Franklin Roosevelt was the first US President who was disabled. One of his administrations most famous programs (if not the most famous) was Social Security. Typically thought of as financial assistance for the elderly, it also helps children of the disabled, orphans, and the disabled themselves.
The 20th century slowly saw the expansion of government assistance for the disabled in the United States (in stark contrast to what happened in Nazi Germany.
Here are several examples:
Government Disabled Eugenics Euthanasia
Social Security
August 14, 1935: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, establishing a program of permanent assistance to adults with disabilities.
Government Disabled Eugenics Euthanasia
Nazi euthanasia
In 1939 at the onset of World War II Adolph Hitler ordered widespread “mercy killing” of the sick and disabled. Code-named Aktion T4, the Nazi euthanasia program is instituted to eliminate “life unworthy of life.” Between 75,000 to 250,000 people with intellectual or physical disabilities are systematically killed from 1939 to 1941.
Government Disabled Eugenics Euthanasia
Rosemary Kennedy
In 1941, John F. Kennedy’s twenty-three year old sister Rosemary underwent a prefrontal lobotomy as a “cure” for lifelong mild retardation and aggressive behavior that surfaced in late adolescence. The operation fails, resulting in total incapacity. To avoid scandal, Rosemary was moved permanently to the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children in Wisconsin. [2009 Guardian article]
Government Disabled Eugenics Euthanasia
1950s
Barrier-free movement
In the 1950s, disabled veterans and people with disabilities begin the barrier-free movement. The combined efforts of the Veterans Administration, The President’s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, and the National Easter Seals Society, among others, results in the development of national standards for “barrier-free” buildings.
Association for Retarded Citizens
In 1950, parents of youth diagnosed with mental retardation found the Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC). The association works to change the public’s ideas about mental retardation. Its members educate parents and others, demonstrating that individuals with mental retardation have the ability to succeed in life. (ARC, see December 31, 1998)
Government Disabled Eugenics Euthanasia
Dr. Howard A. Rusk
In 1948 Dr. Howard A. Rusk founded the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in New York City, where he developed techniques to improve the health of injured veterans from World War II. His theory focused on treating the emotional, psychological and social aspects of individuals with disabilities and later became the basis for modern rehabilitation medicine. [NYT obituary]
Government Disabled Eugenics Euthanasia
Clemens Benda
In 1953 Clemens Benda, clinical director at the Fernald School in Waltham, Massachusetts, an institution for boys with mental retardation, invites 100 teenage students to participate in a “science club” in which they will be privy to special outings and extra snacks. In a letter requesting parental consent, Benda mentions an experiment in which “blood samples are taken after a special breakfast meal containing a certain amount of calcium,” but makes no mention of the inclusion of radioactive substances that are fed to the boys in their oatmeal. 1994 article
Government Disabled Eugenics Euthanasia
American Standards Association
In 1961 the American Standards Association, later known as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), publishes the first accessibility standard titled, Making Buildings Accessible to and Usable by the Physically Handicapped. Forty-nine states adapted accessibility legislation by 1973.
Government Disabled Eugenics Euthanasia
Ed Roberts
In 1962 Ed Roberts, a student with polio, enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, but later his admission was rejected. He fought to get the decision overturned. He became the father of the Independent Living Movement and helped establish the first Center for Independent Living (CIL). He earned B.A. (1964) and M.A. (1966) degrees from UC Berkeley in Political Science. Roberts died on March 14, 1995, at the age of 56. [NYT obituary]
August 13, 1946: The Indian Claims Commission was a judicial panel for relations between the US Federal Government and Native American tribes. It was established Congress to hear claims of Indian tribes against the United States. The commission was conceived as way to thank Native America for its unprecedented service in World War II and as a way to relieve the anxiety and resentment caused by America’s history of colonization of Indigenous peoples. The Commission created a process for tribes to address their grievances against the United States, and offered monetary compensation for territory lost as a result of broken federal treaties. However, by accepting the government’s monetary offer, the aggrieved tribe abdicated any right to raise their claim again in the future, and on occasion gave up their federal status as a tribe after accepting compensation. NYT article (see August 1, 1953)
August 13 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Executive Order 10479
August 13, 1953: President Dwight Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10479. It created the Government Contract Committee which was established to help insure compliance with, and successful execution of, the equal employment opportunity program of the United States Government. (see Sept 1)
Lamar Smith
August 13, 1955: Lamar Smith, a 63-year-old farmer and World War I veteran was a voting rights activist and a member of the Regional Counsel of Negro Leadership (RCNL). On August 2 in Brookhaven, Mississippi, he had voted in the primary and helped get others out to vote. There was a run-off primary scheduled for August 23. On August 13, Smith was at the courthouse helping other black voters to fill out absentee ballots so they could vote in the runoff without exposing themselves to violence at the polls. He was shot to death in the front of the courthouse in Brookhaven, Lincoln County, at around 10 a.m.
Contemporary reports say there were “dozens of” white witnesses, including the local sheriff, who saw a white man covered with blood leaving the scene. No witnesses would come forward and the three men who had been arrested went free. (see Aug 19)
INDEPENDENCE DAY
August 13, 1960: Central African Republic independent from France. [NYT article] (see ID for full 1960s list)
Watts
August 13, 1965: National Guard enters Watts riots in L.A. (BH, see Aug 20; RR, see July 18, 1966)
Booker T Mixon
August 13, 2012: on October 23, 1969 Booker T Mixon died of what authorities reported to be a hit-and-run accident, despite very suspicious circumstances.
In the fall of 2008 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened an investigation into this matter after a query of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History found multiple news articles about the unusual circumstances surrounding Mixon’s death.
The FBI obtained the coroner’s report. The FBI interviewed some of Mixon’s surviving relatives; people who were in local law enforcement at the time of Mixon’s death; and community members who may have had information about Mixon’s death. The FBI also attempted to identify and interview Mixon’s former employer; the patrolman who found Mixon lying by the side of the road; the doctor who treated Mixon; and the reporter who covered Mixon’s death for the Chicago Defender. The FBI also attempted to locate Mixon’s hospital records. Further, the FBI contacted various Mississippi law enforcement and government officials to request searches of the records of the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations; conducted an online search of materials at the University of Southern Mississippi Library; searched the records of the Southern Poverty Law Center; conducted a review of microfiche records of the Clarksdale Press Register; searched the internet for relevant references and media articles; and sent a letter to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People requesting information.
The FBI’s request for records from the following offices were met with negative results: the Quitman County Sheriff’s Office; the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office; the Mississippi Department of Public Safety; the University of Southern Mississippi Library; and the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People.
On this date the FBI recommended that the case be closed without any prosecutions. (see Oct 2)
August 13 Peace Love Art Activism
August 13 Music et al
Beatles Help!
August 13, 1965, The Beatles: US release of Help!.
Label: Capitol (US)
Recorded: 15–19 February, 13 April, 10 May & 14–17 June 1965
Released: 13 August 1965
Produced by George Martin and Dave Dexter, Jr.
Side one
“Help!” (preceded by an uncredited instrumental intro)
“The Night Before”
“From Me to You Fantasy” (instrumental) (Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne)
“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”
“I Need You” (Harrison)
“In the Tyrol” (instrumental) (Ken Thorne)
Side two
“Another Girl”
“Another Hard Day’s Night” (instrumental) (Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne)
“Ticket to Ride”
Medley: “The Bitter End” (Ken Thorne)/”You Can’t Do That” (instrumental) (Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne)
“You’re Going to Lose That Girl”
“The Chase” (instrumental) (Ken Thorne)
While it may appear that the Beatles are holding out their arms in a semaphore-like manner to spell out the letters H E L P, they are actually spell out the letters N V U J.
Beatles 1965 tour
August 13, 1965: The Beatles arrived at Kennedy International Airport for a tour of North America. The set list for the tour was ‘Twist and Shout’, ‘She’s a Woman’, ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzie’, ‘Ticket to Ride’, ‘Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘Baby’s in Black’, ‘Act Naturally’, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Help!’, and ‘I’m Down’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Man.’ The tour was not a happy one for The Beatles, John Lennon took to screaming off-microphone obscenities at the audiences. [NYT article] (see Aug 14)
August 13, 1965: The Matrix, San Francisco, opened. Jefferson Airplane’s first show. (RV, see Oct 16; FWP, see “in October”)
Summer in the City
August 13 – September 2, 1966: “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Beatle roast
August 13, 1966: KLUE-AM of Longview, TX held the first of the “Beatles bonfires,” where ex-Beatle fans came to burn the groups’ records in protest to John’s Jesus statement.
In Cleveland, the Reverend Thurman H. Babbs, of the New Haven Baptist Church, called for the excommunication of all Beatles fans.
In an interesting twist, the morning after KLUE’s bonfire, the stations’s radio tower was struck by lightning, throwing the station off the air. (see Aug 23)
August 13 – 14: Wonderland Pop Festival, Wonderland Gardens, London, Canada (see Wonderland for a bit more)
The [bumpy] Road to Bethel
Wednesday 13 August 1969
nearly 30,000 people had already shown up for festival and are in the “bowl.” Bill Hanley pulled his sound truck into the service road behind the stage, plugged in some equipment to a portable amplifier and piped prerecorded music for the appreciative crowd.
staff technicians notice drop in water pressure throughout site. Audience members had accidentally stepped on and cracked plastic pipes. Repairs made.
John Roberts with his father and brother, arrived on site to discover that there are no ticket booths for the 30,000 people already on-site.
the suit against the festival withdrawn after a promise of police protection for the residents was agreed to.
it is discovered that the $200 an hour crane is trapped within its own construction of the pedestrian bridge over West Shore Road.
NYC Police Commissioner Howard Leary reminded all NYC police officers that “moonlighting” was strictly prohibited.
NY State Police “randomly” stop and frisk young people in cars at Harriman interchange on NY State Thruway. Drivers, passengers, and cars were checked for anything illegal. (see Chronology for complete Woodstock story)
August 13 Peace Love Art Activism
Hurricane Katrina
Katrina shootings and cover-up
August 13, 2008: District Judge Raymond Bigelow dismissed the indictments against the New Orleans police officers after his finding that the prosecutors had wrongly instructed the grand jury, and that testimony of three of the accused officers had been divulged to other witnesses in the case. The US Dept of Justice and the FBI would subsequently investigate the case. NYT article (see Katrina for expanded chronology)
August 13 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH & Colin Kaepernick
August 13, 2017: NFL Michael Bennett remained seated during the national anthem. The outspoken Bennett had expressed support for Kaepernick in the past, and as the Seahawks faced the Chargers in preseason action, he remained seated for the national anthem. (FS & CK, see Sept 24)
August 12, 1676: in early 1676, the Narragansett were defeated and their chief killed, while the Wampanoag and their other allies were gradually subdued. King Philip’s wife and son were captured, and on August 12, 1676, after his secret headquarters in Mount Hope, Rhode Island, was discovered, Philip was assassinated by a Native American in the service of the English. The English drew and quartered Philip’s body and publicly displayed his head on a stake in Plymouth. [King Philip’s War chronology] (see January 1, 1698)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
FEMINISM
Voting Rights
August 12, 1918: thirty-eight women, representing the National Woman’s party, were arrested when they attempted to hold a meeting in Lafayette Square in protest against the Senate’s delay in passing the suffrage amendment. After being released they returned to the square and were re-arrested. Several women were injured by the police. Lucy Burns was among the 38. [LoC article re NWP] (see Aug 14)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH
Joint Committee for the Promotion and Protection of Art and Literature
August 12, 1922: a coalition of groups representing actors, authors, motion picture producers, screen writers, printers, and others on this day announced a “war on censorship” in the arts. The group, calling itself the Joint Committee for the Promotion and Protection of Art and Literature, singled out the Society for the Suppression of Vice as the lead instrument of censorship. (see June 8, 1925)
Island Trees v. Pico
August 12, 1982: two months after the Island Trees v. Pico decision (see June 25), the school board of the Island Trees Union Free School District, on Long Island, New York, returned to its school libraries books that it had previously banned. The returned books included such novels as Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. Critics had labelled the books “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” “anti-Semitic,” and “just plain filthy.” [Oyez article] (see April 20, 1983)
Colin Kaepernick
August 12, 2017: in the NFL, Marshawn Lynch knelt after coming out of retirement. Lynch retired during the 2016 season, but returned to join the Oakland Raiders in the offseason. While he didn’t play in the team’s preseason opener, he made his thoughts on the last year’s events regarding Kaepernick clear by taking a sit on the bench during the playing of the National Anthem. (FS & CK, see Aug 13)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
Cold War
Nuclear/Chemical News
August 12, 1953: less than one year after the US tested its first hydrogen bomb, the Soviets detonated a 400-kiloton device in Kazakhstan. The explosive power was 30 times that of the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the mushroom cloud produced by it stretched five miles into the sky. Known as the “Layer Cake,” the bomb was fueled by layers of uranium and lithium deuteride, a hydrogen isotope. The Soviet bomb was smaller and more portable than the American hydrogen bomb, so its development once again upped the ante in the dangerous nuclear arms race between the Cold War superpowers. (Cold War, see Sept 7; NN, see Oct 30)
Berlin Wall
August 12, 1961: in an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany began building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. (see Sept 15)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
Space Race
August 12, 1960: NASA launched Echo 1A, the first successful communications satellite. Echo 1A was a passive communications reflector to relay transcontinental and intercontinental telephone, radio, and television signals between points on Earth. A few hours after its launch, Echo 1A relayed its first message, reflecting a radio signal from California to Bell Labs in New Jersey. The message was an address from US President Eisenhower in which he said, “The satellite balloon, which has reflected these words, may be used freely by any nation for similar experiments in its own interest.” [NYT article] (see January 31, 1961)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
August 12 Music et al
Beatles record sales
August 12, 1964: Variety magazine reported that by August 1964, the Beatles had sold approximately 80 million records globally. (see Aug 19)
Beatles final tour
August 12, 1966: The Beatles began their 14-date final tour with a concert at Chicago’s International Amphitheater, a venue they had previously played in September 1964. They played two shows, at 3pm and 7.30pm, each of which was seen by 13,000 people. Support acts for the entire tour were The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes. The Beatles’ standard set throughout the tour consisted of 11 songs: Rock And Roll Music, She’s A Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby’s In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer and I’m Down. During the tour they occasionally substituted the final song with Long Tall Sally. (see Aug 13)
August 12, 1967: Big Brother and the Holding Company released first album. Janis Joplin age 23. (next FWP, see Aug 16)
Janis @ Harvard
August 12, 1970, Janis Joplin performed at Cambridge’s Harvard Stadium. It was her final live performance. According to an article on Harvard.edu about one of the photographers at the show, only about 10,000 people were allowed inside the stadium but the crowd of people that gathered around the stadium to get a glimpse of the show reached as high as about 40,000. Many fans even climbed the walls of the stadium to get inside!
Janis’s show was part of The City of Boston’s “Summer Thing” Arts Festival. The Shaeffer Brewing Company jointly sponsored the series of 18 concerts at Harvard Stadium. [Boston dot com article]
June 29
BB King
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
James Cotton Blues Band
July 1
Mott the Hoople
Ten Years After
July 6
The Four Seasons
July 8
Miles Davis
Buddy Miles
Seatrain
July 13
John Hammond
Grateful Dead
July 15
Voices of East Harlem
Ike and Tina Turner
July 20
John Sebastian
Delaney and Bonnie and Friends
Manhattan
July 22
Van Morrison
Great Speckled Bird w Ian and Sylvia
Tom Paxton
July 27
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Ramsey Lewis
Carla Thomas
Lean thomas
Percy Mayfield
July 29
Jose Feliciano
August 3
The Johnny Mathis Show
August 10
The Supremes
August 12
Janis Joplin
August 17
Melanie
Tom Rush
The [bumpy] Road to Bethel
Tuesday 12 August 1969
festival representatives meet with the state supreme court justice regarding complaints by local businesses about the festival’s impact on them. After reassurances and explanations all complaints were dropped.
the Food For Love concession area remained unfinished. (see Chronolgy for expanded story)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Vietnam
August 12, 1965: Martin Luther King delivered a speech in Birmingham, Alabama, opposing the Vietnam War. Many other civil rights leaders, along with many Democrats, criticized him because they felt his opposition to the war would split the civil rights movement and alienate President Lyndon Johnson and other leading Democrats. King resisted pressure to drop his opposition to the war, however. The Vietnam War already divided the Democratic Party, and the entire nation, regardless of King’s position. [PDF of speech] (BH, see Aug 13; Vietnam, see Aug 17; MLK, see June 7, 1966)
Murders of Civil Rights Workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner
August 12, 2005: Judge Marcus Gordon of Circuit Court granted bail to Edgar Ray Killen pending an appeal. The release raised the possibility that Killen, 80 and in poor health, wouldl die a free man after serving barely six weeks of his sentence. Gordon said he he had little choice but to set bond while Mr. Killen appealed his conviction since the state had not proved that Mr. Killen, who uses a wheelchair, was a flight risk or threat. (BH, see Aug 25; see Murders for expanded story)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
Stop and Frisk Policy
Fourth Amendment
August 12, 2013: federal judge Judge Shira A Scheindlin ruled that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the NYC Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in the city. Scheindlin found that the Police Department resorted to a “policy of indirect racial profiling” as it increased the number of stops in minority communities. That has led to officers’ routinely stopping “blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white.”
The judge called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms, including the use of body-worn cameras for some patrol officers, though she was “not ordering an end to the practice of stop-and-frisk.” In her 195-page decision, Judge Scheindlin concluded that the stops, which soared in number over the last decade as crime continued to decline, demonstrated a widespread disregard for the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, as well as the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. [NYT article] (S & F, see Sept 17; 4th, see Oct 31)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
Technological Milestone
August 12, 1981: IBM introduced the PC personal computer for a $1,600 base price. It shortly eliminated most other machines suitable for home or small business. IBM developed the PC in less than a year at its Boca Raton Florida facility by using existing off-the-shelf components. The IBM-PC established the dominance of the Microsoft operating system. Data storage choices included 5.25″ floppy drives, cassette tape, and later hard disks. (see Dec 28)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
IRAQ
Iraq/Iran War
August 12, 1982: under a strong Iranian counterattack, Saddam Hussein offered to withdraw from Iran in order to end the conflict. (see February 7, 1983)
August 12, 1994: major league baseball players strike, leading to the cancellation of the 1994 postseason and the World Series. [SI article] (see April 2, 1995)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
August 12, 2015: U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Kentucky Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis’s lawyer said she will not, despite the order. Davis was one of a handful of local elected officials across the country that stopped issuing all marriage licenses after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in June. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her in federal court in the first lawsuit of its kind in the country.
County clerks issue marriage licenses in Kentucky, but someone else must “solemnize” the marriage before the license can be filed with the county clerk. Davis argued that issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple that contains her signature is the same as her approving the marriage, which she said violates her Christian beliefs, but Bunning rejected that argument, saying Davis has likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on the government establishing a religion by “openly adopting a policy that promotes her own religious convictions at the expenses of others.”
“Davis remains free to practice her Apostolic Christian beliefs. She may continue to attend church twice a week, participate in Bible Study and minister to female inmates at the Rowan County Jail. She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do,” Bunning wrote. “However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County Clerk.” [NYT article] (LGBTQ, see Aug 17; Davis, see Aug 26)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
TERRORISM
August 12, 2017: white supremacist James Alex Fields deliberately drove his car into a crowd of anti-protesters during the so-called “Unite the Right” demonstrations in Charlotteville, VA. The attack severely injured more than a dozen people and killed Heather Heyer. [Washington Post article] (T, see Oct 16; Fields, see June 27, 2018)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
Environmental Issues
August 12, 2019: the Trump administration announced that it would change the way the Endangered Species Act was applied, significantly weakening the nation’s bedrock conservation law and making it harder to protect wildlife from the multiple threats posed by climate change.
The new rules made it easier to remove a species from the endangered list and weaken protections for threatened species, the classification one step below endangered. And, for the first time, regulators would be allowed to conduct economic assessments — for instance, estimating lost revenue from a prohibition on logging in a critical habitat — when deciding whether a species warrants protection. (see Aug 29)
August 12 Peace Love Art Activism
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
