Category Archives: Birth control

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940

Anarchism

The Anarchist Library site  states: “Anarchists believe that the point of society is to widen the choices of individuals. This is the axiom upon which the anarchist case is founded….Anarchists strive for a society which is as efficient as possible, that is a society which provides individuals with the widest possible range of individual choices.”

It continues, “Anarchism is opposed to states, armies, slavery, the wages system, the landlord system, prisons, monopoly capitalism, oligopoly capitalism, state capitalism, bureaucracy, meritocracy, theocracy, revolutionary governments, patriarchy, matriarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, protection rackets, intimidation by gangsters, and every other kind of coercive institution. In other words, anarchism opposes government in all its forms.”

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Kovno, Lithuania

According to the Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA): Emma Goldmas was “born on June 27, 1869, in Kovno, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), Emma Goldman became acquainted with poverty, injustice and oppression at a young age. She witnessed violence against women and children, landlords brutalizing peasants, and corrupt officials extorting fees from a powerless constituency. Her family experienced significant anti-Semitism, living in Jewish ghettoes and forced to move often in search of opportunity.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

The Immigrant

She and her sister Helena came to the United States in 1885. She did not find, as so many millions before her had not found, streets paved with gold.  Working-class conditions were often brutal and fatal.  She found factory work near relatives in Rochester, NY

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Haymarket Square Revolt

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman, 

On May 4, 1886, labor and radical activists held a rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest the brutal suppression of a strike by the police. As the police attempted to stop the meeting, a bomb exploded, injuring many people and killing a police officer. In the ensuing chaos, a number of demonstrators were killed and six officers fatally injured, mostly by police gunfire.

Authorities accused Anarchists of the killings and four were executed on November 11, 1887. After living under the cruelty of her homeland and experiencing something akin to the same thing in the land of opportunity, Goldman found the idea of anarchism appealing.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Jacob Kershner

Shortly after her arrival, Goldmen met Jacob Kershner whose harsh living conditions were similar to hers. They shared an interest in reading and the arts.  They married four months after then met in February 1887. A year later, disappointed that the union brought no more freedom than when single, she divorced Kershner.

She found temporary work in a New Haven, CT corset factory, but when returning to Rochester and hearing Kershner’s threats of suicide, they remarried, only to again divorce quickly in August 1899.

Such behavior caused her Jewish community to shun her, but strengthened her resolve to find her own freedom her own way.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

August – December 1889

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman, 

Goldman moved to New York City and began to work at the office of an anarchist newspaper, Freiheit, and helped organize the November 11 Haymarket Commemoration.

In 1889 she met Alexander Berkman who would become her life-long companion.  They shared an apartment with Modest Stein, and Helene and Anna Minkin.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

The Orator

October 19, 1890: Goldman spoke in Baltimore to members of the International Working People’s Association in the afternoon. She later spoke in German to the Workers’ Educational Society at Canmakers’ Hall. This was the first lecture by Goldman to be reported in the mainstream press.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Assassination attempt

July 23, 1892: in reaction to the treatment of Pennsylvania steelworkers locked out of their jobs after demanding higher wages, Berkman traveled to Pennsylvania. (Homestead Strike, July 6, 1892)

He shot and stabbed but failed to kill steel magnate Henry Clay Frick,  Berkman also tried to use what was, in effect, a suicide bomb, but it didn’t detonate.

Emma Goldman was suspected of complicity. Police raid her apartment, seizing her papers. The press refered to Goldman, temporarily in hiding, as the “Queen of the Anarchists.”

July 26, 1892: the New York Times reported that “Emma Goldman who is reported to have been in this city [Pittsburg] Saturday Night, and with whom Berkmann lived at one time, could not be found yesterday. It is believed by many that she knew of Berkmann’s trip to Pittsburgh, and furnished him money to go with.”

September 19, 1892: Berkman sentenced to twenty-two years in prison.

June 1893: Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned three men found guilty of the Haymarket bombing, effectively ending his political career.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Goldman arrested after speech

In August 1893: Goldman addressed a public meeting, urging those in need to take bread if they are hungry. Four days later, she led a march of 1,000 people to Union Square, where, speaking in German and English, she repeated her belief that workers are entitled to bread. The speech led to her arrest for inciting a riot. She pleaded not guilty. (NYT article)

October 4 – 16, 1893: Goldman was tried and found guilty of inciting to riot. She was sentenced to one year in the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island in New York’s East River.

August 17, 1894: Goldman released from prison. Her account of the experience appears in the New York World the next day.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Continues to speak

February – June 1898: Goldman addressed sixty-six meetings in twelve states and eighteen cities; reporters noted Goldman’s improved command of English.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Leon Czolgosz

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

September 6, 1901: Leon Czolgosz, a Polish citizen associated with the Anarchist movement  shot President William McKinley twice in the stomach while McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley had been greeting the public in a receiving line. Czolgosz later confessed to the crime, signing a statement saying that the last public speaker he had heard was Emma Goldman, but added she had never told him to kill the president.

September 10, 1901: a warrant is issued for Goldman’s arrest in connection with the (then) assassination attempt. Goldman gave herself up and was subjected to intensive interrogation. Though initially denied, bail was set at $20,000. She was never officially charged with a crime. September 14, 1901: President McKinley died of a gangrenous infection stemming from his wounds. September 23, 1901:: Leon Czolgosz was put on trial for assassinating US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. September 24, 1901: Czolgosz convicted and Goldman released,  the case against her dropped for lack of evidence. October 29, 1901: Leon Czolgosz executed.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Immigration Acts

March 3, 1903: the 1903 Immigration Act banned the entry into the U.S. of anarchists, beggars, epileptics, and importers of prostitutes. The act 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 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.

1965 Immigration Act replaced the 1924 act. The 1965 act abolished the quota system. President Lyndon signed  the 1965 act into law on October 3, 1965, in a ceremony at the Statue of Liberty.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

International Workers of the World

June 27, 1905: Western miners and other activists form the Industrial Workers of the World at a convention in Chicago. The IWW, or Wobblies, was one of the most radical of all organized labor groups. Though they will achieve only limited success in moving their agenda forward, they will inspire generations of labor activists with their militant spirit. The Wobbly motto: “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Mother Earth magazine

InMarch, 1906:  the publication of the first issue of Mother Earth. Emma Goldman launched a speaking tour to raise money for the publication. It published articles on a variety of anarchist topics including the labor movement, education, literature and the arts, state and government control, and women’s emancipation, sexual freedom, and was an early supporter of birth control.  The magazine ran until 1917.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Berkman and Goldman again

May 18, 1906: Alexander Berkman released from prison after serving nearly 14 years of his 22-year sentence.

On May 26, 1906 a New York Time article headline reads: AN ANARCHIST HONEYMOON. In it, the reporter talks to the couple that the Chicago police are searching for.

October 30, 1906: Goldman  arrested in Manhattan while attending an anarchist meeting called to protest police suppression of free speech at a previous meeting. She was charged with unlawful assembly for the purpose of overthrowing the government under the new criminal laws against anarchy.

January 6, 1907: Goldman arrested while speaking on “The Misconceptions of Anarchism” at an afternoon meeting of 600 people in New York City.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

PFC  William Buwalda

April 26, 1908: Goldman lectured on patriotism at Walton’s Pavilion in San Francisco. A US soldier, PFC  William Buwalda, attended the lecture in uniform and was witnessed shaking her hand.

Within two weeks, he is court-martialed in violation of the 62nd Article of War, and found guilty by a military court, dishonorably discharged and sentenced to five years at hard labor on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, California.

May 22, 1908:  William Buwalda’s sentence was commuted to three years’ hard labor, in deference to Buwalda’s 15 years of excellent military service and the assumption of a temporary lapse in judgment under the sway of an “anarchist orator.”

December 31, 1908: President Theodore Roosevelt pardoned William Buwalda, In January of 1909, Emma Goldman announced that anarchists across the country had raised one thousand dollars for Buwalda to begin a new life after prison.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Rout

January 15, 1909: San Francisco police arrested Goldman and Ben Reitman just before they were about to hold a meeting. Police charged them with rout—the assembly of two or more persons at a meeting where measures are advocated where if they were actually carried out would lead to a riot.

Police also arrested William Buwalda for his protest of their arrest.

July 23, 1909: Goldman spoke in NYC. Among her comments were: Many people are afraid to come to an Anarchist meeting because they fear that they will be blown up. Isn’t it stupid to be afraid of violence; only of individual violence. They have no objection to battlefields, and policemen, and electric chairs, and other ornaments of the present system. So long as violence is committed in the name of the State they are happy.” She referred to the hanging of the Anarchists after the Haymarket riots as “judicial murder.”

January 14, 1910: Mother Earth magazine was banned from the mails after Anthony Comstock complained about Goldman’s essay, “The White Slave Traffic,” under section 497 of the Postal Laws and Regulations Act of 1902. Later, the issue will be released by the Post Office after Comstock is forced to withdraw his objections.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Anarchists excluded

March 26, 1910: an amendment to the Immigration Act of 1907 passed Congress. The 1910 Act, while not changing the language excluding anarchists, streamlined the methods of prosecution and deportation of excludable aliens, forbidding any anarchists into the U.S.

On her 1910 tour, she had spoken 120 times in thirty-seven cities in twenty-five states, reaching 25,000 people. On December 17, 1910 Goldman published her first book, Anarchism and Other Essays.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Ben Reitman

May 14, 1912: Goldman and Ben Reitman arrived in San Diego to support the efforts of the I.W.W. An angry crowd of 2,000 surrounded Goldman’s hotel.

Vigilantes seized Reitman, tarred and”sagebrushed” him, and burned the letters “I.W.W.” skin with a cigar. The vigilantes also forced Reitman to kiss the American flag and sing “The Star Spangled Banner.” He later made his way back to San Diego, and then to Los Angeles, where he reunited with Goldman.

May 17, 1912:: in a New York Times article, Ben Reitman described his abduction and torture.

A year later, on May 20, 1913: Goldman and Reitman returned to San Diego. Goldman was scheduled to lecture on Ibsen’s Play, “An Enemy of the People.”

Upon their arrival, they were taken to a police station under police protection, surrounded by a mob, and later escorted and placed aboard the afternoon train to Los Angeles “for their own safety.”

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

World War I

June 28, 1914: a Bosnian Serb anarchist assassinates Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne.

August 4, 1914: Britain declares war on Germany.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Goldman and Women’s Health

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman, 

August 6, 1915: Goldman and  Reitman arrested in Portland, OR for distributing literature on birth control. Goldman wass released on $500 cash bail and announced that she would try to speak on the subject of birth control on August 7. Reitman remained in jail.

August 7, 1915: Goldman and Ben Reitman fined $100 for having distributed birth control information. Goldman spoke that evening on “The Intermediate Sex (A Discussion of Homosexuality)” at Turn Hall. In the audience were policemen in plain clothes, a deputy district attorney, and a deputy city attorney. She was not arrested.

February 8, 1916: Goldman lectured in NYC on Women’s Health.

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

March 1, 1916: Goldman spoke at a birth control mass meeting held at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Other speakers included Margaret Sanger, Leonard Abbott, Gilbert E. Roe, Theodore Schroeder, Bolton Hall, John Reed, Anna Strunsky Walling, Dr. William J. Robinson and Dr. A. L. Goldwater.

April 20, 191: Goldman tried at Special Sessions for lecturing on birth control. She was sentenced to fifteen days in Queens County Jail after refusing to pay a $100 fine.

May 5, 1916: Goldman spoke at a birth control meeting at Carnegie Hall, NYC.

January 8, 1917: a New York court acquitted Goldman of the charge of circulating birth control information.’

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Anti-Draft

June 14, 1917:: Goldman and Alexander Berkman spoke at a No-Conscription League mass meeting. After the meeting, the police required men of draft age to show their conscription cards. As a result 30 men were detained, and two arrested.

June 15, 1917: President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act, which set penalties of up to thirty years’ imprisonment and fines of up to $10,000 for persons aiding US enemies, interfering with the draft, or encouraging disloyalty in the armed forces. On the same day, Goldman, Berkman, and William Bales were arrested at the Mother Earth offices. Manuscripts, letters and subscription lists, as well as subscription lists for the No-Conscription League and another publication, The Blast, were confiscated.

June 16, 1917: Goldman and Alexander Berkman were indicted on the charge of obstructing the Draft Act (Selective Service Act) in NYC. They pled not guilty. Bail set at $25,000 each.

July 9, 1917: Goldman and Alexander Berkman found guilty of conspiracy against the selective draft law in NYC.

September 11, 1917: while out on bail, Goldman was prevented from speaking at the Kessler Theater by the New York City police. She appeared with a gag over her mouth.

Goldman and Berkman were found guilty, fined $10,000 and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment

Berkman was sent to Atlanta State Penitentiary in Georgia and Goldman was taken to Jefferson City Penitentiary in Missouri.

September 26, 1917: the U.S. Post Office directed Mother Earth to show cause why it should not be barred from the mails because of its opposition to the war.

The Post Office subsequently denied Mother Earth 2nd Class mailing privilege (a device that was widely used during World War I, and effectively denied use of the mails for publications), and Mother Earth suspended publication.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Deportation

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman, 

September 27, 1919: Goldman and Berkman released from federal prison but J Edgar Hoover, director of the Justice Department’s General Intelligence Division, convinced the courts to deny their citizenship claims, have them re-arrested, and prepare  deportation orders.

December 1, 1919: the Department of Labor ordered Goldman and Alexander Berkman to appear at Ellis Island for deportation to Russia.

December 21, 1919: the ship USAT Buford, labeled the “Red Ark,” embarked from New York City on this day, carrying 249 aliens who were deported because of their alleged anarchist or Communist beliefs.

An estimated 184 of the 249 aliens on the Buford were members of the Union of Russian Workers. All of the passengers were shipped to Russia.

Hoping to see the freedom socialism promised, Goldman and Berkman became disillusioned by its terror and despotism.

They left Russia in 1921.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Deportee Berkeman

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman, 

Berkman moved to Berlin, Germany then to Saint-Cloud, France. He continued to support the ideals of anarchism. Poor health and chronic pain led him to shoot himself, He did not die immediately, but lingered in a coma for several hours before dying.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Deportee Goldman

With the exception of a brief ninety-day lecture tour in 1934, Goldman spent the remaining years of her life in exile from the United States, wandering through Sweden, Germany, France, England, Spain and Canada in a futile search for a new political “home.”

July – December 1922: Goldman completed a manuscript, My Two Years in Russia.

In 1923, Goldman’s manuscript published under the title My Disillusionment in Russia.

January, 1925. In London, Goldman continued her efforts to expose the Bolsheviks as betrayers of the revolution and violators of civil liberties, a task made more difficult by the return of a British trade union delegation that reported favorably on conditions in the Soviet Union.

June 1925: discouraged by the public response to her lectures on Russia, Goldman focused on earning money by writing a new series of lectures on drama.

June 27, 1925: on her birthday, Goldman married James Colton, an elderly anarchist friend and trade unionist from Wales, in order to obtain British citizenship and the right to travel and speak more freely.

In October 1926:: Goldman sailed for Canada to lecture; its proximity rekindled her hope for readmission to the U.S.

In 1930: journalist H. L. Mencken petitioned the U.S. Department of State to revoke Goldman’s deportation and grant her a visitor’s visa. He also requested that the Department of Justice return her personal papers seized in the 1917 raid on the Mother Earth office, to no avail.

March 26 – April 4, 1933:  the New York World published a series of controversial articles by Goldman exposing the harsh political and economic conditions in Russia.

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Back in the USA

January 1934: the U.S. Department of Labor approved a three-month visa, effective February 1, for Goldman to lecture in the U.S. on non-political subjects. Once word of her tour leaked, many lecture agencies in the U.S. offered their services.

February 1934: Goldman visited relatives in Rochester, NY before arriving in NYC on February 2, where she was mobbed by reporters and photographers at Pennsylvania Station and the Hotel Astor.

March 21 – April 2, 1934: Goldman delivered five lectures in Chicago. Sixteen hundred attended the lecture under the auspices of the Free Society Forum on March 22, twelve hundred at the University of Chicago on March 23, and a thousand at Northwestern University on March 26. Fifteen hundred attend a banquet held in her honor at the Medinah Hotel on March 28.

April 30, 1934: Goldman returned to Canada.

May 3, 1935: from the New York Times: [Montreal] Emma Goldman was hailed as “one of the great women of the age,” whose qualities of mind and sould would be remembered long after she had gone by Rabbi Stern of Montreal last night when friends and admirers of Miss Goldman gave a farewell dinner before she leaves for Europe.”

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Her final days

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman, 
The birth date is incorrect

February 17, 1940: living in Toronto, Goldman suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed on her right side and unable to speak.

May 14, 1940: Goldman died at the age of seventy. Tributes and messages of condolence arrive from around the world. Her body was taken to the Labor Lyceum in Toronto. The Rev. Salem Bland delivered a eulogy.

May 17, 1940: Goldman was buried in Waldheim Cemetery, Chicago, close to the Haymarket memorial.  Alexander Berkeman had requested the same, but lacking funds, he had had to be buried in France.

In an address delivered at the burial, Jacob Siegel, editor of The Jewish Daily Forward, said, “Emma Goldman was a rebel all her life against injustices, until after the last war, when a change took place in her philosophy and mode of living. Were she living today, Emma Goldman would be assisting in the present human effort to destroy Hitlerism.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbi2rMQveHo

It’s Christmastime in Washington

The Democrats rehearsed

Gettin’ into gear for four more years

Things not gettin’ worse

The Republicans drink whiskey neat

And thanked their lucky stars

They said, ‘He cannot seek another term

They’ll be no more FDRs’

I sat home in Tennessee

Staring at the screen

With an uneasy feeling in my chest

And I’m wonderin’ what it means

So come back Woody Guthrie

Come back to us now

Tear your eyes from paradise

And rise again somehow

If you run into Jesus

Maybe he can help you out

Come back Woody Guthrie to us now

I followed in your footsteps once

Back in my travelin’ days

Somewhere I failed to find your trail

Now I’m stumblin’ through the haze

But there’s killers on the highway now

And a man can’t get around

So I sold my soul for wheels that roll

Now I’m stuck here in this town

 

 

There’s foxes in the hen house

Cows out in the corn

The unions have been busted

Their proud red banners torn

To listen to the radio

You’d think that all was well

But you and me and Cisco know

It’s going straight to hell

So come back, Emma Goldman

Rise up, old Joe Hill

The barracades are goin’ up

They cannot break our will

Come back to us, Malcolm X

And Martin Luther King

We’re marching into Selma

As the bells of freedom ring

Anarchist Activist Emma Goldman

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

The once-seen movie

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

On May 6, 1917 about 200 people watched a private showing Margaret Sanger’s film, Birth Control. Sanger had scheduled it to open publicly the next night, but New York officials banned it as obscene and it was never shown publicly.

Discomfort regarding sexually-related topics has long been part of American culture. A result of that attitude is that access to reproductive information and obstetric treatment for American women been limited socially as well as legally.

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

Comstock Act

On March 3, 1873 the Comstock Act [named after Anthony Comstock, a U.S. postal inspector] [Case Western article] amended the Post Office Act . Within that act it was 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.

Vestiges of the act endured as the law of the land into the 1990s. In 1971 Congress removed the language concerning contraception, and federal courts until Roe v Wade in 1973 ruled that it applied only to “unlawful” abortions. After Roe, laws criminalizing transportation of information about abortion remained on the books, and, although they have not been enforced, they have been expanded to ban distribution of abortion-related information on the Internet.  [Britannica article]

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger, 1879 – 1966, despite her eugenics statements, is in many ways the most important American in terms of reproductive heath care for American women.

Sanger watched her mother Anne die  at the age of 49 after she had gone through 18 pregnancies (with 11 live births) in 22 years.

In 1911 she and her husband moved to New York City where, as a visiting nurse, she saw the devastating effects of poverty on health, particularly women’s health.

As an aid to this heath issue, Sanger believed that women needed access to reproductive health information. Her activities in support of that belief were often illegal.

For example: in March 1914,  Sanger produced The Woman Rebel  [NYU atricle] which instructed women on times when it would be wise for them to avoid pregnancy, such as in the case of illness or poverty. She did not give any instructions regarding specific methods for contraception, but the New York City postmaster banned the journal under the Comstock Law category of “obscene, lewd, lascivious” matter.

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

Clinics

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

Despite intense social and legal opposition, on October 16, 1916 Sanger and her sister Ethel Byrne [electric beanstalk article] opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in Brooklyn. The clinic served 448 people that first day. Ten days later the vice squad raided and shut down the clinic. The squad arrested Sanger and Byrne and confiscated all the condoms and diaphragms at the clinic.

On November 1, 1921  the American Birth Control League was created through a merger of the National Birth Control League and the Voluntary Parenthood League. Led by Sanger, the new league became the leading birth control advocacy group in the country. The American Birth Control League eventually became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. [Sanger did not like the term planned parenthood and continued to use the phrase “birth control.”

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

Birth control pill

Margaret Sanger’s long term goal was a birth control pill, yet laws against any form of birth control continued to be enacted and upheld in court [February 1, 1943, in Tileston v. Ullman [Cornell article], the Supreme Court upheld a Connecticut law banning the use of drugs or instruments that prevented conception.]

In the early 1940s, researchers began to discover chemicals that could affect ovulation and on April 25, 1951,Margaret Sanger managed to secure a tiny grant for researcher Gregory Pincus from Planned Parenthood.  Pincus begins initial work on the use of hormones as a contraceptive.  Within a year his research supports the idea, but Planned Parenthood decided not to support further research because it was too risky. In 1953 Sanger was able to gain financial support for Pincus’s research. In 1955 human clinical trials proved that the “pill” was 100% effective.

It was still six years later before the Food and Drug Administration approved the pill. It first went on sale in December 1960. Despite continued social, legal, and religious opposition, by 1964 some four million women were using the drug.              

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

Griswold v. Connecticut

On June 7, 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut (Oyez article), the Supreme Court struck down the one remaining state law prohibiting the use of contraceptives by married couples.

After an adult lifetime of fighting for women’s heath rights, Margaret Sanger died on September 6, 1966. [NYT obit]

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

Racist?

A 2015 Polifact article addressed the accusation that Sanger was a racist in many views, that she supported the Ku Klux Klan.

In her 1938 autobiography, she wrote that she was willing to talk to virtually anyone as she advocated for birth control across the United States: “Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing.”

Sanger later compared the group to children because of their mental simplicity. Jean H. Baker, author of Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion, said Sanger actually opposed prejudice.

Sanger “was far ahead of her times in terms of opposing racial segregation,” wrote Baker, a history professor at Goucher College, in an email. She worked closely with black leaders to open birth control clinics in Harlem and elsewhere.”

Even authors who treat Sanger critically don’t believe she held negative views about African-Americans. Edwin Black wrote a comprehensive history of the eugenics movement, War Against the Weak, and is no fan of the activist’s beliefs. Ultimately, though, he writes, “Sanger was no racist. Nor was she anti-Semitic.

Eugenics Aftermath

July 21, 2020: Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced that it would remove the name of Margaret Sanger, a founder of the national organization, from its Manhattan health clinic because of her “harmful connections to the eugenics movement.”

Sanger had long been lauded as a feminist icon and reproductive-rights pioneer, but her legacy also included supporting eugenics, a discredited belief in improving the human race through selective breeding, often targeted at poor people, those with disabilities, immigrants and people of color.

“The removal of Margaret Sanger’s name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color,” Karen Seltzer, the chair of the New York affiliate’s board, said in a statement. [NYT story]

Racist?

Some say that  Sanger supported the Ku Klux Klan (she merely addressed a women’s auxiliary and later compared them to children because of their mental simplicity), Jean H. Baker, author of Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion, said Sanger actually opposed prejudice.

Sanger “was far ahead of her times in terms of opposing racial segregation,” wrote Baker, a history professor at Goucher College, in an email. She worked closely with black leaders to open birth control clinics in Harlem and elsewhere.

Even authors who treat Sanger critically don’t believe she held negative views about African-Americans. Edwin Black wrote a comprehensive history of the eugenics movement, War Against the Weak, and is no fan of the activist’s beliefs. Ultimately, though, he writes, “Sanger was no racist. Nor was she anti-Semitic.”

Margaret Sanger Birth Control

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Lattimer Mines massacre

September 10, 1897: in Pennsylvania, Polish, Lithuanian and Slovak miners are gunned down by the Lattimer Mine’s sheriff deputies—19 dead, more than 50 wounded—during a peaceful march from Hazelton to Lattimer. Some 3,000 were marching for collective bargaining and civil liberty. The shooters were tried for murder but the jury failed to convict . [PSU article] (see Sept 11)

Chicago teacher strike

September 10, 2012: the Chicago teachers union strike the nation’s third largest school system. [Mother Jones article] (see Sept 18)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Emma Goldman

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

September 10, 1901: a warrant was issued for Goldman’s arrest in connection with the (then) assassination attempt. Goldman gave herself up and was subjected to intensive interrogation. Though initially denied, bail was set at $20,000. She was never officially charged with a crime. (see Goldman for expanded story)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

September 10, 1915: William Sanger convicted re birth control literature. (from the NYT) Turbulent scenes followed the conviction…in Special Sessions of William Sanger, artist and architect, of having violated the Criminal Code in giving away a single copy of “Family Limitation,” a pamphlet on birth control written by Margaret Sanger, his wife. He spent 30 days in jail. (see March 1, 1916)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Black History

School desegregation

September 10, 1963: in January 1963, African American parents of students in Macon County, Alabama, sued the Macon County Board of Education to desegregate the county’s public schools. Though the United States Supreme Court had declared school segregation unconstitutional nearly nine years earlier, the board had taken no steps integrate local schools. In August 1963, Federal District Judge Frank Johnson ordered the school board to begin integration immediately.

The school board selected 13 African American students to integrate Tuskegee High School that fall. On September 2, 1963, the scheduled first day of integrated classes, Alabama Governor George Wallace had ordered the school closed due to “safety concerns.” The school reopened a week later, and on September 10, 1963, the second day of classes, white students began to withdraw. Within a week, all 275 white students had left the school.

Most fleeing white students enrolled at Macon Academy, a newly formed, all-white private school. In support of the school and its efforts to sidestep federal law to maintain school segregation, Governor Wallace and the school board approved the use of state funds to provide white students abandoning the public school system with scholarships to attend Macon Academy. Meanwhile, the Macon County School Board ordered Tuskegee High School closed due to low enrollment and split its remaining African American students among all-white high schools in Notasulga and Shorter, Alabama. White students in those high schools boycotted for several days and many eventually transferred to Macon Academy.

Macon-East Academy, the school relocated near Montgomery, Alabama, in 1995, and today (2015) operates as one of several private schools in the Alabama Black Belt with origins rooted in resistance to integration. As of the 2007 – 2008 school year, Macon-East Academy’s student population of more than 400 was 98% white and less than 1% African American. [NYT article] (see Sept 12)

Earle Race Riot of 1970

September 10, 1970: a group of whites armed with clubs, guns, and other weapons attacked a group of unarmed African-Americans marching to Earle County (Arkansas) city hall to protest segregated conditions in the town’s school system. Five black residents were injured, including two women who were shot, and one was in serious condition but survived.

Over 30 protesters from the ages of 13 to 20 were arrested, all of whom were students except two. Police charged the protesters with marching without a permit. [Black Then article] (next BH, see Sept 24)

BLACK & SHOT

September 10, 2014: Darrien Hunt was shot seven times by Saratoga Springs, Utah, police who were investigating reports of a man with a sword on at a shopping center. Hunt’s family said the sword was a replica. Police said Hunt refused to give up his sword and then started swinging it at them. An autopsy report determined that Hunt was shot seven times by officers, including several times in the back as he fled from police. The Hunt family’s attorney, Bob Sykes, disputed assertions from cops that the 22-year-old acted aggressively. “I think it’s a whitewash. I think it’s an exaggeration,” Sykes said. “I think they ignored good hard evidence to the contrary.” [NY Daily News story] (see Oct 20)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Religion and Public Education

September 10, 1945: the opening argument by Vashti McCollum’s attorney, Landon Chapman, suggested the program was sectarian and social pressure from students and teachers was used to get all students to participate. Defense attorney John Franklin indicated similar programs existed in 46 states and 80 Illinois communities.

The Baptist Joint Committee submitted an amicus brief in support of McCollum, saying, “We must not allow our religious fervor to blind us to the essential fact that no religious faith is secure when it meshes its authority with that of the state.” [NYT obit for McCollum] (see January 26, 1946)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

September 10, 1963: a New York state court ruled on this day that “trashy” novels “have a place in our society,” and deserved the same constitutional protection as recognized literary classics.

The judge dismissed obscenity charges against three book distributors and their executives charged with selling obscene publications. He agreed that the 25 books in question were “poor writings, bad in taste, profane, offensive, disgusting and plain unvarnished trash.” Nonetheless, he ruled, they are entitled to First Amendment protection. [Today In Civil Liberties article] (see January 6, 1964)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

September 10 Music et al

You Can’t Hurry Love

September 10, 1966, the Supremes’ ”You Can’t Hurry Love” is Billboard #1 single.

Revolver

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

September 10 – October 21, 1966:  Revolver became Billboard’s #1 album. Released in the US on August 8, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic wrote: All the rules fell by the wayside with Revolver, as the Beatles began exploring new sonic territory, lyrical subjects, and styles of composition. It wasn’t just Lennon and McCartney, either — Harrison staked out his own dark territory with the tightly wound, cynical rocker “Taxman”; the jaunty yet dissonant “I Want to Tell You”; and “Love You To,” George‘s first and best foray into Indian music. Such explorations were bold, yet they were eclipsed by Lennon‘s trippy kaleidoscopes of sound.

Side 1

  • “Taxman” (George Harrison)
  • “Eleanor Rigby”
  • “Love You To” (Harrison)
  • “Here, There and Everywhere”
  • “Yellow Submarine”
  • “She Said She Said”

 Side 2

  • “Good Day Sunshine”
  • “For No One”
  • “I Want to Tell You” (Harrison)
  • “Got to Get You into My Life”
  • “Tomorrow Never Knows”

From Rolling Stone magazine: Revolver signaled that in popular music, anything – any theme, any musical idea – could now be realized. And, in the case of the Beatles, would be. (see Sept 26)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam & Cultural Milestone

September 10, 1967:  the second season of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Show begins with Pete Seeger appearing for the first time in 17 years since his 1950s blacklisting. He sang Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, but CBS dropped the performance when Seeger refused to edit the obviously anti-Viet Nam sentiments the old song presented. (CM, see Sept 17; Seeger, see February 25, 1968; Vietnam, see Sept 27)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Dissolution of the USSR

September 10, 1989:  thousands of East Germans cross the Austria-Hungary frontier after Budapest waived border restrictions amid the largest legal exodus from eastern Europe since 1945.Video on East German exodus  (see USSR for expanded chronology)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Stop and Frisk Policy

September 10, 2008:  a judge ordered that New York City and the NYPD  turn over all UF-250 (stop-and-frisk) data for the past 10 years.

By December 2008, 531,159 police had stopped New Yorkers. 271,602 were black (51 percent); 167,111 were Latino (32 percent); 57,407 were white (11 percent) (see May 1, 2009)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Alan Turing

September 10, 2009: British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war. The statement read, in part: Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. full statement[] (Turing, see December, 2011; LGBTQ, see Oct 28)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Terry Jones

September 10, 2010:  Jones told NBC’s “Today” show that he will cancel Koran burning if he could meet with Rauf. Rauf insists no meeting has been planned with Jones and that he is committed to meeting with anyone “seriously committed to pursuing peace.” [Reuters article] (see Sept 11)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans & Voting Rights

September 10, 2015: Alaska agreed to provide increased language assistance for voters who speak Yup’ik and Gwich’in. Natalie Landreth with the Native American Rights Fund said: “The choices that were made in the settlement open the door for Alaska Native access to the polls in a way that we have not seen before.”

Landreth said that the centerpiece of the settlement was translating the state’s official election pamphlet into Gwich’in and up to six different dialects of Yup’ik.

The pamphlet contains pre-election information on how to vote, biographical information on candidates and ballot measures. [Alaska Public article] (NA, see August 1, 2016; voting suit, see August 16 2016)

Native Americans & Environmental Issues

September 10, 2016:  the federal government ordered work to stop on one segment of the project in North Dakota and asked the Texas-based company building it to “voluntarily pause” action on a wider span that an American Indian tribe says holds sacred artifacts.

The government’s order came minutes after a judge had rejected a request by the Standing Rock Sioux to halt construction of the $3.8 billion, four-state pipeline.

The tribe, whose cause drew thousands to join their protest, had challenged the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant permits for the pipeline at more than 200 water crossings. Tribal leaders alleged that the project violated several federal laws and wouldharm water supplies. The tribe also said ancient sites had been disturbed during construction. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article] (NA, & EI, see Dec 4)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Unaccompanied alien children

September 10, 2019:  the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG)’s new report found the Trump administration’s policy changes in 2018 exacerbated the mental health needs of “unaccompanied alien children” in their custody. The unaccompanied alien children in this study were overwhelmingly asylum seekers from Central America.

The OIG found two particular policies — separating children from their parents and prolonging the time children are in custody — were especially harmful to the children’s mental health. (see Sept 11)

Census 2020

September 10, 2020:  a special three-judge court in New York blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to make an unprecedented change to who is included in the census numbers that determine each state’s share of seats in Congress.

The president, the court concluded, cannot leave unauthorized immigrants out of that specific count.

The decision comes after the July release of a memorandum by President Trump that directs Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, to provide Trump with information needed to exclude immigrants who are living in the United States without authorization from the apportionment count.

The panel of judges — including U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Wesley, Circuit Judge Peter Hall and District Judge Jesse Furman — noted the president does have some direction over the census and how the results of the count are used for reapportionment. But that authority, which is delegated from Congress, is limited.

A “tabulation of total population” is what the commerce secretary is directed to report to the president from the once-a-decade census, under Title 13 of the U.S. Code. According to Title 2, the president, in turn, is supposed to hand off to Congress “a statement showing the whole number of persons in each State.” [NPR article] (next IH, see Oct 1; next Census, see Sept 25)

September 10 Peace Love Art Activism