October Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Dred Scott

In October 1837:  the Army transferred Dr Emerson to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. Because the trip down the Mississippi at that time of year was dangerous, Emerson left Dred and Harriet Scott at Fort Snelling, Wisconsin Territory where he rented them to other people. This fact could have significantly buttressed their subsequent claims to freedom. By leaving the Scotts at Fort Snelling and hiring them out at a profit, Emerson was in fact bringing the system of slavery itself into the Wisconsin Territory, a free territory. If a master worked a slave or hired a slave out, then the institution of slavery itself would have been in a free territory and the slave might legitimately claim their freedom. (see Dred Scott for expanded story; next BH, see July 2, 1839)

”SCOTTSBORO BOYS” Travesty

In October 1938: the Alabama Pardon Board denied the pardon applications of Clarence Norris, Charlie Weems, and Roy Wright.

In October 1946: the work the parole board had found seemed no better than prison to Andy Wright and he fled north. Allan Knight Chalmers, the chairman of the Scottsboro Defense Committee  persuaded him to return south, in part so that Patterson and Powell’s parole hearings might have more favorable results. When Wright returned, he was imprisoned despite promises of leniency. (see Scottsboro for expanded story)

Muhammad Ali

In October 1954: Cassius Clay’s bicycle was stolen outside Columbia Auditorium during the Louisville Home Show. Clay found Joe Martin, a Louisville policeman, and told him he wanted to “whup” whoever stole his bike. By chance, Martin also trained young boxers at a Louisville gym. “Well, you better learn how to fight before you start challenging people that you’re gonna whup,” Martin told Ali. Martin began to train Clay, who soon made his amateur ring debut—a three-minute, three-round split decision over another novice named Ronnie O’Keefe. The future world heavyweight champion earns $4 for the fight. (BH, see Oct 30; Ali, see “In August” 1960)

Albany Movement

In October 1961: SNCC members Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon traveled to Albany, Beorgia to help organize the local black community. Although earlier protests had occurred, black residents were frustrated with the city commission’s failure to address their grievances. Sherrod and Reagon organized workshops around nonviolent tactics for Albany’s African American residents in anticipation of a showdown with the local police. (see Albany for expanded story)

Nina Simone

In October 1967: Nina Simone released “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free.” (see Oct 7)

October Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Salem Witchcraft & Death Penalty

October 1692: Governor William Phipps of Massachusetts ordered the Court of Oyer and Terminer dissolved and replaced with the Superior Court of Judicature, which forbade the type of sensational testimony allowed in the earlier trials. Executions ceased, and the Superior Court eventually released all those awaiting trial and pardoned those sentenced to death. The Salem witch trials, which resulted in the executions of 19 innocent women and men, had effectively ended. (DP, see April 30, 1790; Salem witchcraft, see July 29, 2022)

Early Women’s Rights in USA

1776 – 1830: State law rather than federal law governed women’s rights in the early Republic and most of those laws were based on Sir William Blackstone’s 1769  “Of Husband and Wife” in his Commentaries on the Laws of England.  In “Of Husband and Wife” he explained the legal concept of Coverture, whereby, upon marriage, a woman’s legal rights were subsumed by those of her husband. He explained:

By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage. I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant any thing to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence; and to covenant with her, would be only to covenant with himself: and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage. (see May 20, 1782)

Voting Rights

In October 1917: Lucy Burns, inspired by several Socialist Party suffrage prisoners, leads campaign in prison demanding suffragists be treated as political prisoners; threatens hunger strike if demand not met. Petition secretly circulated among inmates, smuggled out, and presented to commissioners of District of Columbia. Every woman signing petition put in solitary confinement. (see Oct 22)

October Peace Love Art Activism

Emma Goldman

In October 1926: Goldman sailed for Canada to lecture; its proximity rekindled her hope for readmission to the U.S. (request to visit)

In 1930, journalist H. L. Mencken petitioned the U.S. Department of State to revoke Goldman’s deportation and grant her a visitor’s visa. He also requested that the Department of Justice return her personal papers seized in the 1917 raid on the Mother Earth office, to no avail. (see Goldman for expanded story)

October Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

Dumped waste

In October 1947: a retired navy pilot Lieutenant-Commander, George Earl IV,  claimed that he had dumped radioactive waste off the Atlantic seaboard on three flights in 1947.

Earl said he disclosed the radioactive dumping because of the U.S. Government’s apparent lack of concern over the possibility of the canisters leaking.  (see September 22, 1949)

Nine above-ground tests

From October 1952 through July 1958:  the US tested nuclear weapons above ground nine times. (see Oct 3)

LGBTQ

In October 1954:  the U.S. Post Office Department declared the One magazine ‘obscene’. ONE sued. (see September 21, 1955)

October Peace Love Art Activism

October Music et al

Fear of Rock

Memphis WDIA

In October 1954:  WDIA [Memphis, TN] and several other large popular-music radio stations banned several songs for their apparently sexually suggestive lyrics.

The station ran announcements saying, “WDIA, your goodwill station, in the interest of good citizenship, for the protection of morals and our American way of life, does not consider this record [they named record], fit for broadcast on WDIA. We are sure all you listeners will agree with us.” (“Rock Is Dead” book link) (see  February 24, 1955)

Frank Sinatra

In October 1957 the Associated Press reprinted an excerpt from a magazine called “Western World” published in Paris. In it Frank Sinatra denounced rock music and musicians. The AP article said in part:

 “The famed crooner, writing in the magazine Western World … praised the influence of American jazz and popular music as a way of winning friends and influencing people throughout the world.

 “My only deep sorrow,” he said, “is the unrelenting insistence of recording and motion picture companies upon purveying the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear—naturally I refer to the bulk of rock ‘n’ roll.

Mutual Broadcasting System

In 1958 the Mutual Broadcasting System (radio) dropped all rock from its network music programs, calling it “distorted, monotonous, noisy music.” To coincide with the ban, the network changed the title of its 21 hours of music programming from “Top 50” to “Pop 50.” Songs removed from play included “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin and Elvis Presley’s “Hard Headed Woman.” (see Jan 12)

Joan Baez

In October 1960:  Joan Baez (age 19) released her first album, Joan Baez.

Ravi Shankar

In 1962: Ravi Shankar released his 4^th album, Improvisations. He had released his first at age 17 in 1937.

Green Onions

In October 1962: Southern soul had its first major hit with the instrumental “Green Onions” by Booker T. & the MG’s.

Paul Butterfield

In October, 1965: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band album released. (Paul Butterfield age 23)

Jimi Hendrix

In October 1965: recorded a single with Curtis Knight, “How Would You Feel” backed with “Welcome Home”  (see In December 1965)

LSD

In October: Ken Kesey sneaked back into the US. (see Oct 2)

Sly and the Family Stone

In October 1967: Sly and the Family Stone released first album, “A Whole New Thing.” (Sly Stone, 24)

October Peace Love Art Activism

United Farm Workers

In October 1965: Grape boycott began. (see March 17, 1966)

October Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Senator George McGovern

In October 1966: Senator George McGovern introduced a resolution highlighting increased desire of Indian people to participate in decisions concerning their people and property. (see April 11, 1968)

Alcatraz

In October 1999: nearly 2000 American Indians, Canadian First Nation peoples and Alaskan Natives returned to Alcatraz, some for the first time since 1969, to mark the 30th anniversary of the occupation during a day of spiritual, cultural and musical celebration. (see January 16, 2000)

October Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

In October 1966: Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced “Project 100,000” a so-called Great Society program that would allow the US to draft men whose physical and/or mental skills fell below standards normally required for entrance. Those brought into the armed service via this program would receive remedial training. While they were officially referred to as “New Standards,” regular soldiers referred to the new entrants as the “Moron Corps.”  40% were Black (compared to the normal 9%) 47% were from the South (compared to the normal 28%). According to a 2006 report by Kelly M Greenhill “In the program’s first three years, nearly half of the Army’s and well over 50 percent of the Marines’ New Standards Men were assigned to combat specialties. The results were not surprising: a Project 100,000 recruit who entered the Marine Corps in 1968 was two and a half times more likely to die in combat than his higher-aptitude compatriots. After all, they tended to be the ones in the line of fire.” ( see Oct 13)

October Peace Love Art Activism

ADA

People First

In October 1974: the first convention for People First was held in Portland, Oregon. People First is a national organization of people with developmental disabilities learning to speak for themselves and supporting each other in doing so.

Education for Handicapped Children Act of 1975

In 1975: The Education for Handicapped Children Act of 1975—now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) signed into law. It guaranteed a free, appropriate, public education for all children with disabilities in the least restrictive environment. (see  June 26)

October Peace Love Art Activism

Fair Housing

In October 1977: The Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG) program was passed. Urban Development Action Grants (UDAG) give distressed communities funds for residential or nonresidential use. (see March 31, 1980)

October Peace Love Art Activism

AIDS

In October 1996: the AIDS Memorial Quilt  displayed in its entirety for the last time. It covered the entire National Mall in Washington, DC. (see Nov 5)

October Peace Love Art Activism

Clinton Impeachment/October 1997

1. Monica Lewinsky interviewed with Bill Richardson, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., for a low level public affairs position.
2. Linda Tripp met with Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, Lucianne & Jonah Goldberg at Jonah’s apartment in Washington, according to a Newsweek report. The Goldberg’s listened to a tape of Tripp/Lewinsky conversations. (see CI for full chronology)

October Peace Love Art Activism

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Anarchism in the US and Emma Goldman

 October 30, 1906: police arrested Goldman in Manhattan while attending an anarchist meeting called to protest police suppression of free speech at a previous meeting. She was charged with unlawful assembly for the purpose of overthrowing the government under the new criminal laws against anarchy. (NYT article) (see Goldman for her story)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

October 30, 1947,  McCarthyism

HUAC

• Ring Lardner, Jr., an Oscar-winning screenwriter, refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) about his political beliefs and associations. As a result, he was convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to prison. Lardner was one of the “Hollywood Ten,” who refused to cooperate with HUAC, went to prison, and were then blacklisted by the film industry. He famously told the committee that he could answer one of their questions, but “I would hate myself in the morning.” Variety magazine commented about the end of the HUAC Hollywood hearings: “Commie Carnival Closes: An Egg is Laid.” Lardner later earned his second Academy Award as the screenwriter of the enormously successful film M*A*S*H (1970), which then became the basis for the hugely successful and Emmy-winning television series of the same name.The Hearing.
• The famous German playwright Bertolt Brecht testified before HUAC on this day as one of the hostile witnesses in the HUAC investigation of alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. The day after his testimony, Brecht left the U.S. for East Germany and never returned. Brecht is best known among Americans as the co-author of the musical, Threepenny Opera, with composer Kurt Weill, which features the now-famous song, Mack the Knife. One of the ironies of Threepenny Opera is the Brecht was a committed Marxist and yet earned considerable income from the original state production in Germany and then considerably more from the royalties from Mack the Knife. (see Nov 24)

The Photo League

October 30, 1951: The Photo League was a non-profit organization created in 1936 to promote photography as an art form. It conducted photography classes, held exhibitions, and sponsored photography projects.

A number of its members held left-wing political views and sought to use photography to promote social justice. Because of its members’ political views, the League was included in the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations (ordered by President Harry Truman on March 21, 1947, and published on December 4, 1947). Membership and support quickly fell off, and the League formally disbanded on this day, a victim of the Cold War anti-Communist hysteria. [2012 Time article] (see Dec 13)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear  Weapons

NSC 162/2

October 30, 1953: President Eisenhower formally approved National Security Council Paper No. 162/2 (NSC 162/2). The top secret document made clear that America’s nuclear arsenal must be maintained and expanded to meet the communist threat. It also made clear the connection between military spending and a sound American economy. [PDF] (see Dec 8)

USSR/58 megaton

October 30, 1961: the Soviet Union performed an above-ground nuclear test of 50 megatons—3,800 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

It is the most powerful human-made explosion in history. [Tsar Bomba] (see Oct 31)

US/8.3 megaton 

October 30, 1962: US detonated 8.3 megaton nuclear bomb above ground. (CW, see Nov 6; NN, see Dec 2)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Black History

Armed forces desegregated

October 30, 1954: the Department of Defense announced the armed forces had been fully desegregated — seven years after President Truman had instructed the Secretary of Defense to “take steps to have the remaining instances of discrimination in the armed services eliminated as rapidly as possible.” (see January 7, 1955)

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

October 30, 1967: Martin Luther King Jr. and seven other clergymen were jailed for four days in Birmingham, Ala. They served sentences on contempt-of-court charges stemming from Easter 1963 demonstrations they had led against discrimination. Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor had twice denied them a parade permit. Two years later, the law was declared unconstitutional. (BH, see Nov 7; MLK, see April 3, 1968)

“Rumble in the Jungle”

October 30, 1974:  Muhammad Ali fought the reigning champion George Foreman in an outdoor arena in Kinshasa, Zaire, The fight is known as the “Rumble in the Jungle.”

Using his novel “rope-a-dope” strategy, Ali defeated Foreman and after seven years, reclaimed the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World. (NYT article) (see October 1, 1975)

FBI cover-up

October 30, 1982: a newly released report said the FBI  covered up the violent activities of their informant, Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., but his lawyer said the Government knew it was not getting ”a Sunday school teacher” when it asked Mr. Rowe to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Rowe, who was a Klan informant from 1959 to 1965, was charged with murder in the 1965 killing of Viola Liuzzo, a civil rights worker. A Federal appeals court barred him from being brought to trial because of an earlier agreement giving him immunity. The 1979 report was released publicly for the first time because the Justice Department lost a Freedom of Information suit filed by Playboy magazine. In the report department investigators said agents protected Mr. Rowe because the informant ”was simply too valuable to abandon.” (see Liuzzo for more about Liuzzo)

SOUTH AFRICA/APARTHEID

October 30, 1996: saying many of Eugene de Kock‘s actions had been cruel, calculated and without any sympathy for the victims Judge Willem van der Merwe sentenced the former head of a South African police assassination squad to two life sentences and more than 212 years in jail.

He was paroled after 20 years. (SA/A, see Dec 10; EdK, see January 30, 2015)

Church Burning

October 30, 2015:  David Lopez Jackson was arrested and charged in connection with a pair of recent church fires in and around St. Louis. Authorities charged Jackson with two counts of second-degree arson. His bail was set at $75,000. Chief Sam Dotson of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said the investigation was ongoing, and that Jackson was a suspect in the other five fires that were set earlier that month. [St Louis Today article]

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

October 30 Music et al

The Beatles before their US appearance

October 30, 1961: two days after Beatles fan Raymond Jones (apparently) asked for The Beatles’ German single “My Bonnie” (recorded with Tony Sheridan) at Brian Epstein’s NEMS record store, two girls asked for the same record. Brian Epstein bgan to search foreign record company import lists to find the single. Since Epstein had already sold at least 12 dozen copies of Liverpool’s “Mersey Beat” magazine (and had written a column for it), it is highly unlikely that he doesn’t already know who The Beatles are. Still, Epstein’s difficulty in locating the record was probably due to his not knowing that the record was released, not by The Beatles, but by Tony Sheridan and ‘The Beat Brothers (‘Beatles’ resembles a vulgar slang word in German, so The Beatles’ name was changed for this historic single). (see Nov 9)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

March to support war

October 30, 1965: 25,000 marched in Washington in support of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (see Nov 2)

DRAFT CARD BURNING

October 30, 1968: Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Spiro T. Agnew, was confronted at a disorderly Republican rally by the spectacle of youthful antiwar demonstrators burning a draft card. (Vietnam, see Oct 31; DCB, see May 29, 1969)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Jack Kevorkian

October 30, 1995: a group of doctors and other medical experts in Michigan announced its support of Jack Kevorkian , saying they will draw up a set of guiding principles for the “merciful, dignified, medically-assisted termination of life.” (see JK for expanded story)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History & AIDS

October 30, 2009: The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 signed by President Barack Obama, who announced plans to remove a ban on travel and immigration to the U.S. by individuals with HIV. Obama called the 22-year ban a decision “rooted in fear rather than fact.” (LGBTQ, see Nov 3; AIDS, see January 5, 2010; IH, see Dec 10)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

October 30, 2013: a Gallop poll measured that sixty percent of Americans say they favor the death penalty for convicted murderers, the lowest level of support Gallup has measured since November 1972, when 57% were in favor. Death penalty support peaked at 80% in 1994, but it has gradually declined since then. (see Nov 18)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

October 30, 2017: in Washington, DC, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly barred PresidentTrump from changing the government’s policy on military service by transgender people.

Trump had announced in an August memo that he intended to reverse course on a 2016 policy that allowed troops to serve openly as transgender individuals. He said he would order a return to the policy prior to June 2016, under which service members could be discharged for being transgender.

Kollar-Kotelly wrote that transgender members of the military who had sued over the change were likely to win their lawsuit and barred the Trump administration from reversing course. [ChiTrib story] (next LGTBQ, see Nov 3; military transgender, see March 23, 2018)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment Inquiry

October 30, 2019: according to a copy of Anderson’s opening statement obtained by NPR, Christopher Anderson, a career foreign service officer in the State Department, told House impeachment investigators that President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani stood in the way of the White House strengthening ties with Ukraine,.

Anderson, who spent five years working on Washington-Kyiv relations, described a meeting he had with former national security adviser John Bolton on the topic of having senior White House officials engage more with Ukraine. In it, Bolton noted a possible hitch.

“He cautioned that Mr. Giuliani was a key voice with the President on Ukraine which could be an obstacle to increased White House engagement,” Anderson told the House committee. [NPR story] (see TII for expanded chronology)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

October 30, 2023: the six-week wave of strikes that hobbled the three largest U.S. automakers put workers on track for new contracts — the third deal, with General Motors, was firming up on this date and would deliver the biggest pay raise workers would receive in decades while avoiding a protracted work stoppage that could have damaged the economy.

The separate but similar deals that the United Automobile Workers union recently reached with Ford Motor, G.M. and Stellantis, the maker of Ram, Jeep and Chrysler, would be costly for the automakers as they undertook a switch to electric vehicles. The deals would also set the stage for labor strife and demand for higher pay at nonunion automakers like Tesla and Toyota. [NYT article] (next LH, see Nov 1)

October 30 Peace Love Art Activism

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Abram Colby

October 29, 1869: Abram Colby was born into slavery in Greene County, Georgia, in approximately 1817. The son of an enslaved black woman and a white landowner, Colby was emancipated 15 years before the end of American slavery and worked tirelessly to organize freed slaves following the Civil War. A Radical Republican, Colby was elected to serve in the Georgia House of Representatives during Reconstruction. His impassioned advocacy for black civil rights earned him the attention of the local Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist organization founded in 1865 to resist Reconstruction and restore white supremacy through targeted violence against black people and their white political allies.

Klansmen attacked and brutally whipped 52-year-old Abram Colby on October 29, 1869. Three years later, when called to Washington, DC, to testify about the assault before a Congressional committee investigating reports of racial violence in the South, Colby bravely identified his attackers as some of the “first class men in our town. One is a lawyer, one a doctor, and some are farmers.” Shortly before the attack, Colby explained, the men had tried to bribe him to change parties or give up his office. Colby refused to do either and days later they returned:

“On October 29. 1869, [the Klansmen] broke my door open, took me out of bed, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead. They said to me, ‘Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?’ I said, “If there was an election tomorrow, I would vote the Radical ticket.” They set in and whipped me a thousand licks more, with sticks and straps that had buckles on the ends of them.”

Colby told the committee that the attack had “broken something inside of [him],” and that the Klan’s continued harassment and violent assaults had forced him to abandon his re-election campaign. Colby testified most emotionally about the attack’s impact on his daughter, who was home when the Klansmen seized him to be whipped: “My little daughter begged them not to carry me away. They drew up a gun and actually frightened her to death. She never got over it until she died. That was the part that grieves me the most.” [Colby’s 1872 testimony] (next BH, see February 18, 1688)

Civil Rights Committee

October 29, 1947: the President Harry Truman’s Civil Rights Committee, [created on December 5, 1946] was the first presidential committee or commission on civil rights. The commission’s report, To Secure These Rights, released on this day, was an historic event. The report identified race discrimination in virtually every area of American life — education, employment, voting, military service, and so on — and its recommendations charted the course of the civil rights movement for the next 20 years. [Truman Library article] (mext BH, see Nov 6, 1948; military, see October 30, 1954)

Muhammad Ali

October 29, 1960: Cassius Clay’s first professional fight against Tunney Hunsaker, police chief of Fayetteville, West Virginia. “He sure was a brassy young boy when I fought him. He drove to the Louisville airgrounds in a brand new pink Cadillac,” said Hunsaker, loser of the bout. (BH, see Nov 1; Ali, see June 18, 1963)

Stokely Carmichael

October 29, 1966:  Stokely Carmichael addressed an audience consisting primarily of college students at the open-air Greek Theater at the University of California at Berkeley in a speech that has become known as “Black Power”—although he gave other speeches that stressed the same theme and sometimes have been referred to by that same title. (next BH, see Nov 30)

School Desegregation

October 29, 1969: Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, the US Supreme Court demanded that its opinion in 1955’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (the so-called Brown II case)  ordered desegregation be implemented despite the phrase of “all deliberate speed”. The phrase had given the South an excuse to defy the law of the land. The Court wrote that “The obligation of every school district is to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools.” The previously-set pace of “all deliberate speed” was no longer permissible. ( integration at once)  (BH, see February 21, 1970; SD, see April 20, 1971)

Vietnam, Chicago 8 & Black Panthers

October 29, 1969: Judge Julius Hoffman ordered “Chicago Eight” defendant Bobby Seale gagged and chained to his chair during his trial. Seale and his seven fellow defendants (David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Thomas Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and John Froines) had been charged with conspiracy to cross state lines with intent to cause a riot during the violent anti-war demonstrations in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Hoffman gave the order to gag Seale after Seale repeatedly shouted accusations and insults at the judge and prosecution and disrupted the court proceedings. In November, Seale’s conduct forced the judge to try him separately. Seale was sentenced to 48 months in prison for 16 acts of contempt. Seale was then charged with killing a Black Panther Party informant in New Haven, Connecticut; the contempt charges were eventually dismissed and the murder trial ended with a hung jury.  [Black Then article] (Vietnam, see Nov 3; Chi8, see February 9, 1970)

Georgetown reparations

October 29, 2019: officials at Georgetown University announced that it would raise about $400,000 a year to benefit the descendants of the 272 enslaved people who were sold to help keep the college afloat nearly two centuries ago.

The university planned to use the money to support community projects such as health clinics and schools. The announcement came six months after Georgetown students voted in a nonbinding referendum to impose student fees that would have raised about $400,000 a year to support the descendants. [NYT article] (next BH, see Nov 1)

Antwon Rose

October 29, 2019: according to court documents, Judge Marilyn Horan dismissed the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Antwon Rose II against former police officer Michael Rosfeld and the borough of East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Horan signed the dismissal documents, which state that Rose family would not be permitted to refile the same lawsuit again in the future.[CNN story] (next B & S, see  Dec 23; next AR, see )

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

October 29, 1889: Japanese immigrant and labor advocate Katsu Goto was strangled to death, his body then strung from an electric pole, on the Big Island of Hawaii by thugs hired by plantation owners.  They were outraged over Goto’s work on behalf of agricultural workers and because he opened a general store that competed with the owners’ own company store. [Hawaii dot edu article]  (see January 25, 1890)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Anarchism

October 29, 1901: Leon Czolgosz, assassin of President McKinley, executed. His body was buried in a pine coffin, but before the coffin was sealed, authorities poured acid over the body to destroy it within 12 hours. (NYT article) (see March 3, 1903)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Military draft

October 29, 1940, The US began its first peacetime military draft. NYT article)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

see October 29 Music et al for more

“Surfin’ Safari”

October 29, 1962, the Beach Boys’ debut album, “Surfin’ Safari,” was released. (see July 4 – 17, 1964)

“96 Tears”

October 29 – November 4, 1966: “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Allison Steele

October 29, 1967: WNEW-FM DJ Allison Steele (a rare female DJ) announced that Rosko will be a WNEW-FM DJ. (Allison’s announcement) (see April 5, 1983)

Mind Games

October 29, 1973: UK release of John Lennon’s Mind Games album, his fourth. He recorded it  at Record Plant Studios, NYC in summer 1973. The album was Lennon’s first self-produced recording without help from Phil Spector. It reached number 13 in the UK and number 9 in the US, where it went gold.

Lennon and May Pang went to Los Angeles to promote ‘Mind Games’ and decided to stay. But without Ono’s restraint, Lennon began to drink heavily. (see Nov 16)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

October 29, 1966: The National Organization for Women (NOW), organized by feminist leader Betty Friedan and a small group of friends on June 30 was formally chartered.  (see Dec 22)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

October 29, 1969: the Internet had its beginnings when the first host-to-host connection was made on the Arpanet – an experimental military computer network – between UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif. [Live Science article] (see January 4, 1972)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

October 29, 1971: US troops in Vietnam drop in number to 196,700, their lowest since January 1966. [chart] (see Dec 18)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Cannabis

Medical marijuana

October 29, 1998: prior to the election, former Presidents Ford, Carter, and Bush released a statement urging voters to reject state medical marijuana initiatives because they circumvented the standard process by which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tests medicines for safety and effectiveness. ‘Compassionate medicine,’ these leaders insisted, ‘must be based on science, not political appeals.’ (see Nov 3) or see CCC for expanded chronology)

Medical licenses

October 29, 2002: after California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, the US government threatened to take away the medical licenses of physicians who recommended the use of marijuana. On Oct. 29, 2002, a US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 3-0 ruling  (80 KB) in the case Conant v. Walters prohibited “the federal government from either revoking a physician’s license to prescribe controlled substances or conducting an investigation of a physician that might lead to such revocation, where the basis for the government’s action is solely the physician’s professional ‘recommendation’ of the use of medical marijuana.” The US Supreme Court denied an appeal, so physicians maintained the right to discuss marijuana with their patients. (see May 26, 2004)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Trayvon Martin Shooting

October 29, 2013: Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, told a panel of US senators that state “stand your ground” self-defense laws do not work and must be amended, reviving the politically charged gun-control issue a year ahead of the 2014 midterm elections. But little besides politics emerged from the session, held in the Senate’s made-for-television hearing room. Democrats, who hold majority power in the Senate and are trying to keep it, supported call. Republicans, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), said the matter should be left to the states that passed the laws. (see Nov 18)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH, US Labor History & Colin Kaepernick

Colin Kaepernick

October 29, 2017: about 40 members of the Houston Texans knelt during the national anthem in protest of their team owner Robert McNair’s “inmates running the prison” remarks. [USA article] (mext FS, US Labor, & CK, see Nov 1)

UF Professors Banned

October 29, 2021:  the University of Florida banned three  professors  from assisting plaintiffs in a lawsuit to overturn the state’s new law restricting voting rights, lawyers said in a federal court filing. The ban was an extraordinary limit on speech that raised questions of academic freedom and First Amendment rights.

University officials told the three that because the school was a state institution, participating in a lawsuit against the state “is adverse to U.F.’s interests” and could not be permitted. In their filing, the lawyers sought to question Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, on whether he was involved in the decision. [Oct 29 NYT article; Nov 4 NYT article] (next FS, see Nov 5)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

October 29, 2017: Dennis J. Banks, the militant Chippewa who founded the American Indian Movement in 1968 and led often-violent insurrections to protest the treatment of Native Americans and the nation’s history of injustices against its indigenous peoples, died at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He was 80. [NYT obiturary] (see Nov 23)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

October 29, 2018: according to authorities, an additional threatening package addressed to CNN was recovered and investigators said that Cesar Sayoc, Jr had prepared a list of about 100 possible targets. (T, see Oct 30; CSJ, see Oct 31)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

October 30, 2018: President Trump said he was preparing an executive order that would nullify the long-accepted constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship in the United States.

“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits.”

In fact, at least 30 other countries, including Canada, Mexico and many others in the Western Hemisphere, grant automatic birthright citizenship, according to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that supports restricting immigration and whose work Mr. Trump’s advisers often cited. (see  Nov 9)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman

October 29, 2019: Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman of the Army, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council (a decorated Iraq war veteran) told House impeachment investigators that the White House transcript of a July 25 call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president omitted crucial words and phrases, and that his attempts to include them failed, according to three people familiar with the testimony.

The omissions, Colonel Vindman said, included Mr. Trump’s assertion that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption, and an explicit mention by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Mr. Biden’s son Hunter.

Vindman twice registered internal objections about how Trump and his inner circle were treating Ukraine, out of what he called a “sense of duty,”  according to his opening statement.

Vindman was the first White House official to testify who listened in on the July 25 telephone call between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. [NYT article]

Resolution unveiled

October 29, 2019: House Democrats unveiled a resolution reaffirming their impeachment inquiry and setting out the process for it to continue examining whether the president improperly tried to pressure Ukraine into launching an investigation into a potential political rival.

The measure would enable public hearings and a release of the witness interviews already taken by House committees and would allow the president and his attorneys to cross-examine witnesses.

The move came after congressional Republicans and President Trump complained that the inquiry underway was unfair and lacked due process.

The resolution stated that after the inquiry phase was over, the investigating committees would send their findings to the House Judiciary Committee, which would determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment. [NPR story] (see TII for expanded chronology)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

October 29, 2019: US District Judge Myron Thompson blocked Alabama’s the Human Life Protection Act that would have blocked almost all abortions, calling it a “ban” that “contravenes clear Supreme Court precedent.”

Thompson issued a preliminary injunction barring from taking effect until the court resolves the case in full.

In the 17-page opinion, Thompson wrote that the state’s abortion ban “violates the right of an individual to privacy, to make choices central to personal dignity and autonomy.” Thompson also stated that the ban “diminishes the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions.”

Thompson wrote: “It defies the United States Constitution.” [CNN article] (next WH, see Nov 6)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Student Rights

October 29, 2019: the NCAA Board of Governors voted unanimously to allow student-athletes to be paid for the use of their name, image and likeness once its three divisions decide on rules for such opportunities.

“We must embrace change to provide the best possible experience for college athletes,” said Michael Drake, chair of the board for the NCAA, which governs major college athletics.

The NCAA’s stunning reversal came after California passed a Fair Pay to Play Act, which would go into effect in 2023. Other states are looking at possible legislation. The California law would allow athletes to sign endorsement deals and licensing contracts, something NCAA rule makers will address. [CNN article] (next SR, see June 21, 2021)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

October 29, 2019: according to research by Climate Central, rising seas would affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, threatening to all but erase some of the world’s great coastal cities.

The authors of a paper had developed a more accurate way of calculating land elevation based on satellite readings, a standard way of estimating the effects of sea level rise over large areas, and found that the previous numbers were far too optimistic. The new research shows that some 150 million people are now living on land that will be below the high-tide line by mid-century.

Climate Central, a science organization based in New Jersey, published the paper in the journal Nature Communications. The projections did not account for future population growth or land lost to coastal erosion. [NYT article] (next EI, see Oct 31)

October 29 Peace Love Art Activism