May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Anarchism in the US/Red Scare

Ben Reitman

May 14, 1912: Ben Reitman arrived by train in San Diego to support the efforts of the I.W.W. An angry crowd of 2,000 surrounded Goldman’s hotel. Vigilantes seized Reitman and later tarred and “sagebrushed” him. They burned the letters “I.W.W.” into his skin with a cigar. The vigilantes also forced Reitman to kiss the American flag and sing “The Star Spangled Banner.” He later made his way back to San Diego, and then to Los Angeles, where he reunited with Emma Goldman. (Jewish Women’s Archive article)

Emma Goldman

May 14, 1940: Goldman died at the age of seventy. Tributes and messages of condolence arrive from around the world. Her body is taken to the Labor Lyceum in Toronto. The Rev. Salem Bland delivers a eulogy. (see Goldman for expanded story)

Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications

May 14, 1951: HUAC published a Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications. The Guide was modeled after the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations, authorized by President Harry Truman on March 21, 1947, and published on December 4, 1947.  (RS, see June 14; list, see June 4, 1971)

Warsaw Pact

May 14, 1955: seven communist countries in eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland Romania, and the USSR) signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (Warsaw Pact), a mutual defense accord created to counter NATO in the West. East Germany joined in 1959. Albania left in 1968. (Cold War dot org article) (see May 2, 1957)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

May 14 Music et al

Silver Beats

May 14, 1960: the Silver Beats (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe, and Tommy Moore) performed at Lathom Hall, Seaforth, Liverpool. They played a few songs during the “interval” to audition for promoter Brian Kelly. This is the only occasion on which the group used the name “Silver Beats”, quickly changing it back to “Silver Beetles”. (see May 20)

Washington Square

May 14, 1961: [from a NYT article] Washington Square yesterday afternoon saw the peaceful coexistence of scores of folk singers and hundreds of their fans, swarms of playing children, thousands of Sunday strollers, chess players, sun worshipers and fifty-five policemen. (see Ban for expanded story)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Freedom Riders, Bus #1, Anniston, Alabama

May 14, 1961 (Mother’s Day): the group of Freedom Riders traveling by bus from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans on Greyhound bus #1 were met by a white mob in Anniston, Ala. The mob attacked the bus with baseball bats and iron pipes. They also slashed the tires. When the hobbled bus pulled over, the mob pulled riders off the bus and beat them with pipes. Then they set the bus on fire. The photograph of the Greyhound bus engulfed in flames, the black smoke filling the sky became an unforgettable image of the civil rights movement.

Freedom Riders, Bus #2, Birmingham, Alabama

May 14, 1961: Greyhound bus #2 attacked in Birmingham, AL. A riot breaks out at the Trailways Bus Station where KKK mob savagely beats both Freedom Riders and innocent bystanders alike with iron pipes, chains, and clubs. Moments before photographer Tommy Langston was attacked he shot this single photo of Klansmen attacking a Freedom Rider at the Trailways Bus Station in Birmingham, Alabama. The photo helped identify Klansmen involved in the assault.

Freedom Rider Jim Peck attacked

May 14, 1961: members of a racist mob assaulted civil rights activist and pacifist Jim Peck when he stepped off the bus in Birmingham, Alabama. Peck needed 53 stitches in his head. He was initially denied treatment at Carraway Methodist Medical Center, a white segregated hospital, and was finally treated at Jefferson Hillman Hospital. The FBI, though an undercover informant, had advance knowledge of the planned attacks, but did nothing to stop them. In Birmingham, the attacks were abetted by Police Chief “Bull” Connor. (BH & FR, see May 15; Peck, see December 9, 1983)

Stokely Carmichael

May 14, 1966: Stokely Carmichael defeated John Lewis, longtime national chairman for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Carmichael announced SNCC would no longer send white organizers into black communities. (SNCC article) (see May 25)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

May 14, 1969

• the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment beat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry. An intense battle raged for the next 10 days as the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults.
• In his first full-length report to the American people concerning the Vietnam War, President Nixon responded to the 10-point plan offered by the National Liberation Front at the 16th plenary session of the Paris talks on May 8. The NLF’s 10-point program for an “overall solution” to the war included an unconditional withdrawal of United States and Allied troops from Vietnam; the establishment of a coalition government and the holding of free elections; the demand that the South Vietnamese settle their own affairs “without foreign interference”; and the eventual reunification of North and South Vietnam. In his speech, Nixon responded to the communist plan by proposing a phased, mutual withdrawal of major portions of U.S. Allied and North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam over a 12-month period. The remaining non-South Vietnamese forces would withdraw to enclaves and abide by a cease-fire until withdrawals were completed. Nixon also insisted that North Vietnamese forces withdraw from Cambodia and Laos at the same time and offered internationally supervised elections for South Vietnam. Nixon’s offer of a “simultaneous start on withdrawal” represented a revision of the last formal proposal offered by the Johnson administration in October 1966–known as the “Manila formula”–in which the United States stated that the withdrawal of U.S. forces would be completed withiin six months after the North Vietnamese left South Vietnam. The communists’ proposal and Nixon’s counteroffer were diametrically in opposition to each other and neither side gave in, so nothing meaningful came from this particular round of diplomatic exchanges. (see May 20)

“Vietnamization”

May 14, 1970: allied military officials announced that 863 South Vietnamese were killed from May 3 to 9. This was the second highest weekly death toll of the war to date for the South Vietnamese forces. These numbers reflected the changing nature of the war as U.S. forces continued to withdraw and the burden of the fighting was shifted to the South Vietnamese as part of Nixon’s “Vietnamization” of the war effort. (UPI article) (see May 15)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Frontiero v. Richardson

May 14, 1973: decided on this day, was a landmark Supreme Court decision on sex discrimination. Sharron Frontiero was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force who applied for housing benefits for her husband, whom she claimed as a dependent. Under then-existing military policy, wives — but not husbands — were entitled to benefits as dependents. A majority of the Court declared the policy unconstitutional.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed an amicus brief for Frontiero for the ACLU. As Co-Founder and Director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project at the time, Ginsburg was involved in almost all of the early women’s rights cases before the Court. (Oyez article) (see June 21)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Irish Troubles

Brendan McLaughlin

May 14, 1981:  Brendan McLaughlin, an Irish Republican Army prisoner in the Maze Prison, joined the hunger strike to replace Francis Hughes [McLaughlin was taken off the strike on 26 May when he suffered a perforated ulcer and internal bleeding.] (2006 Guardian article) (see Troubles for expanded story)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Right to die

Jack Kevokian

May 14, 1996:  jury acquitted Kevorkian. (see Kevorkian for expanded story)

Vermont

May 14, 2013, Vermont became the fourth state to make it legal for a physician to prescribe lethal medication to a terminally ill, mentally competent patient who wants to end his life. It also became the first state to approve the practice through legislation, instead of via a public referendum (as in Oregon and Washington) or a court decision (in Montana). (see May 23)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

May 14, 1998: Starr argued in federal court that there are no legal grounds for Secret Service agents who guard the president to refuse to testify before the grand jury. Betty Currie, the president’s personal secretary, returned for her fourth appearance before the grand jury testimony. (see Clinton for expanded story)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Cannabis

Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative

May 14, 2001: The Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, organized to distribute marijuana to qualified patients for medical purposes, was sued by the US government to force the Cooperative to cease operations. A district court rejected the Cooperative’s defense that the marijuana was medically necessary, but its rejection was overturned by the Ninth Circuit. On this date, the US Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that “there is no medical necessity exception to the Controlled Substances Act’s prohibitions on manufacturing and distributing marijuana.” (Oyez article)

Americans for Safe Access

In 2002: medical cannabis patient Steph Sherer founded Americans for Safe Access as a as a vehicle for patients to advocate for the acceptance of cannabis as medicine.

The  ASA mission is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research. (see Oct 29)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Westboro Baptist Church

May 14, 2008: two days after the deadly 2008 Sichuan earthquake (nearly 70,000 people died), the Westboro Baptist Church issued a press release thanking God for the heavy loss of life in China, and praying “for many more earthquakes to kill many more thousands of impudent and ungrateful Chinese” (see March 2, 2011)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

AIDS

May 14, 2014: Federal health officials recommended that hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk for AIDS take a daily pill that had been shown to prevent infection with the virus that causes it.

If broadly followed, the advice would transform AIDS prevention in the United States — from reliance on condoms, which were effective but unpopular with many men, to a regimen that relied on an antiretroviral drug.

It would mean a 50-fold increase in the number of prescriptions for the drug, Truvada — to 500,000 a year from fewer than 10,000. The drug costs $13,000 a year, and most insurers already covered it.

The guidelines told doctors to consider the drug regimen, called PrEP, for pre-exposure prophylaxis, for gay men who have sex without condoms; heterosexuals with high-risk partners such as drug injectors or male bisexuals who have unprotected sex; patients who regularly have sex with anyone they know is infected; and anyone who shares needles or injects drugs. (see December 29, 2017)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Fourth Amendment

Search of rental cars

May 14, 2018: in Byrd v US, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the ability of police to search rental cars driven by someone other than the person who signed the rental agreement, shoring up privacy rights behind the wheel.

The nine justices unanimously threw out a lower court ruling that had approved of a search by Pennsylvania police of a Ford Fusion driven by Terrence Byrd, whose girlfriend had rented the car. State troopers told Byrd they could search the car because he was not listed as an authorized driver, and they found heroin and a bulletproof vest in the trunk.

Writing for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the “mere fact that a driver in lawful possession or control of a rental car is not listed on the rental agreement will not defeat his or her otherwise reasonable expectation of privacy.” (see May 29)

Facial recognition technology

May 14, 2019: San Francisco banned the use of facial recognition software by the police and other agencies.

The action, which came in an 8-to-1 vote by the Board of Supervisors, mades San Francisco the first major American city to block a tool that many police forces were turning to in the search for both small-time criminal suspects and perpetrators of mass carnage.

Authorities had used the technology to help identify the suspect in the mass shooting at an Annapolis, Md., newspaper in June 2018m   but civil liberty groups had expressed unease about the technology’s potential abuse by government amid fears that it may shove the United States in the direction of an overly oppressive surveillance state. (see Sept 3)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Crime and Punishment

May 14, 2021:  Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law a bill allowing death row inmates to elect execution by electric chair or firing squad if lethal injection drugs are not available.

The change in South Carolina’s law came as states nationwide had hit barriers executing those on death row due to problems administering lethal injections, the widely preferred method in the US. Difficulties finding the required drugs had essentially paused executions in many states, including South Carolina, which had not had an execution since 2011.  [NPR article] (next C & P, see June 14)

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

May 14, 2022: Payton Gendron, 18 killed 10 people in a racially motivated mass shooting at a TOPS supermarket in Buffalo. He dressed in tactical gear and live streamed the attack. [CNN article] (next T, see )

May 14 Peace Love Art Activism

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

President Theodore Roosevelt

May 13, 1908,: President Theodore Roosevelt delivered the opening address, “Conservation as a National Duty,” at the outset of a three-day meeting billed as the Governors’ Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources. He explained to the attendees that “the occasion for the meeting lies in the fact that the natural resources of our country are in danger of exhaustion if we permit the old wasteful methods of exploiting them longer to continue.” The conference propelled conservation issues into the forefront of public consciousness and stimulated a large number of private and state-level conservation initiatives. (Text of speech) (see August 25, 1916)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Annette Butler

Near dawn on May 13, 1956 (Mother’s Day), Ernest Dillon, his brother Ollie, and their cousins Olen and Durora Duncan set out looking for “colored women.” When they found the Butler home where Annette Butler was staying with her mother, Ernest claimed he was a police officer and told Ms. Butler she was under arrest. Ernest then forced her into the car, while another of the four men kept a gun trained on her mother. The men then drove Ms. Butler to the nearby Bogue Chitto swamp and took turns raping her. When the men were finished they left her alone and half-dressed in the woods. She sought help from a group of black fishermen working nearby and they notified the police.

When the men were apprehended, the district attorney charged them with “forcible ravishment and kidnap.” Upon his arrest, Olen Duncan signed a statement admitting his guilt. Judge Tom Brady, a known white supremacist, presided over the trials and appointed Mississippi’s best lawyers to represent the men. The defense attempted to reduce sympathy toward Ms. Butler by accusing her of being a prostitute and presented white witnesses to testify she had a poor reputation.

At that time in Mississippi, the crime of rape was punishable by death or life imprisonment. In order to avoid either of those fates, on March 26, 1957, Ernest Dillon pleaded guilty to assault and later received a sentence of twenty years imprisonment. At sentencing, Judge Brady, a staunch opponent of interracial sexual relations whether consensual or forced, expressed no concern about the crime’s impact on young Ms. Butler but castigated Mr. Dillon for committing a crime that “had brought bitter condemnation on the State of Mississippi.”

None of the other three attackers received prison time for the rape of Annette Butler: Ollie Dillon was permitted to plead solely to a kidnapping charge; Olen Duncan pleaded not guilty despite his confession and was acquitted by an all-white jury; and charges against Durora Duncan, who pleaded not guilty, were thrown out after his trial resulted in a hung jury. (next BH , see May 16)

Jackie Robinson

May 13, 1958: baseball great Jackie Robinson, who integrated major league baseball wrote a letter to President Dwight Eisenhower criticizing his failure to vigorously support civil rights. Robinson was a Republican, and was generally non-political in public, so his comments were widely regarded as a significant event.

Robinson to Eisenhower (excerpt):

“I respectfully remind you sir, that we have been the most patient of all people. When you said we must have self-respect, I wondered how we could have self-respect and remain patient considering the treatment accorded us through the years.

 “17 million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change. We want to enjoy now the rights that we feel we are entitled to as Americans. This we cannot do unless we pursue aggressively goals which all other Americans achieved over 150 years ago.

“As the chief executive of our nation, I respectfully suggest that you unwittingly crush the spirit of freedom in Negroes by constantly urging forbearance and give hope to those pro-segregation leaders like Governor Faubus who would take from us even those freedoms we now enjoy. Your own experience with Governor Faubus is proof enough that forbearance and not eventual integration is the goal the pro-segregation leaders seek.” (see June 23)

Freedom Riders

May 13, 1961: the CORE Freedom Riders arrive in Atlanta, GA, where Martin Luther King, Jr. warns them of violence ahead.  (BH & FR, see May 14; MLK, see May 21)

US and ICC v the City of Jackson, Miss.

May 13, 1963: the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unlawful the city’s attempt to circumvent laws desegregating interstate transportation facilities by posting sidewalk signs outside bus and railroad terminals reading “Waiting Room for White Only — By Order Police Department” and “Waiting Room for Colored Only — By Order Police Department.” (Court Listener article) (see May 28)

George Whitmore/Death Penalty

May 13, 1965: the New York Senate by a vote of forty-seven to nine approved a bill abolishing the death penalty for all murders except those of peace officers or prison guards and murders committed during an escape. (see Whitmore for expanded story; Death Penalty, see June 1)

School Desegregation

May 13, 1966: the US federal government took its first action against violators of the desegregation guidelines of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by denying federal education funding for 12 segregated Southern school districts. (BH, see May 14; SD, see Aug 31)

MOVE

May 13, 1985: MOVE was a mostly black group whose members all adopted the surname Africa, advocated a ‘back-to-nature’ lifestyle and preached against technology. Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode ordered police to storm the group’s headquarters to end a stand-off regarding an attempt to enforce outstanding arrest warrants for four members. Police, after evacuating people from their Osage Avenue homes, dropped an explosive device from a helicopter onto the headquarters to blow up tactical bunkers constructed by MOVE on the roof of their residence.

The explosion started an uncontrolled fire and as a result, 53 houses burned and 240 people were left homeless Police, killed eleven MOVE members. (2013 NPR story)(see January 20, 1986)

School Desegregation

May 13, 2016: the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi ordered Cleveland, Miss to consolidate its junior high and high schools in order to fully desegregate its school system after a 50-year battle the town had waged with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Black students and white students were largely separated into two high schools, one mostly white and one mostly black. The situation was similar with the town’s middle school and junior high – one has mostly black students, and the other is historically white.

As a result of the order the Cleveland School District would combine the two high schools together, as well as join the junior high and middle school into one, desegregating the secondary schools for the first time in the district’s 100-year history. (DoJ article) (BH, see May 26)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Cold War

May 13, 1958: during a goodwill trip through Latin America, an angry crowd  attacked Vice President Richard Nixon’s car and nearly overturned it. Nixon was traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The incident was the dramatic highlight of trip characterized by Latin American anger over some of America’s Cold War policies. (2014 Politico article) (see Dec 9)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

May 13, 1967: in New York City, 70,000 march in support of the war. (see May 20)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

May 13 Music et al

Supremes

May 13 – 19, 1967: “The Happening” by the Supremes #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Stop and Frisk Policy

Center for Constitutional Rights

May 13, 2010: a report by The Center for Constitutional Rights found that minorities are much more likely to be frisked by NYPD. (NY Times article) (see May 19)

Statistics increase again

May 13, 2012: as in past years, NYPD data showed that stop-and-frisks were up in the first three months of the year. Between January and March 2012 officers made 203.500 stops. (see May 15)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

May 13, 1998: Ken Starr sought contempt charges against David Kendall, the president’s personal attorney. Starr accused Kendall of leaking grand jury testimony. (see Clinton for expanded story)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

May 13, 2010: BP executive Tony Hayward called the oil spill “relatively tiny” in comparison with the size of the “ocean.” [BP announced on 27 July 2010 that Hayward would be replaced by Bob Dudley as the company’s chief executive effective as of 1 October 2010. (see May 19)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Cannabis

Delaware medical marijuana

May 13, 2011:  Delaware became the 16th state to legalize medical marijuana when Governor Jack Markell (D) signed SB 17 into law. The law allowed adults in Delaware with certain debilitating conditions to possess up to six ounces of marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation. (Reuters article) (see July 8 or see CC for expanded chronology)

Crime & Punishment

May 13, 2018: a New York Times analysis across New York City found that police arrested black people on low-level marijuana charges at eight times the rate of white, non-Hispanic people over the past three years. The Times also found that police arrested  Hispanic people at five times the rate of white people. In Manhattan, the gap was even starker: Black people there were arrested at 15 times the rate of white people.

A police official had testified to lawmakers that the reason for the racial imbalance was that more residents in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods called to complain about marijuana, but the Times analysis found that fact did not fully explain the racial disparity. Instead, among neighborhoods where people called about marijuana at the same rate, the police almost always made arrests at a higher rate in the area with more black residents. For example, in Canarsie’s Rockaway Parkway area there were four times as many arrests for marijuana in the precinct that includes Canarsie, which was 85 percent black, compared to Greenpoint, which is largely white, even though residents call 311 and 911 to complain about marijuana at about the same rate, an analysis by The New York Times found.

Government surveys had shown that black and white people use marijuana at roughly the same rate. [NYT article]

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

May 13, 2016: the Obama administration issued a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

The letter to school districts— signed by Justice and Education department officials —described what schools should do to ensure that none of their students were discriminated against. (Washington Post article) (see June 7)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

May 13, 2016: the pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced that it had imposed sweeping controls on the distribution of its products to ensure that none were used in lethal injections, a step that closed off the last remaining open-market source of drugs used in executions.

More than 20 American and European drug companies had already adopted such restrictions, citing either moral or business reasons. Nonetheless, the decision from one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical manufacturers was seen as a milestone.

“With Pfizer’s announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose,” said Maya Foa, who tracked drug companies for Reprieve, a London-based human rights advocacy group. “Executing states must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines for use in lethal injection.”

It did not have the force of law, but it contained an implicit threat: Schools that do not abide by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.  (NY Times article) (see Nov 9)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

Gerry Adams’s prison escape convictions overturned

May 13, 2020: the Irish Times reported that former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams welcomed a British Supreme Court ruling that that his convictions for attempting to escape from the Maze Prison in the 1970s were unlawful.

Adams had claimed his two 1975 convictions for escaping from internment were unsafe because his detention was not “personally considered” by a senior government minister.

As lawyers consider the import of the Supreme Court decision Adams said, “There is an onus on the British government to identify and inform other internees whose Internment may also have been unlawful.”

In 2009, the Pat Finucane Centre in Derry had uncovered information that gave Adams strong grounds to take his successful case.

The Centre found communications from July 1974 where the then British Director of Public Prosecutions had provided a memorandum to the British Attorney General saying that Adams “and other detainees” were held under orders which were not signed by the secretary of state and that they have been “unlawfully detained.”  [BBC article] (next Troubles, see April 26, 2021. or see IT for a much expanded chronology)

May 13 Peace Love Art Activism

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Nat Turner

May 12, 1828: Turner had his third vision: “I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first… And by signs in the heavens that it would make known to me when I should commence the great work, and until the first sign appeared I should conceal it from the knowledge of men; and on the appearance of the sign… I should arise and prepare myself and slay my enemies with their own weapons.”

In 1830, Turner was moved to the home of Joseph Travis, the new husband of Thomas Moore’s widow. His official owner was Putnum Moore, still a young child. Turner described Travis as a kind master, against whom he had no complaints. (next BH, see June 30, 1829; see NT for his expanded chronology)

Dred Scott

In 1830: after Peter Blow’s failure to farm in Alabama, he moved to Missouri with his slaves (including Dred Scott).

In 1832: Peter Blow, died.

In 1833: US Army Surgeon Dr John Emerson purchased Scott and went with him to Fort Armstrong in Illinois, a free state (admitted as a state on December 3, 1818). (next BH, see October 21, 1835;  see Dred Scott, for expanded chronology)

 Voting Rights/Grandfather clause

May 12, 1898: Louisiana adopted a new constitution, which incorporated a “grandfather clause” into voting requirements. It stated that a person may only vote if their father or grandfather was eligible to vote on or before January 1, 1867, thereby disqualifying most African Americans. By 1910, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and Oklahoma had adopted similar “grandfather clauses.” (BH, see “In September”; VR, see February 14, 1899)

Poor People’s Campaign

May 12, 1968: the Poor People’s Campaign began with Ralph Abernathy, SCLC president, leading delegation of leaders representing poor whites, Blacks, Indians, and Spanish Americans to Capitol Hill for conferences with cabinet members and congressional leaders. (see May 16)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

Cold War

Berlin Airlift

May 12, 1949: Berlin Airlift lifted. It was a clear success delivering more cargo than had previously been transported into the city by rail. An embarrassment to the Soviets who had refused to believe it could make a difference.  The airlift’s success resulted in the split up of Berlin: (DoS article) (see June 8)

House Un-American Activities Committee protest

May 12, 1960: San Francisco City Hall was the scene of major protests against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), with fire hoses used against protesters on the steps of city hall. Because of the number of protesters (3,500 at one point), the committee’s unreasonable actions (such as excluding anti-HUAC people from the hearing room), and police brutality against demonstrators, the event is probably the most famous anti-HUAC protest in the entire history of the committee. Uncooperative witnesses were removed from the hearing room, while people with special passes from the committee were allowed in. When a larger crowd of protesters assembled the following day, singing and chanting, a judge ordered the crowd dispersed. On the 14th of May, fire hoses were used against the protesters outside the courthouse, forcing some people to slide down the steps of the building.

In response to the events that reflected badly on the committee, HUAC used newsreel footage of the demonstrations to produce a highly slanted film, Operation Abolition.

The ACLU of Northern California replied with its own film, Operation Correction, pointing out the distortions in the HUAC film.  (Free Speech Movement site article) (see May 16)

President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba

May 12, 2002: former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba for a 5-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first U.S. President, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.  (Carter Center article) (see Nov 21)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

May 12 Music et al

FREE SPEECH

May 12, 1961: NYC Mayor Wagner announced that the city would permit  folk singing, with instrumental accompaniment in Washington Square “on a controlled basis.” (see Ban for expanded story)

Bob Dylan. Ed Sullivan Show

May 12, 1963: the still unknown Dylan walked off the set of the “Ed Sullivan Show” (the country’s highest-rated variety show) after network censors rejected  “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” the song he planned on performing. The song was satirical talking-blues number skewering the ultra-conservative John Birch Society and its tendency to see covert members of an international Communist conspiracy behind every tree. Dylan had auditioned “John Birch” days earlier and had run through it for Ed Sullivan himself without any concern being raised. But during dress rehearsal on the day of the show, an executive from the CBS Standards and Practices department informed the show’s producers that they could not allow Dylan to go forward singing “John Birch.” (see May 17)

Future Woodstock Performers

May 12, 1967: the first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, released in the UK. Jimi Hendrix age 24. (next FWP,  see, July; Hendrix, see May 21)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

DRAFT CARD BURNING

May 12, 1964: twelve students in New York publicly burn their draft cards to protest the war. (Vietnam, see May 22; DCB, see May 5, 1965)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

May 12, 1970: the Senate confirmed the nomination of Harry Blackmun to the Supreme Court by a vote of 94 – 0. (NYT article) (BC, see April 21, 1971; Blackmun, see December  24)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

Irish Troubles

Francis Hughes

May 12, 1981:  after 59 days on hunger strike Francis Hughes (25), an Irish Republican Army  prisoner in the Maze Prison, died. [Hughes’ death led to a further surge in rioting in Nationalist areas of Northern Ireland, particularly in Belfast and Derry. In Dublin a group of 2,000 people tried to break into the British Embassy. (2017 Irish News article) (see Troubles for expanded story)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

Stop and Frisk Policy

2009

May 12, 2009: the NYPD made a record number of Stop-and-Frisks. In the first three months of 2009, policy officers stopped and frisked a record number 171,000. (see Aug 14)

2012

May 12, 2012: Police officers stopped people on New York City’s streets more than 200,000 times during the first three months of 2012, putting the Bloomberg administration on course to shatter a record set in 2011 for the highest annual tally of street stops. (see May 16)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

May 12, 2010: BP released first public video of leak and others said the leak is significantly higher than what BP has been saying. One estimate says it could to be 20,000–100,000 barrels (840,000–4,200,000 US gallons a day. (see May 13)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Mississippi bans adoption

May 12, 2016:  U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan ruled that Mississippi’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children was unconstitutional, making gay adoption legal in all 50 states.

Jordan issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, citing the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide last summer. The injunction blocks Mississippi from enforcing its 16-year-old anti-gay adoption law.

The Supreme Court ruling “foreclosed litigation over laws interfering with the right to marry and rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage,” Jordan wrote. “It also seems highly unlikely that the same court that held a state cannot ban gay marriage because it would deny benefits — expressly including the right to adopt — would then conclude that married gay couples can be denied that very same benefit.” (see May 13)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

May 12, 2017: in response to a recent joint lawsuit filed by the Arab American Civil Rights League, the ACLU of Michigan and others, Judge Victoria Roberts of the Eastern District in Michigan ordered President Donald Trump to turn over key documents related to his Executive Order banning travel from six Muslim majority countries and freezing the refugee resettlement program. (Independent article) (See May 25)

May 12 Peace Love Art Activism