March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

John Casor

March 8, 1665: John Casor, a man enslaved in the Virginia Colony, sued for his freedom in 1655, arguing that he was an indentured servant who had been forced by his “owner,” Anthony Johnson, to serve past his term. The court ruled against Casor, declared him a slave for life, and ordered him to return to Johnson.

The first Africans brought to Virginia were treated as indentured servants. After working their contracts for passage to Virginia, each was granted fifty acres of land and released to live free. During Casor’s lifetime, slavery became entrenched and indentured servitude a less economical source of labor. In their ruling in Johnson v. Parker on March 8, 1655, the court of Northhampton County upheld Johnson’s right to hold Casor as a slave, ordering “John Casor, Negro, forthwith return unto the service of the said master Anthony Johnson.”

In 1640, prior to Casor’s civil suit, the Virginia Governor’s Council sentenced John Punch, a black indentured servant accused of attempting to escape with two other indentured servants who were white. Punch was sentenced to life servitude as punishment, while the two white indentured servants were only sentenced to four extra years of labor. The fates of Casor and Punch signaled a shift from indentured servitude to a form of racialized slavery that would come to shape America. (see September 13, 1663)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Browder v. Gayle

March 8, 1956: Gray and Langford amend Browder v. Gayle, removing Jeanetta Reese from the list of plaintiffs. (BH, see Mar 12;  see MBB, for expanded chronology; B v G, see Mar 27)

Malcolm X

March 8, 1964:  Malcolm X suspended from the Nation of Islam. (NYT article) (see Mar 12)

George Whitmore, Jr

March 8, 1965: Patrolman Frank Isola testified before Justice Dominic Rinaldi that he did not arrest George Whitmore, Jr. upon their initial encounter, five hours after the Borrero assault, because Whitmore “did not appear to be same man” he had seen fleeing the scene.

Exactly 18 years later the story continued.  On March 8, 1973, CBS aired “The Marcus-Nelson Murders,” a three-hour film based on the Wylie-Hoffert murders with Telly Savalas staring as Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojack (later shortened to Kojak) — a character loosely based on Detective Cavanagh, who had been instrumental in developing the evidence that the murders were committed not by George Whitmore, Jr. but by Richard Robles.

 Leon Vincent, superintendent of Green Haven prison in upstate NY, permits George Whitmore to go to the sick ward and watch the show in privacy.  (see Whitmore for expanded story)

James H Meredith

March 8, 1967: Republican leaders in New York announced that Meredith would run against Adam Clayton Powell for a seat in Congress. He will withdraw from the race. (see Apr 5)

Vernon Dahmer

On January 10, 1966 Klansmen had firebombed Vernon Dahmer‘s home and attacked his store in Kelly Settlement, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Dahmer was the President of the NAACP chapter in Hattiesburg, and helped black voters by letting them pay their poll tax at his store. Four of Dahmer’s sons were serving overseas and had protective escort from the airport to their father’s side.

On March 8, 1968 Billy Roy Pitts pleaded guilty to charges of murder and arson in the firebomb death of Dahmer. (BH, see Mar 28; Dahmer, see May 10, 1969)

Muhammad Ali

March 8, 1971: Ali fought Joe Frazier, the fighter who was given Ali’s title after Ali declined draft induction. The bout between the two is known as the “Fight of the Century.” A left hook by Frazier knocked Ali down in the 15th round. Frazier won by unanimous decision. (NPR Joe Frazer obit) (BH, see Apr 20; Ali, see June 28)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Gnadenhutten (Ohio) Massacre

March 8, 1782: the Gnadenhutten (Ohio) massacre took place. Pennsylvania militia attacked Lenape at the Moravian missionary village and brought them to one of 2 “killing houses”, one of men and the other for women and children. There the militia tied the Indians, stunned them with mallet blows to the head, and killed them with fatal scalping cuts. In all, the militia murdered and scalped 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children. They piled the bodies in the mission buildings and burned the village down. They also burned the other abandoned Moravian villages. Two Indian boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre.

No criminal charges were filed. 

US Constitution

1789: US Constitution and references to Native Americans/Indians:

• Article 1 Section 3: 3: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed. [Indians not counted in population]
• Article 1, Section 8: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; [Indians are treated as a foreign group] (see February 27, 1803)

Indians of All Tribes

March 8, 1964: a small group of Sioux demonstrators affiliated with a San Francisco organization known as Indians of All Tribes (IAT) occupied Alcatraz Island for four hours, asserting that the land was due to be returned to the Sioux people. The temporary demonstration was to raise awareness of government violations of binding treaties – but a longer protest followed. (NA, see March 5, 1965; Alcatraz, see November 9, 1969)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Voting Rights

March 8, 1884: Susan B. Anthony began her address before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. Anthony argued for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. Anthony’s argument came sixteen years after legislators had first introduced a federal woman’s suffrage amendment.

She began her testimony with the following words: We appear before you this morning…to ask that you will, at your earliest convenience, report to the House in favor of the submission of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Legislatures of the several States, that shall prohibit the disfranchisement of citizens of the United States on account of sex. (Feminism, see Sept 20; Voting Rights, see “in May 1890”)

International Women’s Day 2017

March 8, 2017: International Women’s Day 2017 was marked as “A Day Without a Woman,” and encouraged participants to skip work or school and avoid purchasing anything in stores or online to show just how critical a role women play in society. (see Apr 10)

Biden Executive Orders

March 8, 2021: President Biden marked International Women’s Day by signing two executive orders geared toward promoting gender equity, both in the United States and around the world.

The first executive order established a Gender Policy Council within the White House, reformulating an office from the Obama administration that was later disbanded by the Trump administration, and giving it more clout.

The second executive order was directed at the Department of Education and was expressly aimed at reversing policies on campus sexual assault and harassment that Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos issued last year. [NPR story] (next Feminism, see Apr 28)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Needle trades workers

March 8, 1908: thousands of New York needle trades workers demonstrated for higher wages, shorter workday, and end to child labor. The demonstration became the basis for International Women’s Day. (see January 18, 1909)

Utah Fuel Co

March 8, 1924: three explosions at a Utah Fuel Co. mine in Castle Gate, Utah, kill 171. Fifty of the fatalities were native-born Greeks, 25 were Italians, 32 English or Scots, 12 Welsh, four Japanese, and three Austrians (or South Slavs). The youngest victim was 15; the oldest, 73 (see Apr 26)

Norris-La Guardia Act

March 8, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act took effect. It proclaimed that yellow-dog contracts, which required a worker to promise not to join a union, were unenforceable, settling a long-standing dispute between management and labor. The law also limited courts’ power to issue injunctions against strikes. (see May 3)

United Farm Workers

March 8, 1979: César Chávez led 5,000 striking farm workers on a march through the streets of Salinas, CA. (see Sept 1)

US Women’s Soccer/Feminism

March 8, 2019: twenty-eight members of the world champion United States women’s soccer team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit in United States District Court in Los Angeles. In a statement released by the team the 28 players described “institutionalized gender discrimination” that they say had existed for years.

The discrimination, the athletes said, affected not only their paychecks but also where they play and how often, how they train, the medical treatment and coaching they receive, and even how they travel to matches. (next LH, see Apr 21; next Feminism, see Oct 18)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Religion and Public Education

McCollum v. Board of Education

March 8, 1948: in an 8-1 decision McCollum v. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court decided a case related to the power of a state to use its tax-supported public school system in aid of religious instruction. The case was an early test of the separation of church and state with respect to education.

The case tested the principle of “released time”, where public schools set aside class time for religious instruction. The Court struck down a Champaign, Illinois program as unconstitutional because of the public school system’s involvement in the administration, organization and support of religious instruction classes. The Court noted that some 2,000 communities nationwide offered similar released time programs affecting 1.5 million students. (see September 27, 1948)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

Irving Feiner

March 8, 1949: police arrested Irving Feiner after he made an inflammatory speech to a mixed crowd of 75 or 80 African Americans and white people at the corner of South McBride and Harrison Streets in Syracuse, New York. Feiner, a college student, had been standing on a large wooden box on the sidewalk, addressing a crowd through a loud-speaker system attached to an automobile. He made derogatory remarks about President Harry S. Truman, the American Legion, the Mayor of Syracuse, and other local political officials. Feiner urged that they rise up in arms and fight for equal rights.

Blocking the sidewalk and overflowing into the street in which there was oncoming traffic, the crowd became restless with some either voicing opposition or support for Feiner. An onlooker threatened violence if the police did not act. After having observed the situation for some time without interference, police officers, in order to prevent a fight, requested the petitioner to get off the box and stop speaking. After his third refusal, they arrested him and was convicted of violating 722 of the Penal Code of New York, which, in effect, forbids incitement of a breach of the peace. 

Feiner claimed that his conviction violated his right of free speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. (FS, see May 16; Feiner, see January 15, 1951)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Bao Dai

March 8, 1949:  France recognized an ‘independent’ State of Vietnam, with emperor Bao Dai as head of government. (see January 18, 1950)

United States v. Seeger

March 8, 1965: in United States v. Seeger, the Supreme Court expanded the right of conscientious objections to military service. A unanimous Court embraced a broader definition of “supreme being” to include a “sincere and meaningful belief which occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God” of people who adhered to traditional religious faiths and who had been granted conscientious objector status in the past. (Daniel Andrew Seeger, the plaintiff, is no relation to the folk singer Pete Seeger.) The very limited scope of the right to conscientiously object to participation in war had been one of the major civil liberties crises during World War I. And during World War II, COs who were convicted and sent to prison staged hunger strikes to protest censorship and racial segregation in their prisons. (Vietnam, see Mar 9; Religion, see November  12, 1968)

China Beach

March 8, 1965: 3500 Marines land at China Beach to defend the American air base at Da Nang. They are the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam and join 23,000 American military advisors already in Vietnam. (see Mar 8)

Media, Pennsylvania break-in

March 8, 1971:  anti-Vietnam War activists raided the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and stole over 1,000 documents related to the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO program. The notorious COINTELPRO program had been approved by the Eisenhower administration on March 8, 1956 (ironically, exactly 15 years before the raid), and involved burglaries, illegal wiretapping, and other actions against people and organizations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover thought were subversive or dangerously radical. The Media documents stolen on this day were sent to several publications, and they provided the first hint about COINTELPRO.

Only one of the stolen documents actually contained the word COINTELPRO, and no one knew what it referred to. The first published news stories on COINTELPRO, in March 1971, and spurred further inquiries into the nature and extent of the program. It was finally fully exposed by the Senate Church Committee investigations that began on January 27, 1975. The Media raid was the only known activity by the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI. Despite a massive effort, the FBI never identified and arrested the people who did it. (see Mar 23)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Cultural Milestone

March 8, 1950: Volkswagen, maker of the Beetle automobile, expanded its product offerings to include a microbus. Known officially as the Volkswagen Type 2 (the Beetle was the Type 1) or the Transporter, the bus was a favorite mode of transportation for hippies in the U.S. during the 1960s and became an icon of the American counterculture movement. (next CM, see In December 1953; next Beetle, see February 17, 1972; see Minibus for expanded story)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Cold War

Dorothy Kenyon

March 8, 1950: Senator Joe McCarthy (R–Wisconsin), under pressure to document his claim of Communists working for the federal government, named Dorothy Kenyon as affiliated with  at least twenty-eight “Communist-front” organizations. Since his February 9, 1950, speech that brought him to public attention, McCarthy had been claiming that he had a “list” of Communists in the Truman Administration. The number of people on the “list” kept changing and, until this day, he never identified a single person. Kenyon replied by calling McCarthy an “unmitigated liar,” and said she had never actually joined the organizations he identified. Additionally, Kenyon was no longer working for the federal government, having left her position as delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women on January 1, 1950, two months earlier. She also denounced him as a “coward” for making his statements while enjoying the Congressional immunity.

Kenyon, who died on February 12, 1972, was a feminist and liberal activist who was involved in many different organizations, including the ACLU. But she was not a member of the Communist Party or associated with any Communist-affiliated organization. At the time McCarthy “named” her, Kenyon was a member of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. As a tribute to her early contributions to women’s rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then head of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, added her name to the brief in Reed v. Reed, the breakthrough women’s rights case in the Supreme Court (November 22, 1971).

 McCarthy’s naming of Kenyon dramatized both the recklessness of his anti-Communist crusade and the fact that he did not really have the names of any genuine Communist Party members in the federal government, much less anyone who posed a genuine threat of espionage. His attack on Kenyon was typical of the guilt-by-association tactics of the anti-Communist movement in the Cold War. People were accused of Communist associations or sympathies simply because they belonged to liberal or left-wing organizations that the anti-Communists hated. McCarthy was finally censured for his conduct by the Senate on December 2, 1954. (see Mar 26)

COINTELPRO

March 8, 1956: at a regular meeting of the National Security Council, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover proposed the COINTELPRO program (Counter Intelligence Program) to combat the Communist Party. With President Dwight Eisenhower and Attorney General Herbert Brownell present, the NSC approved the program, even though Hoover described actions that were clearly illegal, including warrantless wiretapping and break-ins.

The exposure of COINTELPRO began when a group of anti-Vietnam War activists broke in the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1971, stole FBI documents and then leaked them to the news media (see Medsger’s book, below). Only one document among those stolen had the word COINTELPRO on it, and no one knew what it referred to. Nonetheless, the first news stories on FBI spying on, and attempts to disrupt, political groups appeared in March 1971, and led to further inquiries into FBI misconduct.

The full story of COINTELPRO was not known until the Senate Church Committee investigation of the intelligence agencies that began on January 27, 1975.

The other most notorious FBI program was its campaign to “neutralize” Martin Luther King as a civil rights leader, which was discussed and approved on December 23, 1963. (see June 21)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Crime and Punishment

Constitutional rights of criminal suspects

March 8, 1965: in a Special Message to Congress on this day, President Lyndon Johnson defended the constitutional rights of criminal suspects. His statement came in the midst of a rising public debate over the subject, in which conservatives increasingly attacked Supreme Court decisions, such as Miranda v. Arizona (June 13, 1966) and Mapp v. Ohio (June 19, 1961) as being pro-criminal, anti-police, and claiming they contributed to an increase in crime.

Johnson is the only president who openly defended the constitutional rights of criminal suspects, which he did twice. The other occasion was on June 22, 1966, when he signed the Bail Reform Act into law. However, by his last term in office, LBJ himself turned more conservative on the crime issue. (see June 22, 1966)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

March 8, 1967: the Appellate Division of the NY State Supreme Court ruled that the State Liquor Authority had no right to suspend the liquor license of a bar on the basis of a single incident of alleged solicitation by a homosexual of a policeman who was in civilian clothes. (see July 23)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

March 8 Music et al

Fillmore East

March 8, 1968: Bill Graham opened the Fillmore East in NYC. Opening night was typical of the kind of show put together by Graham, who was a pioneer in combining roots music with contemporary rock and roll in a way that became de rigueur at 1960s rock festivals. The bill featured blues guitarist Albert King, folk singer-songwriter Tim Buckley and Janis Joplin’s group Big Brother and the Holding Company. (see July 5)

Wichita Lineman

March 8 – 28, 1969: Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman is again the Billboard #1 album.

“It Don’t Come Easy”

March 8, 1970: Ringo recorded “It Don’t Come Easy.” When the Beatles broke up it seemed to many that he would be the ex-Beatle least likely to enjoy a successful recording career as a solo artist, and yet it was he who very nearly scored the first million-selling single. He recorded it just a few weeks after John Lennon had released his own gold record, “Instant Karma,” on February 6.

As it turned out, the release of Ringo’s recording, made during the sessions for his debut solo album, Sentimental Journey, was held up for more than a year, during which time both George Harrison (with “My Sweet Lord”) and Paul McCartney (with “Another Day”) would also beat Ringo to the punch, charting with hit singles of their own. The delay of its release was that it was stylistically unlike anything on either of Ringo’s first two solo albums, and therefore could not have been included on either Sentimental Journey (an album of standards Ringo recorded “to please his mum”) or the foray into country music he released later that year, Beaucoups of Blues.

The session for “It Don’t Come Easy” included, in addition to Ringo himself, George Harrison on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass, Stephen Stills on piano, Ron Cattermole on saxophone and trumpet, and Badfinger’s Pete Ham and Tom Evans on background vocals.

When released on April 9, 1971 in the UK and April 16, 1971 in the US, the song climbed to #4 on both sides of the Atlantic, and went all the way to #1 in Canada. (see Mar 31)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Jack Kevorkian

March 8, 1996,  a jury acquitted Jack Kevorkian in two deaths. (see Kevorkian for expanded story)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Trump ban challenged

March 8, 2017: President Trump’s immigration policies faced a pair of new challenges in court as the attorney general of Hawaii alleged that Trump had violated the Constitution with his redrawn executive order banning travel from six predominantly Muslim countries.

And in California, the city attorney of San Francisco asked a federal judge to issue an injunction blocking another executive order, which threatened to withdraw funding for so-called sanctuary cities that do not extensively cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officials. (see Mar 15)

Trump family separations

March 8, 2019: District Judge Dana Sabraw in California had already ordered the Trump administration to reunite more than 2800 migrant children who were separated from their parents under the “zero tolerance” policy last year, but a government watchdog report revealed that the administration may have separated thousands of additional families under an earlier pilot program that was not disclosed.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, argued that those families should be part of the class action, too. And Judge Sabraw agreed. (next Immigration, see Mar 11; next Judge Sabraw, see Apr 25)

Humanitarian Parole

March 8, 2024: Judge Drew B. Tipton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that the Biden administration to continue a program that it had used to give temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Known as humanitarian parole, the program has offered people from the troubled countries an alternative to entering the United States illegally, and has been central to the administration’s strategy to curb the influx of migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border.

Tipton sided with the administration, saying the states had failed to establish they had standing on any of their claims. [NYT artricle] (next IH, see June 4)

March 8 Peace Love Art Activism

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March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

March 7, 1876:  Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone. (see March 4, 1877)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Nixon v. Herndon

March 7, 1927: Nixon v. Herndon, decided on this day, was an early civil rights case in which the Supreme Court unanimously struck down a 1902 Texas law that barred African-Americans from voting in Democratic Party primary elections. While a great victory, it was short-lived. Texas evaded the decision by making the Democratic Party a private entity, responsible for its own primaries, thereby eliminating the element of state action. (BH, see June 8; VR, see April 19, 1929)

Felton Turner

March 7, 1960: Houston: in reaction to sit-ins, 18-year-old Ronald Erickson and others abducted 27-year-old unemployed awning installer Felton Turner. Ericson and the others beat Turner with a chain, carved KKK  into Turner’s stomach, and hung him by his knees upside down in a tree. Turner escaped and survived. (see G4 for expanded chronology)

1960 sit-ins

March 7, 1961: on March 15, 1960 sit-ins had begun in Atlanta, Georgia. A year later  lunch counters operated by major chain stores agreed to desegregate. This event was one of the major victories of the sit-in movement, which began in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960, and quickly spread across the South.

One of the leaders of the March 1960 Atlanta sit-ins was Julian Bond, who was later elected to the Georgia legislature, denied his seat because of his political views, and then seated under a decision by the Supreme Court on December 5, 1966. (see Mar 13)

Repeal of all segregation ordinances

March 7, 1963: the Albany, GA City Commission voted 6 – 1 to repeal all segregation ordinances. The Commission also voted 4 – 3  to re-open the library after being closed for seven months. No action was taken regarding the city’s tennis courts, swimming pools, park recreation areas and teen centers which had been closed at the same time. The city’s bus line remained closed. (see Albany for expanded story)

see March to Montgomery for expanded story

March 7, 1965: about six hundred people left the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma for a 54-mile march to the state capitol of Montgomery. They were demonstrating for African American voting rights and to commemorate the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, shot three weeks earlier by a state trooper while trying to protect his mother at a civil rights demonstration.

SCLC’s Hosea Williams and SNCC’s John Lewis led them. A number of newsmen witnessed the long column of freedom singing marchers as they approached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the gateway out of Selma. Roughly 100 State Troopers, commanded by Major John Cloud, blocked the opposite end of the bridge.. Williams tried to speak with Cloud twice, but the major said “There is no word to be had…you have two minutes to turn around and go back to your church.”

Within a minute, the marchers were attacked by tear gas and charging horsemen. The incident was seen on national television while 16 marchers ended up in the hospital and another 50 received emergency treatment.

Media dubbed the incident “Bloody Sunday.” The march was considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five months later. . (next BH, see Mar 8)

South Carolina v. Katzenbach

March 7, 1966:  exactly one year after the beatings of civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama (see “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965), which sparked national outrage and led to enactment of the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act (August 6, 1965), the Supreme Court, in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, rejected the first constitutional challenge to the law. The case involved a rare exercise of original jurisdiction by the Supreme Court. (BH, see Mar 22; VR, see Mar 24)

Rodney King

March 7, 1991: Rodney King released without being charged. (King, see Mar 15)

March to Montgomery

March 7, 2015: (from the NYT) President Obama and a host of political figures from both parties came to Selma to reflect on how far the country had come and how far it still had to go.

Fifty years after peaceful protesters trying to cross a bridge were beaten by police officers with billy clubs, shocking the nation and leading to passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, the nation’s first African-American president led a bipartisan, biracial testimonial to the pioneers whose courage helped pave the way for his own election to the highest office of the land.

But coming just days after Mr. Obama’s Justice Department excoriated the police department of Ferguson, Mo., as a hotbed of racist oppression, even as it cleared a white officer in the killing of an unarmed black teenager, the anniversary seemed more than a commemoration of long-ago events on a black-and-white newsreel. Instead, it provided a moment to measure the country’s far narrower, and yet stubbornly persistent, divide in black-and-white reality

Izola Ware Curry

March 7, 2015: Izola Ware Curry, the mentally ill woman who on September 20, 1958 stabbed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a Harlem book signing — an episode that a decade later would become a rhetorical touchstone in the last oration of his life — died in Queens. She was 98. Ms. Curry died in a nursing home, the last stop in the series of institutions that had been her home for more than half a century. Her death, confirmed by the office of the chief medical examiner of New York. (see June 17) 

Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act

March 7, 2022: the Senate unanimously passed a bill that criminalized lynching and made it punishable by up to 30 years in prison. It sailed through the House of Representatives last month, and President Biden was expected to sign it.

While it eased through both chambers of Congress this time with virtually no opposition, the path to passage took more than 100 years and 200 failed attempts.

Under the bill, named the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act after the 14-year-old boy from Chicago who was lynched while visiting family in Mississippi, a crime can be prosecuted as a lynching when a hate crime results in a death or injury, said Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., a longtime sponsor of the legislation.

“Lynching is a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy,” Rush said in a statement. “Unanimous Senate passage of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act sends a clear and emphatic message that our nation will no longer ignore this shameful chapter of our history and that the full force of the U.S. federal government will always be brought to bear against those who commit this heinous act.” [NPR article] (next BH, see Mar 14; next Lynching & ET see Mar 28; for expanded chronology, see AL 4 )

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Communist Party of America

March 7, 1932: three thousand unemployed auto workers, led by the Communist Party of America, braved the cold in Dearborn, Mich., to demand jobs and relief from Henry Ford. The marchers got too close to the gate and were gassed. After re-grouping, they were sprayed with water and shot at. Four men died immediately; 60 were wounded (see Mar 8)

Writers Guild strike

March 7, 1988: Hollywood writers represented by the Writers Guild of America struck against 200 television and movie studios over residuals payments and creative rights. The successful strike lasted 150 days, one of the longest in industry history. (see June 29)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

General Introduction to Psychoanalysis

March 7, 1953: books by Sigmund Freud disappeared from the shelves of Cleveland, Ohio, bookstores as a result of a local “purity” crusade. Robert Klein, owner of the largest local magazine and book dealer, said that Freud’s book, General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, had been removed because of a chapter on sex. Klein, however, complained that “it is difficult to tell what the law means by obscenity.” Novels by such authors as John Steinbeck, Mickey Spillane, and Somerset Maugham had also disappeared from bookstores. 

Book burning

March 7, 1953: the Newark, New Jersey, police and fire departments publicly burned allegedly obscene photographs, movies, and books, with an estimated retail value of over $100,000. Forty members of the clergy, civic leaders, and PTA officials attended the burning as guests of the police and fire department. Public Safety Director John B. Keenan declared it “a good idea to show that this stuff was actually destroyed.” (see October 26, 1954)

Fair Use

March 7, 1994: the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parodies that poke fun at an original work can be considered “fair use” that does not require permission from the copyright holder. (see May 17, 1995)  

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

The Beatles

March 7, 1962: The Beatles recorded their radio debut for the show Teenager’s Turn – Here We Go at the Playhouse Theatre, Hulme, Manchester. Wearing suits for the very first time, The Beatles performed three cover versions: Memphis, Tennessee, Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream?), and Please Mister Postman. The show was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme the following day between 5 and 5.30 PM. (see Apr 5)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

“The Homosexuals”

March 7, 1967: CBS Reports broadcast “The Homosexuals.” The episode included interviews with several gay men, psychiatrists, legal experts and cultural critics, interspersed with footage of a gay bar and a police sex sting. CBS correspondent Mike Wallace stated: We discovered that Americans consider homosexuality more harmful to society than adultery, abortion, or prostitution.

At the close of the program, Wallace concluded: The dilemma of the homosexual: told by the medical profession he is sick; by the law that he’s a criminal; shunned by employers; rejected by heterosexual society. Incapable of a fulfilling relationship with a woman, or for that matter with a man. At the center of his life he remains anonymous. A displaced person. An outsider. The Chicago Tribune titled its review “TV No Spot to Unload Garbage” and attacked CBS for presenting such material to young and impressionable viewers.

LGBTQ activist Wayne Besen labeled the broadcast “the single most destructive hour of anti-gay propaganda in our nation’s history.” (see Mar 8)

V Gene Robinson

March 7, 2004: in Concord, N.H the Episcopal Church invested V. Gene Robinson as the Church’s first openly gay bishop. (CBS news article re furor over his appointment) (see Mar 11)

Alabama parental rights

March 7, 2016: the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an Alabama judicial ruling that refused to recognize a gay woman’s parental rights over three children she adopted with her lesbian partner and raised from birth.

The court took the relatively unusual step of reversing the Alabama Supreme Court without hearing oral argument. Cases are decided in that fashion when a lower court ruling is considered to be particularly counter to Supreme Court precedents. None of the eight justices dissented.

The court said in an unsigned opinion that the Alabama court was required to recognize the woman’s parental rights because they had been legally endorsed by a court in Georgia.

The Supreme Court had already intervened in the case once before. In December, the court ordered that the Alabama ruling be put on hold while the woman, named in court papers as V.L., filed a formal appeal of the September ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court. (see Mar 23)

Transgender/Military

March 7, 2019: U.S. District Judge George Russell in Maryland rescinded the last block on Donald Trump’s transgender military ban, paving the way for the military to purge transgender people from its ranks.

Russell accepted the Justice Department’s motion to lift his injunction on the ban, citing a recent (Jan 22) Supreme Court decision. (see Apr 2)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Wounded Knee

March 7, 1973: the Federal Government issued an ultimatum to the Indians holding Wounded Knee to move by nightfall the next day. The Indians vowed to remain saying that the authorities must “either massacre us or meet our basic human demands.” (see Mar 19)

Dakota Access oil pipeline

March 7, 2017: American Indians from across the country brought  their frustrations with the Trump administration and its approval of the Dakota Access oil pipeline to the nation’s capital, kicking off four days of activities that would culminate in a march on the White House.

Tribal members and supporters planned to camp each day on the National Mall, with teepees, a ceremonial fire, cultural workshops and speakers. Native American leaders also plan to lobby lawmakers to protect tribal rights.

 “We are calling on all our Native relatives and allies to rise with us,” said Dave Archambault, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. “We must march against injustice. Native nations cannot continue to be pushed aside to benefit corporate interests and government whim.” (see July 16)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

Student Rights

March 7, 1980: two Piscataway Township (NJ) High School freshmen were caught smoking cigarettes in the bathroom. The students met with the assistant vice principal, Theodore Choplick. Choplick questioned them about violating a school rule by smoking in the bathroom. The first girl admitted to smoking, but the other girl – widely known as Tracy Lois Odem (though name not confirmed, as her rights were protected due to age) – denied smoking in the bathroom and stated she had never smoked in her life.

Choplick then asked Tracy Lois Odem into his private office and demanded she hand over her purse. Upon opening the purse he observed a pack of cigarettes; while removing the cigarettes he noticed a package of rolling papers. Based on his experience, the possession of rolling papers of high school students was closely tied to the use of marijuana. Choplick then began a more thorough search for the evidence of drugs. Her search revealed a small amount of marijuana, a pipe, empty plastic bags, a large quantity of money in $1 bills, an index card that appeared to list students who owed Tracy Lois Odem money, and two letters that implicated Tracy Lois in dealing marijuana. The principal then called the police and the girl’s mother, who voluntarily drove her to the police station. (SR, see June 15, 1982; Piscataway, see January 15, 1985)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

March 7, 1995: after 18 years of being without a death penalty, New York Gov. George E. Pataki fulfilled one of his central campaign vows by signing a death penalty bill into law, making New York the 38th state with capital punishment. (NYT article) (see January 12, 1996)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

March 7, 2010: Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director for her Iraq War thriller “The Hurt Locker,” which won six Oscars, including best picture. (NYT article) (see October 9, 2012)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism

Voting Rights

March 7, 2021: with an executive order , President Joe Biden directed federal agencies to take a series of steps to promote voting access, a move that came as congressional Democrats pressed for a sweeping voting and elections bill to counter efforts to restrict voting access.

“Every eligible voter should be able to vote and have it counted,” Biden said. “If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let the people vote.”

Biden’s order included several modest provisions. It directed federal agencies to expand access to voter registration and election information, called on the heads of federal agencies to come up with plans to give federal employees time off to vote or volunteer as nonpartisan poll workers, and pushed for an overhaul of the government’s Vote.gov website. [AP article] (next VR, see Dec 9)

March 7 Peace Love Art Activism