October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism & Voting Rights

October 22, 1917: Alice Paul sentenced to seven months in jail in the Occoquan Workhouse, located in Virginia. [NYT article] (see Nov 5, 1917)

October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Leon McAtee

October 22, 1946: Holmes County, Mississippi, court freed the five white men accused in the beating death of Leon McAtee. Though one of the five had confessed to his own involvement in the murder and implicated the other four men, none was convicted. Before the trial ended, Judge S.F. Davis acquitted Spencer Ellis and James Roberts, finding the evidence insufficient to prove their guilt. The all-white jury then deliberated for ten minutes before acquitting Jeff Dodd Sr., Jeff Dodd Jr., and Dixie Roberts.

Leon McAtee was a tenant on Jeff Dodd Sr.’s farm who working a small plot of land for very little pay. When Mr. Dodd’s saddle went missing, he suspected Mr. McAtee of stealing it and had the black man arrested. On July 22, 1946, Mr. Dodd withdrew the charges and police released Mr. McAtee into Mr. Dodd’s custody. Mr. Dodd then called Dixie Roberts and together they took Mr. McAtee back to Mr. Dodd’s home, where Jeff Dodd Jr., James Roberts, and Spencer Ellis awaited them.

Inside the home, all five men beat Mr. McAtee and whipped him with a three-quarter-inch rope. The men then drove the badly beaten man to his home and presented him to his wife, who later reported that her husband was dazed and muttering about a saddle. The men then drove away with Mr. McAtee in their truck, and Mrs. McAtee fled with her children. Her husband was found dead in a bayou two days later. Soon after, his two young stepsons confessed to stealing the saddle. (see Nov 5)

John Earl Reese

October 22, 1955: John Earl Reese was in a Mayflower, Texas, café when white men fired nine shots through the window, killing him and injuring his cousins. The men were attempting to terrorize African Americans into giving up plans for a new school. Local authorities were reluctant to investigate the shooting, with one sheriff insisting the culprit could be found in the nearby black community.

The following year the Texas Rangers took over the case and arrested two white men after one admitted they had fired nine bullets into the cafe from their speeding car. Both men acknowledged being angry about a new school being built in Mayflower, a mostly black community.

The men were found guilty of “murder without malice” and received five-year prison sentences that were immediately suspended. Neither spent a day in jail. Perry Dean Ross and Joseph Reagan Simpson were both convicted of the crime, but never spend a day behind bars because the judge suspended their five-year sentences. A historical marker in town now honors Reese. (see Nov 7)

School Desegregation

October 22, 1963: many Chicago organizations that were part of the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO) staged a school boycott.  250,000 students did not attend school, and at least 20,000 marched on the streets of Chicago. The march was one of the largest and most overlooked civil rights actions of the 1960’s took place in Chicago. (BH, see Nov 1; SD, see April 7, 1964)

March to Montgomery

October 22, 1965: a jury took less than two hours to acquit Collie Wilkins in Viola Liuzzo’s slaying. [NYT article] (BH, see Nov 4; March, see Nov 30; see Liuzzo for expanded chronology)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

October 22, 1953: Laos independent from France. (see Nov 9)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

Atomic testing

October 22, 1962: Soviet Union detonated 8.2 megaton above ground nuclear bomb. (CW, see Oct 22; NN, see Oct 30)

Security lapse

October 22, 2013: Air Force officials said officers entrusted with the launch keys to long-range nuclear missiles were caught twice during 2013 leaving open a blast door that is intended to help prevent a terrorist or other intruder from entering their underground command post. (see Nov 24)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

October 22, 1962: President Kennedy announced the existence of Soviet missiles in Cuba and ordered a naval blockade (see January 3, 1966). The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously agreed that a full-scale attack and invasion was the only solution. (see Oct 23)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

JFK & the NYT

October 22, 1963: President John F. Kennedy was unhappy with stories in the New York Times by reporter David Halberstam, which indicated that American efforts to support the South Vietnamese government against the Viet Cong (aka, National Liberation Front) were failing. Kennedy tried to get the Times publisher to transfer Halberstam out of Vietnam on this day, but the Times refused. (see Nov 1)

Nixon interferes w peace negotiations

October 22, 1968: President Johnson understood that Hanoi was willing to negotiate a peace if bombing stopped. LBJ was ready to do so. Candidate Nixon, fearing candidate Hubert Humphrey’s gain on him in the polls, used Anna Cahan Chennault to act as his (Nixon’s) secret liason with the South Vietnamese regime. She encouraged South Vietnamese ambassador Bui Diem and President Tieu: Stay out of the Paris talks. LBJ is going to settle at their expense.

On this date, Nixon wrote to his closest aide, HR Haldeman, “Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN. “Any other way to monkey wrench it.”(Vietnam, see Oct 27; Nixon, see Oct 28)

Peace negotiations

October 22, 1972: Kissinger met with President Thieu. Hanoi said that both the United States and North Vietnam had agreed to the text of the agreement and the schedule. (see Oct 23)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

Highway Beautification Act

October 22, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Highway Beautification Act, which attempted to limit billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising, as well as with junkyards and other unsightly roadside messes, along America’s interstate highways. The act also encouraged “scenic enhancement” by funding local efforts to clean up and landscape the green spaces on either side of the roadways. “This bill will enrich our spirits and restore a small measure of our national greatness,” Johnson said at the bill’s signing ceremony. “Beauty belongs to all the people. And so long as I am President, what has been divinely given to nature will not be taken recklessly away by man.” (see January 28, 1969)

Global Climate Change

October 22, 2017: the day before the event was scheduled to occur, the Environmental Protection Agency canceled the speaking appearance of three agency scientists who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference in Rhode Island.

John Konkus, an E.P.A. spokesman and a former Trump campaign operative in Florida, confirmed that agency scientists would not speak at the State of the Narragansett Bay and Watershed program in Providence.

Scientists involved in the program said that much of the discussion at the event would center on climate change. Many said they were surprised by the E.P.A.’s last-minute cancellation, particularly since the agency helped to fund the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, which was hosting the conference. The scientists who have been barred from speaking contributed substantial material to a 400-page report. (see Nov 16)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

October 22 Music et al

Supremes

October 22 – November 4, 1966: The Supremes’ Supremes A’ Go-Go is the Billboard #1 album.

“The Beatles are now bigger than The Beatles”

October 22, 1996: Beatles publicist Geoff Baker announced that “The Beatles are now bigger than The Beatles”. His statement was based upon the fact that the year 1996 was expected to be the biggest year for album sales ever for The Beatles. Thus far in 1996, The Beatles had sold 6,000,000 albums from their back catalog and a combined total of 13,000,000 copies of “The Beatles Anthology 1” and “The Beatles Anthology 2”. With the release of “The Beatles Anthology 3” only a week away, it was anticipated that total Beatles album sales for 1996 would exceed 20 million. Somewhat surprisingly, studies showed that 41 percent of those sales were to teenagers who were not even born yet when The Beatles officially called it quits in 1970. (see March 11, 1997)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

October 22, 1975: Air Force Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, was given a “general” discharge by the air force after publicly declaring his homosexuality. Matlovich, who appeared in his air force uniform on the cover of Time magazine above the headline “I AM A HOMOSEXUAL,” was challenging the ban against homosexuals in the U.S. military. [NYT pdf](LGBTQ, see September 16, 1977; Matlovich, see December 7, 1978)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

October 22, 1981: the federal government de-certified  the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization for its strike in August. (see July 8, 1982)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Japanese Internment Camps

October 22, 1999: groundbreaking on construction of a national memorial to both Japanese-American soldiers and those sent to internment camps takes place in Washington, D.C. with President Clinton in attendance. [NYT article] (see JI for expanded chronology)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

October 22, 2012: Russell C Means died at age 72.  [NYT obit] (see June 25, 2013)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

ADA

October 22, 2012: the morning after the final presidential debate, outspoken conservative commentator Ann Coulter sent out the following tweet: I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.

John Franklin Stephens, a Special Olympics athlete born with Down’s Syndrome, published the following open letter on the Special Olympics blog:

Dear Ann Coulter,

                Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?

                I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.

                I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.

                Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else races from one snarkey sound bite to the next.

                Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.

                Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are – and much, much more.

                After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.

                I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.

                Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.

                No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.

                Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.

 A friend you haven’t made yet, John Franklin Stephens

Global Messenger

Special Olympics Virginia

 (next ADA, see November 27)

Cannabis

October 22, 2013: according to a Gallop poll conducted occasionally since 1969,  for the first time, 58% of Americans said that marijuana should be legalized. 12% of Americans thought that in 1969. (see Nov 5 or see CCC for expanded chronology)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

October 22, 2014:  (from the NYT) four former Blackwater Worldwide security guards were convicted and immediately jailed for their roles in a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square that marked a bloody nadir in America’s war in Iraq.

A jury in Federal District Court found that the deaths of 17 Iraqis in the shooting, which began when a convoy of the guards suddenly began firing in a crowded intersection, was not a battlefield tragedy, but the result of a criminal act.

The convictions on murder, manslaughter and weapons charges represented a legal and diplomatic victory for the United States government, which had urged Iraqis to put their faith in the American court system. That faith was tested repeatedly over seven years as the investigation had repeated setbacks, leaving Iraqis deeply suspicious that anyone would be held responsible for the deaths.  [NYT article](Iraq, see March 20, 2015; Blackwater, see April 13, 2015)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

October 22, 2018: Cesar Sayoc, Jr mailed bomb to billionaire George Soros, a political activist who had been supporting many Democratic candidates. Bomb did not explode. (see Oct 23)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Affordable Care Act

October 22, 2019: nearly three years into President Trump’s aggressive efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act, prices for the most popular type of health insurance plan offered through the health law’s federal marketplace would drop in 2020 and the number of insurers offering plans would increase.

Administration officials credited Mr. Trump with the resiliency of the law even as they echoed his contempt for it.

“The A.C.A. simply doesn’t work and is still unaffordable for far too many,” Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, said on Monday. “But until Congress gets around to replacing it, President Trump will do what he can to fix the problems created by this system for millions of Americans.”

The 4-percent price decline is only the second time that average monthly premiums had dropped year-to-year since the marketplace opened in 2014, and it was a sign that the health law was stabilizing after several years of turmoil caused in part by Trump. [NYT article] (see Dec 18)

 October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Inquiry = lynching

October 22, 2019: President Trump described the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into him a “lynching” and said it was “without due process or fairness or any legal rights.”

The president’s use of the word Tuesday drew immediate criticism.

“You think this impeachment is a LYNCHING? What the hell is wrong with you,” Representative Bobby L. Rush, Democrat of Illinois and a former Black Panther leader, said in a Twitter post.

Quid pro quo

October 22, 2019: William B. Taylor Jr., the United States’ top diplomat in Ukraine, told impeachment investigators privately that President Trump held up vital security aid for the country and refused a White House meeting with Ukraine’s leader until he agreed to make a public pronouncement pledging to investigate Trump’s political rivals.

In testimony that Democrats in attendance called the most damaging account yet for the president, Taylor provided an “excruciatingly detailed” opening statement that described the quid-pro-quo pressure campaign that Trump and his allies had long denied. (see TII for expanded chronology)

October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

Fair Housing

October 22, 2021: the Justice Department announced the launch of the department’s new Combatting Redlining Initiative. Redlining is an illegal practice in which lenders avoid providing services to individuals living in communities of color because of the race or national origin of the people who live in those communities. The new Initiative represents the department’s most aggressive and coordinated enforcement effort to address redlining, which is prohibited by the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

“Lending discrimination runs counter to fundamental promises of our economic system,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “When people are denied credit simply because of their race or national origin, their ability to share in our nation’s prosperity is all but eliminated. Today, we are committing ourselves to addressing modern-day redlining by making far more robust use of our fair lending authorities. We will spare no resource to ensure that federal fair lending laws are vigorously enforced and that financial institutions provide equal opportunity for every American to obtain credit.”  [DoJ announcement] (next FH, see April 21, 2022)

October 22 Peace Love Art Activism

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Voting Rights

October 20, 1917: Alice Paul and three colleagues were arrested for picketing the White House on of women’s suffrage. Calling themselves “Silent Sentinels,” the purposefully went to the White House gates when staff were leaving work. A large crowd gathered, with some people cheering and other jeering. [CNN article] (see Oct 22)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Virginia Legalizes murder

October 20, 1669: the Virginia Colonial Assembly enacted a law that removed criminal penalties for enslavers who killed enslaved people resisting authority. The assembly justified the law on the grounds that “the obstinacy of many [enslaved people] cannot be suppressed by other than violent means.” The law provided that an enslaver’s killing of an enslaved person could not constitute murder because the “premeditated malice” element of murder could not be formed against one’s own property.  [EJI article] (next BH, see Oct 29; next SR, see February 28, 1708; see SR for expanded chronology of slave revolts)

Dyer anti-lynching bill

October 20, 1921: the House Judiciary Committee favorably reported the Dyer anti-lynching bill, imposing heavy penalties on persons involved in mob action resulting in the taking of life. (next BH, see Nov 30 ; see Dyer for expanded story; next Lynching, see Nov 30 or see AL3 for expanded chronology)

”SCOTTSBORO BOYS”

October 20, 1933: The cases were removed from Judge Horton’s jurisdiction and transferred to Judge William Callahan’s court. (SB, see Scottsboro travesty)

“Durham Manifesto”

October 20, 1942: sixty leading Southern Blacks issued “Durham Manifesto” calling for fundamental changes in race relations after a Durham, North Carolina, meeting. (listen NC Museum of History) (see Dec 4)

Tallahassee bus boycott

October 20, 1956: modeled after the Montgomery bus boycott, the Tallahassee bus boycott had begun after a May 17, 1956 incident in which two Florida A&M students were arrested for sitting in the white section of a city bus. Because the city’s buses were primarily patronized by African American residents, the boycott left the vehicles nearly empty. In July 1956, city officials were forced to suspend bus service due to lost revenue. The bus company resumed services in August following an initiative led by the Junior Chamber of Commerce to get more white residents to ride the buses but the boycott continued. The Tallahassee Inter-Civic Council (ICC) led the boycott and organized a carpool to serve as alternative transportation.

In October 1956, 21 carpool drivers, including nine people who comprised the ICC’s executive committee, were arrested for not having “for hire” tags on their vehicles. On October 20, 1956, following a three-and-a-half-day trial, all 21 drivers were convicted. City Judge John Rudd sentenced them to pay a $500 fine or spend 60 days in jail, in addition to a suspended 60-day jail term and one year on probation.

Faced with this legal harassment, the ICC voted to end the carpool two days later. The boycott continued until December, however, ending only after federal courts ruled bus segregation unconstitutional. On January 7, 1957, the Tallahassee City Commission repealed the city’s bus segregation law. [Florida Memory dot com article] (see Nov 13)

Charles Mingus

October 20, 1960: Charles Mingus recorded “Fables of Faubus” with lyrics for his Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus album for release on independent label after Columbia Records had refused to release it with lyrics.  The song was written as a direct protest against Arkansas governor Orval E. Faubus  who in 1957 had sent out the National Guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School by nine African American teenagers. (see Oct 25)

Lyrics:

Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em shoot us! Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em stab us! Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em tar and feather us! Oh, Lord, no more swastikas! Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!  Name me someone who’s ridiculous, Dannie. Governor Faubus! Why is he so sick and ridiculous? He won’t permit integrated schools.

Then he’s a fool! Boo! Nazi Fascist supremists! Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)  Name me a handful that’s ridiculous, Dannie Richmond. Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower Why are they so sick and ridiculous?  Two, four, six, eight: They brainwash and teach you hate. H-E-L-L-O, Hello.

March to Montgomery

October 20, 1965: Roy Reed in the NY Times reported that, ”an all-white jury dominated by self-proclaimed white supremacists was chosen…for the retrial of Collie Leroy Wilkins, Jr, a Ku Klux Klansman charged with the murder of Viola Liuzzo.” (NYT article) (see Liuzzo for expanded story)

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner

October 20, 1967: an all-white jury convicted seven conspirators, including the deputy sheriff, and acquitted eight others. It was the first time a white jury convicted a white official of civil rights killings. For three men, including Edgar Rice Killen, the trial ended in a hung jury, with the jurors deadlocked 11–1 in favor of conviction. The lone holdout said that she could not convict a preacher. The prosecution decided not to retry Killen and he was released. None of the men found guilty would serve more than six years in prison. (BH, see Oct 28; see Murders for expanded story)

BLACK & SHOT

October 20, 2014: Officer Jason Van Dyke followed in his car 17-year-old Laquan McDonald before shooting him 16 times in the middle of Pulaski Road on the Southwest Side. It will be more than a year before the video of the incident is released. [Chicago Tribune article] (B & S, see Nov 20; Van Dyke, see November 19, 2015)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

The Red Scare

October 20, 1947: the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on this day opened its famous hearings into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. The hearings began with a series of “friendly” witnesses who argued that there was Communist influence. The “friendly” witnesses included President of Screen Actors Guild and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who testified on October 23, 1947. Ayn Rand testified regarding the pro-communist slant of the film Song of Russia. (see Oct 23)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

see October 20 Music et al for more

“Monster Mash”

October 20 – November 2, 1962: “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers #1 Billboard Hot 100.

Peter, Paul, and Mary

October 20 – November 30, 1962: Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Peter, Paul, and Mary is Billboard’s #1 album.

Ken Kesey

October 20, 1966: Ken Kesey arrested. (NYT article) (see Oct 31)

October 20, 1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono released their third album, Wedding Album.

According to Lennon, It was like our sharing our wedding with whoever wanted to share it with us. We didn’t expect a hit record out of it. It was more of a… that’s why we called it Wedding Album. You know, people make a wedding album, show it to the relatives when they come round. Well, our relatives are the… what you call fans, or people that follow us outside. So that was our way of letting them join in on the wedding.”

Wedding Album commemorated their wedding in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969. Although it was the final installment in their trilogy of avant garde and experimental recordings, the couple continued to document their lives on tape until Lennon’s death in 1980. [Beatles Bible article] (see Nov 1)

John & Yoko

October 20, 1973: John Lennon filed suit asking the court to force the Immigration and Naturalization Service to produce the records under which deportation decisions were made. [NYT article] (see Oct 29)

Mark David Chapman

October 20, 1980: Mark David Chapman quit his security job and signed out for the last time. Instead of the usual “Chappy” he wrote “John Lennon”.

Chapman murdered Lennon on December 8. (see Nov 17)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Benjamin Spock

October 20, 1967: Dr Benjamin Spock turned in a briefcase full of what he said were draft cards to officials at the Justice Department building here and later accused one of them of being “derelict in his duty” for not having arrested him. He said he wanted to be arrested in order to precipitate a “moral, legal confrontation” with the Government over the draft. Justice Department officials said later that the briefcase had contained draft cards and other matter. (Vietnam, see Oct 21 -22; DCB, see January 5, 1968)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Watergate Scandal

October 20, 1973: “Saturday Night Massacre”. Solicitor General Robert Bork fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox at the direction of President Richard Nixon after Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Assistant Attorney General Ruckelshaus had refused and resigned. (see Watergate for expanded story)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Iran hostage crisis

October 20, 1979: the U.S. government allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to travel to New York for medical treatment. [NYT article] (see Nov 4)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

October 20, 1980: Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan wrote to PATCO President Robert Poli with this promise: if the union endorsed Reagan, “I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety.” He got the endorsement. Nine months after the election (see August 5, 1981) he fired the air traffic controllers for engaging in an illegal walkout over staffing levels and working conditions. (see June 12, 1981)

Weather Underground

October 20, 1981: the 1981 Brink’s robbery was an armed robbery and three related murders committed by several Black Liberation Army members and four former members of the Weather Underground, now associated with the May 19th Communist Organization. The plan called for the BLA members to carry out the robbery, with the M19CO members — David Gilbert, Judith Alice Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Marilyn Buck — to serve as getaway drivers in switchcars.

The conspirators stole $1.6 million in cash from a Brink’s armored car at the Nanuet Mall, in Nanuet, New York, killing a Brink’s guard, Peter Paige, seriously wounding Brink’s guard Joseph Trombino, slightly wounding Brink’s truck driver guard, James Kelly, subsequently killing two Nyack police officers, Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown, and seriously wounding Police Detective Artie Keenan. [Wikipedia article] (next WU, see )

AIDS

October 20, 2000: Robert D Ray (see August 28, 1987) died. (next AIDS related entry, see July 7 > 12, 2002)

LGBTQ

October 20, 2010: Barack Obama’s administration announced it would also appeal the judge’s ruling on the constitutionally of Don’t ask, don’t tell even though Obama announced earlier in the year that he wished to end the policy. (see Nov 1)

Nuclear/Chemical News

October 20, 2018: President Trump said he would pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. The treaty limited the number of missiles in each country.

Trump said Moscow had violated Treaty and he would halt the agreement.

Trump said the U.S. would pull out “and then we are going to develop the weapons” unless Russia and China agree to a new deal, though China isn’t currently a party of the agreement.

“Russia has violated the agreement. They have been violating it for many years,” the president said. “And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to.” [USA Today article] (see Nov 1)

Space

October 20, 2020: NASA’s OSIRIS-REX spacecraft touched the surface of an asteroid  200 million miles away to gather a sample of rocks and dirt. The operation proceeded smoothly. The sampling mechanism set down partly on a rock about 8 inches wide. [NYT article] (next Space, see Oct 23; asteroid, see September 24, 2023)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Fair Housing

October 20, 2022: three real estate companies operating in Washington, DC, were ordered to pay record-breaking penalties in a suit brought by the city for illegally discriminating against tenants who use Section 8 vouchers and other forms of housing assistance.

The attorney general for the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, announced a settlement for $10 million. While fair housing cases involving lenders have resulted in larger compensation payouts, $10 million was the largest civil penalty ever levied in a housing discrimination case. [Bloomberg article] (next FH, see January 20, 2023)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

October 20, 2022:  in a move that cames as many states had rolled back access to abortion since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Pentagon announced that it would pay for service members to travel for such care.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin directed the department in a memo  to adopt a suite of reproductive health care policies in response to the Supreme Court’s June decision to end the federal right to abortion.

“The practical effect of the recent changes was that service members may be forced to travel greater distances, take more time off work and pay more out-of-pocket expenses to access reproductive health care, all of which have readiness, recruiting and retention implications for America’s armed forces,” said Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, speaking to reporters  [NPR article] (next WH, see Oct 21)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Hard Scrabble Riot

October 18, 1824: a white mob attacked black homes in Hard Scrabble (a section of Providence, RI) after a black man refused to get off the sidewalk when approached by some whites. Although the mob claimed to be targeting places of ill-repute, it destroyed buildings indiscriminately. Hundreds of whites destroyed approximately 20 black homes. Four people were tried for rioting, but only one was found guilty.

Hard Scrabble was a predominantly black neighborhood in northwestern Providence in the early 19th century. Away from the town center, its inexpensive rents attracted working class free blacks, poor people of all races and marginalized businesses such as saloons and houses of prostitution. Tensions developed between the residents of Hard Scrabble and other residents of Providence. [Smithsonian article] (see also Snowtown Riot, September 21 -24, 1831)

Nat Turner

In 1825: Nat Turner had a second vision (see Turner In 1821). He saw lights in the sky and prayed to find out what they meant. Then “… while laboring in the field, I discovered drops of blood on the corn, as though it were dew from heaven, and I communicated it to many, both white and black, in the neighborhood; and then I found on the leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters and numbers, with the forms of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood, and representing the figures I had seen before in the heavens.” (next BH, March 16, 1827; see NT for expanded chronology)

Jack Johnson

October 18, 1912: boxer Jack Johnson was arrested on the grounds that his relationship with Lucille Cameron violated the Mann Act (see June 25, 1910 ) against “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes” due to her being an alleged prostitute. Her mother also swore formally that her daughter was insane

Cameron, soon to become his second wife, refused to cooperate and the case fell apart.

Less than a month later, Johnson was arrested again on similar charges. This time, the woman, another alleged prostitute named Belle Schreiber, with whom he had been involved in 1909 and 1910, testified against him. In the courtroom of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the future Commissioner of Baseball who perpetuated the baseball color line until his death, Johnson was convicted by an all-white jury in June 1913, despite the fact that the incidents used to convict him took place before passage of the Mann Act.

He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. (BH, see In December; Johnson, see June 25, 1913)

George Armwood lynched

October 18, 1933: a mob of at least 2000 white residents of Princess Anne, Maryland beat, hanged, dragged, and burned George Armwood to death. Armwood, reportedly known to be “feeble-minded,” had been accused of assaulting an 80-year-old woman who was also the mother of a local white policeman. Shortly after being arrested, Armwood was dragged out of the jail and an 18-year-old boy immediately cut off his ear with a butcher knife. The growing mob then beat George Armwood nearly to death and dragged him to a tree, where he was hanged. Afterward, the mob cut down his corpse, dragged it through the streets, hanged it again, and then staged a public burning. The New Journal and Guide reported that “[m]en, women and children, participated in the savage orgy.”

Armwood’s lynching sparked a national outcry and calls for prosecution of the lynchers, yet investigations at the county, state, and federal levels faced obstacles and delays. Inquiries following the lynching were marked by residents’ refusal to identify participants as well as mockery and intimidation of black witnesses. The American Civil Liberties Union, frustrated with the silence, began offering a $1000 reward to people willing to name leaders of the mob.

Even when finally presented with identifying evidence, the county prosecutor refused to act. When the Maryland Attorney General ordered troops to arrest eight named participants, white residents who supported the accused lynchers waged riots of protest. Four white men were ultimately tried for the lynching of George Armwood, and acquitted by all-white juries. [EJI article] (next BH, see January 28, 1934; next Lynching, see January 30, 1934; see AL3 for expanded chronology of early 20th century lynching)

 Irene Morgan

On July 16, 1944,  Irene Morgan (age 27), recovering from a miscarriage and traveling by bus from Virginia to Baltimore for a doctor’s appointment refused to relinquish her seat [as well as another Black woman] to a white couple.

The driver, angered by Morgan’s refusal, drove the bus to the Middlesex County town of Saluda and stopped outside the jail. A sheriff’s deputy came aboard and told Morgan that he had a warrant for her arrest. She continued to refuse and had to be physically subdued. She was jailed for resisting arrest and violating Virginia’s segregation law.

On this date [October 18, 1944} Morgan was convicted. On January 27, 1001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal. (BH, see June 3, 1946)

George Whitmore, Jr.

October 18, 1965: prosecutors disclosed that friends of Richard Robles cooperated in the surreptitious recording of conversations in which he admitted the double murder. When confronted with the tapes after his arrest, Robles “freely and voluntarily confessed” in the presence of eight police officers, including Thomas J. Cavanagh Jr., the commander of the Manhattan detective squad. (next BH, see Oct 19; see Whitmore for expanded story)

Tommie Smith and John Carlos

October 18, 1968: the U.S. Olympic Committee suspended Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a “black power” salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City. (see “In November“)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

 

Technological Milestones

Long distance telephone

October 18, 1892: the first long distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was opened. (see June 21, 1893)

Transistor radio

October 18, 1954: Industrial Development Engineering Associates announced the first practical transistor radio, the Regency TR-1. (see Nov 1)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Feminism

October 18, 1911: New York City agreed to pay women school teachers a rate equal to that of men. (Labor, see Dec 5; Feminism, see January  11 > March 1912)

Colin Kaepernick

October 18, 2017: at the next day of the NFL meetings, NFL Houston Texan owner Robert McNair, in response to some players supporting Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling in 2016 with their own associated protests, said, ” “We can’t have the inmates running the prison,”

NFL executive Troy Vincent, a former player, later stood up and said he was offended by McNair’s characterization of the players as “inmates.” Vincent said that in all his years of playing in the NFL — during which, he said, he had been called every name in the book, including the N-word — he never felt like an “inmate.” (Labor , see Oct 27; Free Speech & CK, see Oct 29)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

October 18 Music et al

Quarry Men

October 18, 1957: The Quarry Men performed at the New Clubmoor Hall (Conservative Club), Norris Green, Liverpool. This was Paul McCartney’s first appearance with the group. The line-up for The Quarry Men was John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Eric Griffiths, Colin Hanton, and Len Garry. Paul McCartney, suffering from a case of the stage jitters, flubs his guitar solo on the song “Guitar Boogie”. Upset with his playing, Paul tries to make amends by showing John a song he had written, “I Lost My Little Girl”. John then shows Paul some songs that he has composed. The two start writing songs together from that moment, which marks the birth of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership. Pete Shotton, out of the group by this time, had no real musical ability and knew it; he was almost relieved when, during a drunken argument, John Lennon had smashed Pete’s washboard over Pete’s head. That was the end of Pete Shotton’s career as a Quarry Man. (see January 24, 1958)

WNEW-FM

October 18, 1967:  press release from WNEW-FM announcing that Rosko will be joining station on October 31. (see Oct 29)

Rolling Stone magazine

October 18, 1967: the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine released with a cover dated Nov 9 and featuring a photograph of John Lennon in the film How I Won the War. (see Dec 22)

John & Yoko arrested

October 18, 1968:  the Drug Squad arrested John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Lennon and Ono were temporarily living at Ringo Starr’s flat at 34 Montagu Square, London. Following a tip-off from a newspaper journalist friend, they had thoroughly cleaned the flat to make sure it was free of drugs.

Lennon related: All of a sudden, there was this knock on the door and a woman’s voice outside, and I look around and there is a policeman standing in the window, waiting to be let it. We’d been in bed and our lower regions were uncovered. Yoko ran into the bathroom to get dressed with her head poking out, so they wouldn’t think she was hiding anything. Then I said, ‘Ring the lawyer, quick,’ but she went and rang Apple. I will never know why…. That thing was set up. The Daily Express was there before the cops came. In fact, Don Short had told us, ‘They’re coming to get you,’ three weeks before. So, believe me, I’d cleaned the house out, because Jimi Hendrix had lived there before in the apartment, and I’m not stupid. I went through the whole damn house. (see Nov 1)

“I Can’t Get Next To You”

October 18 – 31, 1969: “I Can’t Get Next To You” by The Temptations #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

Cuban Missile Crisis

October 18, 1962: President Kennedy met with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko, who claimed the weapons were for defensive purposes only. Not wanting to expose what he already knew, and wanting to avoid panicking the American public, Kennedy did not reveal that he was already aware of the missile build-up. (see Cuban missile crisis)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam & DRAFT CARD BURNING

David Miller

October 18, 1965: the FBI arrested David Miller for burning draft card on October 15. (Vietnam, see Oct 30; Draft Card, see Nov 6)

Peace Negotiations

October 18, 1972:  Henry Kissinger began discussions with President Thieu. In Paris, a spokesman for the North Vietnamese delegation, Nguyen Thanh Le, denounced the United States position as “erroneous and intransigent.” (see Oct 20)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

October 18, 1972: Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding President Richard M. Nixon’s veto. (see December 28, 1973) (NYT Clean Water Act article)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

October 18, 1999: Robert Raysworn in as the successor to Independent Counsel Ken Starr, inheriting a highly controversial investigation and the duty to write the special prosecutor’s final report. (see Clinton for expanded story)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

October 18, 2012: the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan became the second in the nation to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. The decision upheld a lower court judge who ruled that the 1996 law that defines marriage as involving a man and a woman was unconstitutional. The three-judge panel said the law violates equal protection. A federal appeals court in Boston earlier in the year also found it unconstitutional. (NYT article) (next LGBTQ+ see Oct 23 or see December 13, 2022 re DoMA)

New Jersey

October 18, 2013: NJ state Supreme Court ruled that  the state must begin granting same-sex marriage licenses on October 21 (Monday) (see Oct 21) (NYT article)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Newsweek

October 18, 2012, Newsweek magazine, in print publication since February 17, 1933, announced that would end print publication at the end of the year. (NYT article)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

Boy Scouts of America

October 18, 2012: thousands of pages of internal documents, police files and newspaper clippings were released about how the Boy Scouts of America had policed the ranks of its scoutmasters and other volunteers to guard against sexual predators — and how they had often failed. The files were put together over a 20-year period in states across the nation on 1,247 men who were accused of abuse between 1965 and 1985, often with multiple victims. The release of the documents creates, for the first time, a public database on specific abuse accusations. (Sexual abuse, see Dec 21; BSA, see January 28, 2013) (NYT article)

Pennsylvania investigation

October 18, 2018: the US Justice Department opened an investigation into Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania accused of covering up sex abuse for decades.

It may have been the first statewide investigation by the federal government of the church’s sex abuse problems. And it came two months after the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office released a grand jury report charging that bishops and other church leaders had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 people over a period of more than 70 years. (see Nov 8)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

October 18, 2017: the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of secularists in a challenge of an enormous cross in the middle of a public roadway in Maryland.

The Bladensburg cross was a massive Latin cross displayed on government property in the center of one of the busiest intersections in Prince George’s County, Md. The religious structure, a claimed war memorial, had been maintained with thousands of dollars in government funds.

The Court of Appeals concluded  that the monumental cross — a universal hallmark symbol of Christianity — entangled the government with religion.

“One simply cannot ignore the fact that for thousands of years, the Latin cross has represented Christianity,” wrote the court in its opinion. “Even in the memorial context, a Latin cross serves not simply as a generic symbol of death, but rather a Christian symbol of the death of Jesus Christ.” (see April 15)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism & Space

October 18, 2019: NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conducted the first all-female spacewalk outside of the International Space Station.  (next Feminism, see January 15, 2020 ; next Space, see February 6, 2020)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

October 19. 2019: Health and Human Services official Cmdr. Jonathan White told U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw he believed a “final accounting” would show at least 1,250 additional children had been separated from their parents before Sabraw issued an injunction stopping the family separation practice.

The additional separations would likely be confirmed before an October. 25 deadline set on April 25 by Sabraw in the expanded family separation class action he was presiding over in the Southern District of California.

The government had 6 months to account for all additional families it separated after a January 2019 report by the Office of Inspector General raised the alarm that thousands more children may have been separated than previously thought.

The American Civil Liberties Union also alerted the court during the summer about hundreds more families that had been separated despite Sabraw’s order ceasing the practice. The government had separated those families due to parental criminal history for minor crimes including misdemeanors. (next IH, see Oct 24; next Judge Sabraw, see January 13, 2020)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism