November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

 TERRORISM

November 28, 1871: Ku Klux Klan trials began in US District Court in South Carolina as part of a federal effort to halt growing white violence in the former Confederate states. (see Dec 28)

Dyer Anti-Lynching bill

November 28, 1922: a Democrat filibuster completely deadlocked the US Senate as a result of the Republican attempt to have the Dyer Anti-Lynching bill made the unfinished business of the Senate. Senator Underwood, the Democratic leader, stated that the minority wold filibuster to the end of the session if necessary, adding that so long as the majority persisted in trying to bring the bill before the Senate the opponents of the bill would refuse to permit the consideration of any other legislation. (see Dec 2)

Ernie Davis

November 28, 1961: Ernie Davis of Syracuse University became the first African-American to be named winner of the Heisman Trophy. (see Nov 29)

137 SHOTS

November 28, 2014: nine non-African American Cleveland police officers accused the police department of racial discrimination in the aftermath of the deadly Nov. 29, 2012 chase in a federal lawsuit. The officers—eight white officers and one Hispanic—claim the department has a history of treating non-black officers who shoot black residents “more harshly” than black officers involved in shootings, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Northern District of Ohio. (see 137 for expanded chronology)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Susan B Anthony

November 28, 1872: authorities arrested Susan B Anthony for voting.

Sex in Education

In 1873: in Sex in Education: or, a Fair Chance for the Girls, Harvard professor Edward Clarke predicted that if women went to college, their brains would grow bigger and heavier, and their wombs would atrophy. He based his prediction on the observation that college-educated women had fewer children than non-college-educated women.

Voting Rights

Spring 1873: Susan B Anthony spoke to residents in areas of Monroe County, New York before her trial. At each she stated:

Friends and fellow-citizens, I stand before you under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted illegally. . . We throw to the wind the old dogma that governments can give rights. The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the constitutions of the several states . . . propose to protect the people in the exercise of their God-given rights. No one of them pretends to bestow rights. . . . One half of the people of this Nation today are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write a new and just one. . . . This form of government, that enforces taxation without representation — that compels [women] to obey laws to which they have never given their consent — that imprisons and hangs them without a trial by a jury of their peers — that robs them, in marriage of the custody of their own persons, wages, and children — [leaves] half of the people wholly at the mercy of the other half.

Following her “prejudic[ing] of any possible jury,” in Monroe County, Anthony’s trial was rescheduled for June 17 and moved to Canandaigua, a town in Ontario County, New York.

By June 16, Anthony had delivered her speech in every village in Ontario County. (see May 7)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

November 28, 1912: Albania independent from Ottoman rule. (see February 13, 1913)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

November 28 Music et al

see Are You Lonesome Tonight for more

November 28, 1960 – January 8, 1961:  written in 1926, “Are You Lonesome Tonight” by Elvis #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (see Dec 12)

Leader of the Pack

November 28 – December 4, 1964: “Leader of the Pack” by The Shangri-Las #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

John Lennon

November 28, 1968: John Lennon pleaded guilty of the drug charges, taking sole responsibility in order to protect Yoko Ono, who had recently suffered a miscarriage. He was additionally fearful that if they both fought the charges and lost, Ono may have been deported from the United Kingdom.

During the hearing Lennon’s lawyer, Martin Polden, told the court that Ono had recently lost their baby, which had been a terrible blow to the couple. Additionally, Polden declared that Lennon had renounced drugs after becoming a devotee of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi the previous year, and stressed that the Beatle had “given pleasure to millions” through his music.

The magistrate quashed the charge of obstruction to justice, and fined Lennon £150 plus court costs of 20 guineas. Lennon was also warned that if he was found guilty again of a similar offence he risked a custodial sentence.

Although the judge exercised some leniency, the repercussions of the case continued for Lennon for many years. The conviction was a key factor in the Nixon administration’s efforts to deny Lennon a Green Card for residence in the US. (NYT link) (see Dec 2)

see Palm Beach Pop Festival for more 

November 28 – 30, 1969: from a 2009 Palm Beach Post article: Then-Palm Beach County Sheriff Bill Heidtman vowed to make life miserable for the free-loving, pot-smoking, anti-establishment youngsters who were coming to the Palm Beach Pop Festival. He threatened to herd alligators toward the crowd, gathered on a grassy field at the Palm Beach International Raceway. And he promised to dig out fire ant colonies and relocate them at the venue.

The Festival was at a drag strip outside of West Palm Beach. Among others, Grand Funk played three nights also. The show featured Iron Butterfly, King Crimson (Robin Fripp and Greg Lake), Jefferson Airplane, Rotary Connection (Minnie Ripperton), PG&E, Rolling Stones, Vanilla Fudge, Janis Joplin and Her Full Tilt Boogie Band, Johnny Winters, and others.

On the third night, Winters played, then Vanilla Fudge played followed by Janis Joplin. Afterwards, the announcer said, Johnny wants it, Janis wants it, and the Fudge wants one. All three bands came out on stage and jammed. Winters jammed with the guitar players and scatted with Janis.

Wavy Gravy was there in his WW2 pilot helmet or whatever it was, guiding a car backwards trying to help them and backed them into the pond. We’d like to think he knew it was the police in an unmarked car and put them in the pond on purpose since we know he didn’t do drugs. (see Dec 6)

 Whatever Gets You Thru The Night

November 28, 1974: when John Lennon was in the studio with Elton John recording “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”, Elton bet Lennon that the song would be a number one hit. Lennon didn’t think so and told Elton that if it did, he would go on stage with him. The song reached number one.

On this date, Elton John was playing at New York’s Madison Square Garden and being true to his word, Lennon came onstage. They played “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”. This would be John Lennon’s last concert appearance.

Also that night, while backstage, Lennon saw Yoko Ono after they had been separated for 18 months, a time period Lennon called his “lost weekend” and the 2 soon got back together. (see Dec 29)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

The Velvet Revolution

November 28, 1989:  known as the Velvet Revolution because of its non-violent nature, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced they would give up their monopoly on political power

Elections held in December brought the first non-communist government to Czechoslovakia in more than 40 years. (see Nov 29)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

November 28, 1989: the National Museum of the American Indian Act ordered the Smithsonian Institute to return Native American remains to American Indian tribes. (see November 16, 1990)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Fair Housing

November 28, 1990: Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act emphasized home-ownership and tenant-based assistance, launches HOME housing block grant. Low-Income. (see October 28, 1992)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

November 28, 1998: Republicans express disappointment and outrage at what some describe as President Clinton’s evasive and legalistic answers to the Judiciary Committee’s questions. (see CI for expanded chronology)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

STAND YOUR GROUND LAW

November 28, 2016: JAMA Internal Medicine published a report that gun deaths in Florida had risen sharply since the passage of its controversial “stand your ground” gun law. The report analyzed data from 1999 to 2014 and discovered that homicides in Florida had increased 24.4 percent, while gun-related homicides were up 31.6 percent since the law was enacted in 2005 under then-Gov. Jeb Bush.  [Huff Post article] (see June 9, 2017)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

Hawaii

November 28, 2017: the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency announced that Beginning December 1, 2017, monthly tests of the statewide warning siren system would include a newly activated Attack Warning Tone, intended to warn Hawaii residents of an impending nuclear missile attack.

North Korea

November 28, 2017:  North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that flew both higher and longer than previous such launches.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis expressed concern, emphasizing what he said were technical advances on display in the 53-minute flight.

“It went higher, frankly, than any previous shot they’ve taken,” Mattis said. [NYT article] (see Nov 29)

November 28 Peace Love Art Activism

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

TERRORISM

November 25, 1915: a cross was burned on Stone Mountain, Georgia, on this day, marking the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century.

The Klan had been a powerful racist force during the Reconstruction Era in the South following the Civil War. It gradually faded away, but was revived as part of the racist mood of the country in the first decades of the century. (see November 7, 1922)

Anti-Lynching Congress

November 25, 1930: a delegation from the Anti-Lynching Congress, which was meeting in Washington, D.C., delivered a protest to President Herbert Hoover, demanding that he take action to end the lynching of African-Americans. The group was led by Maurice W. Spencer, president of the National Equal Rights League and Race Congress. President Hoover did not respond.

Herbert Hoover was basically sympathetic to the needs of African-Americans in American society, but was not willing to expend any political capital on civil rights. He was very upset, for example, when Southern bigots protested when First Lady Lou Henry Hoover invited the wife of African-American Congressman Oscar DePriest to the White House for tea (along with all the other Congressional wives), on June 12, 1929. He responded by inviting Robert Moton, President of Tuskegee University, to the White House in a symbolic gesture.  (next BH see Nov 22;  next Lynching, see January 12, 1931; next T, see August 27, 1949; see AL3 for expanded chronology of early 20th century lynching)

Interstate Commerce Commission

November 25, 1955: the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), the federal agency that regulated railroads and other transporters of goods, banned racial segregation on interstate buses, train lines, and in waiting rooms.

The ICC ruled that “the disadvantages to a traveler who is assigned accommodations or facilities so designated as to imply his inferiority solely because of his race must be regarded under present conditions as unreasonable.” The ban was consistent with a 1946 United States Supreme Court decision, Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (see June 3, 1946), which held that a state law requiring segregation on interstate buses traveling through the state was unconstitutional.

However, neither the Supreme Court decision nor the ICC ban covered intrastate travel, and 13 states still required segregation on buses and railways that traveled exclusively within state borders. Some of these states ignored the new ban on segregated interstate travel and continued to enforce unconstitutional laws. According to a report issued by the Public Affairs Research Committee in December 1957, police in Flomaton, Alabama, had been called to arrest African Americans traveling in the white section of an interstate railroad line. The report additionally found that employees of rail and bus lines in Alabama “have flagrantly segregated colored travelers or called police to arrest those who would not easily be intimidated where their rights were involved.”

It was not until November 1961, six years after the ICC ban, that it was given force by order of the ICC and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, largely spurred by the Freedom Rides. (NYT article) (see Dec 1)

Randolph Evans

November 25, 1976, Thanksgiving Day: NYC police officer Robert Torsney fired a bullet into the head of Randolph Evans, 15, outside a housing project in Brooklyn. Officer Torsney would later claim he had been afflicted with a rare form of epilepsy that had never been noticed before the killing and was never seen after it. The ”epilepsy” defense worked. A jury acquitted Torsney of any criminal wrongdoing. (NYT article) (see Dec 17)

Sean Bell

November 25, 2006: a team of plainclothes and undercover NYPD officers shot a total of 50 times at three men killing one of the men, Sean Bell, on the morning before his wedding, and severely wounding two of his friends. (NYT article) (B & S and Sean Bell, see March 16, 2007)

Black Lives Matter

November 25, 2015: Minneapolis police released the names of four men arrested in connection with a shooting during a Black Lives Matter protest outside a police station that injured five protesters. The authorities identified the suspects in the shooting as Allen Lawrence Scarsella, 23; Nathan Gustavsson, 21; Daniel Macey, 26; and Joseph Backman, 27.

All were white. [NYT article] (see Dec 2)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

November 25, 1930: an agent of the New England Watch and Ward Society purchased a copy of Lady Chatterly’s Lover at the Dunster House Book shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. James Delancy, the manager, and Joseph Sullivan, his clerk, were both convicted of selling obscene literature, a crime for which Mr. Delancy was fined $800. and assigned four months in the house of corrections while Mr. Sullivan was sentenced to two weeks in prison and a $200. fine. (see April 6, 1931)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

St Paul teacher strike

November 25, 1946: teachers strike in St. Paul, Minn., the first organized walkout by teachers in the country. The month-long “strike for better schools” involving some 1,100 teachers—and principals—led to a number of reforms in the way schools were administered and operated. [ST article] (see Dec 3)

see “Harvest of Shame” for more

November 25, 1960: CBS broadcast the documentary, “Harvest of Shame,” on US migrant farm workers the day after Thanksgiving.

Journalist Edward R. Murrow narrated, opening with these words over footage of workers: “This is not taking place in the Congo. It has nothing to do with Johnannesburg or Cape Town. It is not Nyasaland or Nigeria. This is Florida. These are citizens of the United States, 1960. This is a shape-up for migrant workers. The hawkers are chanting the going piece rate at the various fields. This is the way the humans who harvest the food for the best-fed people in the world get hired. One farmer looked at this and said, ‘We used to own our slaves. Now we just rent them.’ “

The hour-long telecast, shocking to many viewers, immediately led to a greater public and political awareness of the workers’ lives. [NPR article]  (see October 3, 1961)

Google fires activists

November 25, 2019: Google fired four employees who had been active in labor organizing at the company, according to a memo that was seen by The New York Times.

The memo, sent by Google’s security and investigations team, told employees that the company had dismissed four employees “for clear and repeated violations of our data security policies.” Jenn Kaiser, a Google spokeswoman, confirmed the firings but declined to elaborate. (next USLH, see January 21, 2020)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Religion and Public Education

November 25, 1947: the American Unitarian Association announced that it had received permission from the US Supreme Court to enter the McCollum v Champaign case. Its brief stated that the religious group “has an interest in the the proceedings by reason of the nature of the questions involved, the absolute separation of church and state being one of the cardinal principles of Unitarianism.” (see December 4, 1947)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Red Scare

Hollywood Ten

November 25, 1947: movie studio executives agreed to blacklist the Hollywood 10, who were jailed for contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Hollywood Ten: see June 13, 1949; Red Scare, see Dec 4)

Blacklisted Michael Wilson

November 25, 1956: the film Friendly Persuasion, starring Gary Cooper and later nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor, was released on this day — but without any screenwriter credit. The actual screenwriter was Michael Wilson, who had been blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in September 1951. Hollywood motion picture companies refused to hire or credit people who did not cooperate with HUAC. The official blacklist began on December 3, 1947.

Wilson’s screenwriting credit was restored in later versions of the film. Wilson also co-wrote the script for the award-winning Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), but was not listed on the credits. Wilson was posthumously awarded an Academy Award in 1995 for his work on the Bridge on the River Kwai.

Wilson took his revenge for having been blacklisted when he wrote the script for Planet of the Apes (1968), which includes a scene that is a wicked parody of the House Un-American Activities Committee. In the scene, Charlton Heston has to stand naked and testify before what is, in effect, an Un-Ape Activities Committee.(see February 18, 1957)

The Cold War

November 25, 2016: Cuban state television announced the death of Fidel Castro. He was 90.  [NBC News article] (see January 12, 2017)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

November 25 Music et al

The Beatles

November 25, 1963: release of Beatlemania! With The Beatles album in Canada. (see Nov 29)

Incense and Peppermints

November 25 – December 1, 1967: “Incense and Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Last Waltz

November 25, 1976, Thanksgiving Day, at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, The Band gave their farewell concert. They called it “The Last Waltz.” More than a dozen speicial guests joined The Band, including Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Charles, Neil Young, and the Staple Singers. The musical director for the concert was The Band’s original record producer, John Simon.

The event was filmed by director Martin Scorsese and made into a documentary of the same name, released in 1978. The film features concert performances, scenes shot on a studio soundstage and interviews by Scorsese with members of The Band. A triple-LP soundtrack recording, produced by Simon and Rob Fraboni, was issued on April 7, 1978.

The Last Waltz is hailed as one of the greatest concert films ever made.

Band Aid

November 25, 1984: Band Aid recorded the charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” to raise money to combat the famine in Ethiopia. It is released December 3. (see January 28, 1985)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

November 25, 1969, President Nixon ordered all US germ warfare stockpiles destroyed. (see March 5, 1970)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

November 25, 1975: Suriname independent of Netherlands. (see June 29, 1976)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

AIDS

November 25, 1985: the Indiana Department of Education ruled that Ryan White must be admitted despite parent and government opposition. (see White for expanded chronology )

November 25 Peace Love Activism

 Iran–Contra Affair

November 25, 1986: the Iran-Contra affair erupted as President Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels. (see Nov 26)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Jack Kevorkian

November 25, 1998: Michigan charged Kevorkian with first-degree murder, violating the assisted suicide law and delivering a controlled substance without a license in the death of Thomas Youk. Prosecutors later drop the suicide charge. Kevorkian insists on defending himself during the trial and threatens to starve himself if he is sent to jail. (see JK for expanded chronology)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Terrorism

John Phillip Walker Lindh

November 25, 2001: John Phillip Walker Lindh, a US citizen, was captured as an enemy combatant during the invasion of Afghanistan. (Terrorism, see Dec 11; Walker, see July 15, 2002)

Department of Homeland Security

November 25, 2002: President Bush signed legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security. (see Dec 11)

Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal

November 25, 2003: Yemen arrested Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, a top al-Qaida member suspected of masterminding the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker off Yemen’s coast. (see April 5, 2004)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Arkansas’ gay marriage ban

November 25, 2014: U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker struck down Arkansas’ gay marriage ban, which paved the way for county clerks to resume issuing licenses. Baker ruled in favor of two same-sex couples who had challenged a 2004 constitutional amendment and earlier state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman, arguing that the ban violated the U.S. Constitution and discriminated based on sexual orientation.

Mississippi’s ban on gay marriage

November 25, 2014: U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves ruled against Mississippi’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying.  Attorney Roberta Kaplan represented two plaintiff couples on behalf of Campaign for Southern Equality, arguing that Mississippi’s marriage ban violates the U.S. Constitution. (see Dec 18)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

November 25, 2018: a peaceful march by Central American migrants waiting at the southwestern United States border veered out of control as hundreds of people tried to evade a Mexican police blockade and run toward a giant border crossing that led into San Diego.

In response, the United States Customs and Border Protection agency shut down the border crossing in both directions and fired tear gas to push back migrants from the border fence. The border was reopened later that evening. [NYT article] (see Dec 21)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

November 25, 2020:  the Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska, likely dealing a death blow to a long-disputed project that aimed to extract one of the world’s largest deposits of copper and gold ore, but which threatened breeding grounds for salmon in the pristine Bristol Bay region.

The fight over the mine’s fate had raged for more than a decade. The plan was scuttled years ago under the Obama administration, only to find new life under President Trump. But opposition, from Alaska Native American communities, environmentalists and the fishing industry never diminished, and recently even the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., a sportsman who had fished in the region, came out against the project.

On this date, it failed to obtain a critical permit required under the federal Clean Water Act that was considered a must for it to proceed. In a statement, the Army Corps’ Alaska District Commander, Col. Damon Delarosa, said the mine, proposed for a remote tundra region about 200 miles from Anchorage, would be “contrary to the public interest” because “it does not comply with Clean Water Act guidelines.” [NYT article] (next EI, see Dec 8)

November 25 Peace Love Art Activism