Category Archives: Peace Love Art and Activism

James Byrd, Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

September 21, 2015 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Snowtown Riots

September 21 – 24, 1831: the Snowtown riots [Providence, RI] were sparked by a saloon brawl. A white sailor was shot by a black; a mob then sacked houses on Olney’s Lane. The next day, it pulled down more houses. On the third day, the militia maintained calm. On the fourth, a thousand rioters crossed the Moshassuck River to attack Snowtown, almost overwhelming the 140 members of the First Light Infantry. After rioters ignored warnings from the sheriff and Gov. Lemuel Arnold, the militia fired first into the air, with no effect, and then into the mob, killing four whites. [Providence Journal article] (next BH, see Oct 30)

Emmett Till

September 21, 1955: Moses Wright, Emmett Till’s great uncle, does the unthinkable–he accused two white men in open court. While on the witness stand, he stands up and points his finger at Milam and Bryant, and accuses them of coming to his house and kidnapping Emmett. (see Till for expanded story)

James Byrd

September 21, 2011: Lawrence Brewer, murderer of James Byrd, Jr, executed. Shawn Berry was sentenced to life in prison. John King remained on death row. (News media report)

Troy Davis

September 21, 2011: the State of Georgia executed Troy Davis despite evidence of his innocence. Davis, a black man, was sentenced to death in the 1989 fatal shooting of white off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. Supporters of Davis, including the NAACP, Amnesty International, former President Jimmy Carter, and Pope Benedict XVI, had been encouraged by a 2009 United States Supreme Court ruling permitting him to present evidence of his innocence in court, but when the federal trial judge denied relief, the Court refused to review the case and an execution date was set. Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles, not the governor, has exclusive authority to grant clemency. Two days before Davis’s scheduled execution, the board held a full clemency hearing, where it heard from Davis’s attorneys and supporters, prosecutors, and the victim’s family. By that time, seven of the prosecution’s nine key witnesses against Davis had either recanted or backed off their trial testimony and others had come forward to give sworn statements that the State’s main witness had himself confessed to the shooting. The evidence undercutting Davis’s guilt was so compelling that three jurors who sentenced him to death at his 1991 trial urged the board to stop the execution. In addition, more than 600,000 people worldwide signed petitions urging the board to commute Davis’s sentence, citing concerns that executing a man amid so much uncertainty about his guilt would deeply undermine the public’s confidence in the justice system. The board denied clemency on September 20, 2011. In his final words, Davis professed his innocence, expressed condolences to Officer MacPhail’s family, and expressed appreciation to his family and supporters. He was executed by lethal injection on September 21, 2011, and pronounced dead at 11:08 p.m. (CNN report) (BH, see Oct 16; DP, see April 25, 2012)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

September 21, 1921: a collector from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (now the Internal Revenue Service) assessed $6,312.79 in excise taxes against Drexel, a furniture manufacturing company in North Carolina, for employing a child under fourteen during the 1919 tax year. Drexel paid the tax under protest and sued for a refund. [court case] (Nov 3)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Daughters of Bilitis

September 21, 1955: In San Francisco, the Daughters of Bilitis became the first lesbian rights organization in the US. The organization hosted social functions, providing alternatives to lesbian bars and clubs, which were frequently raided by police.

The name Bilitis is the name given to a lesbian contemporary of Sappho by the French poet Pierre Louÿs in his collection, The Songs of Bilitis (1894). [Rainbow History article] (LGBTQ, see August 30, 1956; Bilitis, see September 7, 1957)

Defense of Marriage Act

September 21, 1996: President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law. The law defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman and that no state is required to recognize a same-sex marriage from out of state. It established a Federal definition of: (1) ‘marriage’ as only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife; and (2) ‘spouse’ as only a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.” [Gov Track article on DOMA] (see February 21, 1997 or see December 13, 2022 for DoMA)

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

September 21, 2010: The US Senate struck down a bill that would end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell with a vote of 56–43, almost completely along party lines. (see Oct 13)

Kentucky

September 21, 2015: gay couples in Kentucky said altered marriage licenses issued by Kim Davis were invalid and a federal judge should order her office to reissue them or put the office in receivership and have someone else do it. When Davis returned to work, she altered the license forms to say they were issued under the authority of the federal court instead of her office.

On this date, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union asked the judge to force the clerk’s office to reissue the licenses. (see Sept 24)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

September 21, 1963: President John Kennedy sent Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Maxwell Taylor to investigate the situation in South Vietnam. He asked for “the best possible on the spot appraisal of the military and paramilitary effort to defeat the Viet Cong”. (see Oct 11)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

September 21 Music et al

“Blue Velvet”

September 21 – October 11, 1963, “Blue Velvet” by Bobby Vinton #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Written in 1950, it had been recorded already by Tony Bennett (1951) and The Clovers (1955).

“Harper Valley, PTA”

September 21 – 27, 1968: “Harper Valley, PTA” by Jeannie C Riley #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAYS

Malta

September 21, 1964: Malta independent from United Kingdom. [InterContinental Malta site] (see ID for expanded list of 1960s Independence days)

Belize

September 21, 1981: Belize independent of the United Kingdom. [Belize dot com article] (see Nov 1)

Armenia

September 21, 1991: Armenia declared independence from the Soviet Union. [LA Times article] (Dissolution, see Oct 27; ID, see Oct 8)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

United Farm Workers

September 21, 1983: Rene Lopez, a 21 year old, farm worker, was fatally wounded after voting in an election at the Sikkema Dairy Ranch. The UFW charged that Lopez was shot by the brother-in-law of owner, Ralph Sikkema and an accomplice, Donato Estrada. David Stirling, the General Counsel to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, dismissed charges on the basis of lack of evidence. [WFW article] (see October 8, 2012)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

September 21, 1998: the Judiciary Committee released and many television networks immediately broadcast more than four hours of President Clinton’s videotaped grand jury testimony. Along with the videotape, the Judiciary Committee also releases the appendix to the Starr’s report which includes 3,183 pages of testimony and other evidence, including a photograph of Lewinsky’s semen-stained dress. (see Clinton for expanded story)

Native Americans

September 21, 2004: the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) opened with a Native Nations Procession in which over 20,000 indigenous people from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America united and walked along the National Mall to the museum’s entrance. The opening ceremonies lasted from September 21 to 26 with over 300 performances by indigenous representatives. [NMAI article] (next NA, see February 11, 2008)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

Hurricane Katrina

September 21, 2005: the official death toll was raised to 1,036, with 63 additional deaths recognized in Louisiana. This marked the first time since 1928 that a natural disaster in the U.S. had been officially acknowledged to have killed at least 1,000 people. State-by-state death tolls: Louisiana 799, Mississippi 218, Florida 14, Alabama 2, Georgia 2, Tennessee 1. (see Katrina for expanded story)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

Emissions cheating

September 21, 2015: Volkswagen said that 11 million diesel cars worldwide were equipped with the same software that was used to cheat on emissions tests in the United States. The company issued a de facto profit warning because of the costs of repairing vehicles to comply with pollution standards. [NYT article] (see Oct 1)

Arctic Ocean Melt

September 21, 2023: according to a new scientific study, the first summer on record that melts practically all of the Arctic’s floating sea ice could occur as early as the 2030s, — about a decade sooner than researchers previously predicted.

The peer-reviewed findings also showed that this milestone of climate change could materialize even if nations managed to curb greenhouse gas emissions more decisively than they were currently doing. [NYT article] (next EI, see )

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH & Colin Kaepernick

September 21, 2016

Iman Shumpert

Cleveland Cavaliers player Iman Shumpert announced he would raise money for families impacted by police fatalities

On his Twitter and Instagram accounts, Shumpert announced that, for every steal he makes during the 2016-17 NBA season, he will donate money to organizations that aim to “improve the struggle between the badge and the citizen.” While showing support for Kaepernick, he also noted that he would not be kneeling during the national anthem, despite originally hinting at it in a song he released on Sept. 16 titled “His Story,” saying “I no longer believe taking a knee is the answer.”

WNBA

In the Women’s National Basketball Association, the entire Indiana Fever team and two Phoenix Mercury players knelt during the national anthem

Before the first game of the WNBA playoffs, every player on the Indiana Fever locked arms and kneeled during the national anthem, while the Mercury’s Kelsey Bone and Mistie Bass joined them on the other side. Afterward, Fever coach Stephanie White told her team that she was “proud of y’all for doing that together.” (FS & CK, see Sept 22)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

September 21, 2020: an NPR article reported that their reporters had obtained 305 autopsy reports of inmates executed in nine states between 1990 and 2019. Nearly all autopsies were gathered through public records requests; several were taken from public evidence submitted in federal court cases. The states included Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia.

NPR then consulted with pathologists, pulmonologists and anesthesiologists to interpret the autopsies. Lung analysis was based on the internal examination notes written by medical examiners, and, when available, microscopy provided in the reports. Prevalence of pulmonary edema was determined, in consultation with doctors, by the presence of terms such as “pulmonary edema,” “edema/edematous,” “froth,” “foam” and “congestion.”

In the large majority of cases, there was such a presence indicating that the executed likely experienced the feeling of suffocation or drowning. (next DP, see January 13, 2021)

September 21 Peace Love Art Activism

Martin Luther King, Jr, Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

September 20, 2015 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Equal Rights Party

September 20, 1884: a group of American suffragists formed the Equal Rights Party in San Francisco, dedicated to “equal and exact justice to every class of our citizens, without distinction of color, sex, or nationality” and in support of the proposition that “the laws of the several states be so amended that women will be recognized as voters, and their property-rights made equal with that of the male population, to the end that they may become self-supporting – rather than a dependent class.”

The party nominated and ran Belva Ann Lockwood for President that year. (see March 1886)

“Battle of the Sexes”

September 20, 1973: in a highly publicized “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, top women’s player Billie Jean King, 29, beat Bobby Riggs, 55, a former No. 1 ranked men’s player. Riggs (1918-1995), a self-proclaimed male chauvinist, had boasted that women were inferior, that they couldn’t handle the pressure of the game and that even at his age he could beat any female player. The match was a huge media event, witnessed in person by over 30,000 spectators at the Houston Astrodome and by another 50 million TV viewers worldwide. King made a Cleopatra-style entrance on a gold litter carried by men dressed as ancient slaves, while Riggs arrived in a rickshaw pulled by female models. Legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell called the match, in which King beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. King’s achievement not only helped legitimize women’s professional tennis and female athletes, but it was seen as a victory for women’s rights in general. [NYT pdf: King defeats Riggs] (see Nov 12)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

US Labor History

September 20, 1891: African American sharecroppers affiliated with the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Union go on strike for higher wages and an end to peonage in Lee County, Arkansas. By the time a white mob – led by the local sheriff – put down the strike, more than a dozen people had been killed. [TSHA article] (BH, see March 9, 1892; Labor, see Oct 31)

Emmett Till

September 20, 1955: Judge Curtis Swango recesses the court to allow more witnesses to be found. It is the first time in Mississippi history that local law enforcement, local NAACP leaders and black and white reporters team up to locate sharecroppers who saw Milam’s truck and overheard Emmett being beaten. (see Emmett Till)

see Martin Luther King, Jr assassination attempt for more

September 20, 1958: Dr Aubre de L Maynard, chief of surgery at Harlem Hospital, removed a letter opener from the chest of Martin Luther King, Jr. Izola Ware Curry had stabbed King with a steel letter opener while he signed copies of his book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. Curry also carried a fully loaded .25-calibre automatic.

In 1968, the day before he was assassinated, King spoke to a group and referred to this incident:

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I’ve forgotten what those telegrams said. I’d received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I’ve forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I’ll never forget it. It said simply,

Dear Dr. King,

I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School.”

And she said,

While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I’m a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I’m simply writing you to say that I’m so happy that you didn’t sneeze.

And I want to say tonight — I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn’t sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. (BH, see Sept 27; MLK, see January 24, 1960; Curry, see March 7, 2015) (PDF NYT article: MLK stabbed)

James H Meredith

September 20, 1962: defying orders of the Federal courts, Mississippi Governor Ross R Barnett denied Meredith admission to the University of Mississippi. The Justice Department immediately obtained contempt of court citations against Dr J D Williams, university chancellor; Dr Robert B Ellis, registrar, and Dean Anthony B Lewis. (see September 25, 1962)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

September 20, 1965: eleven U.S. warplanes were shot down over North and South Vietnam. (see Sept 25)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

September 20 Music et al

Beatles break-up

September 20, 1969: John Lennon announced to the others that he was leaving the band. (see Sept 26)

Blind Faith

September 20, 1969 – October 3, 1969: Blind Faith’s Blind Faith is the Billboard #1 album. (article about cover)

“Sugar, Sugar”

September 20 – October 17, 1969: “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. This was the most successful song in the bubblegum rock genre. There was no actual Archies group but a group of studio musicians who played behind the animated Archie TV characters.

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Calvin Graham

September 20, 1976: Graham again requested an honorable discharge from the Navy. (see Calvin Graham)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

East Beirut, Lebanon

September 20, 1984: the Shi’a Islamic militant group Hezbollah, with support and direction from the Islamic Republic of Iran, carried out a suicide car bombing targeting the U.S. embassy annex in East Beirut, Lebanon. The attack killed 24 people. including 2 U.S. military. [NYT article] (see Dec 4)

Oklahoma City Explosion

September 20, 1994: Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh rented a storage shed and began gathering supplies for the truck bomb they would use in Oklahoma City.(see April 19, 1995)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

September 20, 1998: California made Native American Day an official state holiday. [Day’s site] (see March 22, 1999)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Japanese Internment Camps

September 20, 2006: The Heart Mountain Relocation Center, which had held almost 11,000 Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, was designated a National Historic Landmark on this day, to be maintained by the National Park Service. The closest town to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center is Ralston, Wyoming, with a population of less than 300 people, about 76 miles from Billings, Montana. [HM site] (see Dec 21)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

September 20, 2011: the US military officially ended its policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” allowing gay and lesbian personal to publicly declare their sexual orientation. [HRC article] (see Sept 29)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

People’s Climate March

September 20, 2014: hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from around the world turned out for the massive People’s Climate March, filling the streets of midtown Manhattan with demands for global leaders take action to avert catastrophic climate change. [Huff Post article] (see Dec 17)

States sue NHTFA

September 20, 2019: two days after Trump’s announcement, California, 22 other states and several major cities filed a lawsuit in federal court against the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is the division of the Department of Transportation that issued the rule revoking California’s authority.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the complaint stated that the move “exceeds NHTSA’s authority, contravenes Congressional intent, and is arbitrary and capricious, and because NHTSA has failed to conduct the analysis required under the National Environmental Policy Act.”

The NEPA, signed into law in 1970, was considered a kind of “national charter” for regulating the protection of the environment. (next EI, see Sept 25)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH & Colin Kaepernick

September 20, 2016: in support of Colin Kaepernick’s protest against racial injustice, several members of Oakland Unified School District’s Honor Band took a knee while playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It happened toward the end of the song.

Band director Zack Pitt-Smith said he didn’t know until rehearsal that the band was going to kneel, saying that the idea originally came from a few students and eventually spread around. John Sasaki, a spokesperson for the school district, stated that the organization was “proud” of its students for making the decision to kneel:

“They knew that this was a controversial issue across our nation, and yet they decided to go ahead with their protest knowing it would not be well-received by some Americans.”

That evening, during his appearance on Conan, Marshawn Lynch was asked about his thoughts on Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem. Lynch said he’d rather see Kaepernick “take a knee than stand up, put his hands up, and get murdered.” [East Bay Times article] (FS & CK, see Sept 21)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

Three-Mile Island

September 20, 2019: Three Mile Island’s single remaining reactor (Unit 1) generated its last kilowatt of energy and closed, a victim not of the anti-nuclear movement but rather of simple economics. Even though the plant is licensed to operate until 2034, Exelon Generation is ceasing operations after the state of Pennsylvania earlier this year refused to throw the company a financial lifeline that would have kept it open. (see Oct 5)

September 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

September 19, 2015 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Anarchism in the US

September 19, 1892: Andrew Berkman is sentenced to twenty-two years in prison for the attempt on steel magnate Henry Clay Frick’s life on July 23, 1892. [1970 NY Review article] (see June 1893)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Booker T. Washington

July 4, 1881: Booker T. Washington opened the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Ala. The only building on campus was a shanty with a roof so leaky a student held an umbrella over Washington’s head while he taught. [Black Past article] (see In August)

Emmett Till

September 19, 1955: the kidnapping (only) trial of J W Milam and Roy Bryant opened in Sumner, Mississippi, the county seat of Tallahatchie County. Jury selection begins and, with blacks and white women banned from serving, an all-white, 12-man jury made up of nine farmers, two carpenters and one insurance agent was selected.

Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till Bradley, departed from Chicago’s Midway Airport to attend the trial. (see Emmett Till)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

Operation Plumbbob

September 19, 1957: the US detonated a 1.7 kiloton nuclear weapon in an underground tunnel at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), a 1,375 square mile research center located 65 miles north of Las Vegas. The test, known as Rainier, was the first fully contained underground detonation and produced no radioactive fallout. A modified W-25 warhead weighing 218 pounds and measuring 25.7 inches in diameter and 17.4 inches in length was used for the test. Rainier was part of a series of 29 nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons safety tests known as Operation Plumbbob that were conducted at the NTS between May 28, 1957, and October 7, 1957. (related NYT article) (see Sept 29)

Cuban Missile Crisis

September 19, 1962: the United States Intelligence Board (USIB) approved a report on the Soviet arms buildup in Cuba. Its assessment, stated that some intelligence indicates the ongoing deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba. The Soviet Union above ground nuclear test. 1.5 – 10 megaton. (CW/NN, see Sept 25; see Cuban Missile Crisis for expanded story)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

No Disneyland for Khrushchev

September 19, 1959: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had arrived in the US on September 15 for a summit meeting with President Eisenhower. The Soviet leader indicated a desire to see Hollywood. September 19 began pleasantly enough, with a tour of the Twentieth Century Fox Studios. Khrushchev was taken to the sound stage for the movie “Can-Can” and was immediately surrounded by the cast of the film, including Shirley MacLaine and Juliet Prowse. The cast members performed a number from the film. Frank Sinatra was brought in to serve as an unofficial master of ceremonies later lunched with an obviously delighted Khrushchev. (see Disneyland for more)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Teenage Culture

September 19 – 25, 1960: “The Twist” by 18-year-old Chubby Checker #1 Billboard Hot 100 (see January 1962). The song was written by Hank Ballard and originally the B-side of Hank Ballard & the Midnighters’ “Teardrops on Your Letter” in 1959.

Checker was born Ernest Evans. His boss nicknamed him Chubby. He made a private recording, “The Class,” on which he imitated many singers of the time including Fats Domino. The record was given to Dick Clark whose wife, after Ernest Evans said his nickname was Chubby, asked, “As in Checker?” referring to Fats Domino. The name stuck. (see March 1963)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

September 19, 1969: President Nixon announced the cancellation of the draft calls for November and December. He reduced the draft call by 50,000 (32,000 in November and 18,000 in December). This move accompanied his twin program of turning the war over to the South Vietnamese concurrent with U.S. troop withdrawals and was calculated to quell antiwar protests by students returning to college campuses after the summer. (see Sept 23)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

September 19, 1973: a judge sentenced Aubran W Martin, one of the three gunmen convicted in the 1969 Yablonski family murders, to die in the electric chair. [Pittsburgh Post Gazette story on murders] (Yablonski, see April 8, 1974; Labor, see Nov 12)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

September 19, 1983: Saint Kitts and Nevis independent of the United Kingdom. [NYT article] (see January 1, 1984)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

September 19, 2002: the Boston Archdiocese reached a $10m settlement with victims of John Geoghan, retracting a previous settlement of $30m which the Church said would have bankrupted the archdiocese. (NYT article) (see Oct 7)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Hurricane Katrina

September 19, 2005: Louisiana’s official death toll stood at 973. (see Katrina for expanded story)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Don’t ask, don’t tell

September 19, 2011: the US military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy officially ended. [Washington Post article] (see September 20, 2011)

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell/Year 1

September 19, 2012: the one-year anniversary of the end of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy passed with little notice because the policy had been so quickly implemented with so little disruption. Gay, lesbian and bisexual service members were thought to make up at least 2 percent of the military’s 2.2 million forces on active duty, in the reserves, and the National Guard. (see October 18, 2012)

September 19 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH & Colin Kaepernick

September 19, 2016: four Philadelphia Eagles raised their fists during the anthem

Prior to the game, Malcolm Jenkins said the Eagles would protest during the anthem. Jenkins was joined by Steven Means, Ron Brooks and Marcus Smith in raising a fist while standing during the anthem. [Washington Post article] FS & CK, see Sept 20)