November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Voting Rights

November 27 – 28, 1917: responding to increasing public pressure and likely overturning of prisoners’ convictions on appeal, government authorities order unconditional release of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and 20 other suffrage prisoners. (see Dec 6 – 9)

Women serving in combat units

November 27, 2012: the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it was suing the Department of Defense to lift immediately all restrictions on women serving in combat units. The military did not allow women to serve in ground combat units, such as infantry, artillery, armor or as special operations commandos, but recent wars without clear front lines have frequently pushed women assigned to support roles directly into the fighting. [US News article]

Malala Yousafzai

November 27, 2012: The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb the car of television anchor Hamid Mir, whom the militant group had earlier threatened because of his reporting on the shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. A Taliban spokesman told reporters that Mir had been following a secular agenda and warned the group would target others like him. Police had defused a bomb found under Mir’s car Monday in Islamabad after a neighbor reportedly spotted the device. [RFE article] (see January 3, 2013)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

The Red Scare

November 27, 1954: after 44 months in prison, former government official Alger Hiss was released and proclaimed once again that he was innocent of the charges that led to his incarceration. Upon his release, Hiss immediately declared that he wished to “reassert my complete innocence of the charges that were brought against me by Whittaker Chambers.” He claimed that his conviction was the result of the “fear and hysteria of the times,” and stated that he was going to “resume my efforts to dispel the deception that has been foisted on the American people.” He was confident that such efforts would “vindicate my name.” (see Dec 2)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Black History

Albany Movement

~ November 27, 1961:  after the holiday, more than 100 Albany State College students marched from campus to the courthouse where they picket to protest the trial of those arrested at the bus depot. A mass meeting — the first in Albany history — packs Mt. Zion Baptist church to protest the arrests, segregation, and a lifetime of subservience. At the end of the meeting they rise to sing, “We Shall Overcome.” Student song-leader Bernice Johnson (Reagan) described the effect, “When I opened my mouth and began to sing, there was a force and power within myself I had never heard before. Somehow this music … released a kind of power and required a level of concentrated energy I did not know I had.”

Albany State students Bertha Gober and Blanton Hall were expelled for disobeying the dean’s orders to use the “Colored” waiting room. Students marched to the college President’s office to protest the expulsions and 40 more were expelled for disagreeing with the administration. Gober will later compose civil rights song, “We’ll Never Turn Back.”  (BH, see Nov 28; see Albany Movement for expanded chronology)

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

November 27, 1962: speaking in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech using the “I Have a Dream” construction, nine months before his famous speech at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. (King is also said to have used the phrase even earlier, including a speech in Albany, Georgia, on November 16, but the Rocky Mount speech is the earliest known transcription.) The Rocky Mount Evening Telegram’s account of the speech did not mention “I Have a Dream”; it quoted King as saying: “Old Man Segregation is on his death bed. The only thing now is how costly the South will make his funeral.”(BH, see Dec 14; MLK, see April 3, 1963)

Laquan McDonald

November 27, 2018: the trial began regarding an alleged cover-up by Chicago police in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald (B & S and LM, see see Dec 4)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

see November 27 Music et al for more

LSD/Grateful Dead

November 27, 1965:  Ken Kesey began his Acid Tests, a series of parties held in the San Francisco Bay Area centered entirely around the use of, experimentation with, and advocacy of LSD. It may have included the first performance by The Grateful Dead, still known as The Warlocks. This one was held in the small neighborhood of Soquel. It was a small semi-public event advertised only at the local Hip Pocket underground bookstore, (LSD & Dead, see Dec 4)

Whipped Cream and Other Delights

November 27, 1965  – January 7, 1966 – Herb Albert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights the Billboard #1 album. The album cover is considered a classic pop culture icon. It featured model Dolores Erickson wearing chiffon and shaving cream. The picture was taken at a time when Erickson was three months pregnant. (see Whipped Cream for expanded story)

Magical Mystery Tour

November 27, 1967: Beatles released the album Magical Mystery Tour in the USA. (see Dec 17)

“All Things Must Pass”

November 27, 1970: George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” released. It was his first solo work since the Beatle break-up in April. The original vinyl release featured two LPs of rock songs as well as Apple Jam, a third disc of informal jams. Often credited as rock’s first triple album, it was in fact the first by a solo artist with the multi-artist Woodstock live set having preceded it by six months.

In regards to the album’s size, Harrison stated: “I didn’t have many tunes on Beatles records, so doing an album like All Things Must Pass was like going to the bathroom and letting it out.”

The album was critically acclaimed and, with long stays at number 1 in both the US and the UK, commercially successful. It was certified 6x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2001. (see Dec 11)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

November 27, 1965: tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters picketed the White House, then marched on the Washington Monument. The Pentagon informed President Johnson that if General Westmoreland was to conduct the major sweep operations necessary to destroy enemy forces during the coming year, U.S. troop strength should be increased from 120,000 to 400,000 men. (see Dec 9)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Watergate Scandal

November 27, 1973: the US Senate voted 92–3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President. (see Watergate for expanded chronology)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

November 27, 1974: since 1969 New Hampshire had required that noncommercial vehicles bear license plates embossed with the state motto, “Live Free or Die.” Another New Hampshire statute made it a misdemeanor “knowingly [to obscure] . . . the figures or letters on any number plate.” The term “letters” in this section had been interpreted by the State’s highest court in State v. Hoskin to include the state motto.

George Maynard and his wife, both Jehovah’s Witnesses, viewed the motto as repugnant to their moral, religious, and political beliefs, and for this reason they covered up the motto on the license plates of their jointly owned family automobiles. On November 27, 1974, Maynard was issued a citation for violating the state statutes regarding obscuring of the state motto. (see George Maynard for expanded story)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

George Moscone and Harvey Milk murdered

November 27, 1978: former Board of Supervisors member Dan White murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk at City Hall in San Francisco, California. White, who stormed into San Francisco’s government offices with a .38 revolver, had reportedly been angry about Moscone’s decision not to reappoint him to the city board. Firing upon the mayor first, White then reloaded his pistol and turned his gun on his rival Milk, who was one of the nation’s first openly gay politicians and a much-admired activist in San Francisco. (see Dec 4)

Cleopatra De Leon and Nicole Dimetman

November 27, 2013: Cleopatra De Leon and Nicole Dimetman (who were legally married in Massachusetts in 2009 and had a son together) and  Victor Holmes and Mark Phariss of Plano, TX, who had been together 16 years, wanted to marry in Texas. Both same-sex couples challenged Texas’ constitutional ban on gay marriage in a San Antonio federal court.

In court papers, the couples said the Texas ban violates their right to get married and to enjoy the legal benefits or marriage. They argued a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act suggests that bans on same-sex marriage violate the federal constitution and they want the judge to issue an injunction against enforcing the Texas law.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott pledged to defend the law, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2005. (see Dec 16   or see December 13, 2022 re DoMA)

Transgender/Military

November 27, 2017: Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the military must abide by the Obama-era policies that were defined in a “June 30, 2016, directive-type memorandum,” which granted transgender individuals the right to enlist from January 1, 2018.

“Any action by any of the Defendants [i.e., the Trump administration] that changes this status quo is preliminarily enjoined,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her ruling. (LGTBQ, see Dec 4; military, see Dec 22)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

IRAQ

November 27, 2002: U.N. specialists began a new round of weapons inspections in Iraq. (see Dec 7)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

November 27, 2008: Iraq’s parliament approved a pact requiring all U.S. troops to be out of the country by January 1, 2012. (see Dec 14)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

ADA

November 27, 2012: the New York City Council approved a measure to improve access to taxis for the visually impaired. The council voted unanimously to require that the taxi payment technology include an auditory component. That way, visually impaired passengers will hear their fare from a machine, rather than simply taking the driver’s word for it. The equipment will also tell passengers how to pay with a credit card if they wish to do so. (see January 23, 2013)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

STAND YOUR GROUND

November 27, 2013: homeowner 34-year-old Joe Hendrix shot and killed 72-year-old Ronald Westbrook, an Air Force veteran with advanced Alzheimer’s, after Westbrook rang Hendrix’s doorbell and tried to turn the handle on the door.

Hendrix confronted Westbrook and when Westbrook, who was practically mute from the Alzheimer’s, didn’t respond to Hendrix’s commands, the homeowner fired four shots, one of which hit Westbrook in the chest and killed him.

Georgia’s 2006 law stated that a person “has no duty to retreat” and has the right to “stand his or her ground,” including the use of deadly force pertaining to self-defense of one’s home or property.

On February 28, 2014 District Attorney Herbert Franklin announced that Hendrix would not be charged in what his office called a “tragic shooting death.” (NYT article) (see December 17, 2014)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

November 27, 2017:  President Trump transformed a White House ceremony to honor Navajo veterans of World War II into a racially charged controversy, using the event as a platform to deride Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.”

Standing in the Oval Office alongside three Navajo code talkers, whom he called “very, very special people,” Trump dispensed with his prepared remarks and took aim at Warren without naming her, resurrecting a favorite nickname as the veterans stood stonefaced.

“You were here long before any of us were here,” Mr. Trump said to the veterans, ages 90 and older, who wore their military uniforms for the occasion, juxtaposed with turquoise and silver, hallmarks of Navajo culture. “Although we have a representative in Congress who, they say, was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”

The comment drew swift rebukes from Native American leaders, including one who was present for the ceremony. Russell Begaye, the president of the Navajo Nation, called the president’s mention of Pocahontas “derogatory” and “disrespectful to Indian nations.” [NYT article] (see January 9, 2018)

November 27 Peace Love Art Activism

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Black Codes instituted

November 24, 1865: shortly after the end of the Civil War in 1865, Southern states sought to control and confine tcheir large populations of newly-freed black people by passing laws that authorized their arrest and incarceration. These laws, known as “black codes,” typically applied only to black people and criminalized acts that were not offenses at all when committed by whites.

In November and December 1865, the Mississippi legislature approved numerous black codes. One passed on November 24, 1865, declared that “all freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes” found without proof of employment or business or found “unlawfully assembling themselves” would be deemed vagrants and, upon conviction, owe up to $50 in fines and serve up to ten days in jail. The same law threatened whites with vagrancy convictions if found assembling or associating with freedmen “on terms of equality” or found “living in adultery” with a black partner. If convicted, whites faced up to $200 in fines and up to six months in jail.

As a result of black codes like these in Mississippi, and similar laws passed during the same period in states throughout the South, the post-Civil War era brought American black people more contact with the criminal court and prison systems than ever before. As the former Confederacy learned to wield the criminal justice system as a tool of racial control, countless black men, women, and children were convicted and sentenced under unjust laws that criminalized them for existing as free, black citizens. [CRF article] (see Dec 18)

Dramatists Guild

November 24, 1946: the issue of race discrimination in Washington theaters came to a head, it was reported on this day, when the Dramatists Guild signed a contract with local theaters demanding that there be no racial discrimination “on either side of the footlights.”

The issue of race discrimination in the nation’s capital had been brewing since the great African-American singer Marian Anderson was denied use of Constitution Hall by the hall’s owners, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). That controversy ended when the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted permission to hold the concert at the Lincoln Memorial, on April 9, 1939. The concert is regarded as a historic event in the history of racial equality in the U.S. (see Dec 5)

School Desegregation

November 24, 1958: the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided Shuttlesworth vs. Birmingham Board of Education, rejecting a challenge to Alabama’s School Placement Law. The law, designed to defy the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and maintain school segregation, allowed Alabama school boards to assign individual students to particular schools at their own discretion with little transparency or oversight.

Alabama’s School Placement Law, which claimed to allow school boards to designate placement of students based on ability, availability of transportation, and academic background, was modeled after the Pupil Placement Act in North Carolina — enacted on March 30, 1955, in response to the Brown decision. Virginia passed the second placement law on September 29, 1956. In 1957, after the North Carolina law was upheld by a higher court, legislatures in other Southern states passed similar pupil placement laws; by 1960, such laws were on the books in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and the city of Atlanta, Georgia.

After the Alabama law’s passage, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth sued on behalf of four African American students in Birmingham who had been denied admission to white schools that were closer to their homes. In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court court wrote, “The School Placement Law furnishes the legal machinery for an orderly administration of the public schools in a constitutional manner by the admission of qualified pupils upon a basis of individual merit without regard to their race or color. We must presume that it will be so administered.”

Between the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 and 1958, a total of 376,000 African American children were enrolled in integrated schools in the South. This growth slowed significantly as states passed obstructive legislation like these pupil placement laws; the figure rose by just 500 students between 1958 and 1959, and by October 1960, only six percent of African American children in the South were attending integrated schools. . (next BH, see “In 1959”; next SD, see April 18, 1959)

Fables of Faubus

In 1959: Charles Mingus released “Fables of Faubus” aimed at Arkansas governor Orval Fabus. Uncomfortable with the lyrics, Columbia records turned the song into an instrumental.

Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em shoot us!

Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em stab us!

Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em tar and feather us!

Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!

Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!

Name me someone who’s ridiculous, Dannie.

Governor Faubus!

Why is he so sick and ridiculous?

He won’t permit integrated schools.

Then he’s a fool! Boo! Nazi Fascist supremists!

Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)

Name me a handful that’s ridiculous, Dannie Richmond.

Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower

Why are they so sick and ridiculous?

Two, four, six, eight:

They brainwash and teach you hate.

H-E-L-L-O, Hello.

(next BH, see Jan 12)

BLACK & SHOT

November 24, 2015: officer Jason Van Dyke charged with first-degree murder. Hours later, the city released the police dashcam video that captured Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times and killing him. Protesters marched in the Loop into the next morning. (B & S, see Nov 25; McDonald, see Dec 2)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

November 24, 1875: the United Cigar Makers of New York affiliated with the Cigar Makers’ International Union (CMIU) to form CMIU Local 144. Samuel Gompers was elected first president of the local and served several terms before going on to serve as the international’s vice president. “[W]e are powerless in an isolated condition,” Gompers said, “while the capitalists are united; therefore it is the duty of every Cigar Maker to join the organization.” (see June 21, 1877)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Edwards v. California

November 24, 1941 in Edwards v California the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a California law barring indigents from entering the state. California passed the law during the Depression in an effort to keep poor migrants out of the state and thereby avoid the costs of public relief.

The Court majority held that the law violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Justices William O. Douglas, joined by Hugo Black, Frank Murphy and Robert Jackson, however, argued that the law violated the Privileges and Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Justice Douglas in dissent: “. . . I am of the opinion that the right of persons to move freely from State to State occupies a more protected position in our constitutional system than does the movement of cattle, fruit, steel and coal across state lines . . . The conclusion that the right of free movement is a right of national citizenship stands on firm historical ground.”

The New York Times headline for the article was “OKIE’S RIGHTS”

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Hollywood Ten

November 24, 1947: the House of Representatives issued citations for Contempt of Congress to the Hollywood Ten—John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo. They had refused to cooperate at hearings dealing with communism in the movie industry held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The “Hollywood 10,” as the men were known, were sentenced to one year in jail. The Supreme Court later upheld the contempt charges.

The ten responded the next day. (see November 25, 1947)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Lee Harvey Oswald

November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald at the Dallas jail where Oswald was being held. (see March 14, 1964)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

November 24 Music et al

Sgt Pepper’s

November 24, 1966: began recording Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band.

According to the (excellent) Beatles Bible entry, “The first song of the late-1966 sessions was John Lennon‘s Strawberry Fields Forever.” (see Dec 16)

“Photograph”

November 24, 1973: Ringo Starr becomes the third former Beatle to earn a solo #1 hit when “Photograph” topped the Billboard Hot 100.  (see March 13, 1974)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

My Lai Massacre

November 24, 1969: U.S. Army officials announced that 1st Lt. William Calley would be court-martialed for the premeditated murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. Army Secretary Stanley Resor and Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland announced the appointment of Lt. Gen. William R. Peers to “explore the nature and scope” of the original investigation of the My Lai slayings in April 1968. The initial probe, conducted by the unit involved in the affair, concluded that no massacre occurred and that no further action was warranted. (see MLM for expanded chronology)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Marijuana

November 24, 1976, : a Washington, DC Robert Randall, afflicted by glaucoma, employed the little-used Common Law Doctrine of Necessity to defend himself against criminal charges of marijuana cultivation (US v. Randall).

On November 24, 1976, federal Judge James Washington ruled Randall’s use of marijuana constituted a ‘medical necessity…’

Judge Washington dismissed criminal charges against Randall. Concurrent with this judicial determination, federal agencies responding to a May, 1976 petition filed by Randall, began providing this patient with licit, FDA-approved access to government supplies of medical marijuana. Randall was the first American to receive marijuana for the treatment of a medical disorder. (see February 21, 1978)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear & chemical weapons

Superpower treaty

November 24, 1987: the US and the Soviet Union agreed to scrap shorter- and medium-range missiles in the first superpower treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.  [DoS article] (Cold War, see Dec 7; NN, see Dec 8)

Iran’s nuclear program

November 24, 2013: the US and five other world powers announced a landmark accord that would temporarily freeze Iran’s nuclear program and lay the foundation for a more sweeping agreement. It was the first time in nearly a decade, American officials said, that an international agreement had been reached to halt much of Iran’s nuclear program and roll some elements of it back. In return for the initial agreement, the US agreed to provide $6 billion to $7 billion in sanctions relief. Of this, roughly $4.2 billion would be oil revenue that has been frozen in foreign banks. [NYT article] (see January 12, 2014)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Crime and Punishment

November 24, 2015: Governor Steve Beshear, Democrat of Kentucky, issued an executive order restoring voting rights for nonviolent ex-felons who had completed their sentences. The order gave 170,000 ex-offenders the opportunity to register to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. (see January 25, 2016)

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Cannabis

November 24, 2021: the South Dakota Supreme Court  ruled that a voter-approved marijuana legalization initiative was invalid on procedural grounds, a major setback for activists who have been awaiting the court’s decision for months. That said, advocates would pursue a two-track plan to enact the reform next year.

In a 4-1 vote, the justices upheld a circuit court ruling that found the 2020 ballot measure violated the state’s single subject rule for constitutional amendments, meaning it covered too much ground and was not narrowly focused enough to meet the electoral standard.

The lawsuit was officially brought by two law enforcement officers but was funded with taxpayer money supplied by the administration of Gov. Kristi Noem (R)  [MM article] (next Cannabis, see  Nov 30, or see CAC for expanded chronology).

November 24 Peace Love Art Activism