February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

February 9, 1917: Wobbly activist Tom Mooney convicted in bombing frame-up orchestrated by Pinkerton Detective Agency.  (Law.jrank article) (LH, see Mar 19; Mooney, see January 7, 1939)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism & Voting Rights

February 9 – 13, 1919: suffragists continued their protests in front of the White House. On February 9, they burned an effigy of President Woodrow Wilson and also threw copies of his speeches into the fire.

The first “watch fire” in front of the White House had occurred on January 1, 1919. Sailors and soldiers attacked the protest and overturned the urn which held the fire. Similar protest fires, with the burning of Wilson’s speeches, occurred over the next two weeks.  

The suffragist protests at the White House  had escalated in 1917, under the leadership of Alice Paul (see the events of January 10, 1917; October 20, 1917). President Woodrow Wilson finally reversed his position and announced his support of a constitutional amendment on January 9, 1918, but mostly for political reasons. On August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment granting women equal voting rights in federal elections was ratified, and women voted for president for the first time on November 2, 1920. (see Feb 10)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Cultural Milestone

February 9, 1942: Congress pushed ahead standard time for the United States by one hour in each time zone, imposing daylight saving time–called at the time “war time.” Daylight saving time, suggested by President Roosevelt, was imposed to conserve fuel, and could be traced back to World War I, when Congress imposed one standard time on the United States to enable the country to better utilize resources, following the European model. The 1918 Standard Time Act was meant to be in effect for only seven months of the year–and was discontinued nationally after the war. But individual states continued to turn clocks ahead one hour in spring and back one hour in fall. The World War II legislation imposed daylight saving time for the entire nation for the entire year. It was repealed September 30, 1945, when individual states once again imposed their own “standard” time. It was not until 1966 that Congress passed legislation setting a standard time that permanently superseded local habits. (see May 29)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

McCarthyism

February 9, 1950: Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy gave a speech in Wheeling, Virginia, dramatically claiming, “I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party” within the US State Department.” among whom was former State Department consultant and university professor Owen Lattimore. (see Feb 20)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

School Desegregation

February 9, 1960: in September 1957, Arkansas Governor  Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School by barring nine newly admitted black students from entering the school building. In order to compel the school’s integration, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and ordered troops to escort the students into the school. That group of black students came to be known as the Little Rock Nine, and fourteen-year-old Carlotta Walls was the youngest among them.

Carlotta Walls later described the integration experience as “painful” and recalled that Central High’s white students fell into three groups: those who tormented her and the other black students; those who sympathized with them; and those who silently ignored the way they were treated.

Young Carlotta remained at Central throughout her high school years. On February 9, 1960, four weeks before graduation, a bomb exploded at her home. Carlotta, her mother, and her sister were at home but no one was injured. Police arrested and beat Carlotta’s father in unsuccessful efforts to coerce a confession. Police then arrested two young black men, Herbert Monts, a family friend, and Maceo Binns, Jr. Carlotta never believed either man was responsible, but both were convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.  

In 2010, Ms. Walls described the bombing and its aftermath as the worst part of the integration experience, and firmly asserted that “the segregationists were behind all of it – the bombing and the arrests of Herbert and Maceo.”  (BH, see Feb 13; SD, see Nov 14)

Sit-ins

February 9, 1961: African-American students arrested for conducting sit-ins a segregated lunch counters in Atlanta refused bail and chose instead to remain in jail as part of a “jail-in,” designed to dramatize both segregation and their arrests. The recent arrests brought the number of of “jail-in” participants to seventy in the Fulton County (Atlanta) prison. Meanwhile, thirteen sit-in activists remained in jail in York County, South Carolina (see February 2, 1961), after being arrested for sit-ins in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The leader of the Atlanta sit-ins, Herschelle Sullivan, explained that she hoped the “jail-in” would bring about intervention by President Kennedy to end segregation in the south. (see Mar 6)

Orangeburg Massacre

February 9, 1968: march organizer  Cleveland Sellers was taken into custody by sheriff’s deputies after treatment at the Orangeburg Regional Hospital. He was charged with inciting to riot, arson, assault with intent to kill, and damaging property. As he was led away by the county sheriff, Sellers—concerned for his own safety—told every student he passed, “Y’all see I’m going with the sheriff. The sheriff’s got me.” Trained in such survival techniques from his days of civil rights demonstrations in Mississippi, Sellers recalled that his verbal proclamations to witnesses caught the attention of the sheriff and believed they may have kept him alive in the turbulent hours ahead. (for more see 1968 Orangeburg Massacre; next BH, see Feb 12)

Black & Shot: Ramarley Graham

February 9, 2012: NY police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly ordered an internal review of how officers conduct low-level narcotics operations after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed Ramarley Graham. (B & S, see January 26, 2014; Graham, see January 30, 2015)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

February 9 Music et al

Cavern

February 9, 1961, The Beatles made their first lunchtime debut as The Beatles at the Cavern. (see Mar 24)

see Ed Sullivan Meets the Beatles for more

Exactly three years later, on February 9, 1964 was their first appearance on Ed Sullivan Show. That afternoon The Beatles recorded Twist And Shout, Please Please Me, and I Want To Hold Your Hand, in front of a different audience to the one that saw their live debut that evening. This set was broadcast on 23 February as the group’s third Ed Sullivan appearance, after they had left the US. (see Feb 11)

Paul McCartney

February 9, 1972: Paul McCartney became the first ex-Beatle to go on tour when, after several days of rehearsals at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, Wings played their first-ever live concert, at 12 o’clock noon, in Nottingham University’s Portland Building Ballroom. It was the first stop on a two-week hit-and-run tour of universities in the United Kingdom. In an effort to keep audiences small, the time and place of each concert was kept a closely guarded secret until just hours before showtime. Word circulated fast, however, and at Hull University, a full house of 800 awaited the band. Admission was 50 pence, with the proceeds divided equally among the band’s members.

No Lennon-McCartney songs were performed, though each show did conclude with an encore of Little Richards’s “Long Tall Sally,” a song recorded by the Beatles in 1964 and often performed by them as a closing number at their concerts. In addition, Wings’ set lists also featured a brand new song, not yet recorded, that would not be released for more than a year; one of 1973’s biggest hits, “My Love.” (see Feb 14)

Hey Paula

February 9 – March 1, 1963: “Hey Paula” by Paul and Paula #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Paul” was the song’s writer, Ray Hildebrand, a student at Howard Payne College in Brownwood, Texas. “Paula” was Jill Jackson, the niece of the owner of the boarding house where Ray lived.

Cultural Milestone: Max Yasgur

February 9, 1973: Max Yasgur died at age 53. (CM, see July 28; Road, see December 1, 1986; see Max Yasgur for expanded story)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Da Nang

February 9, 1965: the first commitment of American combat troops arrived in South Vietnam when a U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion was deployed to Da Nang. President Johnson had ordered this deployment to provide protection for the key U.S. airbase there. (see Feb 10)

Chicago 8

February 9, 1970: testimony was formally completed in the trial after Judge Julius Hoffman refused to admit the defense’s last four pieces of evidence. The trial lasted almost 4 ½ months, 20,000 pages of transcript, and 193 witnesses—11 for the defense and 80 for the Government. (see Feb 14)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

February 9, 1999:  the Senate began closed-door deliberations on President Clinton’s fate, after rejecting a “sunshine” proposal to open the proceedings to the public. (see Clinton for expanded story)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Michael Sam

February 9, 2014: Michael Sam, a 24-year-old University of Missouri graduate and All-American football player, publicly announced that he was gay. He became the first publicly gay player to be drafted in the NFL, but the Los Angeles Rams cut him. He also spent time on the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad before being waived. He plays on the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes. (see Feb 12)

Alabama

February 9, 2015: US Supreme Court Justices denied a request by Alabama attorney general Luther Strange to extend a hold on US District Judge Callie V.S. Granade’s ruling overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. Strange had asked the United States Supreme Court to halt the weddings until the justices settle the issue nationwide when they would take it up this year. In at least 50 of Alabama’s 67 counties, the county Probate Courts, which issue the licenses, were not giving them to gay and lesbian couples. Many probate court judges declined to grant any marriage licenses.

Of the nine US Supreme Court Justices, only two – conservatives Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia – dissented from the court’s refusal to block gay weddings from starting in Alabama. Gay marriage was now legal in 37 states. (see Feb 12)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Syrian refugees

February 9, 2016: Dallas Federal District Judge David Godsby ruled against Texas’ efforts to stop the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the state. Godsby said the State had failed to show how allowing the federal government to work with local non-profits to resettle Syrian refugees posed a creditable threat to the state.   Godsby said, that state Republican leaders’ attempts to block families fleeing the war-torn country need to be handled through “the political process” and not the courtroom.

Rebecca Robertson was the senior legal counsel with the ACLU of Texas represented g the International Rescue Committee, which had sued by the State after Republican leadership at the capitol demanded non-profits stop working with federal officials to settle Syrian families in Texas.

 “There is nothing in the law that gives the state veto power over any decision of the federal government or permits any state to discriminate against certain refugees based on their nationality, in fact the law says just the opposite,” Robertson explained. (see June 23)

Trump travel ban

February 9, 2017: the federal appeals panel of the Ninth Circuit [ Judge Michelle T. Friedland, Judge William C. Canby Jr, and Judge Richard R. Clifton]  unanimously refused to reinstate President Trump’s targeted travel ban.

The ruling was the first from an appeals court on the travel ban, and it was focused on the narrow question of whether it should be blocked while courts consider its lawfulness. The decision was likely to be quickly appealed to the United States Supreme Court. 

Trump’s Wall

February 9, 2017: a leaked report from the Department of Homeland Security put the cost of building the wall (and fencing) at around three times as much as Trump originally estimated, $21 billion in total, and estimates that construction would take at least three years to complete. The report did not take into account “major physical barriers, like mountains, in areas where it would not be feasible to build.”  (IH, see Feb 9; TW, see June 21 or see TWall for expanded chronology)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

February 9, 2016: the US Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Obama administration’s effort to combat global warming by regulating emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The brief order was not the last word on the case, which would most likely to return to the Supreme Court after an appeals court considered an expedited challenge from 29 states and dozens of corporations and industry groups.  (see Sept 10)

February 9 Peace Love Art Activism

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

February 8, 1887: Congress passed The Dawes Act of 1887. It authorized the President to survey Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. The stated objective of the Dawes Act was to stimulate assimilation of Indians into American society. Individual ownership of land was seen as an essential step. The act also provided that the government would purchase Indian land “excess” to that needed for allotment and open it up for settlement by non-Indians. (see December 29, 1890)

February 8 Peace Love Activism

US Labor History

Cripple Creek Strike

February 8, 1894: union miners in Cripple Creek, Colorado  begin what became a five-month strike that started when mine owners cut wages to $2.50 a day, from $3. The state militia was called out in support of the strikers—the only time in U.S. history that a militia was directed to side with the workers. The strike ended in victory for the union. (see Mar 25)

Wobbly meetings illegal

AFL & CIO

February 8, 1912: a San Diego city ordinance restricting street meetings in the central business district went into effect. Almost immediately, police arrested forty-one International Workers of the World members for violating the ordinance. (see Mar 9)

February 8, 1955: Representatives of the AFL and CIO signed an agreement to merge, beginning a long period of unity within organized labor. George Meany will lead the organization for two decades, taking labor in a generally conservative direction. “We do not seek to recast American society,” Meany says. “We seek an ever rising standard of living.” Big Labor gradually became a complacent interest group rather than a social movement. (see Dec 5)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Cultural Milestone

February 8, 1910: The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.   (CM, see March 6, 1912; BSA, see May 7, 1967)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

The Birth of a Nation

February 8, 1915: D. W. Griffith’s  The Birth of a Nation premiered in Los Angeles. Although local censors approved the film, city council members responded to concerns about the racist nature of the picture by ordering it suppressed. Released under the title, The Clansman, the movie debuted only after Griffith sought an injunction from the court.

Griffith’s story centers on two white families torn apart by the Civil War and reunited by what one subtitle calls, “common defense of their Aryan birthright.” Promoting a skewed historical vision of a war-torn South further abused by carpetbaggers, scalawags, and radical Republicans, the film remakes Lincoln as a friend of the South. “I shall deal with them as though they had never been away,” Griffith’s Lincoln says. In The Birth of a Nation, the Ku Klux Klan rushes in to fill the void left by Lincoln’s untimely death and the chaos of Reconstruction. (see Feb 18)

Marcus Garvey

February 8, 1925: after being arrested at the 125th Street train station in New York, Garvey taken to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and incarcerated. (BH, see Aug 8;  see MG for expanded chronology)

Greensboro Four

February 8 – 14 1960:  students in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Durham, N.C., held sit-ins to demonstrate their solidarity with Greensboro students. Sit-in protests quickly followed in North Carolina cities such as Charlotte, Raleigh, Fayetteville and High Point. The movement also gained momentum and spread to Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and even F.W. Woolworth stores in New York City. (next BH, see Feb 9; see G4 for expanded chronology)

Hattie Carroll

February 8, 1963: Baltimore, MD. At the Spinsters’ Ball at the Emerson Hotel, a very drunk and verbally abusive William Devereux “Billy” Zantzinger hit 51-year old Hattie Carroll  after she was slow to serve a drink to him.

Carroll had a history of heart problems. Later, she collapsed and died. (1991 Washington Post article) [on October 23, 1963, Bob Dylan will write, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” (BH, see  April 4; Zanzinger, see Aug 28)

Orangeburg Massacre

February 8, 1968: white state troopers fired into a mostly African American crowd on the campus of South Carolina State College, an historically black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina. 28 were wounded. Three killed. (see 1968 Orangeburg Massacre for the expanded story and the sadly not unexpected results. (BH, see Feb 12; OM, see “In October 1970”)

 Stop and Frisk Policy

February 8, 2012: NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn wrote to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly demanding greater oversight of the NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisks. (see Feb 10)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

Emma Goldman

February 8, 1916: Goldman lectured in NYC on birth control. Three days later, authorities arrest her for the illegal lecture.  (see Goldman for expanded story)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

Nevada uses lethal gas

February 8, 1924: Nevada carried out the first execution by lethal gas in American history. The executed man was Gee Jon, a member of a Chinese gang who was convicted of murdering a rival gang member. Lethal gas was adopted by Nevada in 1921 as a more humane method of carrying out its death sentences, as opposed to the traditional techniques of execution by hanging, firing squad, or electrocution. (see Aug 22)

House limits death penalty appeals

February 8, 1995: the US House of Representatives  voted 297-132 to limit inmate appeals of death sentences to one year in state cases.   (see March 7, 1995)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh returns to Vietnam

February 8, 1941: Ho Chi Minh, disguised as one of the local Nung people, slipped across the Chinese border into Tonkin (Vietnam) near the remote mountain village of Pac Bo and set up  a headquarters. (see May 10)

US bombing begins

February 8, 1965: U.S. starts air bombing North Vietnam. (see Feb 9)

CALC

February 8 – 10, 1967: CALC [Clergy and Laity Concerned] (had formed in October 1965 as the Clergy Concerned about Vietnam) organized a nationwide “Fast for Peace.”  The FBI investigated CALC as a threat to national security. (see Feb 15)

Operation Lam Son 719

February 8, 1971:  three South Vietnamese divisions drive into Laos to attack two major enemy bases. Unknowingly, they are walking into a North Vietnamese trap. Over the next month, more than 9,000 South Vietnamese troops are killed or wounded. More than two thirds of the South Vietnamese Army’s armored vehicles are destroyed, along with hundreds of U.S. helicopters and planes. (see Feb 26)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Pledge of Allegiance

On February 7, the Rev. George M. Docherty had suggested to President Eisenhower that the phrase “under God” be included in the Pledge of Allegiance. The next day Eisenhower acted on Rev Docherty’s suggestion and Rep. Charles Oakman (R-Mich.), introduced a bill to that effect. (see Pledge for expanded chronology)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

February 8 Music et al

Teenage Culture

February 8 – 21, 1960:  “Teen Angel” by Mark Dinning #1 Billboard Hot 100. Released the previous October, radio stations were reluctant to play it and it was banned by the BBC. Performed by Sha Na Na at Woodstock. Third of three #1 songs in a row in which a person or persons die. (see July 18 – Aug 7)

Beatles

February 8, 1963:  The Beatles were thrown out of the ABC Ballroom in Carlisle (UK) for wearing leather jackets. (see Feb 11)

Louie Louie

February 8, 1964: Max Firetag, the music publisher of the song “Louie Louie” offered $1,000.00 to anyone who could find anything ‘suggestive’ in the lyrics to the song.  (TC, see Sept 16; see Louie, Louie, for expanded story) 

Supremes

February 8 – 14, 1969:  the Diana Ross and the  Supremes with the Temptations album TCB is the Billboard #1 album. The album was the soundtrack to a 1968 TV special.

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

The Red Scare

February 8, 1968:  Planet of the Apes released. The backstory of the movie is that Michael Wilson wrote the script. Wilson been blacklisted during the Cold War after refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in September 1951. (He was not one of the Hollywood Ten, who testified beginning on October 27, 1947, and were blacklisted.)

When he was able to return to work under his own name, he took his revenge for the blacklisting by including a scene in the Planet of the Apes that wickedly parodies the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In the scene, Charleton Heston stands naked, literally, in front of a committee of apes that interrogates him. (Roger Ebert review) (see Feb 19) 

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

ADA

February 8, 1996: the Telecommunications Act passed and required that computers, telephones, closed captioning, and many other telecommunication devices and equipment be made accessible. (FCC text) (see  February 12, 1998)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

February 8, 1999: House prosecutors and Clinton’s lawyer offered closing arguments. (see Clinton for expanded story)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

February 8, 2015:  Judge Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, issued an order commanding all probate judges in the state to refuse to issue marriage licenses same-sex couples. “Effective immediately, no probate judge of the State of Alabama nor any agent or employee of any Alabama probate judge shall issue or recognize a marriage license that is inconsistent” with the Alabama Constitution or state law, the chief justice wrote in his order.

Moore’s edict came as a temporary stay on a federal court ruling striking down the state’s ban on marriage equality was set to expire the following day. Under federal law, the expiration of this stay whould compel every public servant tasked with issuing civil marriage licenses to extend that service to same-sex couples starting February 9. The initial ruling, handed down by U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade, found the state’s marriage ban violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. constitution. (see Feb 9)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

February 8, 2018: immigration activist Ravi Ragbir was scheduled to be deported to Trinidad and Tobago on February 10, on this date Ragbir’s lawyers filed a First Amendment suit claiming that ICE had targeted their client because he was an outspoken activist as the director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City.

The government agreed to delay his removal until the court can decide whether his rights have been violated.

Ragbir’s case was one of a growing number in which federal judges had ruled to halt both individual and mass deportations. The week before, a judge in a New Jersey district court temporarily stopped the deportation of Indonesian Christians, longtime community members in Highland Park, N.J., who had been swept up by immigration agents.

The day before that, in Boston, a judge made a similar ruling in the case of 50 Indonesian Christians, and in December, a Miami judge had halted the deportation of 92 Somalis.

In June, a judge in Detroit had halted the deportation of more than a hundred Iraqi Christians, and then expanded the ruling to cover a class of as many as 1,400 people.

These federal judges were not deciding immigration cases, over which they have no jurisdiction, but rather giving people time to fight in the immigration courts. They are slowing deportations by insisting that undocumented immigrants still had the right of due process, even if in many of these cases, the immigrants had known for years that they could be expelled. (see Feb 13)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment

February 8, 2020: the NYT reported that in a tweet President Trump called West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin III a “puppet Democrat Senator” who was “weak & pathetic.” Trump nicknamed him “Joe Munchkin” and suggested that Manchin was too stupid to understand a transcript of Trump’s telephone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the central piece of evidence in the impeachment case. Trump also took credit for the Manchin’’s signature legislative achievement: a bipartisan bill to secure miners’ pensions. (next TI, see  Mar 2 or see Trump for extended chronology)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

February 8, 2021:  according to a new report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany that analyzed emissions and electricity demand in the United States, Europe and India which were some of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the share of energy generated from coal had dropped more sharply during the coronavirus pandemic than that of any other power source, The shift away from coal power had a significant impact on global emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide, the researchers said, and could lead to an acceleration of the global shift toward renewable energy.

Ottmar Edenhofer, director and chief economist at the Potsdam Institute and an author of the study, said the findings were surprising because natural gas had traditionally had the highest operating costs of all power sources, so gas-fired plants were usually the first to be taken offline when demand for power falls. The sharp decline in gas prices during the pandemic, however, appeared to have changed that calculation, making coal power more expensive than gas power.

And according to a separate study by Ember Climate, an energy research organization based in London, global wind and solar power capacity increased last year despite the pandemic. That, combined with the relatively low operating costs, means that when power demand rebounds, a greater share of the total energy will quite likely come from low-emissions or renewable sources. [NYT article] (next EI, see Apr 22)

February 8 Peace Love Art Activism