Say the words “Kent State” to any Boomer and they will associate those words with one thing: the 1970 National Guard killing of four students at the Ohio college.
It is a sad testament to our history that the word Orangeburg does not conjure the same.
Cleveland Sellers Orangeburg Massacre
All Star Bowling Lane
On February 6 about 200 students from the predominantly black South Carolina State College had gathered at the nearby All Star Bowling lane to protest its segregation of black patrons. There were no incidents.
On February 7 many of the students returned to resume the protest but this time police arrested fifteen of them.
Cleveland Sellers Orangeburg Massacre
February 8, 1968
A third night of protests began and because of the previous night’s arrests, there was increased tension.
This night, the students gathered on the South Carolina State University campus instead of at the bowling alley . They built a bonfire which a law enforcement officer attempted to put out. In the process he was injured by a piece of a banister thrown from the crowd. A highway patrolman then fired his gun into the air in an attempt to calm the crowd. Upon hearing the shot, other officers, thinking they were being fired upon, opened fire into the crowd of students.
Cleveland Sellers Orangeburg Massacre
Smith, Hammond, Middleton
Henry Smith…………Samuel Hammond……….Delano Middleton
In what became known as the “Orangeburg Massacre,” the troopers shot wounding twenty-eight and killing three black male students: Samuel Hammond, eighteen, a freshman from Florida; Henry Smith, eighteen, a sophomore from Marion, South Carolina; and Delano Middleton, seventeen, an Orangeburg high school student. Cleveland Sellers, the local Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s program director was one of those wounded. He was not a student.
Here is a piece from a documentary about the event:
Cleveland Sellers Orangeburg Massacre
Sellers blamed
South Carolina Robert Governor McNair blamed “black power advocates” such as Sellers for the violence and insisted officers had fired in self-defense while under attack from campus snipers. Witness accounts from reporters, firemen, and students contradicted this story; they reported that officers had fired on the crowd without warning. No evidence was ever presented that the protesters were armed.
Cleveland Sellers Orangeburg Massacre
Officers charged
The State charged nine of the officers in the shootings. A jury found none guilty of any wrongdoing.
Cleveland Sellers Orangeburg Massacre
Cleveland Sellers
Cleveland Sellers [born November 8, 1944] in Denmark, South Carolina. became interested in civil right with the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. In 1960 at 15, he organized his first sit-in protest at a Denmark, South Carolina lunch counter, just two weeks after the Woolworth’s sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina.
While a sophomore at Howard University he joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Sellers graduated from Howard in 1967 and returned to South Carolina.
Cleveland Sellers Orangeburg Massacre
Scapegoat
Gov McNair
Thus it was Sellers that Governor McNair used as the example of outside agitator, an easy target because of Sellers SNCC association.
A jury found him guilty. He served seven months in prison after a conviction for inciting to riot despite no evidence.
While imprisoned, he wrote his autobiography, The River of No Return, chronicling his involvement with the civil rights movement.
Cleveland Sellers Orangeburg Massacre
Pardon
He received a full pardon 25 years after his conviction, but he chose not to have his record expunged, keeping it as a “badge of honor.”
On April 22, 2008, Voorhees College named Dr. Cleveland L. Sellers Jr., as its president. Today he is its president emeritus and continues to be active in civil rights. (Vorhees College article)
February 7, 1984: American astronaut Bruce McCandless became the first person to fly un-tethered in space during the flight of the space shuttle Challenger. (NASA bio)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
Immigration History
February 7, 1887: the O’Neill bill was passed which amended the Contract Labor Law of 1885. It added three major sections to the original act. The problem was largely that although the law was sweeping in its prohibition of labor contracts, it was virtually impossible to enforce.
The new sections charged the secretary of the treasury with enforcement of the act, gave him power to establish needful rules and regulations, and provided that prohibited persons were to be sent back on arrival. (IH, see March 12, 1888; LH, see Nov 1)
Sugar refinery explosion
February 7, 2008: a huge explosion and fire at the Imperial Sugar refinery northwest of Savannah, Georgia, kills 14 and injures 38 people. The explosion was fueled by massive accumulations of combustible sugar dust throughout the packaging building. An investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board stated that the explosion had been “entirely preventable,” noting that the sugar industry had been aware of the risk of dust explosions since 1926. (CSB report) (see Feb 13)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Luther Holbert & unidentified woman lynched
February 7, 1904: as hundreds of white people watched and cheered, a black man named Luther Holbert and an unidentified woman were tortured and killed in Doddsville, Mississippi, a Sunflower County town in the Mississippi Delta. Holbert was accused of shooting and killing James Eastland, a white landowner from a prominent, wealthy local family that owned a plantation where many of the area’s black laborers worked. After his shooting, James Eastland’s two brothers led the posse that captured Mr. Holbert and a black woman. Some news reports identified the woman as Mr. Holbert’s wife, but later research suggested she was not; her identity remains unknown.
According to an eyewitness account published in the Vicksburg, Mississippi, Evening Post, Luther Holbert and the unnamed black woman were tied to trees while their funeral pyres were prepared. They were then forced to hold out their hands and watch as their fingers were chopped off, one at a time, and distributed as souvenirs. Next, the same was done to their ears. Mr. Holbert was then beaten so badly that his skull was fractured and one of his eyes hung by a shred from the socket. The lynch mob next used a large corkscrew to bore into the arms, legs, and body of the two victims, pulling out large pieces of raw, quivering flesh. The victims reportedly did not cry out, and they were finally thrown on the fire and allowed to burn to death. The event was described as a festive atmosphere, in which the audience of 600 spectators enjoyed deviled eggs, lemonade, and whiskey. [EJI story] (next BH, see June 13; next Lynching, see Aug 16 or for for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)
Lift Every Voice and Sing
In 1905: John Johnson, the brother of James Weldon Johnson who wrote the poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” put music it. (next BH, see April 14, 1906; see Lift for expanded story)
Marcus Garvey
February 7, 1923: Edward Young Clarke, Imperial Giant of the Ku Klux Klan, came New York City from Atlanta, GA and appeared before the Federal Grand Jury as a witness against Garvey, who would to be tried on February 20 on a charge of defrauding investors in the Black Star Line. (BH, see Feb 13; seeMG for expanded chronology)
Carter G. Woodson
February 7, 1926: Negro History Week, originated by Carter G. Woodson, was observed for the first time. (see Sept 1)
Medgar Evers & News Music
February 7, 1964: a Jackson, Mississippi jury, trying Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers in June 1963, reported that it could not reach a verdict, resulting in a mistrial. The jury Was 7-5 for acquittal.
Phil Ochs had already released his composition “Ballad of Medgar Evers. (next Black History, see Feb 10; seeEvers for extensive chronology; NM, see Mar 21)
UK’s National Front
February 7, 1967: in the UK, the ultra-right National Front political party forms. Its slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children“
Viola Liuzzo
February 7, 1997: from the NYT, “Last week, a Confederate battle flag was spray-painted on a monument in Hayneville, Ala., to Viola Liuzzo.” (BH, see May 16; see VL for expanded chronology)
Alabama & 13th Amendment
February 7, 2013: Charles A. Barth, director of the Federal Register, wrote back to Mississippi Secretary of State, Delbert Hosemann, that he had received theresolution: “With this action, the State of Mississippi has ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” (see Feb 13)
Emmett Till
February 7, 2023: Emmett Till’s cousin Patricia Sterling of Jackson, Mississippi, filed a federal lawsuit against the current Leflore County sheriff, Ricky Banks. The suit sought to compel Banks to serve the warrant on Carolyn Bryant, now Carolyn Bryant Donham. [AP story] (next BH, see Apr 6; next ET, see Apr 25, or see Till chronology for expanded story)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
US recognizes Emperor Boa Dai
February 7, 1950: the United States recognized Vietnam under the leadership of Emperor Bao Dai, not Ho Chi Minh who was recognized by the Soviets. (see May 8)
Viet Cong attack spurs US bombing
February 7, 1965: National Liberation Front commandos attacked a US helicopter base and advisory compound in the central highlands of South Vietnam. The attack killed seven Americans and wounded 80. President Johnson immediately ordered U.S. Navy fighter-bombers to attack military targets just inside North Vietnam. (see Feb 8)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
Pledge of Allegiance
February 7, 1954: in the past, some American presidents had honored Lincoln’s birthday by attending services at the church Lincoln attended in Washington, DC, [the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church] by sitting in Lincoln’s pew on the Sunday nearest February 12. On February 7, 1954, with President Eisenhower sitting in Lincoln’s pew, the church’s pastor, George MacPherson Docherty, delivered a sermon based on the Gettysburg Address titled “A New Birth of Freedom.” He argued that the nation’s might lay not in arms but its spirit and higher purpose. He noted that the Pledge’s sentiments could be those of any nation, that “there was something missing in the pledge, and that which was missing was the characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life.” He cited Lincoln’s words “under God” as defining words that set the United States apart from other nations.
President Eisenhower, baptized a Presbyterian the previous February, responded enthusiastically to Docherty in a conversation following the service. (seePoA for expanded chronology)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
February 7 Music et al
Van Gelder Studios
February 7, 1960: Hank Mobley recorded his “Soul Station” album in Van Gelder Studios of Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. After having gained a reputation in the mid-Fifties for the quality of the recordings he made in the living room at his parents’ house in Hackensack, New Jersey, Van Gelder moved to a new facility in Englewood Cliffs in 1959. The structure was inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and bore some resemblance to a chapel, with 39-foot ceilings and fine acoustics. Critic Ira Gitler described the studio in The Space Book (1964) liner notes:”In the high-domed, wooden-beamed, brick-tiled, spare modernity of Rudy Van Gelder’s studio, one can get a feeling akin to religion.” (next TC, see Apr 4; see Van Gelder for expanded story on studio)
The Beatles
Please Please Me
February 7, 1963: “Please Please Me”/ “Ask Me Why” released as single on Vee-Jay label.
Dick Biondi, a disc jockey on WLS in Chicago and a friend of Vee-Jay executive Ewart Abner, played the song on the radio thus becoming the first DJ to play a Beatles record in the US. It reached No. 35 on WLS music survey in March, but did not chart nationally; not on Billboard. Note the misspelling…Beattles. (see Mar 3)
Beatles arrive in USA
February 7, 1964: arrive in the US and are greeted by thousands of screaming fans at NYC’s Kennedy Airport. (see Feb 9)
February 7, 1990: the Central Committee of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party agreed to endorse President Mikhail Gorbachev’s recommendation that the party give up its 70-year long monopoly of political power. The Committee’s decision to allow political challenges to the party’s dominance in Russia was yet another signal of the impending collapse of the Soviet system. (see Mar 15)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
The Euro
February 7, 1992: members of the European Community signed the Maastricht Treaty in Maastricht, Netherlands. The Treaty created the European Union and eventually to the creation of the single European currency, the euro.
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
TERRORISM
February 7, 1995: Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan. (see November 13, 1995)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
Sexual Abuse of Children
February 7, 2005: Paul Shanley convicted of four charges relating to offences committed in the 1980s including rape and indecent assault. (Sexual; abuse, see Feb 15; Shanley, see July 28, 2017)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
February 7, 2012: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled 2–1 that Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage in state, was unconstitutional because it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In the ruling, the court said, the law “operates with no apparent purpose but to impose on gays and lesbians, through the public law, a majority’s private disapproval of them and their relationships.” (see Feb 13)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
Cannabis
February 7, 2014: the farms bill signed by President Obama included a provision that legalizes hemp cultivation for research purposes. Under the new law, universities and state departments of agriculture would be authorized to cultivate hemp for research purposes in states where its been legalized; prior to this law, a license from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was required to research hemp, a license which was virtually impossible to receive. Nine states in the U.S. that had legalized hemp cultivation; California, Oregon, Colorado, Montana, West Virginia, Vermont, North Dakota, Kentucky and Maine. (next Cannabis, see Feb 14 or see CCC or expanded chronology)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History
February 7, 2017: the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard August E. Flentje , a Justice Department lawyer said courts should not second-guess President Trump’s targeted travel ban.
The appeals court judges sometimes seemed taken aback by the assertiveness of the administration’s position, which in places came close to saying the court was without power to make judgments about Mr. Trump’s actions. (see Feb 9)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
Women’s Health
Affordable Care Act
February 7, 2018: with ongoing waffling regarding women’s health, University of Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins announceda ban on “abortion-inducing drugs” from its third-party-provided insurance plans. (WH, seeFeb 14; ND & ACA, see June 26)
Access
February 7, 2019: the US Supreme Court blocked a Louisiana law that its opponents say would have left the state with only one doctor in a single clinic authorized to provide abortions.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s four-member liberal wing to form a majority. That coalition underscored the pivotal position the chief justice has assumed after the departure last year of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who used to hold the crucial vote in many closely divided cases, including ones concerning abortion. [NYT story] (see Mar 25)
The vote was 5 to 4, with the four more liberal members of the court in dissent.
The majority offered little reasoning but said that Ray had waited too long to object. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters, said the majority was “profoundly wrong.”
Under Alabama’s policy, she wrote, “a Christian prisoner may have a minister of his own faith accompany him into the execution chamber to say his last rites.”
“But if an inmate practices a different religion — whether Islam, Judaism or any other — he may not die with a minister of his own faith by his side,” Justice Kagan wrote. [NYT article] (next DP, see Mar 13; religion & DP, see Feb 27)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
Trump Impeachment
February 7, 2020: NBC News reported that President Donald Trump had fired Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and removed Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from his White House job.
Both officials had provided critical information about Trump during public hearings, with Sondland saying the president sought a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine’s leader and Vindman criticizing Trump’s conduct during a July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “improper.”
Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council who testified during the House impeachment inquiry, was ousted from his job and escorted out of the White House. Vindman’s twin brother, who also worked for the NSC, was also removed from his post. (next TI, see or see Trump for expanded chronology)
February 7 Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans/Trump Wall
February 7, 2020: CBS News reported that US border contractors had begun “controlled blasting” at a sacred burial grounds where members of the Tohono O’odham Nation buried their ancestors to make way for President Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall
The site is located inside Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on land adjacent to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Archaeologists touring the site before construction said they found human remains dating back 10,000 years.
“The construction contractor has begun controlled blasting, in preparation for new border wall system construction, within the Roosevelt Reservation at Monument Mountain in the US Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector,” the US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. (next NA, see Apr 17; next Immigration, see Feb 21; next TW, seeJune 24, or see Wallfor expanded chronology)
February 6, 1838: Dr Emerson married Eliza Irene Sanford. Emerson sent for the Scotts. (see Dred Scott for expanded story)
Robert Tanner Jackson
February 6, 1867: Robert Tanner Jackson, whose parents had been enslaved in the U.S., graduated from Harvard School of Dental Medicine, becoming the first African American to receive a degree in dentistry. (see May 1)
Thomas Brown lynched
February 6, 1902: Thomas Brown, a 19-year-old black man, was seized from a jail cell and lynched on the lawn of the Jessamine County Courthouse in Nicholasville, Kentucky. Thomas had been arrested for an alleged assault on a white woman but never had the chance to stand trial.
A mob of 200 white men assembled at the jail and seized Thomas Brown from police. They then hung him from a tree in front of the county courthouse. Though news reports identified the young woman’s brother as a leader of the mob, no one was ever prosecuted for Thomas Brown’s murder and authorities concluded that he “met death by strangulation at the hands of parties unknown.” [EJI article] (next BH, see February 18, 1903; next Lynching, see June 23, 1903 or for for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)
Autherine Lucy
February 6, 1956: a hostile mob assembled to prevent Autherine Lucy from attending classes. She was struck by eggs while being escorted across the campus and windows of the car in which she rode were smashed. Highway patrol officers slipped her away at the height of the demonstration when more than 3,000 students and others were on the campus..
That same day, the Augusta Chronicle ran an editorial, saying that the tragedy was not that Lucy was being denied her rights, but rather that the courts were usurping states’ rights by interfering with the University of Alabama’s admittance policy. The editorial concluded: It is nothing less than tragic that the Supreme Court has furnished both the dynamite and the match by usurping the power of the various states to operate their schools, and other public facilities, in a manner best fitted to the needs and the welfare of all of their people. For this the court must bear the onus for ushering in an unhappy and tragic era in our history whereas before its decision, all was going well. (BH, see Feb 10; U of A, see Feb 29)
The Greensboro Four
February 6, 1960: more than 1,400 North Carolina A & T students met in Harrison Auditorium that morning After voting to continue the protest, many headed to the F.W. Woolworth store. They filled every seat as the store opened. A large number of counter protesters showed up as well. By noon, more than 1,000 people packed the store.
At 1 p.m., a caller warned a bomb was set to explode at 1:30 p.m. The crowd moved to the Kress store, which immediately closed. Arrests were made outside both stores. Its manager cleared and closed the F.W. Woolworth store.
That evening at North Carolina A & T 1,600 students voted to suspend demonstrations for two weeks. Dean William Gamble proclaimed this would give the stores time “to set policies regarding food service for Negro students.” (see G4 for expanded chronology)
Muhammad Ali
February 6, 1967: Ali defeated Ernie Terrell in a 15 round decision. Terrell had refused to refer to Ali by his Muslim name and throughout the fight Ali taunted Terrell shouting, “What’s my name Uncle Tom…What’s my name?”
Many accused Ali of deliberately punishing Terrell and not knocking him out.(2014 Independent article) (BH, see Feb 27; Ali, see April 5)
School Desegregation
February 6, 1986: in Riddick v. School Board of the City of Norfolk, Virginia a federal court found for the first time that once a school district meets the Green decision factors (1968), it can be released from its desegregation plan and returned to local control. (June 1986 NYT follow up article) (BH, see “in February 1987”; SD, see January 8, 1989)
DOMESTIC TERRORISM
February 6, 2015: U.S. District Court Judge L. Scott Coogler sentenced Pamela Morris, former secretary of a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Ozark, Alabama, to 10 months in prison and three years of supervised release for committing perjury during a grand jury’s investigation into a racially motivated cross-burning. (see Apr 8)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
The Red Scare
February 6, 1952: Harvey Matusow, a former Communist Party member and in 1952 an FBI informant, named named Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman, all members of the The Weavers, as Communists. The Weavers were in the middle of a concert tour and by mutual agreement with the manager, cancelled their scheduled week-long engagement with the Yankee Inn in Akron, Ohio.
Being named as Communists destroyed the Weavers commercial career. They had been one of the most popular groups in America since 1950, with several number one hits, including Leadbelly’s “Goodnight Irene.”
The Weavers soon disbanded, but Pete Seeger developed a very successful career performing on college campuses, which were freer of anti-Communist pressures. He was mainly responsible for teaching that generation Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.”
With Guy Carawan and others, Seeger also revised “We Will Overcome,” [an old African-American gospel song that had become a labor union organizing song] into “We Shall Overcome.” Carawan taught it to the leaders of the sit-in movement in 1960 and it immediately became the anthem of the civil rights movement.
Matusow had a bizarre career. After being a Communist Party member and FBI informant, he recanted and denied his earlier accusations about who was a Communist. The Justice Department convicted him of perjury and he was sentenced to prison. Upon leaving prison, he became a member of the 1960s counterculture and led a rock group. (see Mar 3)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear/Chemical News
February 6, 1958: a recovery effort began for what became known as the Tybee Bomb. The Air Force 2700th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squadron and 100 Navy personnel equipped with hand held sonar and galvanic drag and cable sweeps mounted a search. (NN, see Feb 17; Tybee, see Apr 16)
February 6, 1958: George Harrison joined The Quarrymen. The group, consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Len Garry, Eric Griffiths and John Lowe.. George Harrison (recalling those early days): “I was very impressed by John, probably more than Paul, or I showed it more. I suppose I was impressed by all the Art College crowd. John was very sarcastic, always trying to put you down, but I either took no notice or gave him the same back, and it worked.” (see July 15)
All Those Years Ago
Exactly 33 years later, and 60 days after John Lennon’s murder on February 6, 1981, George Harrison completed the recording of All Those Years Ago, Harrison’s musical tribute to Lennon. Ringo Starr had worked with Harrison on the song in November 1981 intending to use it on his own album, but decided not to. After Lennon’s assassination, Harrison changed the lyrics and invited Paul McCartney to join on the vocals.
It was the first time that the three former band mates had appeared on the same recording since “I Me Mine” in 1970. (see Feb 19)
“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’”
February 6 – 19, 1965: “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” by the Righteous Brothers #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1999, BMI listed the song as the one most often played on American radio and television in the 20th century, with some 8 million plays. (see Righteous for more)
The Road to the Woodstock
February 6, 1969: Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld met John Roberts and Joel Rosenman for the first time. Lang and Kornfeld propose a music studio retreat in Woodstock, NY that would be an ideal place for musicians to make music in a relaxed atmosphere in an area where many other young musicians live. (see RW for a much expanded chronology)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
LBJ meets with Nguyen Cao Ky
February 6, 1966: accompanied by his leading political and military advisers, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson met with South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Cao Ky in Honolulu. The talks concluded with issuance of a joint declaration in which the United States promised to help South Vietnam “prevent aggression,” develop its economy, and establish “the principles of self-determination of peoples and government by the consent of the governed.” Johnson declared: “We are determined to win not only military victory but victory over hunger, disease, and despair.”
He announced renewed emphasis on “The Other War”–the effort to provide the South Vietnamese rural population with local security, and economic and social programs to win over their active support.
In his final statement on the discussions, Johnson warned the South Vietnamese that he would be monitoring their efforts to build democracy, improve education and health care, resettle refugees, and reconstruct South Vietnam’s economy. (see Feb 10)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
Crime and Punishment
February 6, 1974: in the face of protests by prison reformers, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons announced that it was cancelling its controversial Behavior Modification program at the federal prison in Springfield, Missouri.
The program involved attempting to change prisoners’ behavior by locking them in cells for extended hours and denying them all privileges, and then restoring privileges gradually if they behaved themselves. The decision to end the program came just days before a federal judge was expected to rule in a suit challenging the program, which was filed by the National Prison Project of the ACLU. (see January 22, 1976)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
AIDS
Ryan White
February 6, 1986: Indiana DOE again ruled that White could attend school, after inspection by Howard County health officers. (see White for expanded story)
Arthur Ashe
February 6. 1993: Arthur Ashe, 49, died of AIDS. Ashe was believed to have contracted the virus from a blood transfusion during heart surgery 10 years earlier. (seeDec 23)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
CLINTON IMPEACHMENT
Clinton won’t resign
February 6, 1998: at a news conference, President Bill Clinton said he would never consider resigning because of the accusations against him. “I would never walk away from the people of this country and the trust they’ve placed in me.”
Monica Lewinsky
February 6, 1999: Americans got a chance to see and hear Monica Lewinsky as House prosecutors and White House lawyers play video excerpts of her testimony in their final summations. (see Clinton for expanded story)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
Alan Turing
February 6, 2012: Lord McNally declined to pardon Alan Turing. McNalley’s statement read:
The question of granting a posthumous pardon to Mr Turing was considered by the previous Government in 2009.
As a result of the previous campaign, the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal posthumous apology to Mr Turing on behalf of the Government, describing his treatment as “horrifying” and “utterly unfair”. Mr Brown said the country owed him a huge debt. This apology was also shown at the end of the Channel 4 documentary celebrating Mr Turing’s life and achievements which was broadcast on 21 November 2011.
A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted.
It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence which now seems both cruel and absurd-particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times. (LGBTQ, see Feb 7; Turing, see December 23, 2013)
Boy Scouts of America
February 6, 2013: the Boy Scouts of America said that it would postpone until May their decision regarding homosexual members as talk of gays in the ranks has roiled a storied organization that carries deep emotional connection and nostalgia for millions of Americans. (NYT article) (LGBTQ, see Feb 11; BSA, see April 19)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
Cannabis
February 6, 2014: the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that local officials in Michigan may not ban the use of medical marijuana within their boundaries — a unanimous landmark ruling expected to overturn local ordinances in Livonia, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and Lyon Township. (next Cannabis, see Feb 7 or see CCC for expanded cannabis chronology)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
Trump’s Wall
February 6, 2017: some Republican lawmakers were expressing skepticism that the border wall was worth the price tag and asked that Trump offer off-sets for the cost.
Texas Senator, John Cornyn said: “I have concerns about spending un-offset money, which adds to the debt, period. I don’t think we’re just going to be able to solve border security with a physical barrier because people can come under, around it and through it.” (next IH, see Feb 7; next TW, see Feb 9 or see TWallfor expanded chronology)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
Voting Rights
February 6, 2018: the Supreme Court partly granted a request from North Carolina Republicans to block a voting map drawn by a federal court there. That court had interceded after finding that a map drawn by state lawmakers for the General Assembly had relied too heavily on race and had violated state laws.
The Supreme Court’s order, which was brief and gave no reasons, partly blocked that decision while the justices consider whether to hear an appeal in the case. (see Mar 19)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
Environmental Issues
Toxic chemicals
February 6, 2018: the NY Times reportedthat more than 2,500 sites that handle toxic chemicals are located in flood-prone areas in every American state and that about 1,400 are located in areas at highest risk of flooding. The article also pointed that that as flood danger grows — the consequence of a warming climate — the risk increased. (see Feb 23 )
Record warmth
February 6, 2019: NASA scientists announced that the Earth’s average surface temperature in 2018 was the fourth highest in nearly 140 years of record-keeping and a continuation of an unmistakable warming trend.
The data meant that the five warmest years in recorded history had been the last five, and that 18 of the 19 warmest years ever recorded have occurred since 2001. The quickly rising temperatures over the past two decades cap a much longer warming trend documented by researchers and correspond with the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by human activity.
“We’re no longer talking about a situation where global warming is something in the future,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, director of theGoddard Institute for Space Studies, the NASA group that conducted the analysis. “It’s here. It’s now.” (see Mar 15)
Antarctica record warmth
February 6, 2020: NBC News reported that the U.N. weather agency said that an Argentine research base on the northern tip of Antarctica reported a temperature that, if confirmed, could be a record high for the continent.
World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis, cited figures from Argentina’s national weather service, said the Esperanza Base recorded 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) — topping the former record of 17.5 degrees tallied in March 2015. (next EI, see Feb 17)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
Feminism/Space
February 6, 2020: Christina Koch returned to Earth holding the record for the longest stay by a female astronaut in space, 328 days. (the American record-holder for the longest single stay was Scott Kelly, with 342 days in space, and the record-holder for cumulative time was Peggy Whitsonwith 665 days spread over three flights.) Koch had volunteered for this mission as part of a long-duration experiment. At his point NASA had 48 active-duty astronauts, of which 16 were women. [NYT story] (next Feminism, see Aug 11; next Space, see May 30)
February 6 Peace Love Art Activism
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
