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Kwame Ture (1941 - 1998)

Sun Jun 29, 1941

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Kwame Ture, born on this day in 1941 as Stokely Carmichael, was a prominent civil rights activist, serving as "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party and later organizing with the global Pan-African movement.

Ture was a key leader in the development of the Black Power movement, first while leading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later serving as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and then as a leader of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).

Ture was one of the original SNCC freedom riders of 1961 under the leadership of Diane Nash. He became a prominent voting rights activist in Mississippi and Alabama after being mentored by Ella Baker and Bob Moses.

The FBI harassed and slandered him through the COINTELPRO program, leading Ture to flee to Africa in 1968. While there, the U.S. government continued its surveillance of him via the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

While in Africa, he adopted the name "Kwame Ture" to honor Sékou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah, who he began collaborating with. Three months after his arrival in Guinea, Ture published a formal rejection of the Black Panthers, condemning them for not being separatist enough and for their "dogmatic party line favoring alliances with white radicals".

Ture spent the last thirty years of his life campaigning internationally for revolutionary socialist Pan-Africanism via the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP). In 1998, Ture died of prostate cancer at the age of 57, cancer he claimed was deliberately given to him as a means of assassination.

"If a white man wants to lynch me, that's his problem. If he's got the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it's a question of power. Racism gets its power from capitalism. Thus, if you're anti-racist, whether you know it or not, you must be anti-capitalist."

- Kwame Ture


2
21

Henry Gerber (1892 - 1972)

Wed Jun 29, 1892

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Henry Gerber, born on this day in 1892, was a German-American queer rights activist who, in 1924, founded the first American pro-homosexual organization, known as the "Society for Human Rights" (SHR).

Gerber was in Passau, Bavaria, moving to the United States in 1913. In 1917, Gerber was briefly committed to a mental institution because of his homosexuality.

When the U.S. declared war on Germany, Gerber was forced to choose between becoming interned as an enemy alien or enlist in the Army. Gerber chose the latter and served in the Army for approximately three years.

During his time in Germany, Gerber learned about the sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld's advocacy to decriminalize and normalize homosexuality. He also traveled to Berlin, which had a thriving gay subculture.

Inspired by Hirschfeld's work, on December 10th, 1924, Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights, the first pro-gay organization in the United States. A black clergyman named John T. Graves signed on as the organization's first president while Gerber and six others were listed as directors.

Gerber set out to expand the Society's membership beyond the original seven, but had difficulty interesting anyone other than working class queer people in joining. More affluent members of Chicago's gay community refused to join his society, not wanting to ruin their reputations by being associated with homosexuality.

The Society was only a chartered organization for a few months before police arrested Gerber and several other members. Gerber was subjected to three highly publicized trials, and his defense, while ultimately successful, cost him his life savings.

Unable to continue funding the Society, the group dismantled, and Gerber left for New York City, embittered that the more affluent gays of Chicago had not come to his aid for a cause he believed was designed to advance the common good.

"Is not the psychiatrist again putting the cart before the horse in saying that homosexuality is a symptom of the neurotic style of life? Would it not sound more natural to say that the homosexual is made neurotic because his style of life is beset by thousands of dangers?"

- Henry Gerber


3
1

Samar Badawi (1981 - )

Sun Jun 28, 1981

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Image: **


Samar Badawi, born on this day in 1981, is a Saudi Arabian feminist activist who participated in the driving campaigns of 2011-12, sued the government for the right to vote, and was imprisoned by the state for her activism. Her brother, Raif Badawi, is also a civil rights activist who was imprisoned by the government, released on March 11th, 2022.

In 2011, Samar filed suit against the Saudi Arabian government for the right to vote, making her the first person to file a lawsuit for women's suffrage in the country.

Samar has been arrested multiple times for her activism and non-compliance with laws that restrict rights for women. This includes participating in a women's driving campaign, violating the law that prohibits women from driving, a law that was repealed in 2018.

After Badawi missed several trial dates relating to charges of disobedience under the Saudi Arabian male guardianship system (brought by her father, who physically abused her), she served six months in jail.

In 2018, Badawi and several other feminist activists were arrested by the Saudi authorities, sparking a major diplomatic dispute between Canada and Saudi Arabia when the former demanded Badawi's immediate release. In June 2021, Badawi was released from prison.


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3

Chris Hani (1942 - 1993)

Sun Jun 28, 1942

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Chris Hani, born on this day in 1942, was a leader of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of "uMkhonto we Sizwe", the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).

Hani was passionate about fighting apartheid even as a child - when he was 12 years old, after hearing his father's explanations about apartheid and the African National Congress, he wished to join the ANC but was still too young to be accepted. He joined the organization three years later.

Hani received military training in the Soviet Union and served in campaigns during the Zimbabwean War of Liberation, also known as the Rhodesian Bush War.

Despite Hani's extensive experience with armed struggle, he supported the suspension of the ANC's armed resistance against apartheid in favor of peaceful negotiations after becoming head of the party in 1991.

Hani was assassinated by Janusz Walus, an anti-communist Polish immigrant, on April 10th, 1993. Walus was aided in the killing by the South African Conservative Party. The first democratic elections of South Africa took place just a year later, on April 27th, 1994.

"Socialism is not about big concepts and heavy theory. Socialism is about decent shelter for those who are homeless. It is about water for those who have no safe drinking water. It is about health care, it is about a life of dignity for the old. It is about overcoming the huge divide between urban and rural areas.

It is about a decent education for all our people. Socialism is about rolling back the tyranny of the market. As long as the economy is dominated by an unelected, privileged few, the case for socialism will exist."

  • Chris Hani

5
26

Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940)

Sun Jun 27, 1869

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Emma Goldman, born on this day in 1869, was an anarchist writer and activist in the United States whose works, including "My Disillusionment in Russia" and her journal Mother Earth, influenced anarchist movements all over the world.

Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a renowned writer and lecturer. She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick as an act of "propaganda of the deed".

Frick survived the attempt on his life, and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control.

After their release from prison, Goldman and Berkman were again arrested and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of the October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power, Goldman changed her opinion in the wake of the Kronstadt rebellion, denouncing the Soviet Union for its repression of political dissent. She left the Soviet Union and, in 1923, published a book about her experiences, "My Disillusionment in Russia".

Goldman was an extremely well-known anarchist in her lifetime, with a reputation as a powerful orator. Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, free love, and homosexuality.

"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."

- Emma Goldman


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4

Salvador Allende (1908 - 1973)

Fri Jun 26, 1908

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Salvador Allende, born on this day in 1908, was a Chilean physician and politician who became the first Marxist leader to be elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy. He was ousted by CIA-assisted fascists in 1973.

Allende, whose political career spanned nearly four decades, achieved the presidency as the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition, serving from 1970 to 1973.

As president, Allende sought to nationalize major industries, expand education and improve the living standards of the working class. His administration gave educational grants to indigenous children, implemented literacy programs in impoverished areas, and established a minimum wage for workers of all ages.

On September 11th, 1973, the military ousted Allende in a coup d'état assisted by Henry Kissinger and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

As troops surrounded La Moneda Palace, Allende gave his final speech to the public, vowing not to resign. Later that day, Allende died of a gunshot wound, concluded to be a suicide by an investigation conducted by a Chilean court with the assistance of international experts in 2011.

"Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seed which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have strength and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested neither by crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history."

- Salvador Allende, September 11th, 1973


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5

Korean War Begins (1950)

Sun Jun 25, 1950

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Image: Marking the beginning of the "independence" of the Republic of Korea, Syngman Rhee, President of the Republic of Korea, embraces his guest U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded UN troops in Korea during the war, unknown year


On this day in 1950, the northern Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel in an offensive to crush the Republic of Korea, an imperialist puppet state established by the U.S., marking the beginning of the Korean War.

Although June 25th, 1950 is where the beginning of the Korean War is traditionally marked, other interpretations of the conflict exist.

Historian Stephen Gowans, author of "Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom", notes that some analysts, including a member of the U.S. State Department, consider the Korean War to have begun with the creation of the U.S.-imposed Republic of Korea on August 15th, 1948, and some consider the conflict of 1950-53 an extension of a civil war that began in 1932, when Kim Il-sung formed his first guerrilla unit to fight Japanese colonizers.

In any case, the Korean War of 1950-53 was fought between two states that both lay claim to all of the Korean Peninsula, the northern Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the southern Republic of Korea (ROK).

The ROK had been established by the occupying U.S. military government in 1948. In 1945, the same military government had banned the left-leaning People's Republic of Korea, which was based on a network of worker's committees whose program consisted of pro-labor reforms, such as the abolition of child labor and the eight hour day.

On June 25th, 1950, the DPRK People's Army crossed the 38th Parallel into ROK territory, intending to crush the state of U.S.-collaborationists. Two days later, the United Nations Security Council, then boycotted by the Soviet Union for not acknowledging the People's Republic of China (PRC), recommended member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea.

The conflict became a proxy war between global superpowers, with the DPRK supported by the Soviet Union and PRC and the ROK supported by the U.S. On July 27th, 1953 the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, creating the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea. Despite this, no peace treaty was ever signed and the two governments remain at war to this day.

The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities, 10% of the total Korean population, a larger proportional civilian death toll than both World War II and the Vietnam War according to historian Charles Armstrong.

The U.S. led a massive, scorched earth bombing campaign against North Korea, making North Korea one of the most heavily bombed countries in human history. Armstrong writes "U.S. planes dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on Korea - that is, essentially on North Korea - including 32,557 tons of napalm, compared to 503,000 tons of bombs dropped in the entire Pacific theatre of World War II. It incurred the destruction of virtually all of Korea's major cities."

This campaign of destruction was essential to the success of U.S. intervention: American General Matthew Ridgway stated that, except for air power, "the war would have been over in 60 days with all Korea in Communist hands".


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14

Battle of Little Bighorn (1876)

Sun Jun 25, 1876

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On this day in 1876, the Battle of Little Bighorn took place, a major defeat of the U.S. Army by the combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho that caused the death of Colonel George Custer. The event, also known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, was one of the most significant military actions in the Great Sioux War.

The battle began on the morning of June 25th when Colonel Custer led an attack on an encampment of combined tribes. His strategy was to seize as many "non-combatants" as possible (i.e., women, the disabled, and children), and force the men to surrender to protect their families.

Custer drastically underestimated the amount of indigenous people present, however, and no member of his attacking battalion survived their charge on the camp. Despite the victory, the seizure of indigenous lands continued unabated. Days after the battle, Crazy Horse (a leader in the Sioux resistance) surrendered to the government and died in state custody.

As a result of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the U.S. government threatened to withhold all food aid to reservations if the Sioux did not cease hostilities and cede South Dakota land. Threatened with starvation, they complied in 1877.


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3

Radom Riots (1976)

Thu Jun 24, 1976

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Image: Workers' protests in June 1976 in Radom. [tvpworld.com]


The Radom Riots began in Poland on this day in 1976 when tens of thousands of people began protesting and rioting in response to government increases in the price of food, chanting "We want bread and freedom" and fighting with police. This uprising took place in the context of social unrest throughout the country.

That morning, workers at multiple factories across Radom went on strike. By 11 am, thousands of protesters surrounded an administrative building in the city.

After waiting for an official decision on the issue of food increases for several hours, the crowd broke into the building, which had been evacuated, looting and setting it on fire and barricading the surrounding streets.

Because the state did not plan on Radom having an uprising of this size, police forces were initially overwhelmed and reinforcements did not arrive until later that afternoon.

Approximately 20,000 people battled with police forces. 198 people were wounded, 634 arrested, and several were killed. A few weeks after the uprising, a Roman Catholic priest died after being beaten by police, having joined the rioters and criticized the government in his sermons.

Despite the government crackdown, the price raises were reversed within 24 hours. The 1976 workers' protest against official economic policy was a watershed moment in dissent against the Polish People's Republic.


10
22

Carl Braden (1914 - 1975)

Wed Jun 24, 1914

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Carl Braden, born on this day in 1914, was a left-wing trade unionist, journalist, and activist who was charged with sedition by the state of Kentucky after purchasing a home in an all-white neighborhood on behalf of a black family. He was married to Anne Braden, a prominent civil rights activist in her own right.

In 1954, to sidestep the residential race segregation in Louisville, Kentucky, the Bradens purchased a house in an all-white neighborhood and deeded it over to the Wades, an African-American family who had been unsuccessfully seeking a suburban residence. White segregationists responded by burning a cross in the yard, shooting into the home, and eventually destroying the building entirely with dynamite.

For his role in the affair, Carl Braden was charged with sedition, his work for racial integration being interpreted as an act of communist subversion. He was convicted on December 13th, 1954 and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Immediately upon his conviction, Carl Braden was fired from his job and blacklisted from local employment. He served seven months of his sentence before he was released on a $40,000 bond, the highest bond ever set in Kentucky up to that time.

On appeal, Carl's case made it to the Supreme Court (Braden v. United States, 1961), which ruled that Braden's conviction was constitutional, although this was later overturned.

In 1967, the Bradens were again charged with sedition for protesting the practice of strip-mining in Pike County, Kentucky.


11
28

Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

Mon Jun 23, 1947

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Image: A massive 1947 union rally in Madison Square Garden. A large sign reads "MR PRESIDENT: VETO THE HARTLEY-TAFT SLAVE-LABOR BILL"


On this day in 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act became U.S. law after a heavily bipartisan vote, greatly restricting the legal rights of organizing workers during an unprecedented wave of strikes after World War II.

The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act, was enacted despite the veto of President Harry S. Truman, with many Democrats defecting from the party line to support the union-busting measure.

The Act was introduced in the aftermath of a major, unprecedented wave of strikes in the aftermath of World War II, from 1945-1946. Strikes were strongly repressed during World War II to not hamper the war effect. When the wartime restrictions ended, millions of workers across the country went on strike.

The Taft-Hartley Act prohibits unions from engaging in "unfair labor practices." Among the practices prohibited by the act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. The Act also allowed states to pass right-to-work laws banning union shops.

A pamphlet supporting a third, progressive party, published in 1948, had this to say on the vote:

"Every scheme of the lobbyists to fleece the public became law in the 80th Congress. And every constructive proposal to benefit the common people gathered dust in committee pigeonholes. The bi-partisan bloc, the Republocratic cabal which ruled Congress and made a mockery of President Roosevelt's economic bill of rights, also wrecked the Roosevelt foreign policy. A new foreign policy was developed. This policy was still gilded with the good words of democracy. But its Holy Grail was oil...

The Democratic administration carries the ball for Wall Street's foreign policy. And the Republican party carries the ball for Wall Street's domestic policy. Of course the roles are sometimes interchangeable...

On occasion President Truman still likes to lay an occasional verbal wreath on the grave of the New Deal. But the hard facts of roll call votes show that Democrats are voting more and more like Republicans. If the Republican Taft-Hartley bill became law over the President's veto, it was because many of the Democrats allied themselves to the Republicans."


12
1

Sanrizuka Struggle Begins (1966)

Wed Jun 22, 1966

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Image: Helmeted demonstrators on a grassy bank, armed with flagpoles, c. 1970s. Photo credit Takashi Hamaguchi


On this day in 1966, the Japanese government announced the construction of an airport on farmland in rural Sanrizuka, without permission of displaced locals. The plans led to decades of resistance from locals in alliance with leftist groups.

The area around Sanrizuka had been farmland since the Middle Ages, and, prior to the 1940s, much of the land had been privately owned by the Japanese Imperial Household.

Many locals were economically reliant on the Imperial estate at Goryō Farm, and local farmers had a strong economic and emotional attachment to the land. After Japan's defeat in World War II, large tracts of royal land were sold off and subsequently settled by poor rural laborers.

In the 1960s, the Japanese government planned to build a second airport in the Tokyo area to support Japan's rapid economic development. After meeting resistance from locals on the site's first chosen location, the rural town of Tomisato, the government was donated remaining land in Sanrizuka by the Imperial Family.

Locals in Sanrizuka were outraged when the government announced its plans. The Sanrizuka-Shibayama United Opposition League Against the Construction of Narita Airport (or Hantai Dōmei) was formed in 1966, and began to engage in a variety of tactics of resistance, including legal buy-ups, sit-ins, and occupations.

Meanwhile, the Japanese radical student movement was growing, and the League soon formed an alliance with active New Left groups; one major factor drawing the groups the together was that, under the US-Japan Security Treaty, the US military had free access to Japanese air facilities. As a result, it was likely the airport would be used for transporting troops and arms in the Vietnam War.

The demonstrators built huts and watchtowers along proposed construction sites. On October 10th, 1967, the government attempted to conduct a land survey, backed by over 2000 riot police. Clashes quickly broke out, and Hantai Domei leader Issaku Tomura was photographed being brutalized by police, further inflaming anti-airport sentiment.

Protests further grew and intensified over the next few years as the state pressed on with attempts to build the airport. Protestors would dig into the ground, build fortifications, and arm themselves against police. Construction was delayed by years, and the conflict would cost the government billions of yen.

On September 16th, 1971, three police officers were killed during an eminent domain expropriation. Four days later, police forcibly removed and destroyed the house of an elderly woman, an incident that became yet another symbol of state oppression to the opposition.

One student committed suicide, saying in his suicide note that "I detest those who brought the airport to this land". In 1972, the protestors built a 60 meter-high steel tower near the runway in order to disrupt flight tests. Conflict continued through much of the 1970s.

In 1977, the government announced plans to open the airport within the year. In May, police destroyed the tower while demonstrators attempted to cling on to it, provoking a new wave of widespread conflict. One protestor was killed after being struck in the head by a tear gas canister. In March 1978, the first runway was set to open, but a few days prior, a group of saboteurs burrowed into the main control tower, barricaded themselves inside, and proceeded to lay waste to the tower's equipment and infrastructure, delaying the opening yet again to May 20th, 1978.

Resistance continued after the airport was opened. Although many locals began to accept the airport and leave the land, the focus of Hantai Dōmei shifted to opposing plans for additional terminals and runways, as the airport's current size still only reflected a fraction of initial plans.

Clashes continued through the 1980s - on October 20th, 1985, members of the communist New Left group Chukaku-ha broke though police lines with logs and flagpoles, successfully attacking infrastructure in one of the last large-scale battles of the resistance campaign. Guerilla actions and bombings continued as late as the 1990s.

Although this campaign of resistance has largely shifted out of public attention in Japan, its presence is still felt: until 2015, all visitors were required to present ID cards for security reasons, and the airport still remains only a third of its initially-planned size. The Sanrizuka Struggle has never completely ended, and the Opposition League still exists and holds rallies.


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11

James Maxton (1885 - 1946)

Mon Jun 22, 1885

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James Maxton, born on this day in 1885, was a socialist Scottish politician, pacifist, and leader of the Independent Labour Party, a dissident working class party to the left of the Labour Party of its day. He was also a prominent supporter of Home Rule for Scotland.

Maxton was born in the burgh of Pollokshaws (modern day Glasgow), the son of two schoolteachers. He would later become a teacher himself, joining the socialist movement after witnessing firsthand the poverty of the schoolchildren he taught.

Maxton was also a pacifist who opposed both World Wars. During World War I, he was a conscientious objector who refused conscription, and was instead given work on the barges. While there, he became involved in organizing strikes in the shipyards as part of the Clyde Workers' Committee. In 1916, Maxton was convicted of sedition and served a year in prison.

Initially serving as an MP with the Labour Party, he broke with the party under its leadership of Ramsay MacDonald, joining the Independent Labour Party (ILP) instead, later becoming its leader.

One of the best known members of the ILP, Maxton remained a prominent dissident in Parliament for the rest of his life, the only person out of 465 members of the House of Commons to vote against a Motion of Confidence in Winston Churchill's wartime government. Maxton died in 1946, still serving as MP for Bridgeton.

"In the interests of economy they condemned hundreds of children to death and I call it murder."

- James Maxton


14
50

Edward Snowden (1983 - )

Tue Jun 21, 1983

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Image: Edward Snowden speaks about the NSA leaks in an interview with reporter Glenn Greenwald at the hotel The Mira Hong Kong. [Wikipedia]


Edward Snowden, born on this day in 1983, is an American whistleblower who leaked highly classified information from the NSA in 2013 when he was working as a CIA employee, exposing multiple governments' widespread surveillance programs.

Snowden's disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments, prompting a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.

In 2013, the United States Department of Justice unsealed charges against Snowden of two counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property, revoking his passport. Two days later, he flew into a Moscow Airport, where Russian authorities noted that his U.S. passport had been canceled, and he could not leave the airport terminal for over one month.

Russia later granted Snowden the right of asylum with an initial visa for residence for one year, and he continues to reside there on extension today.

"Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give to an American."

- Edward Snowden


15
13

Freedom Summer Murders (1964)

Sun Jun 21, 1964

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Image: An FBI "Missing" poster, depicting (from left to right) Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner


On this day in 1964, civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were assassinated by white supremacists in Philadelphia, Mississippi. No one was held accountable for the Freedom Summer Murders until 2005.

All three activists were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register black people in Mississippi to vote.

The trio were arrested by Sheriff Cecil Price near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi while investigating the burning of Mt. Zion Methodist Church, which had been the site of a CORE Freedom School.

The group was released that evening without being allowed to contact anyone. While traveling back to Meridian, Mississippi, they were stopped by patrol lights and two carloads of KKK members, kidnapped, tortured, and killed.

The sheriff, along with six others, were indicted and convicted for depriving the three men of their civil rights. No one was held accountable for their murders, however, until 2005, when outspoken white supremacist Edgar Ray Killen was convicted on three counts of manslaughter. Killen died in prison in 2018, at the age of 92.


16
2

Speckled Snake Speaks (1829)

Sat Jun 20, 1829

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Image: "The Trail of Tears", by Robert Lindneux, a painting depicting the forced removal of indigenous peoples.


On this day in 1829, Speckled Snake, an indigenous man more than a century old, gave a speech to a council of chiefs on the genocidal nature of U.S. policy of indigenous removal, then led by President Andrew Jackson. Here is a short excerpt from his statement:

"...But when the white man had warmed himself before the Indians' fire and filled himself with their hominy, he became very large. With a step he bestrode the mountains, and his feet covered the plains and the valleys. His hand grasped the eastern and the western sea, and his head rested on the moon.

Then he became our Great Father. He loved his red children, and he said, 'Get a little further, lest I tread on thee.'

Brothers! I have listened to a great many talks from our great father. But they always began and ended in this - 'Get a little further; you are too near me.'"


17
4

Ezeiza Massacre (1973)

Wed Jun 20, 1973

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Image: An attempted lynching of Juan José Rincón, press secretary of the Peronist Youth of the Argentine Republic (JPRA) of Avellaneda [Wikipedia]


On this day in 1973, anti-communist snipers fired on a huge crowd of Peronists gathered at Ezeiza International Airport to witness the return of Juan Perón. At least thirteen were killed, and left-wing alliances to Peronism were severed.

Peronism is an Argentine political movement based on the ideas and legacy of Argentine military general and politician Juan Perón (1895 - 1974) and his wife Eva. Peronism was a popular third positionist political movement that had elements of left and right-wing political ideas.

On June 20th, 1973, Juan Perón was returning to Argentina after eighteen years of political exile in fascist Spain. A large crowd gathered to witness his return at Ezeiza International Airport; police estimated three and a half million people total were present.

At the time, an alliance of right-wing and left-wing movements existed within Peronism, with the Peronist Youth and the Montoneros exhibiting anti-capitalist politics. While the crowd was gathered at the airport, right-wing snipers began firing on the crowd, targeting the Peronist Youth and Montoneros, killing at least 13 people and injuring 365 more.

The Ezeiza massacre marked the end of the alliance of the left and right-wing Peronists which Perón had managed to forge. According to Hugo Moreno, "If [the general strike on] October 17th, 1945 may be considered as the founding act of Peronism...the June 20th, 1973 massacre marked the entrance on the scene of the late right-wing Peronism."


18
7

Adela Pankhurst (1885 - 1961)

Fri Jun 19, 1885

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Image: A photo portrait of British-Australian communist Adela Pankhurst, unknown year. Photograph: Col Linley Blathwayt [theguardian.com]


Adela Pankhurst, born on this day in 1885, was a British suffragette and pacifist who advocated for class-conscious feminism. Pankhurst founded the Communist Party of Australia and, decades later, the fascist "Australia First" movement.

Adela was born into a left-wing family - her father was socialist Richard Pankhurst and her mother was militant suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. Her sisters Sylvia and Christabel also became leaders of the British suffrage movement.

As a teenager, Adela became involved in the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded by her mother and sisters. She was arrested after interrupting Winston Churchill during a protest and slapping a policeman who was trying to evict her from the building.

Both Sylvia and Adela were socialists, while Emmeline and Christabel were more focused on winning the vote for affluent women. After Sylvia was ejected from the WSPU, Christabel is quoted by author Jeff Sparrow as telling her "I would not care if you were multiplied by a hundred, but one of Adela is too many."

In 1914, Adela emigrated to Australia and advocated for peace during World War I. In 1920, Pankhurst co-founded the Australian Communist Party, although she was later expelled.

Despite organizing on behalf of working class women, Adela grew disillusioned with socialist movements and co-founded two nationalist, anti-communist organizations, the Australian Women's Guild of Empire and the fascist "Australia First" movement. Pankhurst also expressed sympathies for both fascist Germany and Japan during World War II, for which she was imprisoned.

In 1949, Pankhurst stated the following on her disillusionment with communism: "So long did I warn my supporters that co-operation with Russia, and all those who supported the Bolsheviks, was the way to disaster and I was ruined and interned for my pains...Communism has not brought home the bacon...Taken on achievement, Fascism did very much better while it lasted."


19
24

Juneteenth (1865)

Mon Jun 19, 1865

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Image: Protesters march towards the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington on Friday, June 19th, 2020. A banner is displayed, reading "FREEDOM DAY MARCH 2020", another sign reads "ABOLISH THE POLICE" [CNN]


Juneteenth is a U.S. holiday commemorating black emanicipation and power that originates from Galveston, Texas, where, on this day in 1865, Union General Gordon Granger proclaimed all slaves in Texas, more than 250,000 people, to be free.

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of slave abolition in the United States.


20
9

George Thompson (1804 - 1878)

Mon Jun 18, 1804

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George Donisthorpe Thompson, born on this day in 1804, was a prominent British anti-slavery orator and activist who gave lecturing tours and worked for abolitionist legislation while serving as a member of Parliament.

Thompson grew up in a household that directly profited from the slave trade. His father worked on ships that transported enslaved Africans to the Caribbean and the Americas, and stories connected to this experience convinced him slavery had to be abolished.

Thompson became one of the most prominent and influential abolitionists and human rights lecturers in the United Kingdom and the United States. He was friends with Frederick Douglass and met with Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. On one visit to the United States, Thompson had to flee the country due to threats of violence from pro-slavery parties.

Thompson was also an advocate of free trade, Chartism, nonresistance, the peace movement, and East Indian reform, helping form the British India Society in 1839.


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Mariya Kislyak Executed (1943)

Fri Jun 18, 1943

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Mariya Kislyak was a Soviet partisan and leader of a Kharkov underground Komsomol cell, where she seduced and killed Nazi officers, actions for which she was executed by the Gestapo on this day in 1943 at the age of seventeen.

Kislyak was born to a Ukrainian peasant family in the village of Lednoe. She graduated from medical training for paramedics and housewives the day before the German invasion of the Soviet Union. During fighting in her hometown, a wounded Soviet soldier she had been taking care of asked her why the city didn't have a strong partisan movement.

When the soldier recovered, Kislyak contacted several partisans hiding out in a nearby forest and asked if she could join their cause, recruiting several acquaintances into the movement. With this organization, she helped kill Nazi officers, sometimes flirting with them to lure them into an isolated area where they could be killed out of sight.

When she received word that a Gestapo agent nicknamed "the Butcher" would be coming to Kharkiv, she and her partisan unit spent two days planning his capture. Kislyak rented a room right next to his at the farm he was staying at.

After courting him for a few days she lured him to a riverbank, where her conspirators captured him. After interrogating the officer, the group summarily executed him with a crowbar.

In response, more than one hundred villagers, including Mariya, were collectively arrested by the Gestapo and told they would be killed by a firing squad if the SS man wasn't found alive soon. After the plot became known, Mariya and two others were brutally tortured and interrogated for weeks.

On June 18th, the group of three was hanged and their bodies put on public display. On May 8th, 1965 she was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.


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Angelo Sbardellotto Executed (1932)

Fri Jun 17, 1932

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Angelo Sbardellotto was an Italian anarchist executed by the state on this day in 1932 for plotting to assassinate Benito Mussolini. He refused to beg for clemency, instead telling the court he regretted not succeeding in his plan.

Sbardellotto was born into a poor family who was compelled to emigrate to find work. Angelo and his father left Italy in October 1924, living in France, Luxembourg, and Belgium, where Angelo worked as a miner and a machine hand.

While working as a miner, he joined the anarchist committee of Liege, and was active in the activities to bring about the general strike in Belgium in solidarity with framed Italian-American anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.

Already under surveillance as a suspected communist subversive, Sbardellotto was stopped by police in Piazza Venezia, Rome in 1932, found armed with two rudimentary bombs and a pistol, as well as possession of a Swiss passport.

Admitting to having entered Italy clandestinely with the intent of avenging socialist Michael Schirru by killing Mussolini (Schirru himself had attempted to assassinate Mussolini), Sbardellotto was interrogated and likely tortured by police before his trial a week later on June 11th.

When Sbardellotto's lawyer requested that he write to Mussolini directly to ask for his life to be spared, he refused, stating that he was only sorry that he had not carried out the attempt on Mussolini.

On June 17th, 1932, at twenty-four years old, he was put in front of the firing squad at the Bretta Fort. He refused last rites from a priest. Angelo's last words before being shot were "Long live anarchy!"


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Charleston Church Massacre (2015)

Wed Jun 17, 2015

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Image: A photo showing the nine people killed in the Charleston Church Massacre: Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Ethel Lance, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Cynthia Hurd, Myra Thompson, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Susan Jackson, and Tywanza Sanders


On this day in 2015, the Charleston Church Massacre took place in Charleston, South Carolina when a white supremacist entered Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and shot twelve people, killing nine (shown). The shooter targeted the church in part due to its stature; Emanuel AME is one of the oldest black churches in the United States and has long been a center for organizing events for civil rights campaigns.

In 2016, he was convicted of 33 federal hate crime and murder charges and later sentenced to death. The Charleston massacre was tied with a 1991 attack at a Buddhist temple in Waddell, Arizona for the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. place of worship.

Since then, however, two deadlier shootings have occurred at places of worship: the Sutherland Springs church shooting in 2017 and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018.


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East German Uprising (1953)

Tue Jun 16, 1953

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Image: Soviet T-34-85 in East Berlin on June 17th, 1953 [Wikipedia]


On this day in 1953, in what became an uprising of more than one million people, 300 East German construction workers protested at government buildings, demanding the reversal of a 10% increase in work quotas.

Due to an economic slump, the East German government had increased worker quotas (called "norms") by 10% across all state-owned factories. At the same time, the prices of food, health care, and public transportation had all significantly increased, leading to an effective monthly wage cut of 33%, according to historian Corey Ross.

Although the government quickly conceded on the matter of work quotas, the protests took on an anti-government character and spread quickly throughout all of East Germany. News of the initial strike had spread both through word of mouth and the Western "Radio in the American Sector" (RIAS), which provided sympathetic coverage of the protests.

Soviet troops and tanks entered East Berlin on the morning of June 17th and violently clashed with the protesters, who had stormed government headquarters. The East German Stasi engaged in mass arrests of thousands of people.

According to historian Richard Millington, around 39 people were killed during the uprising, the vast majority of them demonstrators. Seven Berlin victims were given an official state funeral in West Berlin on June 23rd, 1953.

Following the uprising's successful repression, many workers lost faith in East Germany's socialist state. According to historian Gareth Pritchard, there was a widespread refusal by workers to pay their trade union dues and support the ruling party.

In response to the incident, the East German state expanded its surveillance of workers to more closely monitor discontent, creating what journalist Chris Hedges called "the most efficient security and surveillance state" of its time.


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Espionage Act (1917)

Fri Jun 15, 1917

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Image: A mugshot of Eugene V. Debs with his prisoner number in 1920. He was imprisoned in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for speaking out against the draft during World War I. [npr.org]


The Espionage Act, passed on this day in 1917, is a federal U.S. law which has been used to suppress labor and political activism from American dissidents such as Eugene V. Debs, Emma Goldman, Daniel Ellsberg, and Edward Snowden.

Within a month of the law's passing, the Department of Justice used it as a justification to raid Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) headquarters, seizing property and arresting over one hundred members on various charges.

Among those charged with offenses under the Act are Victor L. Berger, Eugene V. Debs, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden.

A 2015 study by the PEN American Center found that almost all of the non-government representatives they interviewed, including activists, lawyers, journalists and whistleblowers, "thought the Espionage Act had been used inappropriately in leak cases that have a public interest component."

PEN wrote "experts described it as 'too blunt an instrument,' 'aggressive, broad and suppressive,' a 'tool of intimidation,' 'chilling of free speech,' and a 'poor vehicle for prosecuting leakers and whistleblowers.'"


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Working Class Calendar

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!workingclasscalendar@lemmy.world is a working class calendar inspired by the now (2023-06-25) closed reddit r/aPeoplesCalendar aPeoplesCalendar.org, where we can post daily events.

Rules

All the requirements of the code of conduct of the instance must be followed.

Community Rules

1. It's against the rules the apology for fascism, racism, chauvinism, imperialism, capitalism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and heterosexism and attitudes according to these isms.

2. The posts should be about past working class events or about the community.

3. Cross-posting is welcomed.

4. Be polite.

5. Any language is welcomed.

Lemmy

founded 2 years ago