Tag Archives: September Peace Love Art Activism

Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

September Peace Love Art Activism

September 1, 2017 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

September Peace Love Art Activism

LSD

Thomas De Quincey

In September – October 1821 : the London Magazine published Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. It was an autobiographical account about DeQuincey’s laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. [text]

Fitz Hugh Ludlow

In 1857: Fitz Hugh Ludlow published The Hasheesh Eater, an autobiographical book in which Ludlow described his altered states of consciousness and philosophical flights of fancy while he was using a cannabis extract. In the United States, the book created popular interest in hashish, leading to hashish candy and private hashish clubs. [text]

Charles Baudelaire

In 1860: French poet Charles Baudelaire published Les Paradis Artificiels (Artificial Paradises), a book about the state of being under the influence of opium and hashish.

Baudelaire described the effects of the drugs and discussed the way in which they could theoretically aid mankind in reaching an “ideal” world.

Baudelaire analyzed the motivation of the addict, and the individual psychedelic experience of the user. His descriptions have foreshadowed other such work that emerged later in the 1960s regarding LSD. [Parisian Review article]

Louis Lewin

In 1886: Louis Lewin, a German pharmacologist, published the first systematic study of the the cactus from which the mescal buttons were obtained (his own name was subsequently given to the plant: Anhalonium lewinii.

The plant was new to science, but not to the Indians of Mexico and the American Southwest. It was (according to Aldous Huxley’s 1954 essay, The Doors of Perception, “a friend of immemorially long standing. Indeed, it was much more than a friend. In the words of one of the early Spanish visitors to the New World, “they eat a root which they call peyote, and which they venerate as though it were a deity.” [Psychedelic Press UK article] (see April 3, 1896)

Timothy Leary

In September, 1962: Timothy Leary founded International Foundation for Internal Freedom (IFIF) to promote LSD research & publishes The Psychedelic Review. [Harvard Crimson article]

Mainstream media

In 1963: LSD first appeared on the streets as liquid on sugar cubes. Articles about LSD first appeared in mainstream media Look, Saturday Evening Post. (see May, 6, 1963)

Millbrook, New York

In September 1963: Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and other Harvard alumni LSD researchers moved to the Hitchcock estate in Millbrook, New York. [Shadow Vue article] (see Nov 22)

Owsley Stanley

In September 1965: Owsley Stanley became the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. [NYT obit] (see Oct 15)

League for Spiritual Discovery

In September 1966: Timothy Leary held a press conference at NY Advertising Club, to announce the formation of a psychedelic religion – League for Spiritual Discovery (“Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present—turn on, tune in, drop out”) [LSD site]

September Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Matilda Joslyn Gage

In September 1852: Gage gave her first public address at the third national women’s rights convention in Syracuse stating: While so much is said of the inferior intellect of woman, it is by a strange absurdity conceded that very many eminent men owe their station in life to their mothers. (next Feminism, see May 1, 1855)

Gage disputes Lincoln

In 1862 Gage gave Flag Presentation Speech to 122nd regiment as they went off to the Civil War. Opposing President Lincoln, who said the war was being fought to preserve the union, Gage tells soldiers they were fighting for an end to slavery and freedom for all citizens. (next Feminism, see June 25, 1863)

New York State Woman Suffrage Association

In 1869 Gage helped found New York State Woman Suffrage Association; served as president for nine years. (next Feminism, see April 1869)

Gage on Native Americans

In the 1870s, Gage wrote a series of articles speaking out against United States’ unjust treatment of American Indians and describing superior position of native women. “The division of power between the sexes in this Indian republic was nearly equal,” Gage wrote of the Iroquois. In matters of government, “…its women exercised controlling power in peace and war … no sale of lands was valid without consent” of the women, while “the family relation among the Iroquois demonstrated woman’s superiority in power … in the home, the wife was absolute … if the Iroquois husband and wife separated, the wife took with her all the property she had brought … the children also accompanied the mother, whose right to them was recognized as supreme.” “Never was justice more perfect, never civilization higher,” Gage concluded. (next Feminism, see February 3, 1870; see Gage for expanded story)

September Peace Love Art Activism

Black History

Colored Caulkers’ Trade Union Society

In September 1866: the first African-American trade union called the Colored Caulkers’ Trade Union Society of Baltimore was founded, with Isaac Myers as the union’s first president.

Isaac Myers grew up in Baltimore as the son of poor free parents. By 1841 Myers was apprenticed to James Jackson, a prominent black ship caulker. Within 20 years Myers was working as a skilled caulker and supervising other men in the caulking of clipper ships within the harbor. However, black workers, noticeably in the shipbuilding and maritime industries, were regularly dismissed from their jobs to make room for the growing number of whites looking for work. This unjust, but frequently occurring, situation led Myers and others to organize the black workers. (see Oct 26)

Afro-American Council

In September 1898: the Afro-American Council (AAC) was established in Rochester, New York, by newspaper editor T. Thomas Fortune and Bishop Alexander Walters of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. They envisioned the organization as a revival of the earlier National Afro-American League (NAAL), which in 1890 became the first national black organization specifically created to challenge racial segregation and discrimination. [Black Past article] (see Nov 8)

Scottsboro Travesty/Charlie Weems

In September 1943 Charlie Weems was paroled.

Scottsboro Travesty/Charlie Norris and Andy Wright

In September 1944 Charlie Norris and Andy Wright left Montgomery in violation of their paroles. (see Scottsboro Travesty for full story)

School Desegregation

In September 1946: Gary, Indiana school district adopted a new policy that dictated, ”children may not be discriminated in the school district in which they live, or within the schools in which they attend, because of race, color or religion.”

The policy did not take effect until the following 1947 school year to allow the community time to adjust. (BH, see Dec 5; SD, see April 14, 1947)

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

In September 1957: King visited Highlander Folk School. Pete Seeger introduced “We Shall Overcome” to him. Vernon Jordan, a Georgia activist at that time, remarked: “The people were cold with fear until music did what prayers and speeches could not do in breaking the ice.” [Stanford U article] (BH, see Sept 2; MLK, see April 6, 1958)

Jimmie Lee Jackson murder

In September 1965: a grand jury declined to indict James Fowler in the shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson. (next BH, see Sept 6; see Jackson for expanded story)

Muhammad Ali

In September 1984: Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. (BH, see May 13, 1985; Ali, see July 19, 1996)

Stop and Frisk Policy

In September 2009: Stop-and-Frisk became an issue in the mayoral race, as well as the Manhattan DA’s race. (see December 2009)

September Peace Love Art Activism

September Music et al

Ornette Coleman

In September 1961: Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman released. According to the Internet site, allmusic: As jazz’s first extended, continuous free improvisation LP, Free Jazz practically defies superlatives in its historical importance. Ornette Coleman’s music had already been tagged “free,” but this album took the term to a whole new level. Aside from a predetermined order of featured soloists and several brief transition signals cued by Coleman, the entire piece was created spontaneously, right on the spot.

News Music

Bob Dylan & The Road to Bethel

In September 1962: Dylan wrote A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall in the basement of the Village Gate, in a small apartment occupied by Chip Monck, later to become one of the most sought-after lighting directors in rock music and a voice associated with the Woodstock Festival. (Dylan, see Dec 14; see Woodstock, Chronology for expanded story)

Janis Ian

In September 1966: Society’s Child released. Recorded in 1965, 15-year-old Janis Ian’s song about teenage interracial romance was daring even in an age of openness. She was criticized by both conservatives because of the song’s topic and by folk musicians because of the song’s use of drums and harpsichord. (see Sept 10)

2009 interview with Ian

September Peace Love Art Activism

September Music et al

Beatles

In September 1966: George Harrison went to India for 6 weeks to study sitar with Ravi Shankar (see Sept 10)

Arlo Guthrie

In September 1967: Arlo Guthrie (age 20) released first album, Alice’s Restaurant. (see “in October”)

Rock Against Racism

In September 1976: Rock Against Racism (RAR) founded by Red Saunders, Roger Huddle and others in the United Kingdom as a response to an increase in racial conflict and the growth of white nationalist groups such as the National Front. The campaign involved pop, rock, punk rock and reggae musicians staging concerts with an anti-racist theme, in order to discourage young people from embracing racist views. David Widgery, active with the RAR, wrote, “We want Rebel music, street music, music that breaks down people’s fear of one another. Crisis music. Now music. Music that knows who the real enemy is.”

September Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Daniel Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers

in September 1969: Ellsberg met draft resister and antiwar activist Randy Kehler, whose willingness to go to prison based on his opposition to the war has a great impact on Ellsberg. Shortly thereafter, Ellsberg finishes reading a copy of the entire McNamara study, which revealed a pattern of escalation of the war, even in the face of evidence that the war is unwinnable. The study also revealed lies told to the public about U.S. military actions. Ellsberg was inspired to take action against what he now sees as “a wrongful war.” (see Ellsberg for full story)

September Peace Love Art Activism

AIDS & Ryan White

in September, 1986: White attended Western Middle School for eighth grade for the entire 1986–87 school year, but was deeply unhappy and had few friends. In 1988 White would speak before President Reagan’s AIDS Commission. At it he would state:

Even though we knew AIDS was not spread through casual contact. Nevertheless, parents of twenty students started their own school. They were still not convinced. Because of the lack of education on AIDS, discrimination, fear, panic, and lies surrounded me:

I became the target of Ryan White jokes
Lies about me biting people
Spitting on vegetables and cookies
Urinating on bathroom walls
Some restaurants threw away my dishes
My school locker was vandalized inside and folders were marked FAG and other obscenities.
I was labeled a troublemaker, my mom an unfit mother, and I was not welcome anywhere.
People would get up and leave so they would not have to sit anywhere near me. Even at church, people would not shake my hand. [entire text]

Threats continued. When a bullet was fired through the Whites’ living room window, the family decided to leave Kokomo. [Elton John loaned $16,500 to put toward a down payment on the Cicero home, and rather than accept repayment placed the repaid money into a college fund for Ryan’s sister.] (see Ryan White for full story)

September Peace Love Art Activism

Student Rights

In September 1989: the Veronia, OR school district, in order to prevent student athletes from using drugs, to protect their health and safety, and to provide drug users with assistance programs, instituted a random drug testing regimen. (see June 26, 1995)

September Peace Love Art Activism

Religion and Public Education

In September 1996: Ohio began the “Pilot Project Scholarship Program” which allowed parents of students in the Cleveland School District to use public monies to pay for tuition at private schools, including religious schools. Aid was give to parents according to financial need, and where the aid was spent depended only upon where parents chose to enroll their children. [Princeton U article] (Religion, see June 23. 1997; Ohio, see June 27, 2002)

September Peace Love Art Activism

Operation Popeye

In September 2010: James Rodger Fleming published Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control. In it he wrote: Although some claimed that [Operation Popeye] induced from 1 to 7 inches of additional rainfall annually along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, no scientific data were collected to verify the claim. General Westmoreland thought there was “no appreciable increase” in rain from the project. Even if the cloud seeding had produced a tactical victory or two in Vietnam (it did not), the extreme secrecy surrounding the operation and the subsequent denials and stonewalling of Congress by the military resulted in a major strategic defeat for military weather modification.(Vietnam, see May 23, 2016; see Operation Popeye for expanded story)

September Peace Love Art Activism

Lynching, Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

September 30, 2015 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Homestead, PA

September 30, 1892: authorities charged 29 strike leaders with treason—plotting “to incite insurrection, rebellion & war against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania”—for daring to strike the Carnegie Steel Co. in Homestead, Pa. Jurors will refuse to convict them. (see March 25, 1893)

Mother Jones

September 30, 1899: seventy-year-old Mother Jones organized the wives of striking miners in Arnot, Pa. to descend on the mine with brooms, mops, and clanging pots and pans. They frighten away the mules and their scab drivers. The miners eventually won their strike. (see May 19, 1902)

National Farm Workers Association

September 30, 1962: The first convention of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) met with hundreds of delegates assembled in an abandoned movie theater in Fresno. CA. The group’s distinctive flag, a black eagle symbol on a white circle in a red field, was unveiled. (see NFWA for more)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

FEMINISM & Voting Rights

September 30, 1918: President Wilson addressed the Senate asking for passage of federal woman suffrage amendment. Wilson’s words on failed to drum up the necessary votes to pass the amendment. (see Oct 1)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Black History

Elaine, Ark

September 30, 1919: Black farmers meet in Elaine, Ark., to establish the Progressive Farmers and Householders Union to fight for better pay and higher cotton prices.

White mobs descended on the black town destroying homes and businesses and attacking anyone in their path. Terrified black residents, including women, children, and the elderly, fled their homes and hid for their lives in nearby woods and fields. A responding federal troop regiment claimed only two black people were killed but many reports challenged the white soldiers’ credibility and accused them of participating in the massacre. Today, historians estimate hundreds of black people were killed in the massacre. .

When the violence was quelled, sixty-seven black people were arrested and charged with inciting violence, while dozens more faced other charges. No white attackers were prosecuted, but twelve black union members convicted of riot-related charges were sentenced to death. The NAACP represented the men on appeal and successfully obtained reversals of all of their death sentences. (next BH & Lynching, see Oct 1; for for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)

Gary, Indiana school integration

September 30, 1927: an agreement was reached: three of the original six black students at Emerson would be transferred, while the remaining three seniors would be allowed to graduate. The 18 black students transferred into Emerson would again be transferred out to other schools. The sum of $15,000 was also allocated for temporary facilities until a new black high school could be constructed. (BH, see Nov 18; SD, see Nov 21)

Emmett Till

September 30, 1955: Milam and Bryant were released on bond. Kidnapping charges were pending. (BH, see Oct 10; see Emmett Till for expanded story)

James H Meredith/Paul Guihard/Ray Gunter

September 30, 1962: hundreds of federal marshals and thousands of Army and National Guard troops met a violent mob of segregationists from all over the South and the University of Mississippi campus became a battleground.

Paul Guihard was a French journalist who covered the Civil Rights struggle during the 60’s for Agence France-Press. He had arrived in Oxford on September 29 on his day off. Guihard compared the atmosphere on the 30^th to that of a carnival, and wrote of spirited singing and speeches of Southern pride and tradition. As the day wore on, protesters became restless. Marshals arrested several students and protesters responded by shouting and throwing debris. Guihard waded into the crowd, shrugging off warnings of physical danger. Debris rained down on the marshals and they responded with tear gas. The mob fired back with guns and the marshals responded with gunfire of their own. Guihard was found several hundred yards away lying face-up next to some bushes less than an hour later, dying from a gunshot to the back. Help was called but nothing could be done to save him.

Another man, Ray Gunter, a 23-year-old white jukebox repairman who came by out of curiosity, was also killed in what became known as the Battle for Ole Miss. Gunter’s death was ruled accidental and investigations concurred that the bullet that killed him was a stray.

A federal investigation was initiated re the Guihard death, but neither killer nor motive was ever found. the second victim was 23-year-old Ray Gunter, a white jukebox repairman who came by out of curiosity. (see October 1, 1962)

Huey Newton

September 30, 1978: Huey Newton convicted in Oakland, Ca. on weapons charges. (see August 29, 1979)

Medgar Evers assassination

September 30, 1991: Nashville, TN. The Tennessee State Supreme Court ruled that Byron de la Beckwith must be extradited to Mississippi to stand trial a third time. Mr. Beckwith’s lawyer then took the case to the Federal courts, asking for a temporary restraining order to block the extradition. Tennessee agreed to hold Mr. Beckwith until then. (Evers, see October 3)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

FREE SPEECH

September 30, 1942: until the early 1940s, the FBI had not taken much interest in pornography. That changed on this day, when it opened an “Obscene File” and began a decades-long crusade against sexually oriented materials. The federal laws justifying this effort involved use of the mails, interstate commerce and, by the 1970s, the federal RICO (Racketeer influenced and Corrupt Organizations) law. (see June 14, 1943)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

September 30, 1964: University of California at Berkeley students and faculty opposed to the war staged the first large-scale antiwar demonstration in the US. Polls showed that a majority of Americans supported President Lyndon Johnson’s war policy. (see Nov 1)

News Music

September 30, 1965: Donovan appeared on Shindig! and plays Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Universal Soldier”. (V, see Oct 15; NM, see Jan 15, 1966)

Video of Donovan (may or may not be from Shindig!)

Buffy Saint-Marie

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

LSD

September 30 – October 2, 1966: Acid Test. San Francisco State College. Whatever It Is Festival. A disguised Ken Kesey (just back from fugitive adventures in Mexico), the Grateful Dead, Hugh Romney, and others are there. [MJK article] (see Oct 6)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

INDEPENDENCE DAY

September 30, 1966: Botswana independent from United Kingdom. (see ID for full list of 1960s’ new countries)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

Oliver W. Sipple

September 30, 1975: Oliver W. Sipple filed a $15-million lawsuit against the press for reporting that he was homosexual. (next LGBTQ, see Oct 22; assassination attempt, see Nov 26)

In 1984 the California Supreme Court dismissed Sipple’s suit, which upheld a lower court’s finding that the sexual orientation of Oliver W. Sipple (the former marine who thwarted an assassination attempt on President Gerald R. Ford) had been known to ”hundreds of people” before the news accounts, but Mr. Sipple’s protest spurred a debate among news organizations about the individual’s right to privacy versus freedom of the press. (next LGBTQ, see November 14, 1985; see Sipple for more)

Roy S. Moore

September 30, 2016: Alabama’s Court of the Judiciary, a nine-member body made up of selected judges, lawyers and others suspended chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy S. Moore for the remainder of his term in office for ordering the state’s probate judges to defy federal court orders on same-sex marriage. While the court did not remove Chief Justice Moore from the bench entirely, as it did in 2003 after he defied orders to remove a giant monument of the Ten Commandments from the state judicial building, it effectively ended his career as a Supreme Court justice. His term would end in 2019, and Chief Justice Moore, 69, will be barred by law from running again at that time because of his age. [NYT article] (see Dec 22)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

September 30, 1978: the Belmont Report, issued on this day, was the official report of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The Commission had been established by Congress with the National Research Act on July 12, 1974, following revelations of abuse of people in biomedical research. The most notorious case was the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, which involved grotesque abuses of African-Americans in a research study that began in the 1930s. That experiment was exposed on July 26, 1972, and President Bill Clinton issued an official apology to the survivors on May 16, 1997.

The exposé of the Tuskegee Experiment played a major role in forcing Congress to act on human subjects’ protection. The Belmont Report helped establish the current standards for the protection of human subjects.Universities, for example, are required to maintain an Institutional Review Board (IRB) to review and approve research on human subjects.

Another of the notorious experiments on human subjects without informed consent involved the CIA’s MKULTRA project, which it began on April 13, 1953. [text] (see Dec 15)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

September 30, 1999: five people died in an accident at the Mihama power plant (Japan) in the Fukui province. Seven people are also injured when hot water and steam leaks from a broken pipe. Officials insist that no radiation leaked from the plant, and there is no danger to the surrounding area. (see December 13, 2001)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

September 30, 2017: the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida struck down the Brevard County, Fla., Board of County Commissioners’ exclusion of nontheists from giving pre-meeting invocations. In its ruling, the court said a local governing body cannot limit invocation officiants exclusively to those from monotheistic traditions.

“The great promise of the Establishment Clause is that religion will not operate as an instrument of division in our nation,” the court stated in its concluding section. “Regrettably, religion has become such an instrument in Brevard County. The county defines rights and opportunities of its citizens to participate in the ceremonial pre-meeting invocation during the county board’s regular meetings based on the citizens’ religious beliefs. As explained above, the county’s policy and practice violate the First and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Sections 2 and 3 of the Florida Constitution.” [ACLU-Florida article] (see Oct 18)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Student Rights

September 30, 2019: Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed into law a plan to allow college athletes to strike endorsement deals, intensifying the legal and political clashes that could ultimately transform the economics of college sports.

The governor’s signature opened a new front of legal pressure against the amateurism model that had been foundational to college sports but had restricted generations of students from earning money while on athletic rosters. [NYT article] (next SR, see Oct 24; NCAA, see Oct 29)

September 30 Peace Love Art Activism

Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

September 29, 2015 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes

September 29, 1910: the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes formed. A year later, it merged with other groups to form the National Urban League “to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.” [Theodore Roosevelt site article] (see Dec 5)

Jim Crow

September 29, 1915: the Jim Crow racial segregation laws enacted and enforced in the American South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries enforced the strict boundaries of a legalized racial caste system and worked to restore and maintain white supremacy in the region. Even after the Civil War and Reconstruction amendments had ended slavery and declared black people to be citizens with civil rights and the power to vote, many Southern state and local lawmakers passed laws forbidding blacks and whites from playing checkers or pool together, entering a circus through the same entrance, or being buried in the same cemetery.

In some instances, these laws interfered with the provision of very important services, including education and health care. On September 29, 1915, the Alabama legislature passed a law forbidding any “white female nurse” from treating a black male patient in any public or private medical facility. Punishment for violation of the law included a fine of $10-$200 and up to six months incarceration or hard labor. An outgrowth of the long-held Southern fear that white women were at risk of attack and assault whenever in the presence of black men, similar action was taken in Georgia in 1911. (see Dec 4)

Houston Revolt (August 23, 1917)

September 29, 1918: five more soldiers hung. (next BH, see February – August 1919; RR, see May 10 – 11, 1919; next HR, see November 13, 2023)

Barratry

September 29, 1956: in an attempt to restrict the activities of the NAACP, Virginia passed a set of laws against barratry, champertry, and maintenance. Barratry is defined as “stirring up” litigation by encouraging people to sue when they might not have done so on their own.

The laws were a blatant attempt to prevent the NAACP from pursuing civil rights cases in the state.

School Desegregation

September 29, 1956: Virginia passed a School Placement Law similar to the one passed by North Carolina on March, 30, 1955. Both laws were intended to bypass the Brown decision of 1954. (BH, Oct 20 ; next SD, see Dec 4; Virginia, see April 2, 1963)

James H Meredith

September 29, 1962

President Kennedy dispatched the Federal Marshals to Mississippi – lightly armed men clad awkwardly in suits, ties and gas masks. At the same time, JFK wanted Gov Ross Barnett to assure him that Mississippi patrolmen would help maintain law and order as the threat of a race riot on the university campus in Oxford grew.
Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett spoke at halftime of the University of Mississippi’s game against Kentucky. Barnett whipped up the crowd, with some later comparing it to a Nazi Nuremberg rally. Interrupted by cheers, Barnett told those gathered, “I love Mississippi. I love her people. Our customs. I love and respect our heritage.” [2014 NYT article] (see Sept 30)

Orangeburg Massacre

In late September/early October 1970: after the trial, a jury found Cleveland Sellers guilty of participating in a riot two nights before the Orangeburg shootings.

He was the only person tried in relation to the the 1968 event. [Black Past article on Sellers] (BH, see Oct 26; OM, see September 1, 1973)

SOUTH AFRICA/APARTHEID

September 29, 1986: the House of Representatives overrides the President Reagan’s veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. (see Oct 2)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

September 29, 1957: The Mayak or Kyshtym nuclear complex (Soviet Union). A fault in the cooling system at the nuclear complex, near Chelyabinsk, results in a chemical explosion and the release of an estimated 70 to 80 tonnes of radioactive materials into the air. Thousands of people are exposed to radiation and thousands more are evacuated from their homes. It is categorized as Level 6 on the seven-point International Nuclear Events Scale (INES). [2017 Stanford U article] (see Oct 7)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

September 29 Music et al

Bob Dylan

September 29, 1961: Robert Shelton of the New York Times reviewed Dylan’s Gerde’s performance. With the headline, Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Folk-Song Stylist, Shelton wrote, “A bright new face in folk music is appearing at Gerde’s Folk City. Although only 20 years old, Bob Dylan is one of the most distinctive stylists to play in a Manhattan cabaret in months.” (see Oct 25)

West Side Story

September 29 – October 19, 1962: West Side Story soundtrack returns to Billboard’s #1 album.

see John Lennon and George Harrison for more

September 29, 1967: John Lennon and George Harrison took part in an interview with David Frost for The Frost Programme. It was recorded before a studio audience between 6pm and 7pm at Studio One at Wembley Studios in London. Among their comments:

Lennon: “Buddha was a groove, Jesus was all right.”

Harrison: “I believe in reincarnation. Life and death are still only relative to thought. I believe in rebirth. You keep coming back until you have got it straight. The ultimate thing is to manifest divinity, and become one with The Creator.” (see Oct 17)

Okie from Muskogee

September 29, 1969, Merle Haggard released single, “Okie from Muskogee.” By November 15, it reached No. 1 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart, where it remained for four weeks. It also became a minor pop hit as well, reaching number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. “Okie from Muskogee” — along with the album, Okie from Muskogee — was named the Country Music Association Single of the Year in 1970.

The song’s lyrics typified the view that many Americans felt toward the changes that had occurred during the decade.

We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
We don’t take our trips on LSD
We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street;
We like livin’ right, and bein’ free.
I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all
We don’t make a party out of lovin’;
We like holdin’ hands and pitchin’ woo;
We don’t let our hair grow long and shaggy

Like the hippies out in San Francisco do.

And I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball.
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all.
Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear;
Beads and Roman sandals won’t be seen.
Football’s still the roughest thing on campus,
And the kids here still respect the college dean. We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Operation Popeye

September 29 1966 — October 28 1966: the US military began Project Popeye in a strip of the Laos panhandle east of the Bolovens Plateau in the Se Kong River valley. Naval personnel eventually conducted 50 seeding cloud experiments. Project leaders claimed that 82% of the clouds produced rain within a brief period after having been seeded and that one of the clouds drifted across the Vietnam border and dropped nine inches of rain on a US Special Forces camp over a four hour period. (next V, see “In October” ; see OP for expanded story)

LBJ commitment

September 29, 1967: LBJ spoke about American commitment to US involvement in Vietnam (see Oct 9)

Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest

September 29, 1970: Vice President Agnew charged that the Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest had indulged in “‘scapegoating’ of the most irresponsible sort” in saying that only the President could offer the moral leadership needed to reunite the country. (NYT article) (see Oct 12; FS, see June 7, 1971)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

September 29, 1969: Alcatraz Takeover: the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a plan by Lama Hunt to turn the Federal prison site of Alcatraz Island into a monument to the US space program. (see Oct 9)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Watergate Scandal

September 29, 1972: John Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats, the Post reports. (see Watergate for expanded story)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Jack Kevorkian

September 29, 2005: in an MSNBC interview, Kevorkian said that if he were granted parole, he would not resume directly helping people die and would restrict himself to campaigning to have the law changed. (see JK for expanded story)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

September 29, 2011: the Log Cabin Republicans is an organization of lesbian and gay Republicans, working within the Republican Party to advocate for lesbian and gay rights. It operates in the face of hostility from the vast majority of GOP leaders who have been beholden to the Religious Right in opposition to lesbian and gay rights. In Log Cabin Republicans v. United States, the organization challenged the constitutionality of the Pentagon’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, under which the military would not ask about sexual orientation, and homosexuals would be allowed to serve in the military as long as they did not mention their sexual orientation. In early September 2010 a U.S. District Court declared the DADT policy an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fifth Amendments, but on this day, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the decision on the grounds that the legislative repealed of DADT, in December 2010, rendered the case moot. As a consequence, the District Court decision had no value as legal precedent.

President Barack Obama signed the DADT repeal act into law on the 22nd of December 2010, and the repeal took effect on September 20, 2011. (see Dec 6)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

September 29, 2021: US federal wildlife officials announced that 22 animals and one plant should be declared extinct and removed from the endangered species list.

The announcement also offered a glimpse of the possible future. It came amid a worsening global biodiversity crisis that threatened a million species with extinction, many within decades. Human activities like farming, logging, mining and damming were taking habitat from animals and pollute much of what’s left. People poached and overfished. Climate change added new peril.

“Each of these 23 species represents a permanent loss to our nation’s natural heritage and to global biodiversity,” said Bridget Fahey, who oversaw species classification for the Fish and Wildlife Service. “And it’s a sobering reminder that extinction is a consequence of human-caused environmental change.” [NYT article] (next EI, see Oct 2)

September 29 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

September 29, 2023: the archdiocese of Baltimore filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy two days before a new Maryland state law went into effect which allowed child sexual abuse victims to sue organizations no matter how long ago the abuse took place.

In a letter to the archdiocese Archbishop William E. Lori attributed the filing directly to the law’s effect on the archdiocese, which was facing “a great number of lawsuits” that were previously prohibited by state law.

Filing for bankruptcy, Lori said, is “the best path forward to compensate equitably all victim-survivors, given the archdiocese’s limited financial resources, which would have otherwise been exhausted on litigation.” [NYT article] (next SAC, see October 16, 2024)