus bomb case came to trial with Robert Miles, Wallace Fruit, Alex Distel, Dennis Ramsey, and Raymond Quirk as defendants. The government’s star witness, Jerome Lauinger, a Pontiac fireman and licensed gun dealer, told the court that he had infiltrated “Unit 5” of the KKK on behalf of the FBI some three-and-a-half years earlier. He reported that the KKK had a military arm called the “Nathan Bedford Forrest Rangers” and that he was a member of it as well. (BH, see Apr 10; SD, see “In May”)

Rodney King

April Peace Love Art Activism

In April 2012: King’s autobiography,The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption. Learning How We Can All Get Along” published. (see June 17, 2012)

April Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism & Voting Rights

National Woman Suffrage Association

In April 1869, : Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony found the National Woman Suffrage Association to campaign for women’s right to vote. (see Dec 10)

Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage

In April 1913:  Alice Paul and Lucy Burns founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU), which later became the National Woman’s Party. The NWP put its priority on the passage of a constitutional amendment ensuring women’s suffrage. (Crusade for the Vote dot org article) (see July 31)

Woman’s Peace Party

In April 1915: opposed to the War, Woman’s Peace Party representatives Jane Addams and Emily G Balch attended the International Congress of Women at The Hague in the Netherlands. The meeting was significant for its founding of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. (see Oct 23)

April Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

In April 1943: U.S. Navy Commodore Milton E. Miles, stationed in Chungking, China proposed that the US parachute twenty Office of Strategic Services (OSS) into the Central Highlands of Vietnam to organize guerrilla bands among the highland peoples to oppose the Japanese forces. The plan was approved, but never implemented. The United States, however, established a network of Vietnamese and French colonials for intelligence and espionage. (valor dot military times article) (see January 24, 1944)

Increased Air Power

April – June, 1964: the US massively reinforced its air power in Southeast Asia. Two aircraft carriers arrived off the Vietnamese coast prompted by a North Vietnamese offensive in Laos. (see Apr 25)

Increased troop strength

In April, 1965: 25,000 U.S. troops stationed in Vietnam (see Apr 3)

543,000 US troops

In April 1969: 543,000 US troops in Vietnam. 33,641 Americans have been killed, a greater total than the Korean War. (see Apr 2)

Sons and Daughters In Touch

Spring 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)

April Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Dale Jennings

In spring 1952: Dale Jennings, a member of the Mattachine Society, arrested for allegedly soliciting a police officer.

American Psychiatric Association

April Peace Love Art Activism

In April 1952: the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance in its first publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Immediately following the manual’s release, many professionals in medicine, mental health and social sciences criticized the categorization due to lack of empirical and scientific data. (see June 23, 1952)

April Peace Love Art Activism

Cold War

Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy

In April 1957: the escalating nuclear arms race of the late 1950s led Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, along with Clarence Pickett of the American Society of Friends (Quakers), to found the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE). (Red, see May 2; Nuclear, see Apr 29)

Cuban Missile Crisis

In April 1962: U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey became operational. All positions were reported “ready and manned” by U.S. personnel. (next Cold War, see Apr 14; see Cuban Missile Crisis for expanded story)

April Peace Love Art Activism

see In April Music et al for more

Ray Charles

In April 1962: Ray Charles successfully combined country music with soul and crosses into the pop realm with the album “Modern Sounds In Country & Western Music” – the #1 album of 1962.

LSD

In April, 1966: Sandoz Pharmaceutical recalled the LSD it had previously distributed and withdrew its sponsorship for work with LSD. (see September 1966)

Future Woodstock Performers

In April 1967: Country Joe (age 25 ) and the Fish released first album, Electric Music for the Mind and Body.

Ken Kesey

In April 1967: Ken Kesey re-tried. Hung jury. Pled guilty to a lesser charge. Given 6 months on work farm. (see June 1967)

The Road to Bethel

In April 1969: Allan Mann met with Elliiot Tibor who offered a barn for a theater from free if Mann would rent a nearby 6-room Victorian for the summer for $800. Paul Johnson, a friend of Mann, agreed to put the down payment of $200 for the house in exchange for a room there for the summer. [keep in mind, this agreement was made before Wallkill evicted the festival. (see Chronology for full list of dates)

April Peace Love Art Activism

STUDENT ACTIVISM

“People’s Park”

April Peace Love Activism

In April, 1969: UC Berkeley students with local residents began to build a “People’s Park” on college-owned land that had remained unused despite plans to build a park and sports field. (2017 Rolling Stone magazine article)  (see Apr 9)

April Peace Love Art Activism

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

In April 1995: the “Does” filed suit against Santa Fe Independent School District (TX) in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas. For some time prior to the onset of this litigation, the “Does’ believed that SFISD was pursuing policies that were in contravention of the Establishment Clause, mainly because for an undisclosed period of time leading up to and including the 1992-93 and 1993-94 school years, SFISD allowed students to read overtly Christian prayers from the stage at graduation ceremonies, and over the public address system at home football games. The “Does” demanded prospective injunctive and declaratory relief in addition to money damages. (see June 25, 1997)

April Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

In April 1996: then-Deputy White House Chief of Staff Evelyn Lieberman transfered Lewinsky to a job as an assistant to Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon. Lieberman told The New York Times the move was due to “inappropriate and immature behavior” and inattention to work. At the Pentagon, Lewinsky met Linda Tripp, a career government worker. (see Clinton for expanded story)

April Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

Boston Archdiocese

In April 2003:  the Boston Archdiocese avoided bankruptcy by agreeing to sell land and buildings for over $100m to fund legal settlements to more than 500 abuse victims. (see May 3)

April Peace Love Art Activism

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Wampanoags treaty

April 1, 1621: at the Plymouth settlement (present-day Massachusetts), the leaders of the Plymouth colonists, acting on behalf of King James I, make a defensive alliance with Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags. The agreement, in which both parties promised to not “doe hurt” to one another, was the first treaty between a Native American tribe and a group of American colonists. According to the treaty, if a Wampanoag broke the peace, he would be sent to Plymouth for punishment; if a colonist broke the law, he would likewise be sent to the Wampanoags. (Indian Country article) (next Native Americans, see May 22, 1623; Wampanoags, see June 24, 1675)

Rappahannock Tribe

April 1, 2022: the Rappahannock Tribe, a Native Tribe in Virginia, reacquired 465 acres of sacred land at Fones Cliff, the tribes’s ancestral home.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams celebrated the tribe’s reacquisition of the land according to a press release from the Department of the Interior.

“We have worked for many years to restore this sacred place to the Tribe,” said Rappahannock Tribe Chief Anne Richardson, according to the Chesapeake Conservancy. “With eagles being prayer messengers, this area where they gather has always been a place of natural, cultural and spiritual importance.” [CNN article] (next NA, see June 13)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Deborah Samson

April 1, 1783: Deborah Samson was promoted and spent seven months serving as a waiter to General John Paterson. This job entitled her to a better quality of life, better food, less danger, and shelter. 

That summer, while stationed in Philadelphia she came down with fever and was cared for by a Dr Barnabas Binney. In treating her he discovered the cloth she used to bind her breasts and, thus, discovered her secret. He did not betray her; he took her to his house, where his wife and daughters housed and took care of her. (see Sampson for expanded story)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Cultural Milestones

William Wrigley, Jr

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

April 1, 1891: William Wrigley, Jr  founded the Wrigley Co. in Chicago. He sold soap and gave away baking powder as a premium. The baking powder was more popular, so he switched to selling baking powder, giving chewing gum as a premium with each can. The gum became more popular than the baking powder so he went into the chewing gum business. (see May 5)

Baseball Hall of Fame

April 1, 1938: the Baseball Hall of Fame opened in Cooperstown, NY. (HoF site) (Apr 18)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Black History

Ohio Denies Blacks From Testifying

April 1, 1807: Ohio began legally prohibiting Black people from testifying in cases involving white people as parties. As a result, for the next four decades, white people could act with impunity in filing baseless civil suits against Black people barred from testifying to defend themselves, and committing crimes against Black people with no fear that the victim or any Black witnesses would be permitted to give evidence against them. This law made Black people vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and ensured that they could not rely on the courts for protection or justice.  [EJI article] (next BH, see January 1, 1808)

Scottsboro Nine

April 1, 1935: the US Supreme Court ruled that the exclusion of black citizens on jury rolls deprives black defendants of their rights to equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court overturned the convictions of Haywood Patterson and Clarence Norris and the case is remanded to a lower court. (SB, see Nov 13) (see Scottsboro Nine Travesty)

Greensboro Four

April 1, 1960: students resumed sit-in activities at the Kress and F.W. Woolworth stores and began picketing on Elm and Sycamore streets. That evening at a mass meeting, more than 1,200 students pledged to continue the protests. (see G4 for expanded chronology)

St Augustine Sit-ins

April 1, 1964: sit-ins at restaurants and hotels in St. Augustine, Fla., ended in the arrests of more than 280 people. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his support to the protests and was arrested on June 11 when he tried to eat the Monson Motel Restaurant in town. On June 5, the beach cottage where he was supposed to stay was riddled with bullets. (King Encyclopedia article) (see Apr 6)

Ahmaud Arbery/BLACK & SHOT

April 1, 2020: after a public records request, The Brunswick News [GA] reported details of the Glynn County Police Department’s records on the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. The police report was based almost entirely on the responding officer’s interview with Gregory McMichael. The records claimed that after the McMichaels pursued Arbery, Travis McMichael and Arbery “started fighting over the shotgun, at which point Travis fired a shot and then a second later there was a second shot.”

George E. Barnhill, the Waycross district attorney, took over the case and advised the police that there was insufficient cause to arrest Mr. Arbery’s pursuers. He argued that they had acted legally under Georgia’s citizen arrest and self-defense laws, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

Under pressure from Arbery’s family, Barnhill then recused himself from the case because his son had worked in the Brunswick prosecutor’s office with Gregory McMichael. Mr. Barnhill asked the Georgia Attorney General’s Office to help find another district attorney to handle the case. [NYT article]  (next B & S and AA, see April 13 or see AA for expanded chronology)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

International Typographical Union

April 1, 1963: workers of the International Typographical Union ended their strike that had closed nine New York City newspapers. The strike ended 114 days after it began on December 8, 1962. (see June 10)

Baseball strike

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

April 1, 1972: major league baseball strike began. It was the first players’ strike in baseball history. (Labor, see Apr 11; baseball, see Apr 13)

McDonald’s

April 1, 2015: McDonald’s announced that it would raise wages and offer new benefits to 90,000 employees in the 1,500 outlets in the United States that it owned and operates, responding to competitive pressure from a tighter job market and to labor campaigns drawing public attention to its pay policies.

The decision, however, did not affect the 750,000 employees who work for the more than 3,100 franchisees that operate roughly 12,500 McDonald’s restaurants around the country. The company will increase wages to at least $1 over the local legal minimum wage for workers in restaurants under corporate control to an average of $9.90 an hour by July 1. That average will increase to more than $10 in 2016.

Employees who have worked in company restaurants more than a year will also be eligible for paid time off, whether they work full or part time. An employee who works an average of 20 hours a week might accrue as much as 20 hours of paid time off a year, the company said. McDonald’s will also expand a program intended to help employees of both its own restaurants and those operated by franchisees to take classes online toward earning high school diplomas. The company will cover those costs, as well as assist employees with college tuition. (see June 1)

Amazon Facility Unionized

April 1, 2022:  in one of the biggest victories for organized labor in a generation, workers at a Staten Island, NY Amazon facility voted by a wide margin to form a union,.

Employees cast 2,654 votes to be represented by Amazon Labor Union and 2,131 against, giving the union a win by more than 10 percentage points, according to the National Labor Relations Board. More than 8,300 workers at the warehouse, which is the only Amazon fulfillment center in New York City, were eligible to vote. [NYT article] (next LH, see Sept 26)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

April 1 Music et al

John Lennon

April 1, 1966: John Lennon bought a copy of Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience and The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, where he read near the beginning of the book’s introduction; “When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float downstream,” which captured Lennon’s imagination and became the first line of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, (which he recorded 5 days later). (see May 1)

The Road to Bethel and the Woodstock Festival

April 1, 1969: Michael Lang was disappointed anyway with the Saugerties site. It didn’t have the rustic feel he hoped to have. (see Chronology for expanded story)

Palm Springs Pop Festival

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

The second festival of 1969 was in the Palm Spring, CA area and was over two days (see festivals for expanded story):

April 1: Palm Springs Drive-In Theatre

  • MC: KMET’s B Mitchell Reed
  • Jeff Beck (billed but didn’t appear)
  • Moby Grape (billed but didn’t appear)
  • Procol Harum (replacement)
  • Flying Burrito Brothers (replacement)
  • Gram Pasons
  • Timothy Leary
  • John Mayall
  • Paul Butterfield Blues Band
  • Lee Michaels
  • Hard Luck Boy
April 2: Palm Springs Angel Baseball Stadium
  • Ike & Tina Turner Revies
  • Buddy Miles Express
  • Canned Heat
  • Savoy Brown
Trans John & Yoko

April 1, 1970: as an April Fool’s joke, John Lennon and Yoko Ono issued a statement to the press that they were having dual sex change operations. (see Apr 10)

Grateful Dead & FREE SPEECH

April 1, 1970:   radio station WUHY in Philadelphia was fined for a “string of vulgarities,” expressed by Jerry Garcia. The case led to the first fine ever imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for broadcast indecency. Dean Burch, Chair of the FCC, was searching for a test case in which the FCC could assert standards of decency in radio broadcasting. The executives of WUHY, however, chose to pay the $100 fine rather than contest the decision, and so there was no court case involving a test of the FCC’s standards and the First Amendment. (FS, see May 6; Dead, see March 27, 1973)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Gay entrapment 

April 1, 1966: NYC Chief Inspector Sanford D. Garelik said that he hoped the public would report cases in which policemen lured homosexuals into breaking the law and then arrest them. (see Apr 17)

Coretta Scott King

April 1, 1998: Coretta Scott King called on the civil rights community to join the struggle against homophobia. She received criticism from members of the black civil rights movement for comparing civil rights to gay rights. (see November 3, 1998)

Act on the Opening up of Marriage

April 1, 2001: in the Netherlands, the Act on the Opening up of Marriage goes into effect. The Act allows same-sex couples to marry legally for the first time in the world. (see March 28, 2002)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam & My Lai Massacre

April 1, 1971: President Nixon ordered William Calley transferred from Leavenworth prison to house arrest at Fort Benning, pending appeal. (see My Lai for expanded story; Vietnam, see Apr 19)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Jack Kevorkian

April 1, 1996,  trial began in Jack Kevorkian‘s home town of Pontiac in the deaths of Miller and Wantz. For the start of his third criminal trial, he wears colonial costume–tights, a white powdered wig, and big buckle shoes–a protest against the fact that he is being tried under centuries-old common law. He would face a maximum of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted in the Wantz/Miller deaths. (see Kevorkian for expanded story)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

April 1, 1998, : Judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed the Paula Jones case. (see Clinton for expanded story)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

April 1, 2007:  John McCain strolled through the Shorja market in Baghdad accompanied by 100 soldiers, 3 blackhawks, 2 Apache gunships. [NBC News, 4/1/07] (see Apr 16)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health & TERRORISM

April 1, 2010: in Wichita, Kansas, Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert sentenced Scott Roeder to a “Hard 50”, meaning no possibility of parole for 50 years, for the murder of Dr George Tiller, the maximum sentence available in Kansas. (2016 CBS News article) (Terrorism, see Nov 17; BC see March 16, 2012)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

April 1, 2010:  Halliburton employee Marvin Volek warned that BP’s use of cement “was against our best practices.” (see Apr 14)

April 1, 2015
  • California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered mandatory water use reductions for the first time in California’s history, saying the state’s four-year drought had reached near-crisis proportions after a winter of record-low snowfalls. Brown, in an executive order, directed the State Water Resources Control Board to impose a 25 percent reduction on the state’s 400 local water supply agencies, which serve 90 percent of California residents, over the coming year. The agencies will be responsible for coming up with restrictions to cut back on water use and for monitoring compliance. State officials said the order would impose varying degrees of cutbacks on water use across the board — affecting homeowners, farms and other businesses, as well as the maintenance of cemeteries and golf courses.

  • A report from the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council analyzed the data on spills and other violations at oil and gas wells across the country, but an interesting aspect of the report was how little data the group was able to turn up. Based on NRDC’s evaluation of dozens of state databases, only three states — West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Colorado — have easily accessible, publicly available data on spills and other violations. That’s three states out of 36 that have active oil and gas development.

 “We looked at 36 states, and there are only three states where it would be easy for a member of the public to sit down at their computer and get some information about a company’s compliance record,” said report co-author Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst at NRDC. The group said that  there are other states where citizens can file requests for data, but these three are the only ones where the information proved relatively easy to access. (NRDC site) (see Apr 21)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Affordable Care Act

No replacement soon

April 1, 2019:   even as he asked a court to cancel President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, on March 25, President Trump had reassured Americans that they did not need to worry about the Affordable Care Act’s demise because Republicans would replace it with something better.

On this date, in the President tweeted that Republicans would not have a replacement plan for at least 19 more months — and then only if Republicans win the 2020 election. (see Oct 22)

No reopening

April 1, 2020: the NY Times reported that the Trump administration had decided against reopening the Affordable Care Act’s Healthcare.gov marketplaces to new customers, despite broad layoffs and growing fears that people will be uninsured during the coronavirus outbreak.

The option to reopen markets, in what is known as a special enrollment period, would have made it easier for people who have recently lost jobs or who had already been uninsured to obtain health insurance. The administration had established such special enrollment periods in the past, typically in the wake of natural disasters. (next ACA/Healthcare, see July 8)

April 1 Peace Love Art Activism