Tag Archives: October Peace Love Art Activism

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
October 9 Peace Love Art Activism
Roger Williams

October 9, 1635:  religious dissident Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court of Massachusetts. Williams had spoken out against the right of civil authorities to punish religious dissension and to confiscate Indian land. (see March 22, 1638)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Bob Hudson killed

October 9, 1893: according to reports, in Weakley County, Tennessee the wife of a Bob Hudson, both African-American, had filed charges of assault and battery against a white man, who was subsequently arrested and fined

On this date, ten masked white men dragged Mrs. Hudson from her home and whipped her severely. When Bob Hudson ran to his wife’s defense, the mob shot and killed him. Including Bob Hudson, at least five African American victims of racial terror lynching were killed in Weakley County, Tennessee, between 1877 and 1950. (next BH, see Dec 13; next Lynching, see Dec 20, or see 19th century for expanded lynching chronology)

Timothy Coggins’s body found

October 9, 1983: the body of Timothy Coggins, 23, was found abandoned in a grassy roadside area of Sunny Side, Ga., The sheriff’s office conducted an exhaustive, but the case went cold. (BH, see Nov 2; Coggins, see July 25, 2017)

Laquan McDonald

October 9, 2019: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot released an inspector general’s report that found that officers took part in a massive cover-up after the 2014 police shooting of Laquan McDonald. (next Black and shot, see below; next LMc, see Oct 15)

Stephon Clark

October 9, 2019: the city of Sacramento agreed to $2.4 million to the children of Stephon Clark under a settlement signed by a federal judge.

The agreement settled the minors’ end of the $20 million wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Clark family. [CNS article] (next B & S, see Oct 12; next SC, see )

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

World Women’s Party

October 9, 1938: at National Women’s Party convention Detroit, the NWP established the World Woman’s Party, headquartered in Geneva; initiated fund-raising scheme to sell equal rights seals–similar to Easter seals; restructured NWP hierarchy. (see July 22. 1939)

Malala Yousafzai

October 9, 2012: a Taliban gunman shot and seriously wounded Malala Yousafzai  a 14-year-old schoolgirl and activist in the Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan, singling out a widely known champion of girls’ education and a potent symbol of resistance to militant ideology. (NYT article) (see Oct 15)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

October 9, 1951: RCA demonstrated its “all-electronic” color system for the first time. The test was also broadcast on WNBT, and because RCA’s system was compatible with existing black and white television sets, viewers were able to watch the demonstration (in black and white, of course) (see Oct 25)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

October 9 Music et al

Ray Charles

October 9 – 22, 1961: “Hit the Road Jack” by Ray Charles #1 Billboard Hot 100.

Yesterday

October 9 – November 5, 1965, The Beatles: “Yesterday” #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (see Oct 26)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Che Guevara

 

October 9, 1967: after capturing Che Guevara the day before, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered Guevara executed but made to look like Guevara had died in battle.

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

DRAFT CARD BURNING

October 9, 1967: the Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of the amendment to the Selective Service Act that makes draft card burning a crime. (Draft Card Burning, see Oct 15; Vietnam, see Oct 16)

Peace negotiation

October 9, 1972:  according to Hanoi, the United States proposed the following schedule: on Oct. 18 American bombing and mining of North Vietnam would be halted; on Oct. 19 both the United States and North Vietnam would initial the text of the cease‐fire agreement, and on Oct. 26 the foreign ministers of both countries would formally sign the agreement in Paris. (see Oct 10)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

October 9, 1969: the American Indian Center in San Francisco burned down. It had been a meeting place that served 30,000 Indian people with social programs. The loss of the center focuses Indian attention on taking over Alcatraz for use as a new facility. (see November 9, 1969)

Japanese Internment Camps

October 9, 1990: On August 10, 1988, President Reagan had signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. It had provided for a Presidential apology and appropriates $1.25 billion for reparations of $20,000 to most Japanese internees, evacuees, and others of Japanese ancestry who lost liberty or property because of discriminatory wartime actions by the government. Civil Liberties Public Education Fund created to help teach the public about the internment period. On this date at a Washington, D.C. ceremony, the first payments were issued.  107-year-old Reverend Mamoru Eto was the first to receive his check. (see Internment for more)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Nobel Peace Prize

October 9, 2009: President Obama unexpectedly won the Nobel Peace Prize.

STAND YOUR GROUND LAW

October 9, 2012: Kalispell, Montana. County attorney Ed Corrigan decided not to prosecute Brice Harper for the killing of Dan Fredenberg, saying that Montana’s “castle doctrine” law, which maintains that a man’s home is his castle, protected Harper’s rights to vigorously defend himself there. Corrigan decided that Mr. Harper had the right to fetch his gun from his bedroom, confront Mr. Fredenberg in the garage and, fearing for his safety, shoot him. “Given his reasonable belief that he was about to be assaulted, Brice’s use of deadly force against Dan was justified.” [text of Corrigan’s entire statement] (see Dec 26)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Voting Rights

October 9, 2014: the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin from implementing a law requiring voters to present photo IDs, overturning a lower court decision that would have put the law in place for the November election.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had declared the law constitutional.  [CT article] (see Oct 15)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

October 9, 2017: the Trump administration announced that it would take formal steps to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, setting up a bitter fight over the future of America’s efforts to tackle global warming.

At an event in eastern Kentucky, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that his predecessors had departed from regulatory norms in crafting the Clean Power Plan, which was finalized in 2015 and would have pushed states to move away from coal in favor of sources of electricity that produce fewer carbon emissions.

“The war on coal is over,” Mr. Pruitt said. “Tomorrow in Washington, D.C., I will be signing a proposed rule to roll back the Clean Power Plan. No better place to make that announcement than Hazard, Ky.”  [NYT article] (see Oct 22)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH & BSA

October 9, 2017: Scout leaders told their Cub Scouts den members to prepare questions before meeting with Colorado State Senator Vicki Marble. Many of the questions dealt with some of the most controversial topics in the nation: gun control, the environment, race and the proposed border wall between the United States and Mexico.

One scount, Ames Mayfield, 11, asked Marble she would not support “common-sense gun laws.”

“I was shocked that you co-sponsored a bill to allow domestic violence offenders to continue to own a gun,” Ames said and continued, “Why on earth would you want somebody who beats their wife to have access to a gun?” On October 14 at a meeting Lori Mayfield, Ames Mayfield’s mother, attended a private meeting that an unidentified leader requested she attend. The leaders told Ms Mayfield that Ames was no longer welcome in the den. [NYT article] (FS, see Oct 13; BSA, see Oct 11)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History & Trump’s Wall

October 9, 2020: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers to allocate millions of dollars in funding for the construction of a southern border wall was illegal, the latest blow to the Trump administration’s effort to limit immigration.

In the 2-1 decision, the court upheld a December 2019 district court summary judgment in favor of a request from the advocacy groups the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition against Defense Secretary Mark Esper, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and “all persons acting under their direction … from using military construction funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall.” [The Hill article] (next IH, see Nov 14; see TW for expanded chronology)

October 9 Peace Love Art Activism

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Jackie Robinson All-Star team

October 8, 1953: in Birmingham, Alabama, Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor announced that a planned All-Star baseball game organized by Jackie Robinson would not be permitted to play in the city. Robinson, who previously toured the country with an all-black team, signed notable white players Al Rosen, Ralph Branca, and Gil Hodges to join the interracial All-Stars. Ten days before the game was to take place, Mr. Connor notified the public the event would be banned because “there is a city ordinance that forbids mixed athletic events.”

After careful consideration and discussions with members of the Birmingham community, Robinson decided to move forward with the game, and bench the white players rather than cancel. This decision was partly made in response to fears that successfully shutting down the game entirely might help Connor win a bid for Birmingham mayor. The game did happen, with only black players participating, and stood as an example of the legal system of segregation that had permeated Alabama for generations. [EJI article] (next BH, see Dec 23)

see George Whitmore, Jr for the whole long story

October 8, 2012: Whitmore died in a Wildwood, N.J., nursing home. He was 68. In a NY Times Op-Ed article entitled, “Who Will Mourn George Whitmore?” T. J English wrote:

This week, a flawed but beautiful man who offered up his innocence to New York City died with hardly any notice. To those who benefited from his struggles or who believe the city is a fairer place for his having borne them, I ask: Who grieves for George Whitmore?

 In recent months, I’d fallen out of touch with George Whitmore, Jr.. Knowing him, and attempting to assume a measure of responsibility for his life, was often exhausting. While I had come to love him, the drunken phone calls, the calls from hospital emergency rooms and flophouses, and the constant demands for money became overwhelming. When people who claimed to be friends of his starting calling me and asking for favors, I decided to back off. But when I received a cryptic e-mail from one of his nephews, informing me that Whitmore had died on Monday, I was overcome with sadness and regret. [NYT article] (see Whitmore for expanded story)

Church Burning

October 8, 2019:  someone stole a giant cross that was on site at Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas. Mt. Pleasant was one of three churches set on fire by suspected arsonist, 21-year-old Holden Matthews, last April. (next BH, see Oct 29; next CB, see February 10, 2020)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

October 8 Music et al

Sam CookeOctober 8 Peace Love Art Activism

October 8, 1963: after hearing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”  earlier in the year, Sam Cooke was greatly moved that such a poignant song about racism in America could come from someone who was not black. While on tour in May and after speaking with sit-in demonstrators in Durham, North Carolina following a concert, Cooke returned to his tour bus and wrote the first draft of what would become “A Change Is Gonna Come“. The song also reflected much of Cooke’s own inner turmoil. Known for his polished image and light-hearted songs such as “You Send Me” and “Twistin’ the Night Away“, he had long felt the need to address the situation of discrimination and racism. However, his image and fears of losing his largely white fan base prevented him from doing so.

A Change Is Gonna’ Come,” very much a departure for Cooke, reflected two major incidents in his life. The first was the death of Cooke’s 18-month-old son, Vincent, who died of an accidental drowning in June of that year. The second major incident came this date when Cooke and his band tried to register at a “whites only” motel in Shreveport, Louisiana and were summarily arrested for disturbing the peace. Both incidents are represented in the weary tone and lyrics of the piece, especially the final verse: There have been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long/but now I think I’m able to carry on/It’s been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come.

Cooke would not record the song until November 1964. (BH, see Oct 10; Cooke, see November 11, 1964; Dylan, see Oct 23)

WOR-FM

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

October 8, 1966: in New York City, WOR-FM disc jockeys start. [NYT WOR-FM article] (see January 1, 1967)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Cold War

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

October 8, 1967: Che Guevara, Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist, and a major figure of the Cuban Revolution whose stylized visage has become a counter-cultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture was wounded and taken prisoner in Bolivia by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces.

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam & Weather Underground

October 8 – 11, 1969:  the “Days of Rage” riots occur in Chicago, damaging a large amount of property. 287 Weatherman members are arrested, some become fugitives when they fail to appear for trial in connection with their arrests. [OnthisDay article] (see Oct 15)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

United Farm Workers

Lettuce strike

October 8, 1970: Bud Antle, Inc, which grew about 8% of the Salinas valley lettuce, obtained an injunction prohibiting the farm workers from continuing their strike and boycott until the original case was settled. (see December 4, 1970)

Cesar E. Chavez National Monument

October 8, 2012:  President Obama visited Keene, Califorinia to dedicate the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, the nation’s first such site to honor a contemporary Mexican American.

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

October 8, 1972: R. Sargent Shriver is chosen to replace Thomas Eagleton as the U.S. vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. [NPR story]

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Dissolution of Yugoslavia

October 8, 1991: Croatia independent from Yugoslavia. [BalkanInsight article] (Dissolution of Y see Nov 2; ID, see Oct 27)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

IRAQ

Kuwait withdrawal

October 8, 1994: the UN Security Council said that Iraq must withdraw its troops from the Kuwait border, and immediately cooperate with weapons inspectors. (see Oct 15)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

October 8, 1998: the House of Representatives authorizes a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry of President Clinton on a 258-176 vote. Thirty-one Democrats join Republicans in supporting the investigation. (see Clinton for expanded story)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

Boy Scouts of America

October 8, 2012: Timothy Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney, released the names of nearly 1,900 men whom the Boy Scouts of America expelled alleged sexual abuse between 1970 and 1991. Kosnoff has sued the Boy Scouts on behalf of more than 100 alleged victims, identifies many men who have never been reported to police or faced criminal charges.

In addition, Kosnoff released brief summaries of 3,200 other cases of suspected sexual abuse dating to 1948, without naming the alleged perpetrators. [LAT article] (BSA & SAC, see Oct 18)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Leonard Peltier

October 8, 2012: Leonard Peltier released a 2012 Indigenous Day Statement which began,

Greetings my relatives and friends, supporters!

I know I say this same line all the time but in reality you all are my relatives and I appreciate you. I cannot say that enough. Some of our people, as well as ourselves have decided to call today Indigenous Day instead of Columbus Day and it makes me really think about how many People who still celebrate Columbus, a cruel, mass murderer who on his last trip to the Americas, as I have read, was arrested by his own people for being too cruel. When you consider those kinds of cruelty against our People and his status, it makes you wonder to what level he had taken his cruelty. In all of this historical knowledge that is available people still want to celebrate and hold in high esteem this murderer.

If we were to celebrate Hitler Day, or Mussolini Day, or some other murderer and initiator of violence and genocide, there would be widespread condemnation. It would be like celebrating Bush Day in Iraq. It’s kind of sad to say that even mentioning Columbus in my comments gives him more recognition that he should have. So I agree wholeheartedly with all of you out there that have chosen to call this Indigenous Day. If I weren’t Native American or as some of have come to say – Indigenous, I would still love our ways and cling to our ways and cherish our ways. I see our ways as the way to the future, for the world. Whereas I, and others, have said over and over, and our People before us: This earth is our Mother. This earth is life. And anything you take from the earth creates a debt that is to be paid back at some time in the future by someone. (full text) (see Oct 22)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

October 8, 2014: the day after a federal appeals court struck down same-sex marriage bans in Idaho and in Nevada, implementation of the decision in Idaho was temporarily blocked by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court.

Justice Kennedy’s order came shortly after Idaho filed a request to the Supreme Court for an immediate stay of the appeals court ruling. The ruling was the latest in a nearly unbroken string of courtroom victories for gay couples. Justice Kennedy asked the proponents of same-sex marriage to file a response by Thursday afternoon.

The ruling striking down the Nevada and Idaho bans, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, came a day after the Supreme Court allowed similar rulings by three other appeals courts to stand. That cleared the way for same-sex marriage to start immediately in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin and to be extended soon to six other states in those circuits. [NYT article] (see Oct 10)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

October 8, 2018:  a landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change painted a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and said that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”

The report, issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, described a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population. [NYT article]

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

Trump Impeachment Inquiry

October 8, 2019: the White House announced that it would not cooperate with what it called an illegitimate effort “to overturn the results of the 2016 election” and setting the stage for a constitutional clash with far-reaching consequences.

In a letter to House Democratic leaders, the White House said the inquiry had violated precedent and denied President Trump’s due process rights in such an egregious way that neither he nor the executive branch would willingly provide testimony or documents. [NYT article] (see TII for expanded chronology)

October 8 Peace Love Art Activism

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

FEMINISM

Voting Rights

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

October 7, 1918: National Women’s Party picketed with banners in front of U.S. Capitol and Senate Office Building. Pickets arrested daily and released without charges. Throughout rest of Oct. and Nov., pickets harassed by unruly crowds and manhandled by police. (see Dec 2)

Women in service academies

October 7, 1975: President Ford approved a public law granting women entrance into Army, Navy, and Air Force academies for the first time beginning in the fall of 1976. [Women’s Memorial article] (see Oct 15)

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

The Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the Cold War

October 7, 1949: less than five months after Great Britain, the United States, and France established the Federal Republic of Germany in West Germany, the Democratic Republic of Germany was proclaimed within the Soviet occupation zone. The  West criticized the Republic as an un-autonomous Soviet creation, (see Nov 2)

Windscale nuclear reactor (UK)

October 7, 1957: a fire in the graphite-core reactor in Cumbria results in a limited release of radioactivity (INES Level 5). The sale of milk from nearby farms was banned for a month. The reactor could not be salvaged and was buried in concrete. A second reactor on the site is also shut down and the site decontaminated. Subsequently part of the site is renamed Sellafield and new nuclear reactors are built. (NYT article) (see Dec 17)

Cuban Missile Crisis

October 7, 1962: Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós spoke at the UN General Assembly: “If … we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have sufficient means with which to defend ourselves; we have indeed our inevitable weapons, the weapons, which we would have preferred not to acquire, and which we do not wish to employ.” (see Cuban Missile Crisis for expanded story)

Nuclear test ban treaty

October 7 Peace Love Activism

October 7, 1963: President John F. Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union. (CW, see Nov 18; NN, see January 29, 1964)

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

October 7 Music et al

Howl

October 7, 1955: Allen Ginsberg read his poem “Howl” for the first time to an audience at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. “Howl” is considered to be one of the great works of American literature.

It came to be associated with the group of writers known as the Beat Generation, which included Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. (see November 1, 1956)

WNEW-FM

October 7, 1967: WNEW-FM’s Pete Fornatelle interviewed Rosko regarding his Oct 2 resignation from WOR-FM. [see Oct 29]

see John Can Stay for more

October 7 Peace Love Activism

October 7, 1975: the NY State Supreme Court voted to reverse John’s deportation order.  Judge Irving Kaufman wrote “The courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds…Lennon’s four-year battle to remain in our country is testimony to his faith in this American dream.” (see April 24, 1976)

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Freedom Day

October 7, 1963: in what would be known as “Freedom Day,” about 350 blacks line up to register to vote at the Dallas County (Alabama) Courthouse. Registrars go as slowly as possible and take a two-hour lunch break. Few manage to register, most of those are denied, but the protest is considered a huge victory by civil rights advocates.  [SNCC article] (see Oct 8)

United States versus Cecil Price et al.

October 7, 1967: trial in the case of United States versus Cecil Price et al. began in the Meridian courtroom of Judge William Cox.  Chief Prosecutor John Doar and other government attorneys had reason to be concerned about Cox.  Cox, appointed as an effort to appease powerful Judiciary Committee Chairman (and former roommate of Cox at Ole Miss) Senator James Eastland, had been a constant source of problems for Justice Department lawyers (especially John Doar) who were seeking to enforce civil rights laws in Mississippi.  In one incident, Judge Cox referred to a group of African Americans set to testify in a voting rights case as “a bunch of chimpanzees.”

A jury of seven white men and five white women, ranging in ages from 34 to 67, was selected. Defense attorneys exercised peremptory challenges against all seventeen potential black jurors.  A white man, who admitted under questioning by Robert Hauberg, the U.S. Attorney for Mississippi, that he had been a member of the KKK “a couple of years ago,” was challenged for cause.  Judge Cox denied the challenge. (Wikipedia entry) (see Oct 20)

Emmett Till

October 7, 2008: President Bush signed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007 It tasked theJustice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the FBI with reviewing, investigating and assessing for prosecutive merit more than 100 unsolved civil rights era homicides. (BH, see Nov 4; ET, see Emmett Till)

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

1964 World Series

October 7 – 15 , 1964: World Series St. Louis Cardinals against N Y Yankees,  Cardinals defeated the Yankees in seven games. It was the last Yankee World Series appearance until 1976. [MLB article]

October 7 Peace Love Art ActivismOperation Enduring Freedom

War in Afghanistan

October 7, 2001: the armed forces of the US, the UK, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. (next Afghanistan-related, see Oct 22; War, see April 14, 2021)

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

October 7, 2002: a commission appointed by Cardinal Bernard F. Law to help prevent sexual abuse by priests recommended that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston compile a registry of accused priests and pass information about them to employers. The commission also recommended monitoring accused priests after they were removed from their jobs and reporting information about their work, living situations and any new complaints of abuse to an independent review board of lay experts. (see Nov 3)

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

October 7, 2004:  a CIA report concluded that Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them. [CNN, 10/7/04] (see January 12, 2005)

October 7 Peace Love Art Activism