September 28, 1842: in New York, the first grand jury indictments in America against publishers of obscene books were issued: People v. Richard Hobbesand People v. Henry R. Robinson. In addition, indictments were issued against the five print shop owners and bookstand operators used by the two publishers.
Titles named in the indictments: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure; Memoirs of the Life and Voluptuous Adventures of the Celebrated Courtesan Mademoiselle Celestine of Paris; The Cabinet of Venus Unlocked; The Curtain Drawn Up, or The Education of Laura; The Confessions of a Voluptuous Young Lady of High Rank; The Amorous Songster or Jovial Companion; The Lustful Turk; The Amorous History and Adventures of Raymond De B— and Father Andouillard; The Auto-Biography of a Footman. (see July 19, 1911)
September 28 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Opelousas Massacre
September 28, 1868: one of the worst outbreaks of violence during Reconstruction took place in Opelousas, La. The event started with three local members of the KKK-like Knights of the White Camelia beating newspaper editor Emerson Bentley, who had promoted voter registration and education for all. After some African Americans came to his rescue, bands of armed white mobs roamed the countryside and began killing. It is estimated that more than 200 blacks and 30 whites died in the Opelousas Massacre [Black Past article]. (next BH, see January 5, 1869; next Lynching, see August 26, 1874; see Never Forget for expanded 19th century lynching history)
Omaha, Nebraska race revolt
September 28, 1919: a major race riot erupted in Omaha, Nebraska. A white mob of about 4,000 people lynched and burned the body of Willie Brown, an African-American who was being held in the county jail. The mayor of Omaha, who was white, was almost lynched by the mob, which set fire to the county courthouse.
The origin of the revolt lay in racial conflict in the extensive city stockyards and meat packing plants. (A similar conflict underlay the East St. Louis race revolt that began on July 2, 1917.) Rumors that Willie Brown had raped a white woman spurred the lynching. Later reports by the police and U.S. Army investigators determined that the victim had not made a positive identification. The riot lasted for two days, and ended when over 1,200 federal troops arrived to restore order. Although martial law was not formally proclaimed, for all practical purposes it existed, with troops remaining in the city for several weeks. [Black Past article] (next BH, see Oct 1; next Lynching, see Sept 30; for for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)
Gary, Indiana integration protests
September 28, 1927: student against integration in Gary, Indiana continued to protest and now numbered over 1300. Family and other local citizen also protested the proposed school integration. City, school, and district officials met with protesters to begin negotiations for bringing the strike to an end. (see Sept 30)
James H Meredith
September 28, 1962: federal marshals, patrolmen from the Texas – Mexico border, and 110 Army engineers with 49 trucks, van, tractor-trailers, and Jeeps loaded with equipment arrived in Memphis, TN in anticipation of a showdown regarding the admission of Meredith. (see September 29, 1962)
Black Panthers
September 28, 1968: a judge sentenced Huey P. Newton to 2 to 15 years in state prison. [PBS story] (BH, see Oct 16; Black Panthers, see “In November”)
Muhammad Ali
September 28, 1976: Ali defeated Ken Norton in the fifteenth and final round at Yankee Stadium. Though Norton was ahead through the first eight rounds, Ali pulls through to win all but one of the subsequent rounds. As with Frazier the year before, this bout ended the three-fight series between Ali and Norton. (NYT article) (Ali, see February 15, 1978; BH, see Nov 12)
Johnnie Mae Chappell
September 28, 2005: retired detectives Lee Cody and Don Coleman, who had led the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office investigation into the 1964 murder of Johnnie Mae Chappell, answered subpoenas sent by the state attorney’s office.
Detective Lee Cody said that in all the years he’d been involved in the Chappell case, it was the first time he’d ever been under oath. Cody and Detective Don Coleman took confessions from the three men, but the charges against them were dropped. (BH & Chappell, see Oct 11)
September 28 Peace Love Art Activism
September 28 Music et al
Hey Jude
September 28 – November 29, 1968, The Beatles after live performances: “Hey Jude” #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Hey Jude” was released in August 1968 as the first single from the Beatles’ record label Apple Records. More than seven minutes in length, it was at the time the longest single ever to top the British charts.[1] It also spent nine weeks at number one in the United States, the longest for any Beatles single. “Hey Jude” tied the “all-time” record, at the time, for the longest run at the top of the US charts. The single has sold approximately eight million copies and is frequently included on professional critics’ lists of the greatest songs of all time. (see Oct 18)
September 28, 1987: protesters demanded better access to mass transit systems by blocking buses at a transit association convention. The number of arrests in two days rose to at least 54. ”It’s a very emotional issue for disabled people to have to come out here and do this,” said Judy Heumann of the World Institute on Disability, an organization based in Berkeley. (see March 13, 1988)
September 28 Peace Love Art Activism
Feminism
Violence Against Women Act
September 28, 1994: the House of Representatives passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), enhancing states’ ability to respond to domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault. (see In February 1995)
RU-486
September 28, 2000: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of mifepristone (RU-486) for the termination of early pregnancy, defined as 49 days or less. (see Nov 7)
September 28 Peace Love Art Activism
Iraq War II
September 28, 2004: the same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July 2004 about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said. [NYT article] (see Oct 7)
September 28 Peace Love Art Activism
Trump Impeachment Inquiry
September 28, 2019: House Democrats subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, demanding that he promptly produce a tranche of documents and a slate of witnesses that could shed light on the president’s attempts to pressure Ukraine to help tarnish Joe Biden, Jr..
The subpoena and demands for depositions were the first major investigative actions the House took since it launched impeachment proceedings in light of revelations that Mr. Trump pushed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate Biden Jr., possibly using United States aid as leverage. [NYT article] (see TII for expanded chronology)
September 28 Peace Love Art Activism
Cannabis
September 28, 2021: Marijuana Moment reported that newly released FBI data showed that marijuana arrests had declined significantly in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic,.
There were 1,155,610 drug-related arrests overall in 2020, with cannabis sales and possession busts accounting for just over 30 percent (or 350,150) of those cases. The vast majority were for marijuana possession alone.
The agency’s data showed that there was a cannabis arrest every 90 seconds in the country in 2020, and there was a drug-related arrest every 27 seconds.
While these figures still highlighted the rampant, ongoing criminalization of cannabis in states across the U.S., it was a substantial de-escalation compared to 2019, when FBI reported a total of 545,601 marijuana arrests. That amounted to a cannabis bust every 58 seconds. (next Cannabis, see Oct 25, or see Cannabis for expanded chronology)
Women’s Health
September 28, 2023: after U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson had accepted Lorna Roxanne Green’s agreement with prosecutors at a change-of-plea hearing on July 20, on this date Johnson imposed a sentence of 60 months in prison with three years of supervised release, to follow her prison term for the arson of the Wellspring Health Access Clinic located in Casper. [FoxNews article] (next WH, see Oct 24)
Fair Housing
September 28, 2023: the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and seven other agencies across the federal government for the first time clarifyied in writing that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of discrimination. In addition to shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics, religion was also a protected class under the Fair Housing Act. [HUD press release] (next FH, see Oct 2)
September 27, 1909: New York shirtwaist strike of 1909, also known as the Uprising of the 20,000, was a labor strike primarily involving Jewish women working in New York shirtwaist factories. Led by Clara Lemlich and supported by the National Women’s Trade Union League of America (NWTUL). [JWA article] (Labor, see Nov 22; Feminism see Jan 2, 1910)
Change to Win
September 27, 2005: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Teamsters, and other activist unions leave the AFL-CIO to form a new labor coalition called Change to Win. The move represents a new emphasis on organizing workers to bring them into a labor movement starved for members. (January 2, 2006)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Emma Goldman
September 27, 1919: Goldman posted bond and was released from federal prison. She left for Rochester, NY, knowing she would soon receive deportation orders. [NYT article] (see Goldman for expanded story)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Gary Indiana School Desegregation
September 27, 1927: in Gary Indiana, the crowd swelled to about 800 students. Superintendent Wirt hedged his bets by telling the angry crowd that “possibly when a new black school was erected on the east side, Emerson would be again segregated.” (see Sept 28)
A Philip Randolph
September 27, 1940: civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House to demand racial integration of the U.S. Armed forces. Congress had created a draft in response to the outbreak of war in Europe, which was to take effect on October 16, 1940. The law contained a provision prohibiting race discrimination, but Randolph felt the military was not honoring it. The meeting with Roosevelt did not go well, and afterwards the administration issued a false report that Randolph had accepted the president’s plan, for which it quickly had to apologize.
U.S. armed forces remained segregated during World War II. Winfred Lynn’s challenge to the segregated draft was unsuccessful (Armed services, see December 4, 1942 & February 3, 1944). (next BH, see Nov 13)
School Desegregation
SEPTEMBER 27, 1958: following the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, school boards across the country were ordered to draft desegregation plans. The school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, drafted a plan and agreed to implement it during the 1957-1958 school year. When nine black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, made their way to Central High School as part of Arkansas’s gradual desegregation plan, they were met by angry crowds and the Arkansas National Guard blocking their entry. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus encouraged the protesters and did everything in his power to hinder integration. Eventually, President Dwight Eisenhower deployed federal troops to Arkansas and commanded the Arkansas National Guard to escort the students to school.
Not yet through with his attempts to thwart integration, Faubus devised another plan. Following the 1957-1958 school year, the Little Rock School Board petitioned for a delay in the implementation of its desegregation plan. A federal district judge granted a delay until 1961, which the NAACP promptly appealed. The case made its way to the Supreme Court where, on September 12, 1958, the Court ordered immediate integration.
By that time, the Arkansas Legislature had passed a law allowing Governor Faubus to close public schools and later hold a special election to determine public support. Immediately after the Supreme Court released its decision, the governor ordered all four public high schools closed pending a public vote. On September 27, 1958, the people of Arkansas voted overwhelmingly (19,470 to 7561) to keep the schools closed rather than integrate. The schools would remain closed for the entire 1958-1959 academic term, known as “the lost year.” (BH, see Oct 14; SD, see Oct 25)
James H Meredith
September 27, 1962: a fourth attempt to enroll. Meredith in the University of Mississippi was canceled after it became evident that his life would be endangered. (see September 28, 1962)
Medgar Evers
September 27, 1973: New Orleans police arrested Byron De La Beckwith who had a bomb and several rifles in his car. He stated he had come to New Orleans to sell china. Police stated that De La Beckwith intended to blow up the home of A I Botnick, head of the New Orleans chapter of B’nai B’rith. It was the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Botnick had moved his family out of New Orleans several days earlier after receiving threatening calls. (see Oct 11)
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
September 27, 2007: the Senate passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act as an amendment to another bill. President George W Bush indicated he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk. The amendment was dropped by the Democratic leadership because of opposition from conservative groups and President George Bush, and due to the measure being attached to a defense bill there was a lack of support from antiwar Democrats. (LGBTQ, see Nov 8; BH, see March 26, 2008; Shepard, see April 2, 2009)
NY Met/1st Black Composer
September 27, 2021: the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the country’s largest performing arts institution, opened in 1883, and in its 138 years had put on some 300 titles. Not one had been by a Black composer.
On this date, the Met opened its 2021 – 22 season with with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” by Terence Blanchard, a Black jazz trumpeter and composer. [NYT article] (next BH, see Nov 18)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Religion and Public Education
September 27, 1948: Circuit Judge Grover Watson ordered the Champaign school board to stop all religious education in all public school buildings. NYT article (see November 20, 1948)
Environmental Issues
September 27, 1962: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring published. The book is widely credited with helping to launch the contemporary American environmental movement. The New Yorker magazine had started serializing Silent Spring in June 1962. Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read—especially after its selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the New York Times best-seller list—and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. Silent Spring facilitated the ban of the pesticide DDT[3] for agricultural use in 1972 in the United States. NYT article (see Dec 7)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
The Cold War & Nuclear/Chemical News
September 27, 1962: Soviet Union above ground nuclear test. 10 – 30 megaton. (CW, see Oct 7; NN, see Oct 22)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
JFK Assassination
September 27, 1964: the report of the Warren Commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren on the Kennedy assassination was released. The report essentially concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. [text of report] (see October 5, 1966)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
September 27, 1967: an advertisement headed “A Call To Resist Illegitimate Authority,” signed by over 320 influential people (professors, writers, ministers, and other professional people), appeared in the New Republic and the New York Review of Books, asking for funds to help youths resist the draft.
“A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority” was one of the most powerful and important indictments of the Vietnam War by the anti-war movement. It declared that “the war is unconstitutional and illegal. Congress has not declared a war as required by the Constitution.” Additionally, “this war violates international agreements, treaties and principles of law which the United States Government has solemnly endorsed.” The Call was published in the New York Review of Books, The Nation, and other publications. [text] (see Sept 29)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Sexual Abuse of Children
September 27, 2004: Bishop Thomas Dupre was indicted on child rape charges, becoming the first bishop to face charges in the church sex abuse scandal. Dupree was the head of the Springfield, Mass., diocese, but resigned in February after the allegations came to light. His two alleged victims have said Dupre sexually abused them for years in the 1970s and asked them to keep quiet about the abuse when he was made auxiliary bishop in 1990. (NYT article) (see Nov 15)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Affordable Care Act
September 27, 2017
US Senators Cory Booker, Brian Schatz, Chris Murphy, and Elizabeth Warren wrote to Seema Verma, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In the letter they expressed concern for the Trump administration’s decision to shut down the Affordable Care Act website for 12 hours nearly every Sunday during the upcoming open enrollment. [Star Advertiser article]
the Department of Health and Human Services told stated that for the first time it would not be sending its regional directors to help states with planning for the upcoming open enrollment period. [BuzzFeed article] (see Dec 21)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History
Trump blocked (1)
September 27, 2019: Judge Dolly Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California rejected new regulations that would have allowed the government to hold children and their parents in detention for indefinite periods, one of the Trump administration’s signature efforts to curtail the large number of families arriving from Central America.
Describing the government’s defense of its proposed new policy as “Kafkaesque” in some of its reasoning, Gee said it was up to Congress, not the administration, to supplant a 20-year-old consent decree that requires children to be held in state-licensed facilities and released in most cases within 20 days. [NYT article]
Trump blocked (2)
September 27, 2019: U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson blocked the Trump administration’s effort to expand use of a process that had fast-tracked undocumented immigrants for deportation without the involvement of immigration courts.
The “expedited removal” procedure had previously been used to quickly send recent border-crossers back to Mexico, with policies limiting its use to individuals apprehended within 100 miles of the U.S. border and who were determined to have crossed into the U.S. illegally in the past two weeks.
Jackson halted the policy shift, declaring that the Trump administration’s decision-making process leading to the change appeared to have violated federal law. She said the decision seemed arbitrary and faulted officials for failing to carry out a formal notice-and-comment practice required for major changes to federal rules.
“Government actors who make policy decisions in their official capacities cannot succumb to whims or passions while rulemaking,” wrote Jackson. “If a policy decision that an agency makes is of sufficient consequence that it qualifies as an agency rule, then arbitrariness in deciding the contours of that rule—e.g., decision making by Ouija board or dart board, rock/paper/scissors, or even the Magic 8 Ball—simply will not do.” (next IH, see Oct 4)
September 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Trump Impeachment Inquiry
September 27, 2019: Kurt Volker, theUSspecial envoyforUkraine, stepped down, which meant a key player in Trump’s interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had left the administration. (see TII for expanded chronology)
September 26, 1908: the first production Ford Model T left the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Mich. It was the first car ever manufactured on an assembly line, with interchangeable parts. The auto industry was to become a major U.S. employer, accounting for as many as one of every eight to 10 jobs in the country (see December 19, 1910)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Mother Earth magazine
September 26, 1917: the U.S. Post Office directed Mother Earth, the magazine founded and edited by Emma Goldman, the famous anarchist and opponent of U.S. involvement in World War I, to show cause on this day why it should not be barred from the mails because of its opposition to the war.
Goldman had already been arrested for opposing the draft, in violation of the Espionage Act, passed on June 15, 1917. The Post Office subsequently denied Mother Earth 2nd Class mailing privilege (a device that was widely used during World War I, and effectively denied use of the mails for publications), and Mother Earth suspended publication.
Goldman would be deported from the U.S. to the Soviet Union on the so-called “Red Ark” on December 21, 1919, along with 249 other alleged alien radicals. (see Goldman for expanded story)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
School Desegregation
September 26, 1927: Gary, Indiana School Superintendent Dr. William A Wirt faced a dilemma in the 1910 – 20′s as the city’s black population greatly increased. The East Pulaski and Virginia Street School served the black population, but were segregated and in deplorable condition. The spillover caused nominal numbers of black students to receive education in predominately white schools throughout the city, but they were limited in which facilities they could use.
In the 1926 – 27 school year six black students had attended classes at Emerson High School. To help ameliorate the student overpopulation at Virginia Street School the district transferred 18 black students to Emerson in 1927.
White students outraged at the presence of more black students in their took to the streets. On Monday, September 26 some 600 students walked out of class. Those who remained inside were heckled incessantly until they joined the throngs of protesters. As the demonstration gained momentum signs saying, “WE WON’T GO BACK UNTIL EMERSON IS WHITE. . . . NO NIGGERS FOR EMERSON. . . . EMERSON IS A WHITE MAN’S SCHOOL”. (see Sept 27)
James H Meredith
September 26, 1962: the chief US Marshal and Mississippi Lieut. Governor scuffled repeatedly as State officials prevented the registration of Meredith for the third time. (see September 27, 1962)
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing
September 26, 1977: reported in the NYT: A 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman was indicted today on four counts of first-degree murder in the bombing of a Birmingham church 14 years ago that killed four young black girls attending Sunday school. Robert Chambliss of Birmingham was being held without bond in Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham. (see November 16)
SOUTH AFRICA/APARTHEID
September 26, 1986: President Reagan vetoed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. The law would have imposed sanctions against South Africa and stated five preconditions for lifting the sanctions that would essentially end the system of apartheid. [Politico article] (see Sept 29)
Stop and Frisk Policy
September 26, 2012: Ligon v. City of New York — a lawsuit brought on behalf of people who say they were illegally stopped, ticketed or arrested for trespassing, some in their own buildings — showed that the Bronx district attorney’s office had serious concerns about such arrests as far back as three years ago.
These arrests were made in public housing developments or under the Clean Halls program, which allows police to patrol the hallways of private buildings to prevent crime. [ACLU article] (BH, see Oct 2; Stop and Frisk, see December 20)
Stephon Clark
September 26, 2019: the Sacramento Police Department cleared Officers Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet, who fatally shot Stephon Clark on March 18, 2018, saying they did not violate department policy or training.
“This incident has been thoroughly investigated by law enforcement agencies at the local, state and federal levels,” Chief Daniel Hahn said in a prepared statement. “Every one of these independent examinations has reached the same finding – the use of deadly force in this case was lawful. Our internal investigation concluded that there were no violations of department policy or training.” [Sacramento Bee article] (next B & S, see Oct 1; next SC, see Oct 8)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
Lt. Col. Peter Dewey
September 26, 1945: Lt. Col. Peter Dewey, a U.S. Army officer with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Vietnam and trying to help arrange negotiations between the Viet Minh and France, was unintentionally shot and killed in Saigon by the Viet Minh.
Dewey was the head of a seven-man team sent to Vietnam to search for missing American pilots and to gather information on the situation in the country after the surrender of the Japanese. Dewey is not listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. because the United States Department of Defense has ruled that the war officially started, from a U.S. perspective, on November 1, 1955, after the U.S. took over following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. (Blog article) (Oct 4)
Scranton Commission
September 26, 1970: the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest (the Scranton Commission) appealed to President Nixon to lead Americans back from the brink of what it described as a chasm in society so dangerous that it threatened the survival of the nation. The Commission concluded that the shootings at Kent State were unjustified. The report said: Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill. The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators. [text of report] (see Sept 29)
Henry A. Kissinger
September 26 – 27, 1972: for the 18th time since August, 1969, Henry A. Kissinger, President Nixon’s adviser on national security, met privately in Paris with Le Duc Tho, a Hanoi Politburo member, and Xuan Thuy, North Vietnam’s chief delegate to the Paris peace talks. (see Oct 9)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Politics
September 26, 1960: Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, participate in the first (of four) televised presidential election debates. [Mary Ferrell Foundation article]
September 26 – October 9, 1960: “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own” by Connie Francis #1 Billboard Hot 100
Kingston Trio
September 26 – October 30, 1960: the Kingston Trio’s String Along is their 3rd Billboard #1 album in 1960.
Bob Dylan
September 26, 1961: Dylan started as opening act for the Greenbriar Boys. He stayed two weeks. (see Sept 29)
Oh Pretty Woman
September 26 – October 16, 1964: “Oh Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The title was inspired by Orbison’s wife Claudette interrupting a conversation to announce she was going out; when Orbison asked if she was okay for cash, his co-writer Bill Dees interjected “A pretty woman never needs any money.
Brian Epstein
September 26, 1966: Brian Epstein, hospitalized in a London clinic. The official given reason was that it was a check-up, although it later transpired that he had overdosed on prescribed drugs.
Epstein had been suffering from depression and anxiety for some time, a condition exacerbated by his use of drugs – both prescribed and illegal. His anxiety had heightened following The Beatles decision to stop touring, which left Epstein with less involvement in their careers. Each member was undertaking individual projects in the late summer of 1966 and he had intended to join John Lennon in Spain on the set of How I Won The War.
However, as a result of the hospitalization, he was forced to cancel his visit to Spain. Although Epstein is known to have made later suicide attempts, it is believed that this overdose was accidental. (see Oct 3)
Abbey Road
September 26, 1969: UK release of Abbey Road album. Though recorded after material for the Let It Be lp had already been recorded, it is released before Let It Be. (see Oct 1)
Walls and Bridges
September 26, 1974: US release of John Lennon’s fifth album, Walls and Bridges (UK release will be 4 October)
Written, recorded and released during his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono (June 1973–January 1975), the album captured Lennon in the midst of his “Lost Weekend”.
Walls and Bridges became an American Billboard number 1 album. (see Nov 16)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
ADA
1973 Rehabilitation Act
September 26, 1973: the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, passed by Congress and signed into law on this day, was an important milestone in federal programs for disabled persons. It replaced previous laws in 1954 and 1965. Section 504 of the law was particularly important, expanding the rights of persons with disabilities, greatly expanded grants to the states for vocational rehabilitation, and also expanding federal research and training related to persons with disabilities.
When the Department of Health, Education & Welfare (HEW) failed to issue regulations implementing Section 504, disability rights activists protested with a sit-in on April 5, 1977. HEW issued the regulations three weeks later.
The campaign for the rights of the disabled culminated in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed by President George H. W. Bush on July 26, 1990. The ADA served as the model for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was signed on March 30, 2007. The U.S. Senate has still not ratified the Convention, however, because of conservative opposition. [US Access Board article]
“Ugly Law”
In 1974, Chicago repealed last “Ugly Law” . These laws had allowed police to arrest and jail people with “apparent” disabilities for no reason other than being disfigured or demonstrating some type of disability. (see January 8, 1974)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
September 26, 1975: President Ford sent a letter to Oliver W Sipple expressing his “heartfelt appreciation” for the former marine’s help during an attack on the President in San Francisco. (see Sipple for expanded story)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear/Chemical News
False alarm
September 26, 1983: in the early hours of the morning, the Soviet Union’s early-warning systems detected an incoming missile strike from the United States. Computer readouts suggested several missiles had been launched. The protocol for the Soviet military would have been to retaliate with a nuclear attack of its own.
But duty officer Stanislav Petrov – whose job it was to register apparent enemy missile launches – decided not to report them to his superiors, and instead dismissed them as a false alarm.
This was a breach of his instructions, a dereliction of duty. The safe thing to do would have been to pass the responsibility on, to refer up. His decision may have saved the world. The detection was false. [BBC article on “The Man Who Saved the World”] (next N/C N, see April 4, 1984; next Iran, see Oct 13)
Trump/Iran
September 26, 2017: President Donald Trump had been declaring that Iran was in violation of the Iran nuclear pact, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but his criticism of the deal was contradicted by Marine Gen. James Dunford, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Dunford’s comments came in a written Q&A submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee in advance of a hearing on threats to the US. When asked by the committee whether Iran was complying with JCPOA, Dunford unequivocally said yes.
“The briefings I have received indicate that Iran is adhering to its JCPOA obligations,” he said.
Dunford went even further. Asked if the deal was working as intended — making it harder for Iran to get nuclear weapons — he said that it had. “The JCPOA has delayed Iran’s development of nuclear weapons,” Dunford wrote. [PBS article] (next N/C N, see Oct 6; next Iran, see Oct 13)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Jack Kevorkian
September 26, 1992: Lois Hawes, 52, a Warren, Michigan, woman with lung and brain cancer, died from carbon monoxide poisoning at the home of Kevorkian’s assistant Neal Nicol in Waterford Township, Michigan. (see JK for expanded story)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Sexual Abuse of Children
September 26, 1996: the last Magdalene asylum, in Waterford, Ireland, closed. Magdalene asylums were institutions from the 18th to the late-20th centuries ostensibly for “fallen women”, a term used to imply sexual promiscuity. The first asylum in Ireland opened in Dublin in 1765. In Belfast there was a Church of Ireland run Ulster Magdalene Asylum (founded in 1839) Initially the mission of the asylums was often to rehabilitate women back into society, but by the early 20th century the homes had become increasingly punitive and prison-like. In most of these asylums, the inmates were required to undertake hard physical labor, including laundry and needle work. They also endured a daily regime that included long periods of prayer and enforced silence. In Ireland, such asylums were known as Magdalene laundries. It has been estimated that up to 30,000 women passed through such laundries in Ireland. (see Magdalene for more; next Sexual Abuse date, see Dec 3, 1996)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History
September 26, 2011: Pastor Manuel Hernández was pulled over by an undercover detective in a rural area near Warrior, Alabama, and became the first person arrested under Alabama’s new anti-immigration law, just hours after a federal judge upheld the law’s key passages.
Pastor Hernández, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, worked at the Prayer Center for All Nations in Anniston, Alabama. When the detective asked to see his identification, Hernàndez provided his Mexican passport and Mexican Consular ID card, as well as a card issued by the American Association of Chaplains. The detective questioned the validity of these documents and accused Hernàndez of committing a felony by carrying the chaplain card because it had the state seal on it but was an unofficial form of identification.
Though the detective claimed to have pulled Pastor Hernández over for excessive speeding, he never issued a ticket. Hernández was arrested under suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant and spent several days in jail, where he felt discriminated against as a Latino. Hernández said officials refused to give him a Spanish language Bible and, thinking he could not speak English, said in his presence, “He is an illegal and should be treated as an illegal.” After a few days of incarceration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials released Pastor Hernández with orders to return to immigration court at a later date. (see June 15, 2012)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Occupy Wall Street
September 26, 2012: the University of California agreed to pay about $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by UC-Davis students who were pepper-sprayed by campus police during an Occupy-style protest on campus last November. The settlement also calls for a personal written apology from UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi to each person hit with the spray. [CBS News article] (see July 21, 2015)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Affordable Care Act
September 26, 2017: Senator Mitch McConnell officially pulled the plug on the latest plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, telling senators they would not vote on the measure and effectively admitted defeat in the last-gasp drive to fulfill a core promise of President Trump and Republican lawmakers.
McConnell’s announcement came less than 24 hours after a pivotal Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, declared firm opposition to the repeal proposal, all but ensuring that Republican leaders would be short of the votes they needed. [Politico article] (see Oct 12)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
DEATH PENALTY
September 26, 2017: the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution of Keith Leroy Tharp, a Georgia inmate who had been on death row for a quarter-century, halting the lethal injection after his attorneys raised questions of racial bias in the case.
Georgia sentenced Tharpe to death in 1991 for killing Jaquelin Freeman, his sister-in-law. Tharpe’s wife left him in August 1990 and moved in with her mother, and he made violent threats against them before fatally shooting Freeman and raping his wife, according to a summary of the case from the Georgia Supreme Court. He was sentenced to death the following January.
Attorneys for Tharpe sought to stop his execution which had been set for that night, writing in a Supreme Court filing that “racism played [a] pivotal role in his death sentence.” [US News article] (see Nov 6)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Trump Inquiry
September 26, 2019: according to a whistle-blower complaint, President Trump used the power of his office to try to get Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election to investigate a political rival “for personal gain,” Attorney General William P. Barr and the president’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani were central to the effort, the complaint said.
In addition, the complaint said that whistle-blower, an unidentified intelligence officer, learned from multiple American officials that “senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced as is customary by the White House Situation Room.” [NYT article]
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Environmental Issues
September 26, 2021: the New York Times reported that when Hurricane Ida barreled into the Louisiana coast with near 150 mile-per-hour winds on Aug. 30, it left a trail of destruction. The storm also triggered the most oil spills detected from space after a weather event in the Gulf of Mexico since the federal government started using satellites to track spills and leaks a decade ago. (next EI, see Sept 29)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History/Crime and Punishment
September 26, 2022: thousands of Alabama inmate workers began a labor strike to protest poor prison conditions across the state, where facilities were overcrowded, understaffed and notoriously dangerous.
The protest also called for broader criminal justice reforms. Diyawn Caldwell, the president of Both Sides of the Wall, an advocacy group, said the organization was coordinating the strike with inmates across the state and predicted that about 80 percent of the roughly 25,000 people in prison would participate in the strike, forgoing their usual jobs as cooks and cleaners. [NYT article] (next C & P, see July 21, 2023; next LH, see April 10, 2023)
US Labor History
September 26, 2023: President Biden traveled to Michigan to join a group of striking autoworkers on the picket line, the first time a sitting President had done such gesture of support to a labor union. [NYT article] (next LH, see Oct 4; auto strike, see Oct 30)
September 26 Peace Love Art Activism
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
