Dr. John Britton Murdered (1994)

Fri Jul 29, 1994

Image: Dr. John Britton with the .357 Magnum he carried for protection when visiting the Pensacola Ladies' Centre to perform abortions, 1993 [rarehistoricalphotos.com]

On this day in 1994, Dr. John Britton was murdered by a far-right anti-abortionist in Pensacola, Florida. Britton, who had replaced Dr. David Gunn after he was murdered the previous year, had armed himself after receiving death threats.

After Gunn's assassination by an anti-abortionist, Dr. Britton began flying across the state of Florida to Pensacola weekly in order to perform abortions at the Pensacola Ladies' Center. He continued to provide abortions even after receiving harassment and death threats, and began wearing a homemade bulletproof vest, carrying a .357 Magnum, and enlisted volunteer bodyguards to protect himself.

As Britton arrived at the clinic on July 29th, 1994, an anti-abortionist shot him dead with a twelve-gauge shotgun. The assassin also killed Britton's bodyguard, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel James Barrett (aged 74), and wounded Barrett's wife, June, a retired nurse.

Britton's killer became the first American executed for assassinating a doctor who was providing abortion services.

• Date: 1994-07-29
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, rarehistoricalphotos.com.
• Tags: #Assassinations, #CivilRights, #Feminism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Hugo Chávez (1954 - 2013)

Wed Jul 28, 1954

Image: Hugo Chávez greeting supporters during a political gathering in the town of Guarico in 2006 [theguardian.com]

Hugo Chávez, born on this day in 1954, was a socialist leader of Venezuela, serving as the country's President from 1999 - 2013. During that period, Chávez's government abolished illiteracy and codified healthcare as a human right.

Chávez was born to schoolteachers in the rural village of Sabaneta. While serving in the Venezuelan military as a young man, Chávez began reading Marxist literature which had been left behind by leftist insurgents his unit had been tasked with dispatching. By age 21, he came to recognize the need for a leftist government in Venezuela.

In 1982, while still active in the military, Chávez founded the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (EBR-200), inspired by Latin American revolutionaries Ezequiel Zamora, Simón Bolívar, and Simón Rodríguez.

In 1992, EBR-200 attempted a coup to oust President Carlos Andrés Pérez, who had reneged on campaign promises and begun instituting economic policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The coup attempt failed, killing fourteen people. Although Chávez was imprisoned, this incident helped him become a symbol of anti-corruption for working class Venezuelans.

In 1994, Chávez was pardoned by President Rafael Caldera and went on a 100-day speaking tour, promoting the Bolivarian cause of social revolution. He visited Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, and Cuba, befriending Fidel Castro.

In 1998, Chávez won an election for the Venezuelan Presidency with 56% of the vote, promising widespread social and economic reforms. He would go on to serve as President from 1999 until his death from cancer in 2013 at age 58.

In 2002, Chávez fired executives of the state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). Following violent protests between anti- and pro- government forces, the Venezuelan military attempted a coup, kidnapping Chávez. This was met with a massive pro-Chávez uprising from the public, and he was re-instated to power after just 47 hours.

Chávez's government succeeded in abolishing illiteracy, expanding access to social services such as healthcare and education, and established rights that protected indigenous cultural practices.

Chávez was subjected to particularly vehement criticism from liberal institutions and intellectuals. British Trotskyist Alan Woods wrote that the "media campaign of vilification against Chávez had no precedent in modern history". Some of this criticism comes from institutions such as the "Freedom House", a majority U.S. government funded think tank based out of Washington D.C., and "Bloomberg", a newspaper named after and majority controlled by American oligarch Michael Bloomberg.

"The capitalist model, the developed model, the consumer model which comes from the North, which it has forced on the world, is falling apart on Earth, and there is no planet nearby that we can emigrate to."

- Hugo Chávez

• Date: 1954-07-28
• Learn More: www.marxist.com, thetricontinental.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Marxism, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

U.S. Occupies Haiti (1915)

Wed Jul 28, 1915

Image: U.S. troops marching in Haiti [washingtonpost.com]

On this day in 1915, the U.S. occupation of Haiti began when, on orders from President Woodrow Wilson, 330 Marines landed at Port-au-Prince after the country's leader was assassinated. The imperialist occupation lasted until 1934.

Haiti had already been suffering from U.S. imperialism and political turmoil prior to the invasion. In 1914, U.S. Marines stole $500,000 in gold from the country's National Bank. Haiti's leader, President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, had also recently been killed by insurgents angered by state-sanctioned murders of his political opposition.

President Wilson ordered the invasion to "protect American and foreign" interests and also wanted to rewrite the Haitian constitution, which banned foreign ownership of land, and replace it with one that guaranteed American financial control. To avoid public criticism, Wilson claimed the occupation was a mission to "re-establish peace and order...and has nothing to do with any diplomatic negotiations of the past or the future".

When the Haitian legislature refused to ratify a new constitution that allowed foreigners to own land there, the U.S.-backed President Dartiguenave dissolved the legislature and the constitution became law. U.S. occupiers also re-instituted a system of slavery known as civil conscription ("impressed labor"), in which Haitian civilians were captured and forced to work on public projects and established the National Guard.

The U.S. military occupation of Haiti continued until August 15th, 1934. According to the U.S. State Department's Office of the Historian, the invasion's result was this: "The United States gained complete control over Haitian finances, and the right to intervene in Haiti whenever the U.S. Government deemed necessary."

• Date: 1915-07-28
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.washingtonpost.com, www.studysmarter.co.uk.
• Tags: #Assassinations, #Imperialism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

McAlester Prison Riot (1973)

Fri Jul 27, 1973

Image: An aerial photograph of McAlester Prison burning during the riot. From the Oklahoma Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society [oklahomawatch.org]

On this day in 1973, prisoners at the underfunded and overcrowded Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester seized control of the facility, taking 21 hostages and demanding amnesty, press coverage, and meetings with lawyers from the ACLU. The McAlester Riot is considered by many to be one of the worst prison riots in U.S. history.

Conditions at the prison were terrible: more than 2,200 people were crowded into the prison (nearly ten times recommended by a post-riot investigation) and correctional officers were generally underpaid and poorly trained.

The crowding issue was made worse by Oklahoma governor David Hall's refusal to sign parole recommendations for drug offenders and individuals convicted of violent crimes.

On July 27th, 1973, inmates in the mess hall attacked several prison officials and took approximately twenty-one prison officials were held hostage. By that evening, the inmates had seized the hospital and set the prison on fire.

Prisoners released the hostages 24 hours after the uprising began, but retained control of the facility until August 4th. When the riot was over, three inmates had been killed and more than $20 million in damage had been done to twenty-four buildings. Despite the violence, conditions at the prison were not sufficiently improved to prevent more riots - another riot occurred at the Oklahoma State Prison in December 1985.

• Date: 1973-07-27
• Learn More: www.okhistory.org, oklahomawatch.org.
• Tags: #Riots.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Tragic Week (1909)

Mon Jul 26, 1909

Image: A general strike in Barcelona, Spain, 1909. A banner reads "LIBERTAD JUSTICIA" [libcom.org]

On this day in 1909, a general strike broke out in Catalonia to protest conscription imposed by the Spanish government. The government declared a state of war and put down the rebellion with the Army, killing more than 100 civilians. The series of clashes between working class radicals and government forces is known as the "Tragic Week".

The uprising's immediate cause was Premier Antonio Maura attempting to bring out reserve troops as reinforcements to bolster Spanish military-colonial activity in Morocco. Many of these reservists were the only breadwinners for their families, while the wealthy were able to hire substitutes.

These actions, coupled with anarchist, anti-militarist, and anti-colonial philosophies shared by many in the city, resulted in the calling of a general strike against Maura's attempt at conscription. By the next day, workers had occupied much of central Barcelona, halting troop trains and overturning trams. Just a few days later, there was street fighting, with a general eruption of riots, strikes, and the burning of convents.

The Spanish government declared a "state of war" and used the national army to put down the rebellion by force. Over one hundred civilians were killed and more than 1,700 individuals were indicted in military courts for "armed rebellion".

• Date: 1909-07-26
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, libcom.org.
• Tags: #GeneralStrikes, #Colonialism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Emmett Till (1941 - 1955)

Fri Jul 25, 1941

Image: Emmett Till, 13-years-old, on Christmas Day in 1954. Photograph taken by his mother, Mamie Till Bradley [Wikipedia]

Emmett Till, born on this day in 1941, was a black child tortured and lynched by white supremacists in Mississippi at 14 years old. His killers sold the story of how they murdered him for $4,000 after being acquitted by an all-white jury.

Emmett was born in Chicago to Mamie Carthan, a working class woman from Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, where the average annual income for a black family was $462 (equivalent to $4,700 in 2016 dollars). In 1955, Till's great-uncle visited the family in Chicago and told Emmett stories about the Mississippi Delta, leading Emmett to plan a visit.

Till arrived in Money, Mississippi, on August 21st, 1955. On the 24th, Till and his friends visited a store owned by a white couple. Till was accused of whistling at and approaching the wife, Carolyn Bryant, while at the store.

Facts of Till's interaction with Bryant are disputed, however many of the accusations - that Till put his hands on Bryant, that he made lewd comments at her, or that he bragged to his friends about having had sex with a white woman - have been withdrawn by the people who initially made them. Till's mother has also stated that she taught Emmett to whistle to help with his stutter, which he developed after a bout with polio.

After word broke out that an interaction had taken place between Till and Bryant, Carolyn's husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam abducted Emmett, tortured him, shot him, and threw his corpse into the Tallahatchie River. Following Till's disappearance, civil rights activists Medgar Evers and Amzie Moore went undercover as cotton pickers to try and locate him.

Three days after his abduction and murder, Till's swollen and disfigured body was found by two boys who were fishing in the Tallahatchie River. His head was very badly mutilated, he had been shot above the right ear, an eye was dislodged from the socket, there was evidence that he had been beaten on the back and the hips, and his body weighted by a fan blade, which was fastened around his neck with barbed wire.

Mamie decided to have an open-casket funeral, saying: "There was just no way I could describe what was in that box. No way. And I just wanted the world to see." Tens of thousands of people lined the street outside the mortuary to view Till's body, and days later thousands more attended his funeral at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ.

In the lead-up to Bryant and Milam's trial, local newspapers falsely reported that there were riots at Till's funeral, and depicted both men smiling in military uniforms. On September 23rd, 1955, an all-white, all-male jury (both women and blacks had been explicitly banned) acquitted Bryant and Milam after a 67-minute deliberation. One juror said "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken that long."

Protected against double jeopardy, Bryant and Milam quickly struck a deal with "Look" magazine in 1956 to tell their story for approximately $4,000 ($35,000 in 2016 dollars).

Emmett Till's murder became a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement; the Montgomery Bus Boycott began in December later that year after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white person. Parks stated "I thought of Emmett Till and I just couldn't go back."

Myrlie Evers, the widow of Medgar Evers, said in 1985 that Till's case resonated so strongly because it "shook the foundations of Mississippi - both black and white, because...with the white community...it had become nationally publicized...with us as blacks...it said, even a child was not safe from racism and bigotry and death."

• Date: 1941-07-25
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #CivilRights, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Tuskegee Experiments Leak Published (1972)

Tue Jul 25, 1972

Image: A white doctor draws blood from one of the Tuskegee test subjects [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1972, whistleblower Peter Buxtun, a social worker and epidemiologist, leaked the story of the Tuskegee Experiments to the Washington Star, leading to a national scandal and the study's quick termination.

The "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male", more commonly known as the Tuskegee Experiments, was an unethical study done by United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where black study participants were not told of their syphilitic condition, given toxic treatments, and falsely told they were receiving free healthcare from the federal government. Lasting from 1932 until 1972, all of its participants were poor, rural black men with very limited access to health information.

In November 1966, Buxtun had filed an official protest on ethical grounds with the PHS's "Division of Venereal Diseases" and another protest in November 1968, however his concerns were dismissed both times. In 1968, black statistician and PHS employee William Carter Jenkins also called for an end to the study in his magazine The Drum.

It wasn't until Buxtun leaked the story to the Washington Star that the study became public knowledge and a national scandal. In 1974, as part of the settlement of a class action lawsuit filed by the NAACP on behalf of study participants and their descendants, the U.S. government paid $10 million ($51.8 million in 2019) and agreed to provide free medical treatment to surviving participants and surviving family members infected as a consequence of the study.

The Tuskegee Experiments were not the only syphilis experiments performed by the U.S. government against non-white people - from 1946 to 1948, the U.S. conducted a similar study in Guatemala in which doctors infected soldiers, prostitutes, prisoners and mental patients with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, without the informed consent of the subjects, leading to at least 83 deaths.

The Guatemalan experiments were led by physician John Charles Cutler, who also participated in the late stages of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Cutler never faced criminal charges for his actions.

• Date: 1972-07-25
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.blackpast.org, www.washingtonpost.com.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Chinese Steel Workers Riot (2009)

Fri Jul 24, 2009

Image: Tonghua Steel workers gathered together on July 24th, 2009 [libcom.org]

On this day in 2009, a group of Chinese steel workers at Tonghua Iron and Steel Group rioted and beat their general manager to death after being informed that 25,000 workers would lose their jobs in a private takeover of the company.

The private takeover was to be done by the Beijing-based Jianlong Steel, one of the country's largest private producers of steel. After steel prices increased, Jianlong sought to acquire a majority stake in Tonghua.

The amount of workers involved in the riot is anywhere from 1,000 - 30,000 (depending on the source), but, in any case, enraged workers beat Jianlong general manager Chen Guojun to death after he informed them of the takeover. Workers also blocked first responders from reaching the scene.

The violence took place in the context of a larger protest in which workers had rushed into the factory and halted production.

• Date: 2009-07-24
• Learn More: www.theguardian.com, libcom.org.
• Tags: #Riots.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Scranton General Strike (1877)

Mon Jul 23, 1877

Image: An illustration showing Scranton Citizens' Corps firing on strikers, August 1st, 1877, by Frank Leslie [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1877, as part of the Great Railroad Strike, a general strike broke out in Scranton, Pennsylvania when railroad workers walked off the job, quickly joined by thousands more from a variety of industries.

The strike began on July 23rd when railroad workers walked off the job in protest of recent wage cuts, a strike that continued into mid-November. By July 26th, it grew to include thousands of workers from a variety of industries, including brakemen, firemen, mill workers, and miners.

Violence erupted on August 1st after thousands of angry strikers rioted, looting stores, assaulting the mayor, and clashing with a local pro-business militia. The militia shot into the crowd (depicted above), leaving four dead and many more wounded.

The next day, National Guard arrived to Scranton and imposed martial law, later aided by federal troops. Comparatively minor acts of violence continued throughout the strike and associated riots. The occupying military forces left the area at the end of October, signaling an end to the uprising.

• Date: 1877-07-23
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.nytimes.com, libraries.psu.edu.
• Tags: #GeneralStrikes, #Riots.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Detroit Riot (1967)

Sun Jul 23, 1967

Image: Police and Rioters, 12th Street, Detroit, July 23rd, 1967. From the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University [blackpast.org]

On this day in 1967, the deadliest race riot of the "Long, Hot Summer of 1967" began when Detroit police raided an unlicensed drinking club that was celebrating the return of two veterans, arresting everyone present. The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 refers to just a few short months in which more than a hundred riots took place across the United States.

In the early hours of July 23rd, Detroit Police Department (DPD) officers raided an unlicensed weekend drinking club in the office of the United Community League for Civic Action. Expecting a few revelers inside, they instead found a party of 82 people celebrating the return of two local GIs from the Vietnam War. The police decided to arrest everyone present.

After the DPD left, a crowd of onlookers began looting an adjacent clothing store. Shortly thereafter, full-scale looting began throughout the neighborhood. This looting escalated into a city-wide uprising that involved shootouts between rioters and police officers.

The violence escalated throughout the next day, resulting in some 483 fires and 1,800 arrests. Thousands of guns were stolen from stores. Firefighters attempting to put out fires were shot at, police brutality was rampant. Even when thousands of federal troops were sent to occupy Detroit, the rioting could not be quelled until July 28th.

43 people were killed in total, most of whom were black. Among the dead was a four year old girl named Tanya Blanding, shot and killed by Sgt. Mortimer J. LeBlanc after he fired indiscriminately into her mother's apartment. LeBlanc was exonerated by the state.

The scale of the riot was the worst in the United States since the 1863 New York City draft riots during the American Civil War and was not surpassed until the 1992 Los Angeles riots 25 years later.

• Date: 1967-07-23
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, detroithistorical.org, www.blackpast.org.
• Tags: #Riots.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Butler R. Wilson (1861 - 1939)

Mon Jul 22, 1861

Butler R. Wilson, born on this day in 1861, was an attorney and civil rights activist based in Boston, Massachusetts who organized with the NAACP and became the first black person admitted to the American Bar Association.

Wilson was born in Greensboro, Georgia free people of color who were prominent members of their community. Wilson attended Atlanta University, a historically black college, and moved to Boston for law school after graduating.

After being admitted to the Massachusetts State Bar in 1884, Wilson built a successful practice serving clients of all races, and became a respected attorney in New England.

In 1911, the American Bar Association (ABA) unknowingly admitted three black men, one of whom was Wilson, to the organization, as applicants did not have to state their race. Once their race became known, the ABA rescinded all three memberships, prompting national outrage and resignations in protest. Despite this, the ABA did not re-instate the men and continued their discriminatory practices for several decades afterward.

Wilson, who was still a member of the Massachusetts State Bar, would go on to fight racial discrimination in legal arenas for the next several decades. He was also a founding member and president of the Boston branch of the NAACP and participated in W.E.B. Du Bois's Niagara Movement.

• Date: 1861-07-22
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.baystatebanner.com.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Armando Diaz School Raid (2001)

Sat Jul 21, 2001

Image: A still from the 2012 film "Diaz: Don't Clean Up This Blood"

On this day in 2001, Italian police raided a school occupied by anti-globalization protesters and journalists, beating and torturing hundreds of protesters. No officer served time in prison.

The school was the temporary headquarters of the anti-capitalist Genoa Social Forum, led by Vittorio Agnoletto, set up during the 27th G8 meeting in Genoa. A nearby building, housing the anti-globalization organization Indymedia and lawyers affiliated with the Genoa Social Forum, was also raided.

On July 21st, just before midnight, Italian cops raided the school, brutally beating and torturing all present. The police officers fabricated evidence of weapons and assault to justify their brutality, planting molotov cocktails and slashing their own bulletproof vests to justify the violence.

Before officers entered the school, British journalist Mark Covell confronted them outside, attempting to tell them he was a journalist. Several officers responded by beating him into a coma, breaking his hand, damaging his spine, and breaking six of his ribs. The police then used an armored police van to break through the school gates and 150 policemen, wearing crash helmets and carrying truncheons and shields, entered the school compound.

Police beat and tortured everyone they found. Several people were beaten unconscious, sexually harassed, had hair cut from their head, and thrown down the stairs. At least one person needed surgery to stop a bleed in their brain.

Some arrested were taken back to a temporary detention facility in Bolzaneto. There, they were tortured and forced to praise fascists such as Mussolini and Pinochet in song. One man testified that, after he refused to sign fabricated statements about what happened, police broke three of his ribs.

Although fifteen Italian police officers and doctors were sentenced to jail for the mistreatment of the detainees at Bolzaneto, none served time in prison due to a statute of limitations on their crimes. The British government supported the Italian government in the violence's aftermath; the spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair stated "The Italian police had a difficult job to do. The prime minister believes that they did that job."

• Date: 2001-07-21
• Learn More: libcom.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Journalism, #Fascism, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Frantz Fanon (1925 - 1961)

Mon Jul 20, 1925

Image: A photograph of Frantz Fanon [Wikimedia Commons]

Frantz Fanon, born on this day in 1925, was a West Indian Pan-Africanist philosopher and Algerian revolutionary most known for his text The Wretched of the Earth.

Fanon was born to an affluent family on the Caribbean island of Martinique, then a French colony which is still under French control today. As a teenager, he was taught by communist anti-colonial thinker Aimé Césaire (1913 - 2008).

Fanon was exposed to much European racism during World War II. After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, a Nazi government was set up in Martinique by French collaborators, who he described as taking off their masks and behaving like "authentic racists".

Fighting for the Allied forces, Fanon also observed European women liberated by black soldiers preferring to dance with fascist Italian prisoners rather than fraternize with their liberators.

While completing a residency in psychiatry in France completing, Fanon wrote and published his first book, "Black Skin, White Masks" (1952), an analysis of the negative psychological effects of colonial subjugation upon black people.

Following the outbreak of the Algerian revolution in November 1954, Fanon joined the Front de Libération Nationale, a nationalist Algerian party. Working at a French hospital in Algeria, Fanon became responsible for treating the psychological distress of the French troops who carried out torture to suppress anti-colonial resistance, as well as their Algerian victims.

While organizing for Algerian independence in Ghana, Fanon was diagnosed with the leukemia that would ultimately kill him. He spent the last year of his life writing his most famous work, "The Wretched of the Earth" (French: Les Damnés de la Terre). The text provides a psychiatric analysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization and examines the possibilities of anti-colonial liberation.

Following a trip to the Soviet Union to treat his leukemia, Fanon came to the U.S. in 1961 for further treatment in a visit arranged by the CIA. Fanon died in Bethesda, Maryland on December 6th, 1961 under the name of "Ibrahim Fanon", a Libyan nom de guerre he had assumed in order to enter a hospital after being wounded during a mission for the Algerian National Liberation Front.

"In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself."

- Frantz Fanon

• Date: 1925-07-20
• Learn More: iep.utm.edu, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays, #Colonialism, #Fascism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Newsboy Strike (1899)

Thu Jul 20, 1899

Image: Newsboys and newsgirl getting afternoon papers in New York City, 1910 [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1899, thousands of New York City "newsies", children who sold newspapers on city streets, went on strike to protest a ten cent increase in the cost of their papers, overturning distribution wagons and attacking scabs.

The newsboys collectively boycotted the New York Journal and the New York World, which had raised the cost of their newspapers from 50 cents to 60 cents, making the papers harder to sell. The boys organized under charismatic child leaders, meeting with the paper owners and holding meetings as large as 5,000 people.

The boys also rioted and used direct action: upon declaring the strike, they turned over a distribution wagon for the New York Journal, and any boy or adult caught hocking either paper would be attacked by a mob of striking children, who would seize and destroy the papers they were selling.

In the end, wholesale price remained at 60 cents, however the newspaper owners agreed to begin refunding boys for unsold papers.

"Ain't that ten cents worth as much to us as it is to Hearst and Pulitzer who are millionaires? Well, I guess it is. If they can't spare it, how can we?...I'm trying to figure out how ten cents on a hundred papers can mean more to a millionaire than it does to newsboys, an' I can't see it."

- Kid Blink, 1899

• Date: 1899-07-20
• Learn More: www.zinnedproject.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Lyuh Woon-hyung Assassinated (1947)

Sat Jul 19, 1947

Lyuh Woon-hyung, also known as Yo Un-hyung, was a leftist politician who argued that Korean independence was essential to world peace. He was assassinated on this day in 1947 by a right-wing nationalist refugee from North Korea.

Lyuh was born in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, the son of a local yangban magnate. In 1910, Lyuh parted from Korean tradition by freeing his household's slaves, giving them enough land and money to become self-sufficient.

Like many in the Korean independence movement, Lyuh sought aid from both right and left-wing political movements. In 1920, he joined the Koryǒ Communist Party, later meeting Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin. In 1924, he also joined Sun Yat-sen's Chinese Nationalist Party to facilitate Sino-Korean cooperation.

In September 1945, Lyuh proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of Korea and became its vice-premier. When the United States occupied the Korean Peninsula, it did not recognize the People's Republic of Korea, and in October he was forced to step down under pressure from the U.S. military government.

In 1946, Lyuh represented the center-left politically as part of an effort to unify right and left-wing independence struggles, however this strategy earned ire from both sides. On July 19th, 1947, Lyuh was assassinated in Seoul by a 19-year-old North Korean refugee who was an active member of a nationalist right-wing organization.

His pen-name was Mongyang, the Hanja for "dream" and "the sun".

• Date: 1947-07-19
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, web.archive.org.
• Tags: #Assassinations, #Independence.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

Wed Jul 19, 1848

Image: **

On this day in 1848, the first women's rights convention in the United States began in Seneca Falls, New York, advertised as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of Woman".

Held in the Wesleyan Chapel of the town of Seneca Falls, New York, it spanned two days and became a national, annual event in 1850 (held in Worcester, Massachusetts).

Notable speakers at the convention included Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass, who was the meeting's only black member. At its conclusion, the convention issued a "Declaration of Sentiments", which became "the single most important factor in spreading news of the women's rights movement around the country in 1848 and into the future", according to historian Judith Wellman.

• Date: 1848-07-19
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.history.com, www.rochester.edu.
• Tags: #Feminism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Maceo Snipes Shot After Voting (1946)

Thu Jul 18, 1946

Image: Maceo Snipes [zinnedproject.org]

On this day in 1946, Maceo Snipes, the first black person to vote in Georgia's Taylor County, was shot by white supremacists, dying after doctors refused to give him a blood transfusion due to segregation. The violence outraged a teenage MLK Jr.

Snipes was a World War II veteran who had returned to his hometown of Butler, Georgia. In 1946, a provocative campaign issue was whether or not black people should be allowed to vote in primary elections. Georgia's Jim Crow government had been enforcing whites-only primary elections, but this had been struck down by the Supreme Court earlier that year.

Despite threats from the Ku Klux Klan, Snipes cast his vote in the primary election on July 17th that year, becoming the first black person to vote in Taylor County, according to the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project. The following day, four white supremacists showed up to Maceo's house, interrupting dinner with his wife, and shot him in the back. The man who shot him, Edward Williamson, was also a World War II veteran.

Snipes was taken to the hospital, where he waited for several hours before the doctors would perform the surgery to remove the bullets. A white doctor told his family that Maceo needed a transfusion, but refused to give him one, citing a lack of "black blood" in the hospital. Without a transfusion, Snipes died two days later. Snipes' funeral was held in the middle of the night due to death threats for anyone who dared attend.

In court, Maceo's killers falsely pleaded self-defense, claiming that Snipes owed them money and attacked them with a knife. Both the coroner and jury determined their actions to be justified. Snipes was one of five black people lynched following the 1946 elections - two couples, Roger and Dorothy Malcom and George and Mae Murray Dorsey - were kidnapped, beaten, and shot. Mae was seven months pregnant at the time.

This outbreak of white supremacist violence, and the hypocrisy surrounding it, outraged a teenage Martin Luther King Jr., then a student at Morehouse College. He wrote a letter to the editor of "The Atlanta Constitution", stating:

"I often find when decent treatment for the Negro is urged, a certain class of people hurry to raise the scarecrow of social mingling and intermarriage. These questions have nothing to do with the case. And most people who kick up this kind of dust know that it is simple dust to obscure the real question of rights and opportunities. It is fair to remember that almost the total of race mixture in America has come, not at Negro initiative, but by the acts of those very white men who talk loudest of race purity. We aren’t eager to marry white girls, and we would like to have our own girls left alone by both white toughs and white aristocrats."

• Date: 1946-07-18
• Learn More: coldcases.emory.edu, calendar.eji.org, www.zinnedproject.org.
• Tags: #Terrorism, #Assassinations, #CivilRights.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Nelson Mandela (1918 - 2013)

Thu Jul 18, 1918

Image: **

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born on this day in 1918, was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary who served as President the African National Congress (ANC) from 1991 to 1997 and of South Africa itself from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in an election in which South Africans of all races could participate.

While working as a clerk for a law firm as a young man, Mandela befriended two communists - Gaur Radebe, a Hlubi member of the ANC and Communist Party, and Nat Bregman, a Jewish communist who became his first white friend. Mandela attended Communist Party meetings and, while impressed that people of all races were able to meet as equals, he did not join the party because its atheism conflicted with his own Christianity, and because he saw the South African struggle as being based in race rather than class.

Mandela joined the ANC a few years later, quickly rising through its ranks. Although initially committed to non-violent protest, he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government.

On August 5th, 1962, Mandela was captured by South African police, informed by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of his location. In the subsequent legal proceedings, known as the "Rivonia Trial", he was sentenced to life in prison.

Amid growing domestic and international pressure, and with fears of a racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990 and began negotiating a peaceable end to apartheid with him. In 1994, he became the first legitimately elected President of South Africa.

Mandela saw national reconciliation as the primary task of his presidency, and hoped to avoid the damage other post-colonial African economies faced by the departure of white elites.

Mandela worked to reassure South Africa's white population that they were protected and represented in the so-called "the Rainbow Nation" and embraced liberal reforms, drawing criticism from more his more radical supporters.

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies."

- Nelson Mandela

• Date: 1918-07-18
• Learn More: www.nelsonmandela.org, www.blackpast.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Communism, #CivilRights, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Eric Garner Murdered by NYPD (2014)

Thu Jul 17, 2014

Image: Eric Garner and his wife, Esaw, during a family vacation in 2011 [New York Times]

On this day in 2014, Eric Garner was murdered by the NYPD, choked to death after police suspected him of selling loose cigarettes. Garner said "I can't breathe" 11 times before dying. The man who filmed his death was poisoned in prison.

Eric Garner (1970 - 2014) was a former horticulturist at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, father of six, and grandfather of three. On July 17th, 2014, was approached by Justin D'Amico, a plainclothes officer, in front of a beauty supply store in Tompkinsville, Staten Island. D'Amico suspected Garner of selling loose cigarettes.

Garner stated "Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I'm tired of it. It stops today...I'm minding my business, officer, I'm minding my business. Please just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone."

After refusing to be handcuffed, 29-year old officer Daniel Pantaleo put Garner in an ultimately fatal chokehold. Despite Garner stating "I can't breathe" eleven times before losing consciousness, the several officers on scene did not come to his aid.

Ramsey Orta, a member of Copwatch, filmed the incident. Following a campaign of police harassment after the video went viral, he was arrested on weapons charges.

Before being imprisoned in Rikers, Orta claims a cop told him he'd be better off killing himself before being jailed. While in prison, Orta was poisoned by prison staff and at one point only ate food that his wife brought him. In May 2020, Orta was released from Groveland Correctional Facility.

Garner's death was protested internationally and became one of many police killings protested within the Black Lives Matter movement. Some perpetrators of violence against police have cited Garner's murder as a motive.

A grand jury elected to not indict Pantaleo on December 3rd, 2014. After the decision, Garner's widow was asked whether she accepted Pantaleo's condolences. She replied: "Hell, no! The time for remorse would have been when my husband was yelling to breathe...No, I don't accept his apology. No, I could care less about his condolences...He's still working. He's still getting a paycheck. He's still feeding his kids, when my husband is six feet under and I'm looking for a way to feed my kids now."

An NYPD disciplinary hearing regarding Pantaleo's treatment of Garner was held in the summer of 2019, and Pantaleo was fired on August 19th, more than five years after the murder took place.

• Date: 2014-07-17
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, en.wikipedia.org, www.vanityfair.com.
• Tags: #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Port Chicago Disaster and Mutiny (1944)

Mon Jul 17, 1944

Image: Aftermath of the Port Chicago Disaster, July 1944, from the U.S. Naval Historical Center [blackpast.org]

The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion that occurred on this day in 1944 at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California, leading black sailors to mutiny to protest dangerous working conditions.

The munitions detonated while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring 390 others. Most of the dead, injured, and those assigned to clean up the wreckage were enlisted African American sailors.

According to historian Erika Doss, "just a few weeks after the disaster, and with no discussion of why the horrific explosion of July 17th had occurred or how to prevent such a disaster from happening again, the black sailors were ordered back to work loading ordnance at the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo. Over 250 of the men refused..." This refusal came to be known as the "Port Chicago Mutiny".

Fifty men‍, known as the "Port Chicago 50", ‌were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years of prison and hard labor, as well as a dishonorable discharge. A young Thurgood Marshall undertook a formidable legal campaign, appealing their convictions, and, due to his efforts and popular pressure, the Navy eventually released 47 of the 50 mutineers.

The incident highlighted racial inequality within the Navy and was one of several incidents that led to it ending its practice of segregation in 1946.

• Date: 1944-07-17
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.zinnedproject.org.
• Tags: #Mutinies.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Ida B. Wells (1862 - 1931)

Wed Jul 16, 1862

Image: Ida B. Wells Barnett, in a photograph by Mary Garrity from c. 1893 [Wikipedia]

Ida B. Wells, born on this day in 1862, was a radical journalist and civil rights activist. "If labor is withdrawn capital will not remain...The white man's dollar is his god, and to stop this will be to stop outrages in many localities."

Born into slavery on July 16th, 1862, Wells was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. After moving to Memphis, Tennessee, Wells began working as a teacher and wrote for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper, which she also co-owned. Her reporting covered incidents of racial injustice.

In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in her works "Horrors" and "The Red Record". Her documentation undermined the white supremacist claim that lynching was something only done to criminals, and her analysis exposed lynching as a means of killing and intimidating black people whose competition was threatening white power.

Wells' work was carried nationally in black-owned newspapers, gaining prominence and earning the ire of white supremacists. On May 21st, 1892, Wells published an editorial in the Free Speech refuting what she called "that old threadbare lie that Negro men rape White women. If Southern men are not careful, a conclusion might be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women."

Following this statement, Wells was denounced as a "Black scoundrel" in the press and an angry white mob burned down the Free Speech offices while she was out of town. A group of local white businessmen located Rev. Nightingale, the founder of the Free Speech, assaulted him and forced him at gunpoint to sign a letter retracting Wells' editorial. Wells never returned to Memphis.

Wells was also active in the women's suffrage movement, however her unrelenting advocacy for racial justice clashed with contemporary, predominantly white suffrage organizations.

In 1893, Wells and Frances Willard, President of the white Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), were traveling separately to Britain on lecture tours. Wells publicly criticized Willard for remaining silent on the issue of lynching and blaming black people for a lack of success with her reform campaign in the American South.

In 1909, Wells co-founded The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) along with figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Mary White Ovington.

In the late 1920s, Wells began writing her autobiography but didn't finish the book before dying of kidney failure in 1931 at age 68. The text was posthumously edited and published by her daughter Alfreda Barnett Duster as "Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells."

"If labor is withdrawn capital will not remain. The Afro-American is thus the backbone of the South. The white man's dollar is his god, and to stop this will be to stop outrages in many localities."

- Ida B. Wells

• Date: 1862-07-16
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.blackpast.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953 - )

Wed Jul 15, 1953

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, born on this day in 1953, is a liberation theologian who became Haiti's first democratically elected president in 1990, serving off and on as the country's president until the 2004 coup d'état.

A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a Roman Catholic parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies to become a priest of the Salesian order.

Before coming into political power, Aristide was a prominent political dissident who survived several assassination attempts, one of the most notable being the St. Jean Bosco Massacre, when pro-government forces stormed his church during mass and killed more than a dozen people.

After winning the 1990 Haitian elections, Aristide was president for eight months before being deposed in a military coup, committed by military and police figures who received military training in the U.S. and were associated with the CIA.

Aristide fled the country after the coup, but then became president again from 1994 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2004.

In 2003, Aristide requested that France pay Haiti over $21 billion in reparations for the 90 million gold francs Haiti was forced to pay France after winning its independence.

In 2004, Aristide was ousted in another coup after right-wing ex-army paramilitaries invaded the country from across the Dominican border, and fled to South Africa. Aristide was flown out of Haiti by U.S. forces under disputed circumstances - he claims he was kidnapped and did not resign, while the U.S. maintains he entered the plane and resigned willingly.

Aristide finally returned to Haiti in 2011, after seven years in exile.

"If we wish to maintain peace, then we cannot accept that impunity be provided to these international criminals and drug dealers."

- Jean-Bertrand Aristide

• Date: 1953-07-15
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.britannica.com.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Lebanon Crisis (1958)

Tue Jul 15, 1958

Image: Lebanese people greeting a USMC LVTP-5 entering Beirut

On this day in 1958, the U.S. invaded Lebanon with 54,000 troops in the name of anti-communism, occupying the Port of Beirut and Beirut International Airport, its first overt military action in the Middle East.

The pro-Western president of Lebanon, Camille Chamoun, had asked for U.S. assistance after armed groups in Lebanon began rebelling against his administration. While not overtly communist in character, the rebels had burned down a U.S. propaganda outlet and were generally aligned with Gamal Nasser and the United Arab Republic (UAR).

Using the anti-communist "Eisenhower Doctrine" as justification, on July 15th, President Eisenhower authorized "Operation Blue Bat", a military occupation of Lebanon with more than 14,000 footsoldiers, supported by a fleet of 70 ships and 40,000 sailors, to keep Chamoun in power.

Occupying the Port of Beirut and Beirut International Airport, the forces remained in Lebanon until October 25th, when President Chamoun completed his term as president of Lebanon.

According to historian Maurice Labelle, "this was the first overt U.S. military intervention in the region", demonstrating the U.S.'s willingness to act as an imperialist power in the Middle East, willing to commit to overt military action to manage its interests in the region.

• Date: 1958-07-15
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.aljazeera.com.
• Tags: #Communism, #Imperialism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Vesey's Uprising (1822)

Sun Jul 14, 1822

On this day in 1822, revolutionary Denmark Vesey planned a slave revolt to take place in South Carolina, intending for thousands of slaves to kill their masters and sail to Haiti; instead, he was betrayed by slaves and executed.

Denmark Vesey (c. 1767 - 1822) was a literate, skilled carpenter and community leader among in Charleston, South Carolina. Likely born into slavery in St. Thomas, Vesey was enslaved by Captain Joseph Vesey in Bermuda.

At the age of 32, he won a lottery and bought his freedom, but was unable to buy the freedom of his wife and children. In 1818 he co-founded an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregation in the city, which enjoyed the support of local white clergy. The church attracted 1,848 members, making it the second-largest AME congregation in the nation.

Vesey reportedly began planning the insurrection to take place on Bastille Day, July 14th, 1822, a date notable for its association with the French Revolution, whose victors had abolished slavery in Saint-Domingue.

News of the plan was said to be spread among thousands of black people throughout Charleston and for tens of miles through plantations along the Carolina coast. Two slaves opposed to Vesey's scheme, George Wilson and Joe LaRoche, gave the first specific testimony about a coming uprising to Charleston officials, saying an uprising was planned for July 14th.

In June, Vesey was formally accused of being the leader in "the rising". He was convicted and quickly executed on July 2nd.

In the aftermath of Vesey's and others' convictions, authorities blamed "black religion" for contributing to the uprising, noting Vesey's role in the AME church.

The reverend of the church was driven out of the state. Charleston officials ordered the large congregation to be dispersed and the church building to be razed. No black church officially met in Charleston until after the Civil War.

• Date: 1822-07-14
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.theatlantic.com.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Van Spronsen Attacks ICE Compound (2019)

Sat Jul 13, 2019

On this day in 2019, anarchist anti-fascist Willem van Spronsen was shot dead by police after firebombing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) compound in Tacoma, Washington.

Willem van Spronsen, who sometimes went by the pseudonym "Emma Durutti", a combination of the names of Emma Goldman and Buenaventura Durruti, was a Dutch immigrant, musician, member of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club, and father of two.

In 2018, Van Spronsen was one of ten people arrested at a protest outside the detention center, according to the New Tribune. While there, he allegedly fought a police officer while attempting to free a 17-year-old activist who was being detained.

On July 13th, 2019, after authoring a manifesto justifying his attack and farewell letters to his friends, Van Spronsen entered the ICE compound in Tacoma, Washington. Armed with molotov cocktails, he set his car on fire and began trying to ignite a propane tank. He was quickly shot dead by police.

"detention camps are an abomination. i'm not standing by. i really shouldn't have to say any more than this."

- Willem Van Spronsen

• Date: 2019-07-13
• Learn More: www.npr.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Anarchism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org