October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Tecumseh

October 5, 1813:  during the War of 1812, General William Harrison’s American army defeated a combined British and Indian force at the Battle of the Thames near Ontario, Canada. The leader of the Indian forces was Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief who organized inter-tribal resistance to the encroachment of white settlers on Indian lands. He was killed in the fighting. Tecumseh’s death marked the end of Indian resistance east of the Mississippi River and soon after most of the depleted tribes were forced west. (see March 3, 1819)

Chief Joseph

October 5, 1877: Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians surrendered to U.S. General Nelson A. Miles in the Bear Paw mountains of Montana, declaring, “Hear me, my chiefs: My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

Earlier in the year, the U.S. government broke a land treaty with the Nez Perce, forcing the group out of their homeland in Wallowa Valley in the Northwest for relocation in Idaho. In the midst of their journey, Chief Joseph learned that three young Nez Perce warriors, enraged at the loss of their homeland, had massacred a band of white settlers. Fearing retaliation by the U.S. Army, the chief began one of the great retreats in American military history.

For more than three months, Chief Joseph led fewer than 300 Nez Perce Indians toward the Canadian border, covering a distance of more than 1,000 miles as the Nez Perce outmaneuvered and battled more than 2,000 pursuing U.S. soldiers. During the long retreat, he treated prisoners humanely and won the admiration of whites by purchasing supplies along the way rather than stealing them. Finally, only 40 miles short of his Canadian goal, Chief Joseph was cornered by the U.S. Army, and his people were forcibly relocated to a barren reservation in Indian Territory.  (see November 1, 1879)

Nicole Aunapu Mann

October 5, 2022: NASA’s Nicole Aunapu Mann became the first Native American woman ever to travel to Earth’s orbit. Mann served served as mission commander. NASA explained that Mann, a former US Marine Corps pilot, can be thought of as the crew’s quarterback.

It was her first trip to space since joining NASA’s astronaut corps in 2013. [CNN article] (next NA, see Nov 11)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

White terrorist vigilantism 

October 5, 1920: four black men were killed in Macclenny, Florida, following the death of a prominent young white local farmer named John Harvey. According to news reports at the time, Harvey was shot and killed at a turpentine camp near MacClenny on October 4, 1920. The suspected shooter, a young black man named Jim Givens, fled immediately afterward and mobs of armed white men formed to pursue him. Givens’s brother and two other black men connected to him were questioned and jailed during the search, though there was no evidence or accusation that they had been involved in the killing of Harvey.

Those three men – Fulton Smith, Ray Field, and Ben Givens – were held in the Baker County Jail late into the night until, around 1:00 a.m. on October 5, a mob of about 50 white men overtook the jail and seized the men from their cells. The mob forced the men to the outskirts of town, where they were tied to trees and shot to death. A fourth lynching victim, Sam Duncan, was found shot to death nearby later in the day. Also with no alleged ties to the killing of John Harvey, Duncan was thought to be an unfortunate soul who had encountered a mob seeking Jim Givens and been killed simply for being a black man.

Three days later, the Chicago Defender, a Northern black newspaper, reported that most of the black community of Macclenny had deserted the area in fear of further violent attacks while whites posses continued to search for Jim Givens.  [EJI article] (next BH & next Lynching, see Nov 2 or see AL2 for expanded chronology)

School Desegregation

October 5, 1957: early in the morning a series of dynamite explosions severely damaged the Clinton High School building [Clinton, TN] An estimated 75 to 100 sticks of dynamite had been placed in three locations in the building. No one was injured.

Clinton High School did not reopen until  1960. (BH, see Oct 10; SD, see February 20, 1958)

Laquan McDonald

October 5, 2018: Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Van Dyke, who was also found guilty of 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm. He was found not guilty of official misconduct. Van Dyke’s bond was revoked and sentencing was scheduled for October 31. He left the courtroom with an officer. (B & S, see Oct 25; McDonald, see Nov 27)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

Televised presidential address

October 5, 1947: President Harry Truman made the first-ever televised presidential address from the White House, asking Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans. In 1947, television was still in its infancy and the number of TV sets in U.S. homes only numbered in the thousands. (see Oct 14)

Space Race

October 5, 1957: the Soviet daily newspaper Pravda mentioned Sputnik in a short piece at the bottom of page one. When bold headlines and major stories run in British and American newspapers, the U.S.S.R. realized that the Sputnik program was a huge propaganda tool. (see Nov 3)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

see October 5 Music et al for more

see Wynonie Harris for more

October 5, 1948: Wynonie Harris’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” hits #1 on the R&B chart. (see March 31, 1949)

“Love Me Do“/”P.S. I Love You“

October 5, 1962: Beatles released first single, “Love Me Do“/”P.S. I Love You” in the UK. (see Oct 27)

Otis Redding

October 5, 1966: Otis Redding released Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul album, his fifth.

Jimi Hendrix

October 5, 1966: Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding played together for the first time. (see Dec 26)

Waiting for the Sun

October 5 – 11, 1968: The Doors’ Waiting for the Sun returned to the Billboard #1 album position.

October 5 Peace Love Activism

World Series

Pirates v Yankees

October 5 – 13, 1960: the 1960 World Series [Pittsburgh Pirates (NL) vs. NY Yankees (AL)] is notable for the Game 7, ninth-inning home run hit by Bill Mazeroski, which won the game for the Pirates 10–9. [ESPN article]

Orioles v Dodgers

October 5 – 9, 1966: Baltimore Orioles against the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers, with the Orioles sweeping the Series in four games to capture their first championship in franchise history. [Baltimore Sun article]

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

JFK Assassination

October 5, 1966:  the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the murder conviction of Jack Ruby, who was sentenced to death in for the slaying of Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of President Kennedy. (NYT article) (see January 3, 1967)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

Fermi Station

October 5, 1966: The Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, less than 40 miles from Detroit, suffered a partial fuel meltdown, although no radioactive material was released. It operated for another nine years before being deactivated. [LAT article] (see January 27, 1967)

Korea

October 5,  2019:  the first negotiations in eight months between the Trump administration and North Korea aimed at breaking the logjam over dismantling the North’s nuclear program broke down only hours after they began in Stockholm, the North Koreans said.

“The negotiation did not live up to our expectations and broke down,” the chief North Korean negotiator, Kim Myong-gil, said, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency. Mr. Kim added that the United States had arrived “empty-handed” and had “not discarded its old stance and attitude.” (next N/C N, see Dec 13)

 

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam & Weather Underground

October 5, 1969: the Haymarket Police Statue in Chicago was bombed; Weathermen claim credit for the bombing in their book, Prairie Fire.  [NYT article] (see Oct 8 – 11)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

Iran–Contra Affair

October 5, 1986: Eugene Hasenfus is captured by troops of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua after the plane in which he is flying is shot down; two others on the plane die in the crash. Under questioning, Hasenfus confessed that he was shipping military supplies into Nicaragua for use by the Contras, an anti-Sandinista force that had been created and funded by the United States. Most dramatically, he claimed that operation was really run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (see Nov 3)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

October 5, 1990: Cincinnati jurors took about two hours to acquit the Contemporary Arts Center and its director, Dennis Barrie, of the charge of pandering obscenity for showing sexually explicit photographs that were part of Mapplethorpe’s traveling retrospective, ”The Perfect Moment.” The acquittal was resounding because it took place in a city that has tough laws and a record of vigorously prosecuting obscenity. [NYT article] (see June 22, 1992)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

October 5, 1998: on a 21-16 vote, the House Judiciary Committee recommends a full impeachment inquiry. (see CI for expanded story)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

California supermarket janitors

October 5, 2004: some 2,100 supermarket janitors in California, mostly from Mexico, win a $22.4 million settlement over unpaid overtime. Many said they worked 70 or more hours a week, often seven nights a week from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. Cleaner Jesus Lopez told the New York Times he only had three days off in five years. (see March 23, 2005)

Occupy Wall Street

October 5, 2011: thousands of union workers joined protesters marching through the Financial District, resulting in about 200 arrests later in the same evening when dozens of protesters stormed barricades blocking them from Wall Street and the Stock Exchange. Police responded with pepper spray and penned the protesters in with orange netting.  (NYT article)  (see Oct 25)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

October 5, 2020: the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the case of former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, after gay marriage became legal.

Although Supreme court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they agreed with the decision not to hear the case, they said it was a “stark reminder of the consequences” of the court’s 2015 Obergefell v Hodges decision. Davis, they claimed, “may have been one of the first victims of this court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision” and warned: “She will not be the last.”

LGBTQ campaigners and legal experts told of their fears and outrage regarding Thomas and Alito’s “appalling” attack on the 2015 landmark decision enabling same-sex couples to marry.  [Guardian article] (next LGBTQ, see Oct 21)

October 5 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

October 5, 2023: President Joe Biden said that he doesn’t believe border walls work, even as his administration said it will waive 26 laws to build additional border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley amid heightened political pressure over migration.

According to a notice posted to the Federal Register on October 4, construction of the wall would be paid for using already appropriated funds earmarked specifically for physical border barriers. The administration was under a deadline to use them or lose them. But the move comes at a time when a new surge of migrants is straining federal and local resources and placing heavy political pressure on the Biden administration to address a sprawling crisis, and the notice cited “high illegal entry.”  [CNN article] (next IH, see Oct 16)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Slave Revolts

October 1, 1851: citizens of Syracuse, N.Y., broke into the city’s police station and freed William Henry (known as Jerry), a runaway slave who had been working as a barrel-maker. A group of black and white men created a diversion and managed to free Jerry, but he was later rearrested.

At his second hearing, a group of men, their skin color disguised with burnt cork, forcibly overpowered the guards with clubs and axes, and freed Jerry a second time. He was then secretly taken over the border to Canada. [Syracuse dot com article] (Slave Revolts, see Oct 16 – 17, 1959; BH, see March 20, 1852)

Elaine, Arkansas

October 1, 1919: a race riot broke out in Elaine, Arkansas. Black sharecroppers were meeting in the local chapter of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America. Planters opposed their efforts to organize for better terms and the sharecroppers had been warned of trouble. A white man intent on arresting a black bootlegger approached the lookouts defending the meeting, and was shot. The planters formed a militia to attack the African-American farmers. In the ensuing riot they killed between 100 and 200 blacks, and five whites also died. [Black Past article]  (next BH, see Oct 11; next RR, see May 31 and June 1, 1921;  next Lynching, see Dec 27; Elaine continued, see February 19, 1923; for for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)

Perez v. Sharp

October 1, 1948: by a 4–3 vote, the California Supreme Court, in Perez v. Sharp, struck down an 1850 state law banning interracial marriage. The case involved Andrea Perez, who was a Mexican-American but classified as “white” by the state at that time, and Sylvester Davis, who was African-American. Reportedly, this was the first time any court in the U.S. had ruled on the issue of racial intermarriage.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared interracial marriage bans unconstitutional in the famous case of Loving v. Virginia on June 12, 1967.

The Court: “In summary, we hold that sections 60 and 69 are not only too vague and uncertain to be enforceable regulations of a fundamental right, but that they violate the equal protection of the laws clause of the United States Constitution by impairing the right of individuals to marry on the basis of race . . . alone and by arbitrarily and unreasonably discriminating against certain racial groups.”  [Atlantic article] (see Dec 10)

James H Meredith

October 1, 1962: in the fall of 1962, the University of Mississippi was the scene of violent riots in protest of James Meredith’s attempts to enroll as the segregated school’s first black student. In June 1962, after more than a year of litigation, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered the university to admit Meredith. In response, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett gave a televised speech on September 13, 1962, vowing to resist integration.

Meredith, a 29-year-old Air Force veteran born in Mississippi, sought to enroll at Ole Miss in September 1962. Governor Barnett, a member of the pro-segregation White Citizen’s Council, personally blocked him the first two times he tried, and sent Lt. Governor Paul Johnson to prevent Meredith’s enrollment a third time. On September 28, 1962, the Fifth Circuit unanimously held Barnett in contempt of court for violating his duty to maintain order and allow Meredith to lawfully enroll.

On September 30, 1962, the next date set for Meredith’s enrollment, mobs had formed on campus and riots raged, killing two people and injuring many others. The following day, October 1, 1962, federal marshals sent by President John F. Kennedy successfully escorted Meredith to enroll as the University of Mississippi’s first black student and accompanied him to his first day of classes.

Mississippi Attorney General Joe Patterson soon instructed university students it was their constitutional right to refuse “to socialize or fraternize with an undesirable student” and unrest continued. Meredith suffered ongoing isolation, harassment, and violence. In October, students rioted and broke university cafeteria windows as Meredith ate there; in December, Meredith’s home was struck by shotgun blasts that nearly injured his teenaged sister and a dead raccoon was left on his car. Nevertheless, Meredith remained and on August 18, 1963, he graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in political science. (BH, see Oct 16; Meredith, see January 20, 1963)

Muhammad Ali

October 1, 1975: Ali defeated Joe Frazier in the “Thrilla in Manila.” It is their third fight, each winning once before. Ali had expected an easy bout, but Frazier takes it to the champ. Ali wins the bout in one of the greatest battles in the history of boxing. [Guardian article] (BH, see Dec 2; next Ali, see September 28, 1976)

Medgar Evers

October 1, 1989: sealed documents from the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission revealed that at the same time that the state of Mississippi prosecuted Byron De La Beckwith in 1964 for the murder of NAACP leader Medgar Evers, another arm of the state, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, secretly assisted Beckwith’s defense, trying to get him acquitted.

The revelation led the district attorney’s office to reopen and re-prosecute the case against Beckwith. It was the first of a series of prosecutions of unpunished killings from the civil rights era. (see ME for expanded chronology)

137 SHOTS

October 1, 2018: East Cleveland Judge William L. Dawson denied a request by five Cleveland police supervisors to dismiss misdemeanor charges related to the 2012 chase that ended in a deadly shooting.

Defense attorneys for the five supervisors had argued during a July 9 hearing that dereliction-of-duty charges should be dismissed due to a series of procedural issues. They contended the supervisors’ right to speedy trials had been violated; more than five-and-a-half years had passed since the Nov. 29, 2012 chase that ended in the deaths of the unarmed Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams.

Judge Dawson noted in a Sept. 20 ruling that statutory requirements for speedy trials do not apply because the case was previously appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, which ruled last year the trial could be held in East Cleveland. (see 137 for expanded chronology)

Botham Shem Jean

October 1, 2019:  a jury found former officer Amber R. Guyger who shot Botham Shem Jean, her unarmed black neighbor in his own apartment, guilty of murder.

Guyger, who is white, was charged in the death of her 26-year-old neighbor after she said she accidentally went to the wrong floor of their apartment complex, entered the unit directly above hers and fatally shot him last year. Guyger claimed she thought she was entering her own apartment and acting in self-defense against an intruder. [NYT article] (B & S and BSJ, see Oct 2)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

LA Times Bombing

October 1, 1910: an ink storage room in the L.A. Times building was dynamited during a citywide fight over labor rights and organizing.  The explosion was relatively minor, but it set off a fire in the unsafe, difficult-to-evacuate building, ultimately killing 21.

A union member eventually confessed to the bombing, which he said was supposed to have occurred early in the morning when the building would have been largely unoccupied. [2017 LAT article] (Labor, see Nov 26; LA Times, see December 5, 1911)

ILA Strike

October 1, 2024: nearly 50,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) went on strike against the nation’s East and Gulf Coast ports choking off the flow of many of the nation’s imports and exports in what could become America’s most disruptive work stoppage in decades. [CNN article] (next LH, see Oct 3)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

FEMINISM

Voting Rights

October 1, 1918:  U.S. Senate defeated federal woman suffrage amendment by vote of 34 nays to 62 yeas, two votes shy of required two-thirds majority. Amendment’s supporters quickly add it to Senate calendar for reconsideration. (see Oct 7)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

The Red Scare

October 1, 1949: Chairman Mao Zedong declared victory in the Chinese Civil War, creating the Communist People’s Republic of China. (see Oct 7)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAYS

October 1, 1960

1) Cyprus independent from United Kingdom

2) Nigeria independent from United Kingdom (see ID for complete listing of the decades Independence days)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

STUDENT ACTIVISM

October 1, 1964: the Free Speech Movement was launched at the University of California at Berkeley. Students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students’ right to free speech and academic freedom. (see Student Free Speech for expanded story)

Colin Kaepernick

October 1, 2016: in college football, before East Carolina took on the University of Central Florida, a few members of ECU’s band took a knee during the national anthem. People in the crowd noticed, and the response was split between students and alum.

When it came time for the band to perform at halftime, there were many boos directed at them.

ECU chancellor Cecil Staton issued a statement shortly after, saying that the school “respects the rights of our students, staff and faculty to express their personal views.” (see FS & CK, see Oct 4)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

October 1 Music et al

Jimi Hendrix

October 1, 1966: Cream was playing a show at London Polytechnic. Hendrix asked Eric Clapton if he could jam with them and did playing “Killing Floor” amazing the audience as well as the members of Cream. (see Dec 26)

Abbey Road

October 1, 1969: US release of Abbey Road. (see Oct 12)

Side One  “Come Together”  “Something” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”  “Oh! Darling”  “Octopus’s Garden”  “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”

Side 2 “Here Comes the Sun”  “Because”  Medley  “Her Majesty”

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Daniel Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers

October 1, 1969: Daniel Ellseberg, with his Rand Corporation colleague Anthony Russo, began copying the secret Pentagon Papers in Los Angeles on this day. The Papers, which they had obtained while working at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California, had been commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1967 because of his growing doubts about the Vietnam War. (see DE/PP for expanded story)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

October 1, 1979: The Progressive Magazine on this day published an article by Howard Morland on the hydrogen bomb, which the government claimed revealed the “secret” of how to make the bomb. The government enjoined the publication of that issue (March 9, 1979), but after lengthy legal proceedings finally gave up. Morland maintained that the article only discussed the conceptual aspects of the H-Bomb, with no technical engineering details necessary to make one. And no authority has since claimed that the article contains the “secret” to the H-bomb.

The affair echoed an incredible incident nearly 30 years earlier when government officials, on March 31, 1950, seized and burned all 3,000 copies of the respected magazine Scientific American, because they alleged that an article on atomic energy revealed the “secret” to the atomic bomb. Coming at the height of the Cold War, the incident passed with only very limited news coverage and public protest. [Progressive article]  (see January 2, 1980)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

October 1, 1986: the following excerpt from a letter was delivered by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect [the future Pope Benedictus XVI] and approved and ordered published by Pope John Paul II: “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition; lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.” (see March 10, 1987)

Registered Partnership Act

October 1, 1989: the Registered Partnership Act went into effect in Denmark. It was the first law in the world that allowed civil unions between homosexual couples. (see February 26, 1990)

Connecticut

October 1, 2005: Connecticut’s civil union state law goes into effect. (see Nov 8)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

October 1, 2001: the Supreme Court suspended former President Bill Clinton from practicing before the high court.

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

STAND YOUR GROUND LAW

October 1, 2005: Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law went into effect. (see February 26, 2012)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Occupy Wall Street

October 1, 2011, Occupy Wall Street protesters set out to march across the Brooklyn Bridge. The NY Times reported that more than 700 arrests were made. (see Oct 5)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Voting Rights

October 1, 2014:  a federal appeals court ordered a lower court to block two new voting restrictions in North Carolina, saying there was “no doubt” the measures would disenfranchise minorities. North Carolina would be required to reinstate same-day voter registration, as well as allow voters to cast ballots even if they show up to vote in the wrong precinct.

In a two-to-one ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that “whether the number is thirty or thirty-thousand, surely some North Carolina minority voters will be disproportionately adversely affected in the upcoming election” and that it was important to act now, since “there could be no do-over and no redress” once the election was over. (VR, see Oct 9; North Carolina, see April 6, 2015)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

October 1, 2015: the Obama administration unveiled a major new regulation on smog-causing emissions that spew from smokestacks and tailpipes, significantly tightening the current Bush-era standards but falling short of more stringent regulations that public health advocates and environmentalists had urged.

The Environmental Protection Agency set the new national standard for ozone, a smog-causing gas that often forms on hot, sunny days when chemical emissions from power plants, factories and vehicles mix in the air, at 70 parts per billion, tightening the current standard of 75 parts per billion set in 2008. Smog has been linked to asthma, heart and lung disease, and premature death. [NYT article] (see Nov 6)

Immigration History

October 1, 2020:  the NY Times reported that Judge Jeffrey S. White of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that President Trump overstepped his authority in suspending new visas for hundreds of thousands of foreign workers amid the coronavirus pandemic, enabling major companies like Microsoft, Goodyear Tire and Exxon Mobil to resume bringing employees from abroad.

White temporarily blocked further implementation of the sweeping order, issued on June 22, as it applied to thousands of companies seeking to bring workers to the United States on a wide array of visas, including the H-1B for high-skilled workers, seasonal employees on guest-worker visas and others, such as au pairs, who enter the country on cultural exchange visas.

“Congress’ delegation of authority in the immigration context does not afford the President unbridled authority to set domestic policy regarding employment of non-immigrant foreigners,” the judge wrote in his 25-page decision. [next IH, see Oct 9)

October 1 Peace Love Art Activism