August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

White League

August 25, 1874: the White League was a group of white southerners who wanted to rid the south of Black emancipation and the influence of northern Republicans who had come south (aka, Carpetbaggers). Marshall H. Twitchell, formerly a white officer in the U.S. Colored Troops, had helped form the Red River Parish.

In the summer of 1874 a chapter of the White League formed in the Red River Parish of Louisiana under the leadership of Thomas Abney.

Around midnight on August 25, the White League under Abney’s leadership murdered Thomas Floyd, a black Republican in the Brownsville community, south of Coushatta. Floyd’s murder set in motion the violent events that followed. [Facing History dot org article]  (BH, see Aug 26; White League, see Aug 27)

Marcus Garvey

August 25, 1919: Garvey held a mass meeting at Carnegie Hall in New York to promote the sale of Black Star Line stock. (BH, see Sept 28; see MG for expanded story)

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

August 25, 1925: the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) organized. It was the first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). [Black Past article] (BH, see Sept 9; Labor, see February 16, 1926)

Pastor Robert Graetz

August 25, 1956: several sticks of dynamite were thrown into the yard of Pastor Robert Graetz’s Montgomery, Alabama, home where they exploded, breaking the home’s front windows and damaging the front door. A young white minister serving the city’s primarily African American Trinity Lutheran Church, Pastor Graetz was a member of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the community group that had planned and guided the city’s bus boycott to protest racially discriminatory treatment toward black bus riders. Pastor Graetz had been an outspoken supporter of the ongoing bus boycott since it began on December 5, 1955, and was known to regularly provide transportation to boycott participants traveling to and from work.

At the time of the explosion, Pastor Graetz was attending an integration workshop in Tennessee. His wife and children were not at home and no one was injured in the blast. In January 1956, the Montgomery homes of local minister Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and E.D. Nixon, former president of the local NAACP, were bombed. Both men were active boycott leaders.

In response to the bombing of Paster Graetz’s home, Montgomery Mayor W. A. Gayle called it an inside job and claimed the attack was “just a publicity stunt to build up interest of the Negroes in their campaign . . . This latest bombing follows the usual pattern. It’s a strange coincidence that when interest appears to be flagging in the bus boycott something like this happens.” No one was arrested, charged, or convicted for the attack. [2015 Montgomery Advertiser article] (see Aug 30)

Fannie Lou Hamer

August 25, 1964: the Democratic National Convention’s credentials committee seated the all-white regular Democrats from Mississippi. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party rejected the offer of two at-large seats with civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer explaining, “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats, ’cause all of us is tired.” All but three of the regular Mississippi Democrats walked out of the convention. (see Aug 28 – 30)

Black Panther Party

August 25, 1967: FBI Director J Edgar Hoover authorized a COINTELPRO operation against the Black Panther Party, directing FBI agents to “expose, disrupt, misdirect [and] discredit” the militant African-American group. (see Aug 30)

Lena Baker

August 25, 2005: the State of Georgia granted Lena Baker a posthumous pardon for killing a white man she said enslaved her (see March 5, 1945). Lena Baker said she acted in self-defense, but a jury of white men convicted her after a one-day trial. Baker was the only woman to have been executed in the state’s electric chair. On Aug. 30, Georgia authorities presented a proclamation to her descendants, including her grandnephew Roosevelt Curry, who led the drive to clear her name. [NPR story] (see Sept 9)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

August 25, 1914: Margaret Sanger had coined the term “birth control” and used the phrase in the June 1914 issue of The Woman Rebel. On this date she was indicted for publishing three issues of her magazine.

The Comstock Act (March 3, 1873) had made it a crime to send information about birth control or abortion through the U.S. mails.

The indictment was one of a long series of events in the first half of the twentieth century involving the suppression of information about birth control. In October 1914, having obtained a postponement of her trial, Sanger fled the country, taking the train to Canada and then sailing to England. In the fall of 1915, after her husband William Sanger was convicted of violating the Comstock Act, she felt compelled to return to the US and arrived in New York that October. The charges from the 1914 indictment were dropped in early 1916. (BC, see March 1915; Sanger, see September 10, 1915)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

NPS

August 25, 1916: the National Park Service was established within the Department of the Interior. [NPS site] (see January 15, 1919)

California Emissions Vote

August 25, 2022: California air regulators voted on a plan to address climate change and harmful pollution by moving the nation’s largest auto market away from the internal combustion engine.

The regulation would phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered cars, trucks and SUVs culminating in a total ban of new sales of the vehicles by 2035. The ban will not prevent people from using gas-powered vehicles or apply to the used car market, but California officials say it would dramatically cut the state’s climate-warming emissions by speeding the transition to electric vehicles.

“California now has a groundbreaking, world-leading plan to achieve 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035,” said the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom. “It’s ambitious, it’s innovative, it’s the action we must take if we’re serious about leaving the planet better off for future generations.” [NPR article] (next EI, see Oct 26)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Battle of Blair Mountain

August 25 – September 2, 1921: Battle of Blair Mountain was one of the largest civil uprisings in United States history and the largest armed rebellion since the American Civil War. For five days in Logan County, West Virginia, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers, called the Logan Defenders, who were backed by coal mine operators during an attempt by the miners to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields. The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired and the United States Army intervened by presidential order.

Up to 30 deaths were reported by owners’ side and 50–100 on the union miners’ side, with hundreds more injured. 985 miners were indicted for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, and treason against the State of West Virginia. Though some were acquitted by sympathetic juries, many were also imprisoned for a number of years, though they were paroled in 1925. [Progressive dot org article] (see Sept 21)

Sacco and Vanzetti

August 25, 1927: the Commonwealth of Massachusetts executed Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti  for their alleged participation in a murderous payroll heist in 1920. The two men were anarchists and labor activists. (see Oct 6)

Federal worker protections

August 25, 2018: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in Washington struck down most of the key provisions of three executive orders that President Trump signed in late May that would have made it easier to fire federal employees.

The ruling was a blow to Republican efforts to rein in public-sector labor unions, which states like Wisconsin had aggressively curtailed in recent years. Om June 27, the Supreme Court had dealt public-sector unions a major blow by ending mandatory union fees for government workers nationwide.

Amid these setbacks, the fight against Mr. Trump’s executive orders had taken on an existential importance in the minds of some public-sector union leaders.

“We are very pleased that the court agreed that the president far exceeded his authority, and that the apolitical career federal work force shall be protected from these illegal, politically motivated executive orders,” Sarah Suszczyk, the co-chair of a coalition of government-workers unions, said in a statement. (see Aug 30)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Cultural Milestone

August 25, 1939: “The Wizard of Oz”, which will become one of the best-loved movies in history, opened in theaters around the United States. Based on the 1900 children’s novel ”The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, by L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), the film starred Judy Garland as the young Kansas farm girl Dorothy, who, after being knocked unconscious in a tornado, dreams about following a yellow brick road, alongside her dog Toto, to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard of Oz.

Along the way, Dorothy encounters a cast of characters, including the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and the Wicked Witch of the West. Though the scenes in Kansas were shot in traditional black and white, Oz appears in vivid Technicolor, a relatively new film process at the time.

Nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category, The Wizard of Oz lost to the Civil War-era epic “Gone With the Wind.””The Wizard of Oz” won a Best Song Oscar for “Over the Rainbow,” which became one of Garland’s signature hits. Garland won a special award at that year’s Oscar ceremony, for Best Juvenile Performer. Filmed at MGM Studios in Culver City, California, “The Wizard of Oz” was a modest box-office success when it was first released, but its popularity continued to grow after it was televised for the first time in 1956.

An estimated 45 million people watched that inaugural broadcast, and since then ”The Wizard of Oz” has aired on TV countless times. Today, some of the film’s famous lines, including “There’s no place like home” and “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” are well-known to several generations of moviegoers. (see June 19, 1941)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

The Red Scare

August 25, 1948: Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers both testified in a televised hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee. It is the first time any Congressional hearing was broadcast over television. (Hiss: see January 21, 1950; Red Scare, see November 1, 1948)

Loyalty Oath

August 25, 1950: the University of California Regents voted to fire 31 faculty members who refused to sign a Loyalty Oath. The Regents had adopted a final version of the oath on April 21, 1950 (after much protest and debate that began in 1949). The University of California Loyalty Oath was one of the major controversies of the Cold War era. (Red Scare, see Sept 22; U of C, see October 17, 1952)

Nuclear/Chemical News

August 25, 1962: Soviet Union above ground nuclear test. 1.5 – 10 megaton. (see Aug 27)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Clarence Earl Gideon

August 25, 1961: five days before his 51st birthday, Judge McCrary sentenced Gideon to the maximum sentence: five years in prison. (see Gideon for expanded story)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

August 25 Music et al

The Loco-Motion

August 25 – 31, 1962: “The Loco-Motion” by Little Eva #1 Billboard Hot 100. The Carole King and Gerry Goffin song was offered to Dee Dee Sharp (Mashed Potatoes), who turned it down. The writers had their babysitter record it who took it to No.1.

The Beatles/“Help”

August 25, 1965: “Help” movie released in US

The Beatles/Marharishi

August 25, 1967: left for Bangor, North Wales for mediation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (see MMY for expanded story)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Announcements & Nominations

Robert F Kennedy

August 25, 1964, Robert F Kennedy announced his candidacy for the US Senate representing the State of New York.

Barak Obama

August 25 – 28, 2008, Democratic National Convention held in Denver, CO. Barak Obama and Joe Biden nominated for President and Vice-President.

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

August 25 – 29, 1968: Democratic Convention in Chicago demonstrations & police riot 10,000 +/- demonstrators vs. 11,000 Chicago police, 6,000 National Guard, 7,500 U.S. army troops, and 1,000 FBI, CIA & other services agents. (see September 4)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Dissolution of the USSR & INDEPENDENCE DAY

August 25, 1991: Belarus declared independence from Soviet Union.  [RFE article] (see Aug 27)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Consumer Protection

August 25, 1997: the tobacco industry agreed to an $11.3 billion settlement with the state of Florida. [Washington Post article] (see September 1, 1998)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Hurricane Katrina

August 25, 2005: At 6:30 PM EDT Hurricane Katrina made its first landfall in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane near Hallandale Beach, Florida on the Miami-Dade/Broward county line. After landfall, instead of travelling as originally forecast, Katrina moved hard left (south/southwest) almost parallel to the coastline in densely-populated metropolitan Miami, Florida. As many as six people were killed, including three people killed by falling trees and two boaters that attempted to ride out the storm in their crafts. (see Aug 26)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

August 25, 2017: President Trump directed the military not to move forward with an Obama-era plan that would have allowed transgender individuals to be recruited into the armed forces, following through on his intentions announced a month earlier to ban transgender people from serving.

The presidential memorandum also banned the Department of Defense from using its resources to provide medical treatment regimens for transgender individuals currently serving in the military.

Trump also directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security “to determine how to address transgender individuals currently serving based on military effectiveness and lethality, unitary cohesion, budgetary constraints, applicable law, and all factors that may be relevant,” the White House official said.  [CNN article] (LGBTQ, see Aug 29; Transgender, see Oct 30)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

August 25, 2017: President Trump pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio after being found guilty in July on criminal contempt charges stemming from his refusal to stop imprisoning suspected illegal immigrants.

“Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now eighty-five years old, and after more than fifty years of admirable service to our Nation, he is [a] worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon,” the White House said in part in a press release. [Washington Post article] (see Aug 30)

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

August 25, 2021: the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment declaring that the United States had a duty to provide “competent physician-led healthcare” to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and its members. In light of the promises the United States made to the Tribe more than 150 years ago in the Fort Laramie Treaty, and relevant legislation since that time, such as the Snyder Act and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the district court correctly articulated the existence and scope of the duty and declaratory judgment was proper. [Justia article] (next NA, see January 25, 2022) )

August 25 Peace Love Art Activism

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Race Riots

August 23, 1917: Houston Riot of 1917, or Camp Logan Riot, was a mutiny by 156 African American soldiers of the Third Battalion of the all-black Twenty-fourth United States Infantry Regiment.

Two Houston police officers stormed into the home of an African American woman, allegedly looking for someone in the neighborhood, after firing a warning shot outside. They physically assaulted her, then dragged her partially clad into the street, all in view of her five small children. The woman began screaming, demanding to know why she was being arrested, and a crowd began to gather. A soldier from the 24th stepped forward to ask what was going on. The police officers promptly beat him to the ground and arrested him as well.

Their official reports and later news reports stated the soldier was charged with interfering with the arrest of a publicly drunk female. Later that afternoon, Corporal Charles Baltimore went to the Houston police station to investigate the arrest, as well as beating of another black soldier, and also to attempt to gain the release of the soldier. An argument began which led to violence, and Corporal Baltimore was beaten, shot at, and himself arrested by the police.

That evening 156 angry soldiers, stole weapons from the camp depot and marched on the city of Houston. They were met outside the city by the police and a crowd of armed citizens, frightened by the reports of a mutiny. A virtual race riot began, which left 20 people dead – four soldiers, four policemen, and 12 civilians. Order was restored the next day, and the War Department disarmed the soldiers. The Third Battalion was sent by rail back to New Mexico.  [2017 Houston Chronicle article] (next BH & HR, see Dec 11)

School desegregation 

August 23, 1954: the small community of Charleston, Ark., admitted 11 African-American students into its schools, becoming the first in the former Confederacy to end segregation in its schools.

Dale Bumpers served as legal counsel and went on to become governor and U.S. senator. He wrote a memoir titled, “Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town.” [NYT obit for Bumpers] (BH, see Sept 22; SD, see May 31, 1955)

Yusef Hawkins

August 23, 1989: 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins and three friends went to the predominately white Bensonhurt section of Brooklyn, New York, to inquire about a used Pontiac for sale. On their way through the neighborhood, the black boys encountered a group of 30 white youths gathered in the street. Armed with baseball bats and at least one handgun, the mob set upon the three boys. While his companions managed to escape the attack without serious injury, Yusef was shot twice in the chest and later pronounced dead at nearby Maimonides Medical Center.

Later investigation revealed that a neighborhood girl, Gina Feliciano, had recently spurned the advances of a young white man in the neighborhood and was rumored to be dating an African American. Angry, the rejected white boy gathered friends to lay in wait for the black boyfriend they believed would be visiting Ms. Feliciano. Yusef Hawkins walked into this scene of racial tension. [2009 NYT article]  (BH, see Oct 1; Hawkins, see May 18, 1990)

STAND YOUR GROUND LAW

August 23, 2019: a Florida jury found Michael Drejka guilty of manslaughter for killing Markeis McGlockton, after an argument over a parking spot escalated outside a convenience store in Clearwater, Fla on July 19, 2018..

Citing Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, the county sheriff did not arrest Drejka, who is white, until three weeks after he had fatally shot McGlockton, who was black and unarmed.

Prosecutors in Pinellas County, Fla., eventually charged Mr. Drejkawith one count of manslaughter. He did not testify in the trial, and the six-person jury deliberated for about six hours before reaching a verdict.

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

August 23 Music et al

Keith Moon

August 23, 1946: Keith Moon born.

John & Cynthia marry

August 23, 1962: John Lennon married Cynthia Powell at the Mount Pleasant register office in Liverpool. Brian Epstein was the best man, and George Harrison and Paul McCartney were also in attendance. Absent was John’s aunt Mimi, who disapproved of the union, although Cynthia’s half brother and his wife were there.

As soon as the ceremony began, a pneumatic drill outside the building opposite drowned out all that was said; when the registrar asked for the groom to step forward, Harrison did, which only added to the farce.

At Epstein’s expense, they celebrated afterwards at Reece’s restaurant in Clayton Square, eating a set menu of soup, chicken and trifle. Reece’s was where John’s parents Alf and Julia had celebrated their own wedding in 1938.

John and Cynthia met in 1957 while both were students at Liverpool Art College, and began a relationship the following year.

In mid-1962 she discovered she was pregnant – the pair had never used contraception. John’s reaction when she told him was: “There’s only one thing for it Cyn – we’ll have to get married”.

Brian Epstein thought fans of The Beatles might feel alienated to know one of them was married, and so the Lennons kept the wedding a secret.

Epstein allowed John and Cynthia to live at his flat at 36 Falkner Street free of charge, where they stayed until the birth of Julian in April 1963. Thereafter they effectively moved into Mendips with John’s aunt Mimi, although by that time John was spending much of his time in London with the band.

On their wedding night John played a show with The Beatles at the Riverpark Ballroom in Chester. (see Sept 11)

Second Shea concert

August 23, 1966: on John and Cynthia’s 4th anniversary and a little over a year after their first triumphant appearance at New York’s Shea Stadium, The Beatles returned for a second time.

The concert did not sell out, with 11,000 of the 55,600 tickets still available. Nonetheless, The Beatles made more money from their appearance than they had in 1965, receiving $189,000 – 65 per cent of the gross takings of $292,000.

The lack of a sellout was unsettling and it was against this background that they said, ‘Right, we definitely won’t do any more. We are going to have a break and then we are going into the studio to make a record.’ (George Martin from Anthology)

The support acts were The Remains, Bobby Hebb, The Cyrkle and The Ronettes. The Beatles performed 11 songs: Rock And Roll Music, She’s A Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby’s In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer and Long Tall Sally.

During the performance of Day Tripper hundreds of fans broke through barriers and attempted to reach the stage. They were held back by security guards and none managed to get close to The Beatles. (see Aug 28)

Are You Experienced?

August 23, 1967: US release of Hendrix’s debut LP, “Are You Experienced?” (see Sept 16)

Cynthia sues for divorce

August 23, 1968: on their 6th wedding anniversary, Cynthia Lennon sued John Lennon for divorce. [Beatles Bible piece] (Beatles, see Aug 28; Lennon, see Nov 8)

Honky Tonk Women

August 23 – September 19, 1969: “Honky Tonk Women” by the Rolling Stones #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Johnny Cash

August 23 – September 19, 1969: Johnny Cash’s At San Quentin the Billboard #1 album.

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

César E. Chávez, Dolores Huerta, & the UFW

August 23, 1966: Farm Workers Organizing Committee (to later become United Farm Workers of America) granted a charter by the AFL-CIO. (see March 10, 1968)

Student Unions

August 23, 2016: the National Labor Relations Board ruled that students who work as teaching and research assistants at private universities have a federally backed right to unionize.

The case arose from a petition filed by a group of graduate students at Columbia University, who were seeking to win recognition for a union that allowed them a say over such issues as the quality of their health insurance and the timeliness of stipend payments. [NYT article] (see March 1, 2017)

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

Dissolution of the USSR

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

August 23, 1989: two million indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then still occupied by the Soviet Union, joined hands to demand freedom and independence, forming an uninterrupted 600 km human chain called the Baltic Way.

Hungary

August 23, 1989: Hungary removes border restrictions with Austria.  (see USSR for expanded chronology)

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

August 23, 2003:  while in protective custody at the maximum-security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts, Joseph Druce strangled and stomped John Geoghan to death. Druce was Geoghan’s cell mate. Druce was a self-described white supremacist serving a sentence of life without possibility of parole for killing a man who allegedly made sexual advances toward him. He was said to have planned the murder of Geoghan for more than a month, considering him a “prize.”

The press raised questions about prison officials’ judgment in placing both men in the same unit for protective custody. In addition, officials had been warned by an inmate that Druce had something planned against Geoghan. (see Sept 4)

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

Occupy Wall Street

August 23, 2011: Chris (last name incognito) put the idea in motion: “Get a bunch of people to submit their pictures with a hand-written sign explaining how these harsh financial times have been affecting them, have them identify themselves as the ’99 percent’, and then write ‘occupywallst.org’ at the end.” (see Sept 17)

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

Kandahar massacre

August 23, 2013: a six-person jury sentenced Robert Bales to life in prison without parole. He was also demoted to the lowest enlisted rank, dishonorably discharged and forfeited all pay and allowances. Bales is incarcerated at United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. [NYT article]

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

August 23, 2018: more than 500 migrant children remained separated from their parents and under the federal government’s care, according to court documents.

The numbers only improved slightly from what the federal government had reported a week earlier.

It had been nearly a month since the court-imposed deadline for the Trump administration to reunify all migrant families that were separated as part of its “zero tolerance” policy earlier this spring. The administration was expected to reunify more than 2,600 migrant children, age 0-17, with their parents by July 26. (IH, see Aug 30; children, see Oct 2)

August 23 Peace Love Art Activism

Space

August 23, 2023: India’s Chandrayaan-3 — a lander named Vikram and a rover named Pragyan — landed in the southern polar region of the moon. The two robots, made India the first country to ever reach that part of the lunar surface in one piece — and only the fourth country ever to land on the moon. [NYT article] (next Space, see )

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