Thom Jurek at AllMusic stated: Along with Kind of Blue, In a Silent Way, and Round About Midnight, Sketches of Spain is one of Miles Davis’ most enduring and innovative achievements. Recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 — after Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley had left the band — Davis teamed with Canadian arranger Gil Evans for the third time. Davis brought Evans the album’s signature piece, “Concierto de Aranjuez,” after hearing a classical version of it at bassist Joe Mondragon’s house. Evanswas as taken with it as Davis was, and set about to create an entire album of material around it. The result is a masterpiece of modern art. “
July 18 Music et al
Brenda Lee
July 18 – Aug 7, 1960: “I’m Sorry” by 15-year-old Brenda Lee #1 Billboard Hot 100. According to the Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson, Lee recorded the song early in 1960 but her label, Decca Records, held it from release for several months out of concern that a 15-year-old girl was not mature enough to sing about unrequited love. (2018 Stereo Gum article) (see Sept 19 – Sept 25)
July 18 Music et al
Four Seasons
July 18 – 31, 1964: “Rag Doll” by the Four Seasons #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, their last #1 until March 1976 with “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).” Frankie Valli will have a #1 hit in August 1978 with Grease – his last #1.
July 18 Music et al
The Road to Bethel
July 18, 1969: Michael Lang and Ticia Bernuth explored Bethel area for another festival location. They “discover” the site.
In the afternoon Lang, Mel Lawrence, Elliot Tieber, and Morris Abraham met with Yasgur. The property he initially offered (across from his home?) was far too flat. He offered another site which turns out to be the same spot Lang had seen that morning. (see Chronology for expanded story)
July 18, 1884: President Chester Arthur issued a proclamation that granted him and the federal government the power to quarantine persons entering the United States through its ports of entry to avoid the spread of “pestilence.” Although the proclamation used the word pestilence several times, it did not mention the specific name of the dreaded disease from which Arthur was trying to protect the nation: tuberculosis. (Politico article) (see February 26, 1885)
Maria Palacios
July 18, 2018: Maria Palacios, 28, was born in Mexico and moved to Georgia as a child and became an American citizen in June 2017. She wanted to run for the Georgia State House of Representatives.
Palacios was thrown off the ballot in May, first by an administrative law judge, then by the Georgia secretary of state, Brian Kemp.
July 18, 1913: the Paterson, NJ ribbon weavers voted to abandon the general strike and seek a shop-by-shop settlement. The strike dwindles as silk workers gradually return to work. (Paterson Great Falls article) (see Aug 3)
July 18 Peace Love Art Activism
Black History
Maceo Snipes lynched
July 18, 1946: a white mob shot and killed Maceo Snipes, a 37-year-old Black veteran, at his home in Butler, Georgia. A day earlier, Mr. Snipes had exercised his Constitutional right to vote in the Georgia Democratic Primary, becoming the only Black man to vote in the election in Taylor County. For this he was targeted and lynched.
Snipes had served in the U.S. Army for two and a half years during World War II and, after receiving an honorable discharge, had returned home to Taylor County, Georgia, to work as a sharecropper with his mother. Mr. Snipes’s family later recalled that he had received threats from the Ku Klux Klan in the days leading up to the election, but he still bravely went to vote in the gubernatorial primary on July 17, 1946.
When local authorities investigated Snipes’s shooting, Edward Williamson admitted to killing him, but claimed Mr. Snipes had pulled a knife on him when he went to the Snipes home to collect a debt. A member of a prominent white family in Taylor County, Mr. Williamson’s story was believed at face value despite contrary assertions in Mr. Snipes’s deathbed statement and his mother’s witness testimony. The coroner’s jury ultimately ruled that the shooting had been in “self-defense,” and no one was ever held accountable for Mr. Snipes’s death. [EJI article] (next BH & Lynching, see July 25)or see AL4 for expanded chronology)
Harlem Revolt
July 18, 1964: during the day, 4000 people gathered at organized demonstrations in Harlem and Brooklyn calling for the immediate prosecution and dismissal of the Lieutenant Gilligan as well as the resignation of the Police Commissioner Michael Murphy.
At 9.30pm that night, protestors marched on Harlem’s 28th Police Precinct, but were met by a wall of ‘tactical police’, who pushed the demonstrators back from the building. Eventually the police charged the main group of protesters, sparking violent retaliation from the crowd. The crowd began to riot. The authorities closed 125th street between Third and Eight Avenue but this did not stop the trouble spreading as hundreds of people fought with police.
Civil unrest lasted for more than five days with trouble spreading into Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. More than 6,000 police officers were deployed to quell the disorder. There were many violent incidents between police and residents. Stores were looted, people were beaten, and cars and buildings were set alight. (Black Past article) (BH, see July 24; RR, see Aug 2; Gilligan, see Sept 1)
Steve Reich Come Out
Steve Reich wrote Come Out (1966) an avant-garde piece dealing with riots. Come Out premiered at a benefit concert for the retrial of the “Harlem Six,” a group of black youths charged with committing a murder during the riots. The voice of Daniel Hamm, a 19-year-old member of the Harlem Six–five of whom, including Hamm, were later acquitted–is first heard clearly saying, “I wanted to come out and show them.” The phrase “Come out and show them” is then transformed through phasing to become an evolving series of rhythms, timbres and pitches. (Pitchefork article)
Willie Brewster
July 18, 1965: Willie Brewster was on his way home from work in Anniston, Ala., when he was shot by white men. The men belonged to the National States Rights Party, a violent neo-Nazi group whose members had been involved in church bombings and killings of African Americans. Brewster died four days later. Damon Strange, one of the men, will be convicted and sentenced to ten years in jail. (Anniston Star article) (see Aug 6)
Hough Riots
July 18, 1966: The Hough Riots were race revolts in the predominantly African American community of Hough in Cleveland, Ohio that took place over a six-night period from July 18 to July 23, 1966. During the riots, four African Americans were killed and 30 people were critically injured. In addition, there were 275 arrests, while more than 240 fires were reported. (Cleveland Scenes photos) (BH, see July 30; RR, see Aug 7)
Willie Reed
July 18, 2013: Willie Reed, who had changed his name to Willie Louis after the murder trial of Emmett Till and had moved to Chicago, died. Louis, one of the last living witnesses for the prosecution in the Till case, died in Oak Lawn, Ill., a Chicago suburb. He was 76. (BH, see July 19; see Emmett for expanded story)
Samuel DuBose
July 18, 2017: Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said he was dropping the case against Ray Tensing, as two previous juries couldn’t reach a unanimous agreement on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges against the former University of Cincinnati officer who had shot and killed Samuel DuBose. (Washington Post article) (see Aug 2)
Laquan McDonald
July 18, 2019: the Chicago Police Board voted unanimously to fire Officers Ricardo Viramontes, Janet Mondragon, and Sgt. Stephen Franko for their roles in their alleged cover-up of the murder of Laquan McDonald by CPD Officer Jason Van Dyke.
According to the board, all three officers made false statements, among other violations of department rules, in an attempt to have the shooting of McDonald by Van Dyke deemed as justified.
The Board also fired Officer Daphne Sebastian
Sgt. Franko was charged with violating five different rules and regulations of the Chicago Police Department, including taking action to “impede the department’s efforts to achieve its policy and goals” and “making a false report, written or oral.” (next B & S, see Aug 18; LM, see Oct 14)
July 18 – Aug 7, 1960: “I’m Sorry” by 15-year-old Brenda Lee #1 Billboard Hot 100. According to the Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson, Lee recorded the song early in 1960 but her label, Decca Records, held it from release for several months out of concern that a 15-year-old girl was not mature enough to sing about unrequited love. (see Sept 19 – Sept 25)
Four Seasons
July 18 – 31, 1964: “Rag Doll” by the Four Seasons #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, their last #1 until March 1976 with “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).” Frankie Valli will have a #1 hit in August 1978 with Grease – his last #1.
The Road to Bethel
July 18, 1969: before their appointment with Max Yasgur, Michael Lang and Ticia Bernuth explored Bethel area for another festival location.
Serendipitously, following Happy Road they “discover” the site.
In the afternoon Lang, Mel Lawrence, Elliot Tieber, and Morris Abraham met with Yasgur. The property he initially offered (across from his home?) was far too flat. He offered another site which turns out to be the same spot Lang had seen that morning. (see Road for expanded story)
July 18 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
Horst Faas
July 18, 1965: Horst Faas photographed Larry Wayne Chaffina wearing a hand-lettered “War Is Hell” slogan on his helmet during the Vietnam War. Chaffina was with the 173rd Airborne Brigade battalion on defense duty at Phuoc Vinh airstrip in South Vietnam. (see July 21)
WAR POWERS ACT
July 18, 1973: the House of Representatives approved the War Powers Act by a vote of 244 – 170. (Law Library article) (see July 20)
July 18 Peace Love Art Activism
Watergate
July 18, 1973: Nixon reportedly ordered the White House taping system disconnected. (see Watergate for expanded story)
July 18 Peace Love Art Activism
AIDS/Ryan White
July 18, 1986: Indiana Court of Appeals declined to hear any further appeals in the White case. (see White for expanded story)
July 18 Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear/Chemical News
July 18, 1989: the United States and the Soviet Union reached agreement on key elements of a treaty banning chemical weapons, including a timetable for destruction of such arms and procedures for inspecting chemical factories.
The recommendations of the two governments would be submitted to the 40-nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. The agreement was significant because the Soviet Union and the United States have by far the biggest arsenals of chemical weapons.
A State Department official said that the two sides had agreed in principle on ”a mathematical formula” prescribing the amounts and types of chemical weapons to be destroyed over a 10-year period. [NYT article] (next N/C N, see June 1, 1990; chemical weapons destruction, see July 6, 2023)
Women’s Health
July 18, 2005: Eric Rudolph officially sentenced to two consecutive life terms without parole for the 1998 murder of a police officer. (DoJ article) (see January 31, 2006)
July 18 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
July 18, 2014/Oklahoma
A federal appeals court in Denver struck down a second state ban on same-sex marriage, ruling that Oklahoma — like Utah before it – cannot prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying. The decision by a three-judge panel in the 10-year-old lawsuit will likely give the Supreme Court a choice: It can use either Utah or Oklahoma as its foil for judging the constitutionality of all such bans, or it can wait for more cases headed its way from Virginia and elsewhere.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit also has jurisdiction over Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming, as well as New Mexico, where same-sex couples already can marry. Its precedent applies to all those states, but the court blocked its ruling from taking effect while Oklahoma considers an appeal.
As was the case with Utah’s appeal, the panel split 2-1, with Judges Carlos Lucero and Jerome Holmes voting to strike down the ban and Judge Paul Kelly dissenting. “Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage sweeps too broadly in that it denies a fundamental right to all same-sex couples who seek to marry or to have their marriages recognized regardless of their child-rearing ambitions,” Lucero, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, wrote. “As with opposite-sex couples, members of same-sex couples have a constitutional right to choose against procreation.”
July 18, 2014/Colorado
Colorado’s Supreme Court ordered an end to gay marriages while the state’s ban against the unions remains in place. The state’s high court ordered Denver’s clerk to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It responded to an appeal from Attorney General John Suthers who had been unable to persuade lower courts to stop clerks in Boulder and Denver from distributing the documents. (see July 21)
July 17, 1917: sixteen pickets arrested and sentenced to an unprecedented 60 days at Occoquan Workhouse, Virginia. President Wilson pardoned “Bastille Day” prisoners three days later. (see July 19)
July 17 Peace Love Art Activism
Religion and Public Education
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
July 17, 1925: Judge Raulston ruled in favor of a motion by prosecutors to bar expert testimony by scientists. Raulston argued that the experts’ opinions on evolutionary theory would “shed no light” on the issue at hand in the trial — whether Scopes violated the state’s anti-evolution laws. Many reporters leave town, believing that the trial is effectively over. Scopes was recruited to write news stories on the trial for some of the delinquent journalists. (see Scopes for expanded story)
July 17 Peace Love Art Activism
The Red Scare
July 17, 1948: States Rights Party. Southern Democrats opposed to President Truman and the Democratic Party’s liberal position on civil rights convene in Alabama to form the new States Rights Party (better known as Dixiecrats), which nominated South Carolinian Strom Thurmond for president. [platform] (see July 20, 1948)
July 17, 1967, Jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane died at age 40.
Joint Show
July 17, 1967: the Joint Show opened in the Moore Gallery in San Francisco. It was the first art show to celebrate Psychedelic rock concert poster artists and their work. The show showcased the “BIG FIVE” rock artists of the times: Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, and Wes Wilson. Each of the five artists created a poster exclusively for the show, which was also made available for purchase. The show helped to create an acceptance of rock concert poster art in the larger art world and the museum community, and led to more gallery shows and the inclusion of these types of works into museum collections. (see Sept 23)
Yellow Submarine
July 17, 1968: The Beatles movie, Yellow Submarine, released in the UK (see Aug 8)
Road to Bethel
July 17, 1969: although initially expressing disinterest in renting land for the festival, Max Yasgur agreed to meet with Woodstock Ventures after hearing that it is the group just kicked out of Wallkill. (see Chronology for expanded story)
July 17 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Race Revolts
July 17, 1967: Cairo, Illinois revolt. Three days of rioting following the alleged jailhouse suicide of Pvt. Robert Hunt, a young African-American soldier on leave. Police said Hunt hanged himself with his t-shirt, (see July 19)
School Desegregation
July 17, 2001: Harvard University’s Civil Rights Project published a study on the resegregation of school districts more than 45 years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared legally-mandated racial segregation in public education unconstitutional. In the study, then-Harvard Professor of Education and Co-director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, Dr. Gary Orfield, evaluated statistics from the 1998-1999 school year and concluded that school districts across the nation and particularly in the South were resegregating at an alarming rate, with many Southern school districts returning to segregation levels of the early 1970s.
The study found that more than 70% of African American students attended predominantly minority schools in the 1998-1999 school year. This marked a significant increase from the 63% of African Americans who attended predominantly minority schools in the 1972-1973 school year, before the implementation of many full-fledged desegregation plans. The study linked this resegregation trend to a series of Supreme Court cases decided in the early 1990s — Board of Education ofOklahoma City vs. Dowell (1991), Freeman v. Pitts (1992), and Missouri v. Jenkins (1995) — which made it easier for school districts to be released from federal desegregation orders and more difficult for desegregation orders to be reinstated, thereby crippling desegregation efforts and undercutting progress toward racial integration in public schools. (Harvard article) (BH, see March 24, 2002; SD, see November 2, 2004)
BLACK & SHOT
July 17, 2014: New York City police suspected Eric Garner of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. In an attempt to place him under arrest, officer Daniel Pantaleo put Garner in what New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton described as a chokehold, a move banned by the department. Garner could be seen in a video of the incident saying he can’t breathe as Pantaleo holds him. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital. A Staten Island grand jury voted on Dec. 2 not to indict Pantaleo, setting off a wave of national protests. (2015 NYT article) (see Aug 5)
Confederate Flag/US Military
July 17, 2020: the Pentagon, without once mentioning the word “Confederate,” announced a policy that essentially banned displays of the Confederate flag on military installations around the world.
In a carefully worded memo that Defense Department officials said they hoped would avoid igniting another defense of the flag from President Trump, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper issued guidance that lists the types of flags that can be displayed on military installations — in barracks, on cars and on signs.
According to the guidance, appropriate flags include those of American states and territories, military services and other countries that are allies of the United States. The guidance never specifically says that Confederate flags are banned, but they do not fit in any of the approved categories — and any such flags are prohibited.
“Problem solved — we hope,” one Defense Department official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity so as not to anger Mr. Trump. [NYT article] (next BH, see July 27)
July 17 Peace Love Art Activism
United Farm Workers
July 17, 1970: six thousand drivers and packing workers in the Salinas Valley in California represented by the Teamsters struck effectively preventing most of the nation’s summer lettuce crop from reaching consumers. (Aug 24 NYT abstract) (see July 23, 1970)
July 17 Peace Love Art Activism
INDEPENDENCE DAY
July 17, 1992: Slovakia declared independence from Czechoslovakia [Gentle Revolution] (see January 1, 1993)
July 17 Peace Love Art Activism
CLINTON IMPEACHMENT
July 17, 1998: Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist denies an extension of the temporary stay on Secret Service testimony. The subpoenaed Secret Service agents appeared before the grand jury, although only three of them testify. Larry Cockell, who is not one of the agents to testify, spends the afternoon waiting. (see Clinton for expanded story)
July 17 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ & BSA
July 17, 2012: the Boy Scouts of America reaffirmed its longtime policy of barring openly gay boys from membership and gay or lesbian adults from serving as leaders. The decision came after what the organization described as a wide-ranging internal review, and despite public protests. The exclusion policy “reflects the beliefs and perspectives” of the organization, the Boy Scouts said in a news release. [NYT article] (LGBTQ, see July 31; BSA, see Oct 8)
July 17 Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans
July 17, 2013: in a 3-2 decision the South Carolina Supreme Court awarded custody of Veronica Brown, a Cherokee child at the center of a protracted legal battle to a non-Native couple attempting to adopt her. The court ruled that Matt and Melanie Capobianco of James Island, S.C., were the only party properly seeking to adopt the three-year-old girl known as “Baby Veronica” and ordered the lower family court to finalize the adoption. (Indian Country Today article) (see Veronica for expanded story)
July 17Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
July 17, 2018: the Trump administration officially killed a regulation that would have required employers to publicly disclose more information about the union-busting consultants they hire.
The Labor Department rescinded what was known as the “persuader rule,” a 2016 reform introduced under former President Barack Obama. The rule would have forced businesses to report more of the spending they steer toward anti-union advisers who help scuttle organizing drives by employees.
The agency said it was spiking the rule because it believed it violated attorney-client privilege “by requiring confidential information to be part of disclosures,” an argument that business groups had made to the Labor Department and in court.
\The AFL-CIO union federation criticized the Trump administration for dumping what it described as a commonsense reform that would have brought more sunlight to a “sinister” industry. The rule had been in the works for about five years before the Obama administration released it. (see July 19)
July 17Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History
DACA Suspended
July 16, 2021: judge Andrew S. Hanen of the United States District Court in Houston ruled that President Barack Obama exceeded his authority when he created the the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by executive order in 2012.
The program that had shielded hundreds of thousands of undocumented young adults from deportation. Hanen’s ruling threw into question yet again the fate of immigrants known as Dreamers.
But the judge wrote that current program recipients would not be immediately affected, and that the federal government should not “take any immigration, deportation or criminal action” against them that it “would not otherwise take.”
The Department of Homeland Security could continue to accept new applications but was temporarily prohibited from approving them, Hanen ruled. Immigrants currently enrolled in the program, most of whom were brought to the United States as children, would retain the ability to stay and work in the country, though those protections could evaporate if the government was unable to rectify a series of legal shortcomings. (next IH, see ; next DACA, see )
July 17Peace Love Art Activism
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
