Tag Archives: March Peace Love Art Activism

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

U.S. v. WONG KIM ARK

March 28, 1898: in  U.S. v. WONG KIM ARK the Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the US to Chinese immigrants was a US citizen and could not be deported under the terms of the Chinese Exclusion Act. (see March 3, 1903)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

Cold War

March 28, 1946: the State Department released the so-called Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which outlined a plan for international control of atomic energy. The report represented an attempt by the United States to maintain its superiority in the field of atomic weapons while also trying to avoid a costly and dangerous arms race with the Soviet Union.  (Red Scare, see Nov 6; NN, see July 25)

Three Mile Island

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

March 28, 1979: Three Mile Island power plant, Pennsylvania. A cooling malfunction caused a partial meltdown in one reactor, resulting in a limited release of radioactivity (INES Level 5). The site’s first reactor (TMI One) on the Susquehanna river was closed for refuelling. The second was at full capacity when two malfunctions occurred: first there was a release of radioactive water, then radioactive gas was detected on the perimeter. No deaths or injuries were reported. It is considered the United States’ worst nuclear accident and led to major safety changes in the industry. (next N/C, see June 18); Three Mile, see September 20, 2019)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

see March 28 Music et al for expanded blog

Fear of Rock

March 28, 1955: from the NY Times: Memphis, Tennessee. The City Censor Board has banned the movie “Blackboard Jungle,” Chief Censor Llyd Binford said today. (see May 17)

Roots of Rock

March 28, 1958: during the opening night of a tour promoted by DJ Alan Freed, Jerry Lee Lewis involved in a dispute with Chuck Berry over the line-up. Enraged that he had not been chosen to perform last, Lewis torches his piano during his set-closing number, “Great Balls of Fire.” (see Mar 31)

FREE SPEECH

March 28, 1961: NYC Park Commissioner, Newbold Morris, notified his staff to limit permits issued for musical performances in Washington Square to bonafide artistic groups. He also asked the police to issue summonses to guitarists, bongo drummers, and folk singers who do not have permits. (see Apr 9) (see New York City Bans Folk Music for full story)

Pirate Radio

March 28, 1964: with the increasing popularity of the Beatles and other similar bands plus the lack of airplay for them on the British Broadcasting System’s radio stations, Radio Caroline, the first so-called pirate radio station, began to broadcast off the coast of England from a ship. The combination of rock music and lively disk jockey patter played to a huge audience, but well out of reach of British authorities. (next Beatles, see Apr 4) (see Pirate Radio for expanded story)

John Lennon and Nilsson

March 28, 1974: the Troubadour incident (see John Lennon Meets Brandy Alexander) was a wake-up call for Lennon and Nilsson. Lennon soon announced he would produce Nilsson’s next album, ‘Pussy Cats.’ They decided that the LP’s musicians should live together during the sessions. Lennon and Nilsson, along with Ringo Starr and Keith Moon, moved into a Santa Monica beach house.

On March 28, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney unexpectedly joined Lennon, Nilsson and others for a midnight jam. Ringo had left, so McCartney sat in on drums and sang harmony to Lennon’s lead vocals. Lennon also played guitar with Wonder on electric piano. Despite the star-studded lineup, standards like ‘Lucille’ and ‘Stand By Me,’ marred by technical problems, were disappointing.

By evening’s end, Lennon and McCartney agreed to see each other again but it would be the last time the two ex-Beatles would play together in a studio. (next Beatles, see Aug 31)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Jeremiah Reeves

March 28, 1958: Alabama executed Reeves (see November 10, 1952). He was 22. He had spent much of his time in prison writing poetry and he willed his final poem to his mother. (see Apr 6)

Murders of Three Civil Rights Workers

March 28, 1966: in U. S. vs. Price et al, the Supreme Court overruled Cox and reinstated the indictments (next BH, see, Apr 21;  see Murders for expanded story)

MLK, Jr & US Labor History

March 28, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy and James Lawson led a march of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. More than 1,300 workers had gone on strike because the city had refused to recognize their union. In response, the city had hired strikebreakers. As the march moved down Beale Street, some broke windows and looted. The march quickly ended, and King vowed to have a nonviolent march April 5. King didn’t live to see that day. (BH, see April; Memphis, see May 16; LH, see July 1)

Black Panthers

March 28, 1972: Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette, the two surviving Soledad Brothers, were acquitted. They had been charged with killing a white guard at Soledad Prison in 1970. The third Soledad Brother, George Jackson, was killed in August 1971, in alleged escape attempt. (see June 4)

SOUTH AFRICA/APARTHEID

March 28, 1982: Nelson Mandela and four other A.N.C. leaders were transferred from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison in the suburbs of Cape Town. While many believe the move was intended to lessen the influence of the famous prisoners, government officials later say they wanted a way to open a discreet line of communication with the men. (SA/A, see October 16, 1984; Mandela, see February 10, 1985)

STAND YOUR GROUND LAW & Trayvon Martin Shooting

March 28 Peace Love Activism

March 28, 2012: Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., taking off his jacket to wear a a hoodie and sunglasses as he spoke on the floor of the House. Rush donned a hoodie during the speech on the House floor deploring the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and received a reprimand for violating rules on wearing hats in the House chamber. (see April 7)

Stop and Frisk Policy & Fourth Amendment

March 28, 2012: the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit accusing the NYC Police Department of illegally stopping tens of thousands of people in privately owned buildings across the city where officers had been given permission to enter by landlords. The suit claims that residents and their guests are subject to arbitrary enforcement practices that violate antidiscrimination provisions of the federal Fair Housing Act, as well as their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. (S & F, see Mar 30; 4th, see January 8, 2013)

James C. Anderson

March 28, 2012: Dylan Butler, 20, Deryl Dedmon, 19, and John Aaron Rice, 19, all of Brandon, Miss., admitted to conspiring to commit and committing a hate crime, as well as to a months-long campaign of terror against Blacks that began in April 2011 and culminated June 26 in the death of James Craig Anderson. Dedmon received two life sentences on the state charges. He and his co-conspirators faced up to five years in prison on the federal conspiracy charge, and could receive life sentences on the hate crime federal charge. (BH, see April; JCA, see Dec 4)

 Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act

March 28, 2022: President Joe Biden signed the  Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law that made lynching a federal hate crime, acknowledging how racial violence has left a lasting scar on the nation and asserting that these crimes are not a relic of a bygone era.

The President said, “Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone … belongs in America, not everyone is created equal. Terror, to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Terror, not just in the dark of the night but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children hung by nooses in trees, bodies burned and drowned and castrated.” [CNN article] (next BH, see April 7; next Lynching, see  or see AL for expanded chronology; next ET, see June 29)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

The Phoenix

March 28, 1967: The Phoenix, a private U.S. yacht with eight American pacifists aboard, arrived in Haiphong, North Vietnam, with $10,000 worth of medical supplies for the North Vietnamese. The trip, financed by a Quaker group in Philadelphia, was made in defiance of a U.S. ban on American travel to North Vietnam. No charges were filed against the participants and the group later made a second trip to North Vietnam. (MUlocal site article)  (see April 4)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Wounded Knee

March 28, 1973: the media reported that one hundred of the Indians holding the historic hamlet of Wounded Knee offered to surrender but hard-core dissidents, vowing to die, were keeping them in the village at gunpoint. (NA & RCM, see Mar 29)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Judge Connie Wilkerson

March 28, 2002: in Mississippi, the “George County Times” published a letter from George County Justice Court Judge Connie Wilkerson which read, in part, “In my opinion, gays and lesbians should be put in some type of mental institution.”

Because of the bias expressed in such a statement, an ethics violation complaint was filed against Wilkerson, but the State Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, decided not to hold Wilkerson accountable for his opinion. (see January 2003)

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr

March 28, 2014: US Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that the federal government would recognize more than 300 same-sex marriages that were performed in Michigan last weekend. Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican that they were “legal and valid marriages” but that the state would not recognize them until the court resolved the matter.

 Holder’s announcement capped a week of rapid change and uncertainty over the status of same-sex marriage in Michigan. On March 21, a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, and the next morning gay and lesbian couples rushed to exchange vows. By late that afternoon, however, an appeals court stayed the judge’s ruling. While the appeals played out, the legal status of those unions was uncertain. (see Apr 28)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Foxconn

March 28, 2012: Apple Inc’s Tim Cook, on his first trip to China as the chief executive officer, visited an iPhone production plant run by the Foxconn Technology Group, which was being accused of improper labor practices. (2012 CNT article) (see Mar 29)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

March 28, 2017: President Trump signed an executive order intended to roll back most of President Barack Obama’s climate-change legacy, celebrating the move as a way to promote energy independence and to restore thousands of lost coal industry jobs.

Flanked by coal miners at a ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency,  Trump signed a short document titled the “Energy Independence” executive order, directing the agency to start the legal process of withdrawing and rewriting the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s policies to fight global warming. (see June 1)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

March 28, 2019: the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of a Buddhist inmate on death row because prison officials had not let his spiritual adviser be present in the execution chamber, even though they provide chaplains for inmates of some other faiths.

This case is in contrast to a similar case on February 7 this year, in which the high court permitted the execution of a Muslim inmate who could not have his imam with him at the moment of death. The court provided no explanation for the different result.

Legal scholars said the new decision sent a message that religious discrimination by government officials is never acceptable — and it might be a way for the court to deal with the criticism it faced after it let the Muslim inmate die. (see May 28)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

ADA

March 28, 2019: President Trump announced that a proposed $18 million cut in Special Olympics funding had been withdrawn.

“The Special Olympics will be funded, I just told my people,” Trump said. (next ADA, see July 30, 2020)

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

Right to Die

March 28, 2022: after a lawsuit challenged the requirement as unconstitutional, Oregon no longer required people to be residents of the state to use its law allowing terminally ill people to receive lethal medication, In a settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Medical Board agreed to stop enforcing the residency requirement and to ask the Legislature to remove it from the law.

Advocates said they would use the settlement to press the eight other states and Washington, D.C., with medically assisted suicide laws to drop their residency requirements as well.

“This requirement was both discriminatory and profoundly unfair to dying patients at the most critical time of their life,” said Kevin Diaz, an attorney with Compassion & Choices, the national advocacy group that sued over Oregon’s requirement. [KGW8 article] (next RtD, see )

March 28 Peace Love Art Activism

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Charleston, S.C

March 27, 1861: just weeks before the beginning of the Civil War, free African Americans in Charleston, S.C., staged “ride-ins” over being denied access to streetcars. (BH, see Apr 16; Charleston, see May 1)

President Andrew Johnson

March 27, 1866:  President Andrew Johnson vetoed a civil rights bill that would later become the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, conferring full US citizenship on all slaves. (see May 1)

United States v. Cruikshank

March 27, 1876: the Supreme Court had heard arguments in United States v. Cruikshank on March 31 and April 1, 1875. In its ruling on this day, the Supreme Court dismissed the charges against the three white men, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment protects only against intentionally discriminatory state acts, not the acts of one citizen towards another not clearly motivated by racial animus. This ruling severely limited the federal government’s role in protecting black citizens from racially-motivated violence, especially at the hands of white terrorist groups intent on restoring whites’ racial dominance in the post-civil war South. (US Constitution dot org article) (see June 17)

Louis Lundy shot

March 27, 1908: Alabama Representative James Thomas Heflin shot Louis Lundy, a Black man, after he allegedly cursed in front of a white woman while riding on a Washington, D.C. streetcar. The congressman claimed that Mr. Lundy’s cursing was “raising a disturbance,” and received an outpouring of support from the white public and his fellow representatives after shooting Mr. Lundy through his neck. He was never held accountable for shooting Mr. Lundy. [EJI article] (next BH, see Mar 30)

”SCOTTSBORO BOYS”
Haywood Patterson

March 27, 1933: Haywood Patterson’s second trial began before another all-white jury. Ruby Bates testified that neither she nor Victoria Price had been raped on the Southern Railway. (see Scottsboro for expanded story)

Montgomery Bus Boycott

March 27, 1956: the Alabama Attorney General filed a motion urging dismissal of the Browder v. Gayle federal suit. (B v G, see June 5; see Montgomery for expanded story)

Rev. Billy Graham

March 27, 1956: Rev. Billy Graham, a conservative Protestant minister from North Carolina, was just beginning to emerge as the unofficial “minister” to U.S. presidents. On this day, he advised President Dwight D. Eisenhower to “stay out” of the growing civil rights controversy. Eisenhower did not need much persuading, as he did not support the Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education decision of May 17, 1954. (Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 25, 1957, to ensure the integration of Central High School, but he did so only because of the violent resistance to a lawful court order. (see Mar 29)

School Desegregation

March 27, 1962: Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel of Louisiana, called for all Roman Catholic schools in New Orleans to end their segregation policies. (Know Louisiana dot org article on Rummel) (BH, see Apr 3; SD, see September 2, 1963)

Rev. James Orange

March 27, 1965: a group of about 200 protesters, black and white, led by the Rev. James Orange of the SCLC marched to the Dallas County courthouse in Selma. The Rev. James Bevel told them, [Viola Liuzzo] gave her life that freedom might be saved throughout this land.” (BH, see Apr 2; see Viola for expanded story)

Alton B. Sterling

March 27, 2018: Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry announced that police officers would not be prosecuted by the state authorities in the fatal shooting of a  Alton B. Sterling on July 5, 2016.

Landry’s statements were similar to the Justice Department’s findings (see May 2, 2017) and defended the conduct of the officers, saying, for example, that their efforts to gain control of Sterling’s hands were “well-founded and reasonable under the circumstances and under Louisiana law.” Landry also said the officers were justified in their concern about whether Mr. Sterling was armed. (Sterling, see Mar 30)

Stephon Clark

March 27, 2018: hundreds of protesters temporarily took over the main foyer at Sacramento City Hall to protest the death of Stephon Clark, who was fatally shot by two Sacramento police officers in his grandmother’s backyard while they investigated a vandalism complaint.

Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general, announced that his office would oversee the investigation into Clark’s death and would review the department’s training and protocols. (B & S and SC, see Mar 30)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Feminism

March 27, 1904: Colorado state authorities ordered Mary Harris “Mother” Jones to leave the state. She was accused of stirring up striking coal miners. (Labor, see Apr 25; Feminism, see March 2, 1907)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

see March 27 Music et al for expanded blog

Roots of Rock
Sun Records

March 27, 1952: Sam Phillips began Sun Records, a division of Sun Entertainment Corp, as an American independent record label. (see January 4, 1954)

Technological Milestone

March 27, 1958: CBS Laboratories announced a new stereophonic record that was playable on ordinary LP phonographs, meaning, monaural. In stereo, on the proper equipment, a new rich and fuller sound was heard. It eventually became a standard for record and equipment buyers. (see December 10, 1959)

Bob Dylan

March 27 Peace Love Art ActivismMarch 27, 1965: Dylan released Bringing It All Back Home, his fifth studio album. He had recorded  between January 13 – 15, 1965

The album’s cover photographed by Daniel Kramer features Sally Grossman (wife of Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman) lounging in the background. There are also artifacts scattered around the room, including LPs by The Impressions (Keep on Pushing), Robert Johnson (King of the Delta Blues Singers), Ravi Shankar (India’s Master Musician), Lotte Lenya (Sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill) and Eric Von Schmidt (The Folk Blues of Eric Von Schmidt). Dylan had “met” Schmidt “one day in the green pastures of Harvard University” and would later mimic his album cover pose (tipping his hat) for his own Nashville Skyline four years later. (see Apr 12)

Supremes

March 27 – April 9, 1965: “Stop! In the Name of Love” by the Supremes #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fear of Rock

March 27, 1971: New York radio station WNBC banned the song ‘One Toke Over the Line’ by Brewer & Shipley because of its alleged drug references. Other stations around the country followed. (see April 28, 1982)

Jerry Garcia

March 27, 1973: police arrested Jerry Garcia after finding cocaine and LSD in his car after being busted for speeding in New Jersey. (see January 7, 1979)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

March 27, 1953: the ban on manufacturing of color TVs (due to conflict in Korea) was lifted.  (see Apr 7)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Cold War

Dalton Trumbo

 

March 27, 1957: “Robert Rich” won the Academy Award for Best Original Story for the 1956 film, The Brave One. At the Oscars ceremony, however, no “Mr. Rich” appeared to accept the award. “Rich” was the pseudonym for Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted because of his political views and his refusal to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), on October 28, 1947. While blacklisted, Trumbo wrote a number of screenplays anonymously or under pseudonyms. (San Francisco Chronicle obituary) (Red Scare & Trumbo, see May 2

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

March 27, 1973: Marlon Brando boycotted the Academy Award ceremonies and sent Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American activist who presented a speech on his behalf for his performance in The Godfather as a protest of the treatment of Native Americans by the film industry. There was a mixed reaction to her/Brando’s letter. (2013 article on Littlefeather)

Clint Eastwood later poked fun at the statement

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Fourth Amendment

Tennessee v. Garner

March 27, 1985: the US Supreme Court held that, under the Fourth Amendment, when a law enforcement officer is pursuing a fleeing suspect, the officer may not use deadly force to prevent escape unlessthe officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.” (Oyez article) (see June 20, 1991)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Calvin Graham

March 27, 1988: Too Young to be a Hero, a made-for-TV movie, starring Rick Schroder (age 17), tells the story of Calvin Graham. Graham received $50,000, but 50% went to two agents, and 20% went to a writer of an unpublished book. (see Graham for expanded story)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

Sen John McCain

March 27, 2007:  Sen John McCain claimed progress in Iraq. McCain tells CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee. I think you oughta catch up. You are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. We certainly don’t get it through the filter of some of the media.” He later acknowledges, “There is no unarmored humvees. Obviously, that’s the case.” [CBS, 4/8/07] (see April 1)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

March 27, 2012: Msgr. William J. Lynn, 61, went on trial. He was the first Roman Catholic supervisor in the country to be tried on felony charges of endangering children and conspiracy — not on allegations that he molested children himself, but that he protected suspect priests and reassigned them to jobs where they continued to rape, grope or otherwise abuse boys and girls. (see Mar 29)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Religion and Public Education

In God We Trust

March 27, 2012:  Bradley Johnson, Petitioner v. Poway Unified School District, et al. The US Supreme Court declined to hear (thus upheld) a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision re a San Diego County school district’s ordering a high school math teacher to remove large banners declaring “In God We Trust” and “God Shed His Grace on Thee.” On September 13, 2011 in a 3-0 ruling the appeals court said that those inscriptions and others that teacher Bradley Johnson displayed on his classroom wall amounted to a statement of religious views that the Poway Unified School District was entitled to disavow. (Law dot Justia dot com article)

Nampa Classical Academy vs. Gosling

March 27, 2012:  Nampa Classical Academy vs. Gosling, 11-786. The US Supreme Court declined to hear (thus upheld) a Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ruled that Idaho’s Public Charter School Commission acted legally when it prohibited a charter school from using religious materials as textbooks. The Nampa Classical Academy said it was using the Bible and other spiritual texts for cultural education, not religious indoctrination. But the appeals court said the state was entitled to ban the books as texts in order to avoid “governmental promotion of religion.” (see November 19, 2013)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

March 27, 2017: saying the time was not right to outlaw nuclear arms, the United States led a group of dozens of United Nations members that boycotted talks at the global organization for a treaty that would ban the weapons.

 “There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons,” Ambassador Nikki R. Haley of the United States told reporters outside the General Assembly as the talks began. “But we have to be realistic. Is there anyone who thinks that North Korea would ban nuclear weapons?”

  The talks, supported by more than 120 countries, were first announced in October and were led by Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, South Africa and Sweden. Disarmament groups strongly support the effort. (see Mar 29)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

March 27, 2017: the Supreme Court tightened its rules on capital punishment ruling that Texas — the nation’s leader in executions — could not use a decades-old definition of intellectual disability to determine who lives and who dies.

The 5-3 decision was another in a series of high court rulings intended to eliminate differences in how states decide who is disabled — and therefore ineligible for the death penalty under a 2002 precedent — and who is not.

The case involved a Bobby James Moore. His case dated back to 1980, when he shot and killed a grocery store clerk during a botched robbery. He was twice convicted, then found to be intellectually disabled, but Texas’ highest criminal court overturned that finding, citing its own precedent, which is based on a 1992 definition of intellectual disability. His case now returns to Texas for further consideration. (see Apr 14)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Cannabis

New Jersey 1

March 27, 2018: NJ Gov. Phil Murphy announced major changes to the State’s medical marijuana system. The system had been limited to such conditions as multiple sclerosis, ALS, epilepsy, cancer, AIDS and others.

Murphy added anxiety, migraines, chronic pain and tourette’s to the list. He lowered the cost of participation from $200 to $100, or just $20 for veterans, seniors and the disabled. He also took a number of steps to expand access to, and the number of, dispensaries. (see Mar 29)

New Jersey 2

March 27, 2019: the New Jersey State Appeals Court ruled that New Jersey employers could not fire workers because they were medical marijuana patients. The Court said that such patients—as long as they were not using the drug or under the influence at work—were protected by the State’s law against discrimination.

The decision was based on a discrimination lawsuit filed by Justin Wild, 41, a man diagnosed with cancer who was fired from his director’s job at the Feeney Funeral Home in Ridgewood, NJ in 2016.

Appellate Court Judge Clarkson Fisher Jr  said that the state Law Against Discrimination did require employers to accommodate people with disabilities, like Wild, whose doctor approved his use of medical cannabis.

He wrote in the decision, “It would be ironic indeed if the Compassionate Use Act limited the Law Against Discrimination to permit an employer’s termination of a cancer patient’s employment by discriminating without compassion,”

The NJ Superior Court had ruled that the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, the 2010 state law creating the program, did not require employers to make accommodations on the job. (see Cannabis for expanded cannabis history)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History/Census

March 27, 2018: at least 12 states signaled that they would sue to block the Trump administration from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, arguing that the change would cause fewer Americans to be counted and violate the Constitution.

The New York State attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, said he was leading a multi-state lawsuit to stop the move, and officials in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington said they would join the effort. California had filed a separate lawsuit on March 26. (IH, see Mar 29; Census, see January 15, 2019)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

Healthcare

March 27, 2019:  Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia struck down a major health care priority for President Trump’s administration when Boasberg ruled that requiring Medicaid enrollees to work in order to qualify for benefits violates the purpose of the health care program for low-income people

On January 11, 2018, the Trump administration invited states to impose these requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries for the first time. Since then, the federal government had approved work requirements in eight states and was considering applications in seven more.

In two opinions issued Boasberg sided with plaintiffs who argued that work requirements do not further the Medicaid program’s statutory purpose, which is to provide access to health care for people with low incomes.  (see Apr 1)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

March 27 2019:  James Fields, who was convicted of killing Heather Heyer by ramming his car into a crowd protesting a white supremacist rally in Charlotteville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, pleaded guilty  in his federal hate crimes case.

Fields, 21, pleaded guilty to 28 federal counts of hate crime acts causing bodily injury and involving an attempt to kill, and one count of a hate crime act that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer.

Each count carried a maximum sentence of life in prison. Under the plea agreement, U.S. prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. (see May 23)

March 27 Peace Love Art Activism

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

Naturalization Law of 1790

March 26, 1790: Naturalization Law of 1790 provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were “free white persons” of “good moral character”. It thus left out American Indians, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks, and later Asians. While women were included in the act, the right of citizenship did “not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States….” Citizenship was inherited exclusively through the father. (Indiana edu article) (see June 25, 1798)

Trump’s Wall

March 26, 2019: the House failed to overturn President Trump’s veto, leaving the declaration of a national emergency at the southwestern border intact despite the bipartisan passage of a resolution attempting to nullify the president’s circumvention of Congress to fund his border wall.

The 248-to-181 vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to kill the national emergency declaration. (IH, see Apr 4; TW, see May 24)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Anarchism

Immigration History

March 26, 1910: an amendment to the Immigration Act of 1907 passed Congress. The 1910 Act, while not changing the language excluding anarchists, streamlined the methods of prosecution and deportation of excludable aliens, forbidding any anarchists into the U.S. (Anarchism, see Dec 17; Immigration, see May 3, 1913)

Emma Goldman

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

March 26 – April 4, 1933: the New York World published a series of controversial articles by Goldman exposing the harsh political and economic conditions in Russia. (see Goldman for expanded story)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Scottsboro Nine

March 26, 1931: a crowd gathered around the Scottsboro jail to lynch the nine youths. Sheriff Matt Wann telephoned Governor Benjamin M. Miller who then called in the National Guard to protect the jail before taking the defendants to Gadsden, Alabama for indictment and to await trial. (see Scottsboro for expanded story)

Eldridge Simmons lynched

March 26, 1944:  a Rev. Simmons controlled more than 270 acres of debt-free Amite County (Mississippi) land that his family had owned since 1887. A farmer and minister, Rev. Simmons worked the land with his children and grandchildren, producing crops and selling the property’s lumber.

In 1941, a rumor spread that there was oil in southwest Mississippi. A group of six white men decided they wanted the Simmons’ land and warned Rev. Simmons to stop cutting lumber. Rev. Simmons consulted a lawyer to work out the dispute and ensure his children would be the sole heirs to the property.

On Sunday 26 March 1944, a group of white men arrived at the home of Rev. Simmons’s eldest son, Eldridge, and told him to show them the property line. He agreed to do so, but while Eldridge Simmons rode with the men in their vehicle, they began to beat him, and shouted that the Simmons family thought they were “smart niggers” for consulting a lawyer. The men then dragged Rev. Simmons from his home about a mile away and began beating him, too. They drove both Simmons men further onto the property and ordered Rev. Simmons out of the car, then killed him brutally–shooting him three times and cutting out his tongue.

After Eldridge and the rest of the Simmons family buried Rev. Simmons, they fled their land in fear. The white men who committed the lynching took possession of the land; only one of the six men was ever prosecuted for the murder, and he was ultimately acquitted by an all-white jury. [EJI article] (next BH, see Apr 3); next Lynching, see July 18, 1946; for expanded chronology of lynching, see also AL4)

Autherine Lucy
March 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Autherine Lucy

March 26, 1957: Autherine Lucy Foster decided not to pursue further her fight to re-enter the University of Alabama. (BH, see Apr 14; U of A, see Lucy for expanded story)

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X

March 26, 1964: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X met for the only time — a brief encounter in Washington, D.C. (next BH & MX, see Mar 29; next MLK, see  see Mar 30; MLK; next  see Oct 14)

George Whitmore, Jr

March 26, 1965: Justice Dominic Rinaldi ruled that Whitmore’s confession to the Minnie Edmonds murder was voluntary and admissible. Rinaldi chastises Whitmore’s attorney, Stanley Reiben, for “talking to the newspapers” about the case. (see Whitmore for expanded story)

 Clarence David Stallworth

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

March 26, 1966: the Southern Courier, a newspaper documenting the civil rights movement, reported that, after driving in Beatrice, Alabama, Clarence David Stallworth was beaten and pistol-whipped by a group of whites that included the town mayor.

While Mr. Stallworth, a black man, was driving through the town, a white man in another car signaled for him to stop, saying that the passenger in the white man’s car wanted to speak with him. When Stallworth stopped his car and walked around to the passenger side of the other vehicle, Mayor T.A. Black got out and hit him in the head with a pistol while the other men in the car exited and began kicking and beating Stallworth. After the attack, Stallworth was refused medical treatment from several different hospitals before finally being admitted to a hospital in Montgomery, more than eighty miles away.

Members of the black community rallied to force County Probate Judge David Nettles to sign the warrants for the arrest of the men involved in the attack. Nettles initially refused, but relented after organizers threatened to initiate a mass protest in support of Stallworth.

“I honestly feel that I am committing a wrong here,” Nettles said when contemplating authorizing the arrests of the men who had beaten Mr. Stallworth. “[But] I’ll sign that warrant tomorrow.” (see Mar 28)

J.W.  Rich

March 26, 2003: J.W. Rich, convicted in the slaying of a Johnnie Mae Chappell said he had nothing to do with the shooting. J.W. Rich  told the Florida Times-Union police threatened to kill him if he didn’t confess.

Rich, 60 and suffering from cancer, said he didn’t know about the Chappell slaying until about five months later, when two detectives came to his house and told him they had a warrant for his arrest. (2006 News4Jax article) (BH & Chappell, see June 6)

Florida Legislature apologized

March 26, 2008: more than 140 years after a former Florida governor described Africans as “a wild barbarian to be tamed and civilized,” the Florida Legislature apologized for the state’s role in sanctioning slavery.

The House and Senate approved a resolution expressing “profound regret for the involuntary servitude of Africans, and calling for reconciliation among all Floridians.” There was no discussion before the unanimous voice votes, but the reading of the resolution, which described how slaves’ ears were nailed to posts during whippings brought some lawmakers, including Black Democratic Tampa Sen. Arthenia Joyner, to tears. Gov. Charlie Crist visited the Senate chamber to watch the vote. In the House, Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, took the unusual step of ordering all members to their seats. And in a rare appearance, Senate President Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, sat at Rubio’s side. “This was as sincere and as meaningful an apology as could be given,” Pruitt said. “It was important for the words to stand on their own.” (see Sept 9)

137 SHOTS

March 26, 2015: Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo, charged in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams following a high-speed police chase in 2012,  would not have his case heard by a jury. Judge John P. O’Donnell will decide the case.

Prosecutors had filed a motion opposing the move, arguing that dismissing a jury in this case would be an “injustice” to the communities of Cleveland and East Cleveland. The motion pointed out that the police officers involved in the shooting were all white, but the victims were black.

It is only fair to the community that African-Americans have the chance to be a part of the jury in this case,” the statement said.

 O’Donnell rejected that argument, writing, “I have no basis in law to decline to allow Brelo to waive a jury.” (see 137 Shots for expanded story)

BLACK & SHOT

March 26, 2017: Richard Haste, the New York City police officer who on  February 2, 2012 chased unarmed teenager Ramarley Graham into his Bronx home and fatally shot him resigned from the Police Department. Haste, 35, quit after he was found guilty on March 24 in a Police Department disciplinary review in connection with the shooting Graham, 18. A deputy commissioner who oversaw the case ruled that Officer Haste, who had been on the force since 2008, had used poor tactical judgment and recommended his dismissal. (see May 1)

Church Burning

March 26, 2019: the Louisiana State Fire Marshal’s Office began its investigation of a  fire that burned down St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre. (next BH & CB, see Apr 2)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

Authors League of America

March 26, 1948: the Authors League of America and the American Booksellers Association issued a protest of two raids, in which the Philadelphia Police Department’s vice squad stormed bookstores and seized about 2,000 books that authorities alleged were “salacious.” The books included the The Wild Palms by William Faulkner, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, and Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell. (Authors Guild site) (see July 20)

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

March 26, 1960: the decision of Judge Bryan that Lady Chatterley’s Lover be allowed all the privileges of the mail was upheld in Grove Press, Inc. v. Christenberry  (Project Gutenberg text of novel) (see Mar 29)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Cold War

Owen Lattimore

March 26, 1950: during a radio broadcast dealing with a Senate investigation into communists in the U.S. Department of State, news was leaked that Senator Joseph McCarthy had charged Professor Owen Lattimore with being a top spy for the Soviet Union.

Lattimore was a scholar of Chinese history. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him as a special representative to the Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-Shek. His troubles began after the war, when it became apparent that Chiang’s government would fall to the communist forces of Mao Zedong. When China fell to the communists in 1949, shocked Americans looked for scapegoats to blame for the debacle. Individuals such as Lattimore, who had been unremitting in their criticism of Chiang’s regime, were easy targets.

All charges were also eventually dropped for lack of evidence, but Lattimore’s career had been severely damaged. (1995 Washington Post article) (see Apr 10)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

Jonas E. Salk

March 26, 1953:  Dr. Jonas E. Salk announced a vaccine had been used safely and successfully in preliminary trials on 90 children and adults as a polio vaccine, two years later the vaccine was released and given to every child in the United States. (see Mar 27)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

March 26 Music et al

Dance With Me Henry

March 26, 1955: re-recorded with “toned-down” lyrics by the white pop singer Georgia Gibbs’s “Dance With Me Henry (Wallflower)” entered the pop charts setting off a dubious trend known as “whitewashing.” For its time, the mid-1950s, the lyrical phrase “You got to roll with me, Henry” was considered risqué just as the very label “rock and roll” was understood to have a sexual connotation. The line comes from an Etta James record originally called “Roll With Me Henry” and later renamed “The Wallflower.” Already a smash hit on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart, it went on to become a pop hit in the spring of 1955, but not for Etta James. (see July 29)

Fear of Rock

March 26, 1967: in Vancouver, Jamie Reid wanted to hold a Human Be-In similar to that held on January 14 in San Francisco. The Vancouver  Park Board had turned down the request, but on the scheduled date about 1,000 people peacefully gathered nonetheless. Country Joe and the Fish played. (next FoR, see May 7)

Woodstock the movie

March 26, 1970:  Warner Brothers released the film documentary, Woodstock. Michael Wadleigh was the director. It received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Thelma Schoonmaker was nominated for the Academy Award for Film Editing, a rare distinction for a documentary. Dan Wallin and L. A. Johnson were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound.  (Roger Ebert review 1970) (see May 11)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Voting Rights

Baker v. Carr

March 26, 1962: landmark United States Supreme Court case that retreated from the Court’s political question doctrine, deciding that redistricting (attempts to change the way voting districts are delineated) issues presented justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide redistricting cases. The defendants unsuccessfully argued that redistricting of legislative districts is a “political question”, and hence not a question that may be resolved by federal courts. (Oyez article) (see January 23, 1964)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

seeWomen Strike for Peacefor more

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

March 26, 1969: Women Strike for Peace demonstrated in Washington, D.C., in the first large antiwar demonstration since President Richard Nixon’s inauguration in January. The antiwar movement had initially given Nixon a chance to make good on his campaign promises to end the war in Vietnam. However, it became increasingly clear that Nixon had no quick solution. As the fighting dragged on, antiwar sentiment against the president and his handling of the war mounted steadily during his term in office. (next Vietnam, see April)

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

March 26, 1982: the ground-breaking for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was held in Washington, DC. (History dot net timeline) (see Nov 10)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

March 26, 1971: Bangladesh declared independent of Pakistan. (Bangladesh, see Aug 1; ID, see Aug 15)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

March 26, 1975: the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction went into force. Nations pledged never “to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain” biological weapons. Some signatory nations, however, have reserved the right to hold certain biological weapons for “prophylactic” purposes. (see Nov 29)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

National Gay Task Force

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

March 26, 1977: The National Gay Task Force met with aides to President Jimmy Carter at the White House. This meeting was the first time lesbian and gay activists had ever been invited to the White House to discuss policy issues related to homosexuality. President Jimmy Carter was at Camp David when the meeting occurred, but he had called for an end to discrimination against homosexuals during the 1976 presidential election campaign, on May 21, 1976. He was the first candidate of a major political party ever to publicly support lesbian and gay rights.

Midge Costanza, director of the Office of Public Liaison in the White House arranged the meeting. (LGBTQ, see June 7; Carter, see June 18)

US Supreme Court

March 26, 2013: the US Supreme Court began hearing an historic oral argument on marriage, which could lead to any one of a wide array of possible decisions — from essentially leaving in place the traditional marriage laws on the books in most states to proclaiming same-sex marriage a fundamental right under the US Constitution. Although the justices are deciding a constitutional question — whether the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment includes a right for same-sex couples to marry — the argument  took place as polls indicated that public opinion is shifting toward acceptance of same-sex marriage. (see Apr 19)

Mike Pence

March 26, 2015: Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a law that allowed any individual or corporation to cite religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party. (see Mar 31)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Middle East

March 26, 1979: in a ceremony at the White House, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel signed a peace treaty.

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Jack Kevorkian

March 26, 1999: Kevorkian convicted of second-degree murder for giving a lethal injection to an ailing man whose death was shown on “60 Minutes.” (see Kevorkian for expanded story)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Affordable Care Act

March 26, 2012: opening arguments presented at the Supreme Court re the 2010 health care law. (see Mar 30)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Fourth Amendment

Florida v. Jardines

March 26, 2013: the US Supreme Court held that police use of a trained detection dog to sniff for narcotics on the front porch of a private home was a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and therefore, without consent, requires both probable cause and a search warrant. (see May 24)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Student Rights

March 26, 2014: Peter Ohr, the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a group of Northwestern football players were employees of the university and had the right to form a union and bargain collectively.

For decades, the major college sports had functioned on the bedrock principle of the student-athlete, with players receiving scholarships to pay for their education in exchange for their hours of practicing and competing for their university. But Ohr tore down that familiar construct in a 24-page decision.

He ruled that Northwestern’s scholarship football players should be eligible to form a union based on a number of factors, including the time they devote to football (as many as 50 hours some weeks), the control exerted by coaches and their scholarships, which Mr. Ohr deemed a contract for compensation.

It cannot be said that the employer’s scholarship players are ‘primarily students,’ ” the decision said. (Student rights, see Sept 17; Labor, see Dec 29; Northwestern, see August 17, 2015)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History & Census

March 26, 2018: the Commerce Department announced that the 2020 census would ask respondents whether they are United States citizens, agreeing to a Trump administration request. Many officials feared the change would result in a substantial undercount.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had “determined that reinstatement of a citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census questionnaire was necessary to provide complete and accurate census block level data,” allowing the department to accurately measure the portion of the population eligible to vote.

Ross’s decision immediately invited a legal challenge: Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, planned to sue the Trump administration over the decision Becerra said, ” “What the Trump administration is requesting is not just alarming, it is an unconstitutional attempt to discourage an accurate census count.” (IH & Census, see Mar 26)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism

ADA

March 26, 2019: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos struggled before a congressional subcommittee to defend the administration’s proposal to cut at least $7 billion from education programs, including eliminating all $18 million in federal funding for the Special Olympics.

When Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee, asked whether DeVos knew how many children would be affected by cutting Special Olympics funding, DeVos said she did not know.

Pocan responded: “I’ll answer it for you, that’s OK, no problem. It’s 272,000 kids that are affected.” (see Mar 28)

March 26 Peace Love Art Activism