September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

September 25, 1956: the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service. [Atlantic Cable article] (see August 3, 1958)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

School Desegregation

September 25, 1957: in a dramatic and unprecedented move, President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to ensure the racial integration of Central High School. The Little Rock crisis was one of the most dramatic events in the history of the civil rights movement.

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus and local authorities had resisted integration in the face of a court order to implement the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision on May 17, 1954. Mobs had prevented the enrollment of nine African-American students (the “Little Rock Nine”) on September 23, as local authorities failed to maintain public order. Central High School was successfully integrated on this day because of the federal troops.

In 1958, however, local officials resisted another court order, and that issue resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision asserting the authority of the federal courts to enforce lawful court orders, Cooper v. Aaron, on September 12, 1958. Nonetheless, the Little Rock school board (which was not directly affected by the court decision) voted to close the schools rather than integrate, and the 1958–1959 academic year is known as the “lost year.” The schools opened the following year. (BH & SD, see Oct 5; Central High School, see February 9, 1960)

Herbert Lee murdered

September 25, 1961: E.H. Hurst – a local white state legislator – shot and killed Herbert Lee in front of several eyewitnesses. Mr. Lee was a member of the Amite County, Mississippi, NAACP and worked with Bob Moses of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on a voter registration drive. Louis Allen, a black man who witnessed the murder, was initially coerced into saying that Hurst killed Herbert Lee in self defense; he later recanted and said Hurst had actually shot Lee for registering black voters.

Louis Allen spoke with the FBI about Lee’s murder, but told federal authorities that he would need protection if he were to agree to cooperate in their investigation. The FBI refused to provide protection, and Allen did not testify against Hurst. However, news spread in the local community that Allen had spoken with federal investigators.

Beginning in 1962, Mr. Allen was targeted for harassment and violence: local whites cut off business to his logging company; he was jailed on false charges; and on one occasion, Sheriff Daniel Jones broke Allen’s jaw with a flashlight. The son of a high ranking local Klansman, Sheriff Jones was suspected to also be a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Louis Allen filed complaints and testified before a federal grand jury regarding the abuse he suffered at the hands of Sheriff Jones, but his claims were dismissed. [Black Past article] (BH, see May 5, 1962; Lee, see January 31, 1964)

St. Matthew’s Baptist Church burned down

September 25, 1962: a pre-dawn fire at St. Matthew’s Baptist Church destroyed the building. It was the fifth black church to burn in the past month. (BH, see Sept 25;  see Albany for expanded story)

James H Meredith

September 25, 1962: Mississippi Governor Ross R Barnett’s responded with two proclamations.

To sheriffs and law enforcement officers:  They were “authorized and directed to proceed to do all things necessary that the peace and security of the people of the State of Mississippi are fully protected.”

The second, directed at Meredith stated in part that “in order to prevent violence and a breach of the peace…do hereby and finally deny you admission to the University of Mississippi.” (see September 26, 1962)

Johnnie May Chappell

September 25, 1964:  soon after obtaining the confessions (see Aug 11), detectives Cody and Coleman were ordered to stop their investigation. Afterwards, Cody was not sure anything else was done to develop the case, but on this date a grand jury indicted all four men on the evidence in the murder of Johnnie May Chappell.

J.W. Rich was the first to go on trial. He says now that the prosecution didn’t have anything on him. It’s true that the case may have looked slim to a jury. The .22-caliber gun that Cody and Coleman recovered was never introduced at trial (it later disappeared from the evidence room). Cody himself wasn’t called to testify. The other men’s statements weren’t submitted in court. The bullet taken from Chappell’s body was introduced in a plain white envelope, not an evidence bag showing the date it had been recovered and from where. Perhaps unwilling to press for a first-degree murder charge in the death of a black woman, the prosecutor told jurors they could find Rich guilty on a lesser count. The jury found him guilty of manslaughter and the judge gave Rich 10 years. He would serve 3.

The State Attorney’s Office released Wayne Chessman, Elmer Kato, and Alex Davis from prosecution for lack of evidence, despite their confessions. (BH, see Oct 14; Chappell, see December 4, 2002)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

Eisenhower/Khrushchev

September 25, 1959: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev met with President Eisenhower. The two men came to general agreement on a number of issues, but a U-2 spy plane incident in May 1960 crushed any hopes for further improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations during the Eisenhower years. (NYT article) (see May 1)

Nuclear/Chemical News

September 25, 1962: Soviet Union above ground nuclear test. 19.1 megaton. (see Sept 27)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

September 25 Music et al

see The Beatles cartoon series for more

September 25, 1965: a cartoon series featuring The Beatles began in the US. Simply titled The Beatles, it ran until 1969 on the ABC network with 39 episodes produced over three seasons. The series was shown on Saturday mornings at 10.30am until 1968, when it was moved to Sunday mornings. Each episode was named after a Beatles song, with stories based on the lyrics. The Beatles themselves were not directly involved in the production, which was created by Al Brodax and Sylban Buck, and produced by King Features Syndicate. American actor Paul Frees provided the voices for John Lennon and George Harrison, while British actor Lance Percival did the same for Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. (see Oct 9)

Eve of Destruction

September 25 – October 1, 1965: “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (see Sept 30)

Eighth Big Sur Folk Festival

September 25, 1971:  the final one featured: Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson, Mimi Fariña and Tom Jans, Mickey Newbury, Big Sur Choir, Lily Tomlin & Larry Manson

U2

September 25, 1976: the Irish rock band U2 formed after drummer Larry Mullen Jr. posted a note seeking members for a band on the notice board of his Dublin school.

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam & Operation Popeye

September 25, 1968: the southern region of North Vietnam was added to the operational area. (V, see Oct 14; see OP for expanded story)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Sandra Day O’Connor

September 25, 1981: Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. [Makers dot com article] (see Nov 12)

Ruth Bader Ginsberg

September 25, 2020: Ruth Bader Ginsburg lain in state inside the US Capitol. The first person given that honor was Henry Clay in 1852, a Kentucky Senator who died during his term. Since then, the 33 men who have lain in state at the US Capitol had all been high-profile statesmen, like President Abraham Lincoln, or military members.

Ginsburg was the first woman and only the second justice from the top court to be given the honor. The first was William Howard Taft, who was also a US president. [BBC story] (next Feminism, see January 19, 2021)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Irish Troubles

Maze Prison escape

September 25, 1983: 38 Irish republican prisoners, armed with six handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out of HMP Maze, in the largest prison escape since World War II and in British history. [BBC article]

Irish Republican Army

September 25, 2005:  two months after announcing its intention to disarm, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) gave up its weapons in front of independent weapons inspectors. The decommissioning of the group s substantial arsenal took place in secret locations in the Republic of Ireland. One Protestant and one Catholic priest as well as officials from Finland and the United States served as witnesses to the historic event. Automatic weapons, ammunition, missiles and explosives were among the arms found in the cache, which the head weapons inspector described as “enormous.” (see Troubles for expanded story)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment Inquiry

September 25, 2019: the White House released a reconstruction of the call that President Trump made to Urkraine  President  Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump encouraged Zelensky to work with Attorney General William P. Barr and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, on corruption investigations connected to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats.

Although there was no explicit quid pro quo in the conversation, Trump raised the matter immediately after Zelensky spoke of his country’s need for more help from the United States. The call came only days after Mr. Trump had blocked $391 million in aid to Ukraine, a decision that perplexed national security officials at the time and for which he gave conflicting explanations. [NYT article] (see TII for expanded chronology)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

Climate Change

September 25, 2019: according to the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders in policy making, climate change was heating the oceans and altering their chemistry so dramatically that it threatened seafood supplies, fueling cyclones and floods and posing profound risks to the hundreds of millions of people living along the coasts.

The report concluded that the world’s oceans and ice sheets were under such severe stress that the fallout could prove difficult for humans to contain without steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Fish populations were already declining in many regions as warming waters threw marine ecosystems into disarray. [NYT article] (next EI, see Oct 29)

William Perry Pendley

September 25, 2020: U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled that President Trump’s leading steward of public lands had been serving unlawfully, blocking him from continuing in the position in the latest pushback against the administration’s practice of filling key positions without U.S. Senate approval.

U.S. Interior Department Bureau of Land Management acting director William Perry Pendley served unlawfully for 424 days without being confirmed to the post by the Senate as required under the Constitution, Morris determined.

The ruling came after Montana’s Democratic governor in July sued to remove Pendley, saying the former oil industry attorney was illegally overseeing an agency that manages almost a quarter-billion acres of land, primarily in the U.S. West.

“Today’s ruling is a win for the Constitution, the rule of law, and our public lands,” Gov. Steve Bullock said Friday. Environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers from Western states also cheered the judge’s move after urging for months that Pendley be removed. [NBC Montana story]

Drilling ban

September 25, 2020: President Trump expanded a ban on exploratory drilling off the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia, his latest extension of an existing offshore drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.

The memorandum “prevents consideration of this area for any leasing for purposes of exploration, development, or production during the 10-year period beginning on July 1, 2022, and ending on June 30, 2032.”

The memo makes clear that the ban on leasing does not apply if it’s for “environmental conservation purposes, including the purposes of shore protection, beach nourishment and restoration, wetlands restoration, and habitat protection.”

It stands in contrast to the Trump administration’s record of supporting oil and gas production and rolling back rules on greenhouse gas emissions. [NPR story] (next EI, see Nov 4)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Census

September 25, 2020: after a September 22 hearing, on this date in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge Lucy H. Koh barred the Trump administration from ending the 2020 census a month early.

Koh  had issued a preliminary injunction on September 5 preventing the administration from winding down the count by September 30, a month before the scheduled completion date of October 31. She also barred officials from delivering completed population data to the White House on Dececember. 31 rather than the April 2021 delivery date that had previously been set out.

The ruling came after evidence filed this week showed that top Census Bureau officials believed ending the head count early would seriously endanger its accuracy. [NYT story] (next Census, see Oct 13)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ+

September 25, 2023: in a letter from the Vatican Pope Francis suggested for the first time that some people in same-sex unions could be blessed by Catholic priests. On the topic of homosexual unions, the pontiff had previously reiterated that the Church only recognized marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but the letter appears to show some willingness to open the door to such blessings. This was a seeming reversal of previous statements in March, when the Pope said the Church could not bless same-sex unions, because they could “not bless sin.” The latest development appears to be a nod to a decision made by the German Church, in which same-sex unions received a Catholic blessing from several priests. [CNN article]  (next LGBTQ, see March 11, 2024)

September 25 Peace Love Art Activism, September 25 Peace Love Art Activism, September 25 Peace Love Art Activism, September 25 Peace Love Art Activism, September 25 Peace Love Art Activism, 

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Emma Goldman

September 24, 1901: Goldman released after two weeks in jail; the case re her association with President McKinley’s assassination (Sept 6) is dropped for lack of evidence.(see Goldman for expanded story)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

National Equal Rights League

September 24, 1922: the National Equal Rights League sent a telegram to President Harding calling for a special session of Congress to act on the Dyer Anti-Lynching bill. Congress had adjourned without completing consideration of the bill. [history of NERL via Black Past]  (see Nov 4)

”SCOTTSBORO BOYS”

September 24, 1951: Haywood Patterson convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 6 to 15 years. He died of cancer less than a year later. (see Scottsboro Travesty)

Fear of Rock

September 24, 1954: in an editorial entitled “Control the Dimwits,” Billboard magazine called for removing rhythm and blues records with sexual double entendres from jukeboxes.

The Songwriter’s Protective Association endorsed the editorial and police in Memphis, Tennessee, and Long Beach, California, confiscated jukeboxes with the offending records. The largest jukebox operator in the New York City area offered to remove any records that Billboard would list. (BH, see October; Fear, see  October Music)

School Desegregation

September 24, 1957: Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann sent a special request for federal assistance to President Dwight Eisenhower. (see Sept 25)

Executive Order 11246

September 24, 1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246. It, established requirements for non-discriminatory practices in hiring and employment on the part of U.S. government contractors. It “prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in Government business in one year from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” It also required contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” The phrase “affirmative action” had appeared previously in Executive Order 10925 in 1961. (US gov document)(see Oct 14)

George Whitmore, Jr

September 24, 1970: New York Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of Richard Robles in the Wylie-Hoffert case. (see Whitmore for expanded story)

Orangeburg Massacre

In late September/early October 1970: a jury found Cleveland Sellers guilty  of participating in a riot two nights before the Orangeburg shootings. He was the only person tried in relation to the the 1968 event.  (BH, see Oct 26; OM, see September 1, 1973)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Retaliation

September 24, 1945: Vietnamese retaliated for the previous day’s killings by the British and French and stormed though a French neighborhood killing some 150 men, women, and children.

American Lt Col Dewey cabled to his superiors that “The French and British are finished here and we [the US] ought to clear out of southeast Asia. (see Sept 26)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

September 24 Music et al

Bob Dylan

September 24, 1965 : Dylan kicked off a national tour in Austin, TX. The Hawks are his back up band. The electric songs are typically booed. Levon Helm, unable to deal with the constant booing, left the tour at the end of November and went to work as a deckhand on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. (see Nov 22)

see Sing-In For Peace for more

September 24, 1965: Irwin Silber, editor of Sing Out!’ (a magazine of recordings), singer Barbara Dane, and Pete Seeger, along with the cream of the folk establishment organized a two-part “Sing-In For Peace” concert at Carnegie Hall.

The concert featured sixty black and white artists. The Fugs performed their scathing “Kill for Peace.” Unfortunately, a local newspaper strike prevented much media coverage, but the concert marked a turning point in the peace song movement. As Silber remarked in Sing Out!, “the essence of the creative union between folksong and social value had been recaptured.” (see Sept 25)

Cherish

September 24 – October 14, 1966: “Cherish” by the Association #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Jimi Hendrix

September 24, 1966: impressed with Hendrix’s version of “Hey Joe”, The Animals’ bassist, Chas Chandler, brought him to London and signed him to a management and production contract with himself and ex-Animals manager Michael Jeffery. Chandler then helped Hendrix form a new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, with guitarist-turned-bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, both English musicians. (see Oct 1)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

September 24, 1973: Guinea Bissau independent of Portugal. [Britannica article on Guinea Bissau] (see February 7, 1974)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Symbionese Liberation Army

September 24, 1976:  Patty Hearst sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery. (NYT article)(see Nov 19)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

AIDS

September 24, 1982: CDC used the term “AIDS” (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) for the first time, and released the first case definition of AIDS: “a disease at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known case for diminished resistance to that disease.” [Back To Stonewall article] (see Dec 10)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

September 24, 1996: the US and the world’s other major nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.  [ACA article] (see March 11, 1997)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

September 24, 1998: the House Judiciary Committee announced the committee would consider a resolution to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Clinton in an open session on October 5 or October 6. (see Clinton for expanded story)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

UAW

September 24, 2007: United Auto Workers walked off the job at GM plants in the first nationwide strike during auto contract negotiations since 1976. (A tentative pact ended the walkout two days later.) [CNBC article] (see February 13, 2008)

WGA

September 24, 2023: the major film and television studios and striking writers reached a tentative agreement paving a path forward to end the strike that had frozen most Hollywood productions since May. A tentative agreement still needed ratification by members of the Writers Guild of America [CNN article] (next LH, see Sept 26)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Foxconn

September 24, 2012: Foxconn Technology said it had closed one of its large Chinese plants after the police were called in to break up a fight among factory employees. A spokesman said some people had been hurt and detained by the police after the disturbance escalated into a riot involving more than 1,000 workers late Sunday.  The company said the incident was confined to an employee dormitory and “no production facilities or equipment have been affected.” It said the cause of the disturbance was still under investigation. One Foxconn employee reached by telephone Monday afternoon, however, said the incident began when workers started brawling with security guards. (see February 4, 2013)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

September 24, 2014: the Obama administration agreed to pay the Navajo Nation a record $554 million to settle longstanding claims by America’s largest Indian tribe that its funds and natural resources were mishandled for decades by the U.S. government.

The accord, resolved claims that dated back as far as 50 years and marked the biggest U.S. legal settlement with a single tribe.

The deal stemmed from litigation accusing the government of mismanaging Navajo trust accounts and resources on more than 14 million acres of land held in trust for the tribe and leased for such purposes as farming, energy development, logging and mining. (NYT article) (see Oct 13)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

Pope Speaks to US Congress

September 24, 2015: in his address to Congress, Pope Francis made an impassioned plea for the U.S. to abolish the death penalty. “I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes,” he said. (see Oct 6)

Marcellus Williams Executed

September 24, 2024: the state of Missouri on Tuesday executed Marcellus Williams shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to delay the execution.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, who had sought to have the conviction overturned, said, “This outcome did not serve the interests of justice.”

Faced with the DNA evidence and other new information in Williams’ case, Bell sought to toss out the conviction on numerous grounds, including the results of the DNA testing and constitutional violations during the jury selection process. [CBS News article]  (next DP, see )

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

September 24, 2015: Kim Davis met with the Pope Francis in a private meeting at the Vatican Embassy in Washington. The meeting lasted for about ten minutes. Pope Francis thanked Davis for her courage and advised her to stay strong. The Pontiff hugged Davis and her husband Joe and gave them rosaries. “I put my hand out and he reached and he grabbed it, and I hugged him and he hugged me,” Davis told ABC News in an interview. [NYT article] (see Oct 2)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

September 24, 2017: President Trump issued a new order indefinitely banning almost all travel to the United States from seven countries, including most of the nations covered by his original travel ban, citing threats to national security posed by letting their citizens into the country.

The new order was more far-reaching than the president’s original travel ban, imposing permanent restrictions on travel, rather than the 90-day suspension that Mr. Trump authorized soon after taking office. But officials said his new action was the result of a deliberative, rigorous examination of security risks that was designed to avoid the chaotic rollout of his first ban. And the addition of non-Muslim countries could address the legal attacks on earlier travel restrictions as discrimination based on religion.

Starting in October, most citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea will be banned from entering the United States. Citizens of Iraq and some groups of people in Venezuela who seek to visit the United States will face restrictions or heightened scrutiny. [NYT article] (see Oct 17)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

 FREE SPEECH

Colin Kaepernick

September 24, 2017: President Trump called for football fans to boycott N.F.L. games unless the league fired or suspended players who refused to stand for the national anthem, saying that players must “stop disrespecting our flag and country.”

“If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our country, you will see change take place fast,” Mr. Trump wrote. [NYT article] (FS, see Oct 9; CK, see Oct 13)

Crime and Punishment

September 24, 2019:  PEN America released a new report on book restrictions within the U.S. prison system, according to the group, “the largest book ban policy in the United States.”

Rules governing what prisoners can and cannot read varied from state to state, even from prison to prison. “Prison systems function as a hierarchy, meaning officials at multiple levels can act as censors and block incarcerated people’s access to books,” the report stateed. Book bans often did not follow a formal process, and could be based on the discretion of individual officers. This made it difficult to track just how many authors and titles had been banned in U.S. prisons. [NYT article] (next FS, see July 23, 2020; next C & P, see Nov 14)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment Inquiry

September 24, 2019: after months of reticence by Democrats who had feared the political consequences of impeaching a president , Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would initiate a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump, charging him with betraying his oath of office and the nation’s security by seeking to enlist a foreign power to tarnish a rival for his own political gain.

Pelosi’s declaration set the stage for a history-making and exceedingly bitter confrontation between the Democrat-led House and a defiant president who has thumbed his nose at institutional norms. (see TII for expanded chronology)

September 24 Peace Love Art Activism

Space

September 24, 2023: the Bennu asteroid sample collected by NASA touched down on Earth, giving scientists the opportunity to learn more about the origins of the solar system and capturing a piece of a massive space rock that has a chance of colliding with our planet in the future. It was the first time the agency had accomplished such a feat. [NPR article]  (next Space & Bennu, see Oct 12)