Category Archives: History

Draft, Today in history, Vietnam

Paul Robert Cohen

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Paul Robert Cohen

Are words on a jacket conduct or speech?
And if speech, is it protected?

Bill of Rights

We know our Constitution contains the Bill of Rights and the very first of those first 10 Amendments reads:


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


Freedom of speech does not mean that we can say anything at anytime. We cannot yell “Fire” in an assembly. Nor can we protest on the steps of the US Supreme Court.


Paul Robert Cohen was 19 and worked in a department store. On  April 26, 1968, Cohen was in the corridor of the Los Angeles Courthouse waiting to testify on behalf of an acquaintance.


He had he met a woman the night before and she had stenciled the words “Fuck the Draft. Stop the War” on his jacket.


Police arrested him

Paul Robert Cohen

Convicted

A court convicted him of violating Section 415 of the California Penal Code, which prohibited “maliciously and willfully disturb[ing] the peace or quiet of any neighborhood or person [by] offensive conduct” and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. (California Legislative article) 

Cohen appealed, but the California Court of Appeals upheld the conviction. That Court held that “offensive conduct” means “behavior which has a tendency to provoke others to acts of violence or to in turn disturb the peace.”

Cohen appealed to the California Supreme Court, but that Court denied the appeal.

Fortunately for Cohen, on June 22, 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal. (1970 NYT article)

Almost a year later, on June 7, 1971 in a 5 – 4 decision, the US Supreme Court agreed that California’s statute had violated Cohen’s freedom of expression.  (Oyez article)

Paul Robert Cohen

Court

In an opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan, the Court reasoned that the expletive, while provocative, was not directed toward anyone; besides, there was no evidence that people in substantial numbers would be provoked into some kind of physical action by the words on his jacket. Harlan recognized that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” In doing so, the Court protected two elements of speech: the emotive (the expression of emotion) and the cognitive (the expression of ideas). (see Oyez article) 


In his dissenting opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun suggested that Cohen’s wearing of the jacket in the courthouse was not speech but conduct (an “absurd and immature antic“) and therefore not protected by the First Amendment.

Though he asked, Cohen never got back his jacket.

Paul Robert Cohen
Music et al, Today in history

Declan O’Rourke Children of 16

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Declan O’Rourke Children of 16

Easter morning, Dublin

April 24, 1916
“Proclamation Of The Irish Republic” by Michael MacLiammoir.
Declan O’Rourke Children of 16

Uprising

Once the Irish uprising began on 24 April 1916, Easter morning, no one on Dublin’s streets was safe. The British imposed a curfew and the rebels themselves wanted no looting, but for the poor, and there was an abundance of them, their lives of scrounging for Dublin’s leftovers had to continue.

These poor were among the many killed during the failed uprising. No burial services were held. No graves marked. In fact most were interred in a mass grave in Glasnevin cemetery.

From the Irish Times: Broadcaster Joe Duffy…spent his spare time in the last year trawling records and has documented the deaths of 40 people under 17 among the 374 civilians who were killed during the Easter Rising.

Declan O’Rourke Children of 16

Declan O’Rourke

The Irish singer Declan O’Rourke composed a song in memory of those young: Children of 16.

Nostalgically remembering the 1960s and the protest music that came out of those turbulent years, many aging Boomers complain that today’s singers lack that sensibility.

Those Boomers are wrong. They need to look around and listen. I have put the lyrics to O’Rourke’s song before the video. Both are amazing.

Stephen Mogerley made the film at the GPO on O’Connell St in Dublin.

O’Rourke stands at the spot where Padraig Pearse read out the proclamation of the Irish Republic on Easter Monday, 1916.

Declan O’Rourke Children of 16

Children of 16

In Dublin town one Easter morn a hundred years ago
The Rebels led a rising from the city’s GPO
Brave heroes and their enemies fell, civilians in between
And among the dead and fallen were the Children of ’16

Those children of the tenement slums who daily with their pals
A brazen wild brigade sprang up between the two canals
With their handcarts over cobblestone they rattled, skid, and tore
Barefooted as they scavenged through the crossfire and the gore

A war zone of the capital the bombs and shelling made
And snipers’ bullets pierced and whipped the sulphured April haze
There was fighting from the union to the mill above the green
And it made a great excitement for the Children of ’16

Six days have bid the Rebels pay a grave and bloody toll
But through their blood and martyrdom Republic soon was born
High aloft its streets and buildings now their names can e’er be seen
But still missing from the pages are the Children of ’16.

Nor Pearse, nor Clarke, McDonagh nor the Connolly we know
Would rest were they remembered on a pedestal alone
And are they not the Fathers of our nation proud and free
And our sisters and our brothers then the Children of ’16.

Thank you Declan O’Rourke for keeping alive the memory of  actually important historic events.

Declan O'Rourke Children of 16
The 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic

Declan O’Rourke Children of 16

Black history, Mohammad Ali, Vietnam

Passion of Muhammad Ali

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Passion of Muhammad Ali

George Lois, Esquire magazine, and Muhammad Ali
Passion of Muhammad Ali
Passion of Muhammad Ali cover by George Lois

On January 24, 1964 Clay took an Army evaluation test for the draft. On March 3, after having defeating Sonny Liston on February 25 and winning the world heavyweight championship,  The Louisville Courier‐Journal published a story that Clay had failed by a slight margin to pass the psychological portions of that evaluation test.

Clay, commenting on the report, said, “Do they think I’m crazy?”

On March 13, Clay, now Muhammad Ali, took a second test and on March 20, the Department issued the following statement about Ali’s draft status: “The Department of the Army has completed a review of Cassius Clay’s second pre-induction examination and has determined he is not qualified for induction into the Army under applicable standards.”

Ali’s response was, “I just said I’m the greatest. I never said I was the smartest.”

Passion of Muhammad Ali

Joe Namath

On September 15, 1965 Joe Namath took his Army physical and on December 9 that year the Army classified Namath 4-F, ineligible to be drafted. It was determined that Namath’s knees were in too poor condition for the Army to take care of, though the National Football League and Namath found that Namath’s knees were fine to play.

Passion of Muhammad Ali

Reclassified

On February 12, 1966,the Louisville, KY draft board re-classified Muhammad Ali as 1-A. Ali challenged the reclassification as politically motivated and questioned why other athletes, such as Namath, quarterback for the NY Jets, weren’t being drafted as well.

On April 17, 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court barred Muhammad Ali’s request to be blocked from induction into the U.S. Army and on April 28, the US Justice Department denied Ali’s claim. The Department found that his objections were political, not religious. Ali reported for induction ceremony, but refused to step forward when called.

Passion of Muhammad Ali

Guilty

On June 20, 1967 Ali was found guilty of refusing induction into the armed forces. He was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $10,000—the maximum penalties. He was stripped of his title by the boxing association and effectively banned from boxing.

Passion of Muhammad Ali

Esquire cover

Nine months later, George Lois’s cover picture of Ali on Esquire magazine’s April 1968 edition portrayed him as a martyr akin to St Sebastian. Kurt Andersen, host of NPR’s Studio 360, stated that “George Lois’s covers for Esquire in the 60s are classic. His April 1968 image of Muhammad Ali to dramatize the boxer’s persecution for his personal beliefs, is the greatest magazine cover ever created, making a political statement without being grim or stupid or predicable.”

Ali’s legal fight continued until June 28, 1971 when the Supreme Court reversed Muhammad Ali’s conviction for refusing induction by unanimous decision in Clay v. United States.

Passion of Muhammad Ali

Reclaims title

MORE THAN THREE years later, on October 30, 1974 Ali fought the reigning champion George Foreman in an outdoor arena in Kinshasa, Zaire, The fight is known as the “Rumble in the Jungle.”  Using his novel “rope-a-dope” strategy, Ali defeated Foreman and after seven years, reclaimed the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World.

Passion of Muhammad Ali