March 10, 1919: U.S. Supreme Court upheld the espionage conviction of labor leader and socialist Eugene V. Debs. Debs was jailed for speaking out against World War I. Campaigning for president from his Atlanta jail cell, he won 3.4 percent of the vote—nearly a million votes. (C-Span site video) (Anarchism, seeApr 30; Debs, see December 25, 1921)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
”SCOTTSBORO BOYS”
March 10, 1933: Roy Wright told New York Times reporter Raymond Daniell, “They whipped me and it seemed like they was going to kill me. All the time they kept saying, “now will you tell?” and finally it seemed like I couldn’t stand no more and I said yes. Then I went back into the courtroom and they put me up on the chair in front of the judge and began asking a lot of questions, and I said I had seen Charlie Weems and Clarence Norris with the white girls.” (see Scottsboro for expanded story)
James Earl Ray
March 10, 1969: James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tenn., to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (1998 NYTobit) (see Mar 20)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
Transport Workers Union
March 10, 1941: New York City bus drivers, members of the Transport Workers Union, went on strike. After 12 days of no buses—and a large show of force by Irish-American strikers at the St. Patrick’s Day parade—Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered arbitration. (see May 29)
César E. Chávez
March 10, 1968: United Farm Workers leader César Chávez broke his 24-day fast, by doctor’s order, at a mass in Delano, California’s public park. Several thousand supporters were at his side, including Sen. Robert Kennedy. Chavez called it “a fast for non-violence and a call to sacrifice” (UPI article) (see June 5, 1968)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH
Sacher v. United States
March 10, 1952: the Supreme Court, inSacher v. United States, on this day upheld the contempt citations of six attorneys who had represented Communist Party leaders in the famous Smith Act trial (November 1, 1948). At the end of the trial, the Party leaders were convicted of violating the Smith Act (June 29, 1940), which prohibited advocating the overthrow of the government. (The Supreme Court upheld the Smith Act and their convictions, in Dennis v. United States, on June 4, 1951.) Judge Harold Medina also cited the six defense lawyers for contempt of court because of their conduct during the trial. On this day, the Supreme Court upheld the contempt convictions, and as a result all the lawyers served time in prison.
The lawyers were Abraham J. Isserman, Harry Sacher, Richard Gladstein, George Crockett, Louis McCabe, and Eugene Dennis (who as General Secretary of the Communist Party was one of the defendants in the trial and had acted as his own attorney). Isserman, for example, served four months in prison in 1952 and was disbarred. The disbarment of the lawyers seriously crippled the left-wing bar in the United States and had the effect of scaring away many attorneys across the country from serving as lawyers for Communists or other political radicals. (Red Scare, see Apr 10; FS, see May 26)
Student Rights
March 10, 2014: the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a school district’s appeal over an attempt by school officials to ban breast cancer awareness bracelets bearing the message “I (heart sign) boobies,” handing victory to of students Brianna Hawk and Kayla Martinez who challenged the decision on free speech grounds.
The court’s decision not to take up the case means that an August 2013 ruling by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of students was left intact. (Constitution Center article) (FS, see Sept 17; SR, see Mar 26)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
March 10 Music et al
Bruce Channel
March 10 – 30, 1962: “Hey Baby” by Bruce Channel#1 Billboard Hot 100.
Aretha Franklin
March 10, 1967: Aretha Franklin released I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You album. ( see AF for expanded story)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
My Lai Massacre
March 10, 1970: the U.S. Army accused Capt. Ernest Medina and four other soldiers of committing crimes at My Lai in March 1968. The charges ranged from premeditated murder to rape and the “maiming” of a suspect under interrogation. Medina was the company commander of Lt. William Calley and other soldiers charged with murder and numerous crimes at My Lai. (see My Lai for expanded story; see Time magazine article for text and pictures)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
AIDS
March 10, 1987: AIDS advocacy group ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) was formed in response to the devastating affects the disease has had on the gay and lesbian community in New York. The group holds demonstrations against pharmaceutical companies profiteering from AIDS-related drugs as well as the lack of AIDS policies protecting patients from outrageous prescription prices. (AIDS, seeMar 20; LGBTQ, see August)
Westboro Baptist Church\
March 10, 2006: Members of the Westboro Baptist Church picketed the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder in Westminster, Maryland. The picket was held in a location cordoned off by the police, approximately 1000 feet from the Church, for about 30 minutes before the funeral began. (see January 26, 2008)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
Women’s Health/Domestic terrorism
Dr. David Gunn
March 10, 1993: Michael Griffin shouted “Don’t kill any more babies” then shot and killed Dr. David Gunn during an anti-abortion protest at the Pensacola Women’s Medical Services clinic. Dr. Gunn performed abortions at several clinics in Florida and Alabama and was getting out of his car in the clinic’s parking lot when Michael Griffin shot the doctor three times in the back. Griffin immediately surrendered to a nearby police officer. (see Aug 19)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
CLINTON IMPEACHMENT
March 10, 1998: Kathleen Willey, a former White House volunteer who accused the president of fondling her, testifies before the grand jury for four hours. (see Clinton for expanded story)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History & Trump’s Wall
March 10, 2019: President Trump requested $8.6 billion in the annual budget proposal for a border wall. He also asked Congress for another $3.6 billion to replenish military construction funds he had diverted to begin work on the wall by declaring a national emergency, for a total of $12.2 billion. (IH & TW, see Mar 14; or see Wallfor expanded post)
March 10 Peace Love Art Activism
2020 Census
March 10, 2022: the Census Bureau said that the 2020 census seriously undercounted the number of Hispanic, Black and Native American residents even though its overall population count was largely accurate.
At the same time, the census overcounted white and Asian American residents, the bureau said.
In essence, the bureau’s report said, minority groups — mostly concentrated in cities and tribal areas — were underrepresented in census figures, even though the total population count in those areas often was fairly accurate. That could affect those groups’ political clout, and conceivably could sway decisions by businesses and governments over the next decade, from the allocation of city services to locations of stores.
Some minority advocacy groups threatened to challenge the results in court, but remedying the undercounts would be difficult if not impossible, experts said. [NYT article]
March 9, 1841: In the Amistad case the U.S. government eventually appealed the case to the Supreme Court. Former president John Quincy Adams, who represented the Amistad Africans in the Supreme Court case, argued in his defense that it was the illegally enslaved Africans, rather than the Cubans, who “were entitled to all the kindness and good offices due from a humane and Christian nation.”
The Amistad survivors were aided, in their defense, by the American Missionary Association, an organization affiliated with the effort to colonize freed slaves overseas. African-American Mosaic includes information about the history of the colonization movement, the colonization of slaves in Liberia, and personal stories of former slaves who chose to move overseas.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling freeing the remaining thirty-five survivors of the Amistad mutiny. Although seven of the nine justices on the court hailed from Southern states, only one dissented from Justice Joseph Story’s majority opinion. Private donations ensured the Africans’ safe return to Sierra Leone in January 1842.
Adams’s victory in the Amistad case was a significant success for the abolition movement. (archives dot gov article) (seeNov 7)
Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, & Henry Steward lynched
March 9, 1892: three young black men, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Steward, had opened the People’s Grocery Company in Memphis, Tennessee. Located across the street from a white-owned grocery store that had been the local black community’s only option, the new business reduced the white store’s profits and threatened the racial order by forcing whites to compete economically with blacks.
A white mob formed, intent on using force to put the black grocery out of business, and the black grocers armed themselves for defense. When the mob attacked, shots were fired and three white men were wounded. Moss, McDowell, and Steward were arrested and sensational newspaper reports published the next day fanned the flames of racial outrage. On March 9, 1892, a white mob stormed the Memphis jail, seized all three men and brutally lynched them. No one was punished for the killings.
Ida B. Wells, a 29-year-old black schoolteacher and journalist living in Memphis, was a friend of the three murdered men and was deeply impacted by their deaths. She published an editorial urging local blacks to “save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.” As a result, a white mob destroyed her office (see May 27) and printing press. The mob had intended to lynch her but she was visiting Philadelphia at the time.
More than 6000 African Americans heeded her call. Wells would devote her entire life to documenting and challenging the injustice of lynching through research, writing, speaking, and activism. (NYT obit for Ida B Wells) (next BH & Lynching, see Apr 6 or see 19th century for expanded lynching chronology; next Wells, see May 27)
Congress of Racial Equality
March 9, 1942: the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was founded in Chicago on this day as an offshoot of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (founded on November 11, 1915). The new group conducted sit-ins challenging segregated restaurants in Chicago in 1943. (CORE site) (see July 1)
Albany Movement
March 9, 1963: four Black girls took seats at a white lunch counter at Albany, GA’s Lee Drugs. There were asked to leave and the police were called. The girls were arrested a block away and charged with violating an anti-trespassing ordinance. (see Albany for expanded story)
Muhammad Ali
March 9, 1964: Ali said he would take another Selective Service examination in Louisville March 13.. Ali had taken a test earlier but there were reports he failed to pass the mental examination. (see Mar 20)
Turnaround Tuesday
March 9, 1965: King led another march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. About 2,000 people, more than half of them white and about a third members of the clergy, participate in the second march. King led the march to the bridge, then told the protesters to disperse. The march became known as Turnaround Tuesday.
That night White supremacists beat up white Unitarian Universalist minister James J. Reeb in Selma. (see Marchfor expanded story; MLK, see Mar 21)
George Whitmore, Jr
March 9, 1965: Police Sergeant Thomas J. Collier, who took the initial report from Elba Borrero, testified that Borrero did not mention the attempted rape but rather alleged only that her assailant “attempted to take her pocketbook.” (see Whitmorefor expanded story)
Rodney King grand jury
March 9, 1991: [from NYT] A Los Angeles County grand jury undertook an investigation of all 15 police officers present when King was clubbed, kicked and stomped by three officers who did not realize that they were being videotaped.
King’s doctor, Edmund Chein, said at a news conference that the beating had left the victim with a fractured eye socket, a broken cheekbone, a broken leg, bruises, facial nerve damage, a severe concussion and burns from a police stun gun. (BH & RK, see Mar 1)
Rodney King testifies
March 9, 1993: King testified at the federal trial of 4 Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating his civil rights when they beat him during an arrest. (NYT article) (see March 15)
Amadou Diallo
March 9, 1999: in the wake of the shooting of unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo, the first class action was filed against New York City for what plaintiffs call unlawful stop and frisk practices and racial profiling by police officers. Through the lawsuit, Daniels, et al. v. The City of New York, et al., the Center of Constitutional Rights requested that the court disband the NYPD’s Street Crime Unit. (S & F, see Mar 19; Diallo, see Mar 31)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
Westmoreland County Coal Strike
March 9, 1910: the Westmoreland County Coal Strike of 1910 – 1911 was a strike by coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers of America. The strike is also known as the “Slovak strike” because about 70 percent of the miners were Slovak immigrants.
It began in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on March 9, 1910, and ended on July 1, 1911. At its height, the strike encompassed 65 mines and 15,000 coal miners. Sixteen people were killed during the strike, nearly all of them striking miners or members of their families. The strike ended in a defeat for the union. (libcom dot org article) (see Oct 1)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
In late November 1941 Walter Chaplinsky, a Jehovah’s Witness, was was passing out pamphlets and preaching that organized religion was a “racket.” The rhetoric eventually sparked a gathering of a throng, which in turn, caused a scene. A police officer removed Chaplinsky. Along the way, he met the town marshal, who had earlier warned Chaplinsky to keep it down and avoid causing a commotion. Chaplinsky attacked him verbally. He was arrested. The complaint against Chaplinsky charged that he had shouted: “You are a God-damned racketeer” and “a damned Fascist”. Chaplinsky admitted that he said the words charged in the complaint, with the exception of the name of the deity
On March 9, 1942: Chaplinsky v New Hampshire. The US Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, upheld the Chaplansky’s arrest. Writing the decision for the Court, Justice Frank Murphy advanced a “two-tier theory” of the First Amendment. Certain “well-defined and narrowly limited” categories of speech fall outside the bounds of constitutional protection. Thus, “the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous,” and (in this case) insulting or “fighting” words neither contributed to the expression of ideas nor possessed any “social value” in the search for truth.
Murphy wrote: There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. (see Apr 13)
New York Times v. Sullivan
March 9, 1964:New York Times v. Sullivan. The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, protected a newspaper from being sued for libel in state court for making false defamatory statements about the official conduct of a public official, because the statements were not made with knowing or reckless disregard for the truth. Supreme Court of Alabama reversed and remanded, i.e. the Court held that defamatory falsehoods about public officials can be punished — only if the offended official can prove the falsehoods were published with “actual malice,” i.e.: “knowledge that the statement was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Other kinds of “libelous statements” are also punishable. (FS, see Mar 30; Sullivan, seeApr 6)
Frank Wilkinson
March 9, 1966: defying the North Carolina law that banned from speaking on state college and university campuses “known” Communists, “known” advocates of the violent overthrow of the state, and persons who took the Fifth Amendment regarding Communist Party membership, Frank Wilkinson, leader of the campaign to abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), and Herbert Aptheker, a historian and member of the Communist Party, mocked the ban by speaking to students from the other side of the low wall that circles the University of North Carolina campus. In February 1968, a three-judge District Court panel deliberated for 10 minutes and then declared the ban unconstitutional. (FS, see Mar 21; Red Scare, see February 8, 1968; North Carolina, seeFebruary 19, 1968)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
Japanese massacre French
March 9, 1945: fearful that the successful American Pacific campaign might include Vietnam, the Japanese start a coup d’état killing some two thousand French officers and disarmed and interned twelve thousand more—and then, in an attempt to win Vietnamese support, declared Vietnam “independent” and allowed the puppet emperor, Bao Dai, to remain on the throne so long as he did their bidding. (see Aug 16)
Napalm
March 9, 1965: President Johnson authorized the use of Napalm, the petroleum based anti-personnel bomb. (see Mar 16)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Cold War
“A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy”
March 9, 1954: CBS TV News correspondent, Edward R Murrow, Fred Friendly, and their news team produced a half-hour See It Now special entitled “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy”. Murrow used excerpts from McCarthy’s own speeches and proclamations to criticize the senator and point out episodes where he had contradicted himself. Murrow and Friendly paid for their own newspaper advertisement for the program; they were not allowed to use CBS’s money for the publicity campaign or even use the CBS logo. (see Apr 6)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Feminism
Ruth Handler
March 9, 1959: the first Barbie doll went on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City. Created by Ruth Handler, Handler subsequently designed a prosthetic breast that resembled a natural one. The name of the prosthetic company is Nearly Me. (see November 20, 1961)
March for Women’s Lives
March 9, 1986: National Organization for Women coordinated the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D. C., for the purpose of keeping abortion and birth control legal.
With some 125,000 participants, it was the largest march for women’s rights in the U.S. to this date. Seven other marches for women’s rights also take place in 1986, in Los Angeles, CA; Denver, CO; Harrisburg, PA; Trenton, NJ; Boston, MA; Seattle, WA; and Portland, OR. (next Feminism June 11)
Dr. Antonia Novello
March 9, 1990: Dr. Antonia Novello sworn in as the U.S. Surgeon General, becoming the first woman (and first Hispanic) to hold this office. (cfmedicine site bio) (see March 20, 1991)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
March 9 Music et al
March 9 – 15, 1963: Allan Sherman’s My Son the Celebrity is the Billboard #1 album.
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear/Chemical News
Tsuruga, Japan
March 9, 1981: a nuclear accident at a Japan Atomic Power Company plant in Tsuruga, Japan, exposed 59 workers to radiation on this day in 1981. The officials in charge failed to timely inform the public and nearby residents. (see June 7)
March 9, 1985: the first-ever Adopt-a-Highway sign was erected on Texas’s Highway 69. The highway was adopted by the Tyler Civitan Club, which committed to picking up trash along a designated two-mile stretch of the road. (see May 16)
Mustafa Ali
March 9, 2017: Mustafa Ali, who has worked at the EPA for 24 years, and was head of the Environmental Protection Agency program aimed at protecting minority populations from pollution resigned. The Trump administration had proposed to completely defund environmental justice efforts at the EPA. Ali submitted a resignation letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in which he implored the agency’s new leader to take seriously the concerns of minority communities, which often bear the brunt of air and water pollution and live in areas near major industrial centers.
Scott Pruitt
March 9, 2017: Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that carbon dioxide was not a primary contributor to global warming, a statement at odds with the global scientific consensus on climate change. Speaking of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas produced by burning fossil fuels, Mr. Pruitt told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” (seeMar 15)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
CLINTON IMPEACHMENT
March 9, 1998: U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright rejected a request by Paula Jones’ attorneys to include evidence of a Monica Lewinsky affair during a Jones trial. (seeClintonfor expanded story)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Iraq War II
March 9, 2009: the U.S. military announced that 12,000 American soldiers would withdraw from Iraq by September, marking the first step in the Obama administration’s plan to pull U.S. combat forces out of the country by August 2010. [Washington Post, 3/9/09] (see March 12)
March 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Women’s Health
Affordable Care Act
March 9, 2015: the U.S. Supreme Court told a lower court to reconsider whether the University of Notre Dame must comply with Obama administration regulations for the Affordable Care Act that aim to ensure contraceptive coverage for employees and students.
The order gave the Catholic university a new chance to argue that it is being improperly forced to violate its religious beliefs by facilitating what it considers to be abortion. A federal appeals court said Notre Dame had to comply with the regulations, which implement the 2010 Affordable Care Act. (BC, seeMar 20; ACA, see Mar 31; Notre Dame, see May 19)
March 8, 1665: John Casor, a man enslaved in the Virginia Colony, sued for his freedom in 1655, arguing that he was an indentured servant who had been forced by his “owner,” Anthony Johnson, to serve past his term. The court ruled against Casor, declared him a slave for life, and ordered him to return to Johnson.
The first Africans brought to Virginia were treated as indentured servants. After working their contracts for passage to Virginia, each was granted fifty acres of land and released to live free. During Casor’s lifetime, slavery became entrenched and indentured servitude a less economical source of labor. In their ruling in Johnson v. Parker on March 8, 1655, the court of Northhampton County upheld Johnson’s right to hold Casor as a slave, ordering “John Casor, Negro, forthwith return unto the service of the said master Anthony Johnson.”
In 1640, prior to Casor’s civil suit, the Virginia Governor’s Council sentenced John Punch, a black indentured servant accused of attempting to escape with two other indentured servants who were white. Punch was sentenced to life servitude as punishment, while the two white indentured servants were only sentenced to four extra years of labor. The fates of Casor and Punch signaled a shift from indentured servitude to a form of racialized slavery that would come to shape America. (see September 13, 1663)
March 8 Peace Love Art Activism
Browder v. Gayle
March 8, 1956: Gray and Langford amend Browder v. Gayle, removing Jeanetta Reese from the list of plaintiffs. (BH, see Mar 12; see MBB, for expanded chronology; B v G, see Mar 27)
Malcolm X
March 8, 1964: Malcolm X suspended from the Nation of Islam. (NYT article) (see Mar 12)
George Whitmore, Jr
March 8, 1965: Patrolman Frank Isola testified before Justice Dominic Rinaldi that he did not arrest George Whitmore, Jr. upon their initial encounter, five hours after the Borrero assault, because Whitmore “did not appear to be same man” he had seen fleeing the scene.
Exactly 18 years later the story continued. On March 8, 1973, CBS aired “The Marcus-Nelson Murders,” a three-hour film based on the Wylie-Hoffert murders with Telly Savalas staring as Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojack (later shortened to Kojak) — a character loosely based on Detective Cavanagh, who had been instrumental in developing the evidence that the murders were committed not by George Whitmore, Jr. but by Richard Robles.
Leon Vincent, superintendent of Green Haven prison in upstate NY, permits George Whitmore to go to the sick ward and watch the show in privacy. (see Whitmorefor expanded story)
James H Meredith
March 8, 1967: Republican leaders in New York announced that Meredith would run against Adam Clayton Powell for a seat in Congress. He will withdraw from the race. (see Apr 5)
Vernon Dahmer
On January 10, 1966 Klansmen had firebombed Vernon Dahmer‘s home and attacked his store in Kelly Settlement, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Dahmer was the President of the NAACP chapter in Hattiesburg, and helped black voters by letting them pay their poll tax at his store. Four of Dahmer’s sons were serving overseas and had protective escort from the airport to their father’s side.
On March 8, 1968 Billy Roy Pitts pleaded guilty to charges of murder and arson in the firebomb death of Dahmer. (BH, see Mar 28; Dahmer, see May 10, 1969)
Muhammad Ali
March 8, 1971: Ali fought Joe Frazier, the fighter who was given Ali’s title after Ali declined draft induction. The bout between the two is known as the “Fight of the Century.” A left hook by Frazier knocked Ali down in the 15th round. Frazier won by unanimous decision. (NPR Joe Frazer obit) (BH, see Apr 20; Ali, see June 28)
March 8 Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans
Gnadenhutten (Ohio) Massacre
March 8, 1782: the Gnadenhutten (Ohio) massacre took place. Pennsylvania militia attacked Lenape at the Moravian missionary village and brought them to one of 2 “killing houses”, one of men and the other for women and children. There the militia tied the Indians, stunned them with mallet blows to the head, and killed them with fatal scalping cuts. In all, the militia murdered and scalped 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children. They piled the bodies in the mission buildings and burned the village down. They also burned the other abandoned Moravian villages. Two Indian boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre.
No criminal charges were filed.
US Constitution
1789: US Constitution and references to Native Americans/Indians:
Article 1 Section 3: 3: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed. [Indians not counted in population]
Article 1, Section 8: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; [Indians are treated as a foreign group] (see February 27, 1803)
Indians of All Tribes
March 8, 1964: a small group of Sioux demonstrators affiliated with a San Francisco organization known asIndians of All Tribes (IAT) occupied Alcatraz Island for four hours, asserting that the land was due to be returned to the Sioux people. The temporary demonstration was to raise awareness of government violations of binding treaties – but a longer protest followed. (NA, see March 5, 1965; Alcatraz, see November 9, 1969)
March 8 Peace Love Art Activism
Feminism
Voting Rights
March 8, 1884: Susan B. Anthony began her address before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. Anthony argued for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. Anthony’s argument came sixteen years after legislators had first introduced a federal woman’s suffrage amendment.
She began her testimony with the following words: We appear before you this morning…to ask that you will, at your earliest convenience, report to the House in favor of the submission of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Legislatures of the several States, that shall prohibit the disfranchisement of citizens of the United States on account of sex. (Feminism, see Sept 20; Voting Rights, see “in May 1890”)
International Women’s Day 2017
March 8, 2017: International Women’s Day 2017 was marked as “A Day Without a Woman,” and encouraged participants to skip work or school and avoid purchasing anything in stores or online to show just how critical a role women play in society. (see Apr 10)
Biden Executive Orders
March 8, 2021: President Biden marked International Women’s Day by signing two executive orders geared toward promoting gender equity, both in the United States and around the world.
The first executive order established a Gender Policy Council within the White House, reformulating an office from the Obama administration that was later disbanded by the Trump administration, and giving it more clout.
The second executive order was directed at the Department of Education and was expressly aimed at reversing policies on campus sexual assault and harassment that Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos issued last year. [NPR story] (next Feminism, see Apr 28)
March 8 Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
Needle trades workers
March 8, 1908: thousands of New York needle trades workers demonstrated for higher wages, shorter workday, and end to child labor. The demonstration became the basis for International Women’s Day. (see January 18, 1909)
Utah Fuel Co
March 8, 1924: three explosions at a Utah Fuel Co. mine in Castle Gate, Utah, kill 171. Fifty of the fatalities were native-born Greeks, 25 were Italians, 32 English or Scots, 12 Welsh, four Japanese, and three Austrians (or South Slavs). The youngest victim was 15; the oldest, 73 (see Apr 26)
Norris-La Guardia Act
March 8, 1932: Norris-La Guardia Act took effect. It proclaimed that yellow-dog contracts, which required a worker to promise not to join a union, were unenforceable, settling a long-standing dispute between management and labor. The law also limited courts’ power to issue injunctions against strikes. (see May 3)
United Farm Workers
March 8, 1979: César Chávez led 5,000 striking farm workers on a march through the streets of Salinas, CA. (seeSept 1)
US Women’s Soccer/Feminism
March 8, 2019: twenty-eight members of the world champion United States women’s soccer team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit in United States District Court in Los Angeles. In a statement released by the team the 28 players described “institutionalized gender discrimination” that they say had existed for years.
The discrimination, the athletes said, affected not only their paychecks but also where they play and how often, how they train, the medical treatment and coaching they receive, and even how they travel to matches. (next LH, see Apr 21; next Feminism, see Oct 18)
March 8 Peace Love Art Activism
Religion and Public Education
McCollum v. Board of Education
March 8, 1948: in an 8-1 decisionMcCollum v. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court decided a case related to the power of a state to use its tax-supported public school system in aid of religious instruction. The case was an early test of the separation of church and state with respect to education.
The case tested the principle of “released time”, where public schools set aside class time for religious instruction. The Court struck down a Champaign, Illinois program as unconstitutional because of the public school system’s involvement in the administration, organization and support of religious instruction classes. The Court noted that some 2,000 communities nationwide offered similar released time programs affecting 1.5 million students. (see September 27, 1948)
March 8 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH
Irving Feiner
March 8, 1949: police arrested Irving Feiner after he made an inflammatory speech to a mixed crowd of 75 or 80 African Americans and white people at the corner of South McBride and Harrison Streets in Syracuse, New York. Feiner, a college student, had been standing on a large wooden box on the sidewalk, addressing a crowd through a loud-speaker system attached to an automobile. He made derogatory remarks about President Harry S. Truman, the American Legion, the Mayor of Syracuse, and other local political officials. Feiner urged that they rise up in arms and fight for equal rights.
Blocking the sidewalk and overflowing into the street in which there was oncoming traffic, the crowd became restless with some either voicing opposition or support for Feiner. An onlooker threatened violence if the police did not act. After having observed the situation for some time without interference, police officers, in order to prevent a fight, requested the petitioner to get off the box and stop speaking. After his third refusal, they arrested him and was convicted of violating 722 of the Penal Code of New York, which, in effect, forbids incitement of a breach of the peace.
March 8, 1949: France recognized an ‘independent’ State of Vietnam, with emperor Bao Dai as head of government. (see January 18, 1950)
United States v. Seeger
March 8, 1965: in United States v. Seeger, the Supreme Court expanded the right of conscientious objections to military service. A unanimous Court embraced a broader definition of “supreme being” to include a “sincere and meaningful belief which occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God” of people who adhered to traditional religious faiths and who had been granted conscientious objector status in the past. (Daniel Andrew Seeger, the plaintiff, is no relation to the folk singer Pete Seeger.) The very limited scope of the right to conscientiously object to participation in war had been one of the major civil liberties crises during World War I. And during World War II, COs who were convicted and sent to prison staged hunger strikes to protest censorship and racial segregation in their prisons. (Vietnam, see Mar 9; Religion, see November 12, 1968)
China Beach
March 8, 1965: 3500 Marines land at China Beach to defend the American air base at Da Nang. They are the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam and join 23,000 American military advisors already in Vietnam. (see Mar 8)
Media, Pennsylvania break-in
March 8, 1971: anti-Vietnam War activists raided the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and stole over 1,000 documents related to the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO program. The notorious COINTELPRO program had been approved by the Eisenhower administration on March 8, 1956 (ironically, exactly 15 years before the raid), and involved burglaries, illegal wiretapping, and other actions against people and organizations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover thought were subversive or dangerously radical. The Media documents stolen on this day were sent to several publications, and they provided the first hint about COINTELPRO.
Only one of the stolen documents actually contained the word COINTELPRO, and no one knew what it referred to. The first published news stories on COINTELPRO, in March 1971, and spurred further inquiries into the nature and extent of the program. It was finally fully exposed by the Senate Church Committee investigations that began on January 27, 1975. The Media raid was the only known activity by the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI. Despite a massive effort, the FBI never identified and arrested the people who did it. (seeMar 23)
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Cultural Milestone
March 8, 1950: Volkswagen, maker of the Beetle automobile, expanded its product offerings to include a microbus. Known officially as the Volkswagen Type 2 (the Beetle was the Type 1) or the Transporter, the bus was a favorite mode of transportation for hippies in the U.S. during the 1960s and became an icon of the American counterculture movement. (next CM, see In December 1953; next Beetle, see February 17, 1972; see Minibus for expanded story)
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Cold War
Dorothy Kenyon
March 8, 1950: Senator Joe McCarthy (R–Wisconsin), under pressure to document his claim of Communists working for the federal government, named Dorothy Kenyon as affiliated with at least twenty-eight “Communist-front” organizations. Since his February 9, 1950, speech that brought him to public attention, McCarthy had been claiming that he had a “list” of Communists in the Truman Administration. The number of people on the “list” kept changing and, until this day, he never identified a single person. Kenyon replied by calling McCarthy an “unmitigated liar,” and said she had never actually joined the organizations he identified. Additionally, Kenyon was no longer working for the federal government, having left her position as delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women on January 1, 1950, two months earlier. She also denounced him as a “coward” for making his statements while enjoying the Congressional immunity.
Kenyon, who died on February 12, 1972, was a feminist and liberal activist who was involved in many different organizations, including the ACLU. But she was not a member of the Communist Party or associated with any Communist-affiliated organization. At the time McCarthy “named” her, Kenyon was a member of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. As a tribute to her early contributions to women’s rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then head of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, added her name to the brief in Reed v. Reed, the breakthrough women’s rights case in the Supreme Court (November 22, 1971).
McCarthy’s naming of Kenyon dramatized both the recklessness of his anti-Communist crusade and the fact that he did not really have the names of any genuine Communist Party members in the federal government, much less anyone who posed a genuine threat of espionage. His attack on Kenyon was typical of the guilt-by-association tactics of the anti-Communist movement in the Cold War. People were accused of Communist associations or sympathies simply because they belonged to liberal or left-wing organizations that the anti-Communists hated. McCarthy was finally censured for his conduct by the Senate on December 2, 1954. (see Mar 26)
COINTELPRO
March 8, 1956: at a regular meeting of the National Security Council, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover proposed the COINTELPRO program (Counter Intelligence Program) to combat the Communist Party. With President Dwight Eisenhower and Attorney General Herbert Brownell present, the NSC approved the program, even though Hoover described actions that were clearly illegal, including warrantless wiretapping and break-ins.
The exposure of COINTELPRO began when a group of anti-Vietnam War activists broke in the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1971, stole FBI documents and then leaked them to the news media (see Medsger’s book, below). Only one document among those stolen had the word COINTELPRO on it, and no one knew what it referred to. Nonetheless, the first news stories on FBI spying on, and attempts to disrupt, political groups appeared in March 1971, and led to further inquiries into FBI misconduct.
The full story of COINTELPRO was not known until the Senate Church Committee investigation of the intelligence agencies that began on January 27, 1975.
The other most notorious FBI program was its campaign to “neutralize” Martin Luther King as a civil rights leader, which was discussed and approved on December 23, 1963. (see June 21)
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Crime and Punishment
Constitutional rights of criminal suspects
March 8, 1965: in a Special Message to Congress on this day, President Lyndon Johnson defended the constitutional rights of criminal suspects. His statement came in the midst of a rising public debate over the subject, in which conservatives increasingly attacked Supreme Court decisions, such as Miranda v. Arizona (June 13, 1966) and Mapp v. Ohio (June 19, 1961) as being pro-criminal, anti-police, and claiming they contributed to an increase in crime.
Johnson is the only president who openly defended the constitutional rights of criminal suspects, which he did twice. The other occasion was on June 22, 1966, when he signed the Bail Reform Act into law. However, by his last term in office, LBJ himself turned more conservative on the crime issue. (see June 22, 1966)
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LGBTQ
March 8, 1967: the Appellate Division of the NY State Supreme Court ruled that the State Liquor Authority had no right to suspend the liquor licenseof a bar on the basis of a single incident of alleged solicitation by a homosexual of a policeman who was in civilian clothes. (see July 23)
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March 8 Music et al
Fillmore East
March 8, 1968: Bill Graham opened the Fillmore East in NYC. Opening night was typical of the kind of show put together by Graham, who was a pioneer in combining roots music with contemporary rock and roll in a way that became de rigueur at 1960s rock festivals. The bill featured blues guitarist Albert King, folk singer-songwriter Tim Buckley and Janis Joplin’s group Big Brother and the Holding Company. (see July 5)
Wichita Lineman
March 8 – 28, 1969: Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman is again the Billboard #1 album.
“It Don’t Come Easy”
March 8, 1970: Ringo recorded “It Don’t Come Easy.” When the Beatles broke up it seemed to many that he would be the ex-Beatle least likely to enjoy a successful recording career as a solo artist, and yet it was he who very nearly scored the first million-selling single. He recorded it just a few weeks after John Lennon had released his own gold record, “Instant Karma,” on February 6.
As it turned out, the release of Ringo’s recording, made during the sessions for his debut solo album, Sentimental Journey, was held up for more than a year, during which time both George Harrison (with “My Sweet Lord”) and Paul McCartney (with “Another Day”) would also beat Ringo to the punch, charting with hit singles of their own. The delay of its release was that it was stylistically unlike anything on either of Ringo’s first two solo albums, and therefore could not have been included on either Sentimental Journey (an album of standards Ringo recorded “to please his mum”) or the foray into country music he released later that year, Beaucoups of Blues.
The session for “It Don’t Come Easy” included, in addition to Ringo himself, George Harrison on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass, Stephen Stills on piano, Ron Cattermole on saxophone and trumpet, and Badfinger’s Pete Ham and Tom Evans on background vocals.
When released on April 9, 1971 in the UK and April 16, 1971 in the US, the song climbed to #4 on both sides of the Atlantic, and went all the way to #1 in Canada. (see Mar 31)
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Jack Kevorkian
March 8, 1996, a jury acquitted Jack Kevorkian in two deaths. (see Kevorkian for expanded story)
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Immigration History
Trump ban challenged
March 8, 2017: President Trump’s immigration policies faced a pair of new challenges in court as the attorney general of Hawaii alleged that Trump had violated the Constitution with his redrawn executive order banning travel from six predominantly Muslim countries.
And in California, the city attorney of San Francisco asked a federal judge to issue an injunction blocking another executive order, which threatened to withdraw funding for so-called sanctuary cities that do not extensively cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officials. (see Mar 15)
Trump family separations
March 8, 2019: District Judge Dana Sabraw in California had already ordered the Trump administration to reunite more than 2800 migrant children who were separated from their parents under the “zero tolerance” policy last year, but a government watchdog report revealed that the administration may have separated thousands of additional families under an earlier pilot program that was not disclosed.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, argued that those families should be part of the class action, too. And Judge Sabraw agreed. (next Immigration, see Mar 11; next Judge Sabraw, see Apr 25)
Humanitarian Parole
March 8, 2024: Judge Drew B. Tipton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that the Biden administration to continue a program that it had used to give temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Known as humanitarian parole, the program has offered people from the troubled countries an alternative to entering the United States illegally, and has been central to the administration’s strategy to curb the influx of migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border.
Tipton sided with the administration, saying the states had failed to establish they had standing on any of their claims. [NYT artricle] (next IH, see June 4)
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What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
March 10, 2014: the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a school district’s appeal over an attempt by school officials to ban breast cancer awareness bracelets bearing the message “I (heart sign) boobies,” handing victory to of students Brianna Hawk and Kayla Martinez who challenged the decision on free speech grounds.
