Working Class Calendar

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

Wed Jul 19, 1848

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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

Pittsburgh Railway Strike (1877)

Thu Jul 19, 1877

Image: An illustration titled "Destruction of the Union Depot", depicting the burning of the Union Depot, Pittsburgh, PA during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. From August 11th, 1877 edition of "Harper's Weekly, Journal of Civilization" [Wikipedia]

The Pittsburgh Railway Strike began on this day in 1877 when more than 1,400 workers seized control of approximately 1,5000 of their company's train cars, a labor action part of the national Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

The strike was in direct response to the company announcing on July 19th that it would implement the practice of "double heading", joining two trains' worth of cars into one train with two engines, for all trains moving through Pittsburgh, a policy that would reduce the number of jobs that were available, require more work, and increase the likelihood of accidents.

The same day one crew, led by Conductor Ryan, sent word that they would not take out their train. Striking workers refused to cede control of the trains to the company, and by midnight up to 1,400 strikers had gathered in the Pennsylvania Railroad rail yards, stopping the movement of some 1,500 cars.

By the morning of the 21st, it had become clear that many of the Pittsburgh police and local militia had sided with the strikers and were refusing to take action against them.

The Pennsylvania National Guard were sent in to forcibly quell the rebellion, and the protest turned into a riot after troops shot into a crowd of people for ten minutes, killing women and children. Rioters began looting, setting fire to the train cars and the Union Depot (shown). They also exchanged fire with the National Guard soldiers.

In total, an estimated 53 civilians were killed and 109 were injured. Eight soldiers were killed in the clashes, another fifteen wounded. This was one of many incidents of strikes, labor unrest and violence in cities across the United States as part of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

• Date: 1877-07-19
• Learn More: www.heinzhistorycenter.org, explorepahistory.com, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Riots.
• 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

Assata Shakur (1947 - )

Wed Jul 16, 1947

Assata Shakur, born on this day in 1947, is a revolutionary socialist and former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA) who became the first woman to be added to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list in 2013.

Shakur grew up in New York City and Wilmington, North Carolina. She became involved in political activism at Borough of Manhattan Community College and City College of New York, participating in sit-ins and civil rights protests.

After graduating from college, Shakur briefly joined the Black Panther Party, leading its Harlem chapter. She left the Panthers and joined the Black Liberation Army, a black power group that was inspired by the Viet Cong and Algerian resistance movements and waged guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government from 1970 to 1981. Shakur was one of the targets of the FBI's COINTELPRO program.

After being involved in a shootout with New Jersey police officers, Shakur was convicted on multiple counts of assault and murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1979, BLA members freed her in a bloodless prison escape.

Shakur successfully sought political asylum in Cuba, where she still lives today.

"I didn't know what a fool they had made out of me until I grew up and started to read real history."

- Assata Shakur

• Date: 1947-07-16
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.blackpast.org.
• Tags: #CivilRights, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Harlem Riot (1964)

Thu Jul 16, 1964

On this day in 1964, a New York City cop shot and killed a fifteen year old boy, James Powell, leading to riots across Harlem in which residents protested, clashed with police, and caused approximately $1 million in property damage.

The rebellion began after Police Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan shot Powell three times in front of his friends and about a dozen other witnesses. Powell had entered the home of Patrick Lynch, a superintendent of three apartment houses in Yorkville, to confront him after he hosed down black students for allegedly hanging out on his building's stoops.

Gilligan, then off-duty, shot Powell while he was leaving Lynch's building. Although Gilligan claims Powell lunged at him with a knife, witnesses did not corroborate this account; some stated he raised his right hand in a defensive gesture before being killed.

Immediately after Powell's killing, a group of student protesters clashed with police securing the crime scene. The second day, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) joined the protests.

On July 18th, the protests became an outright rebellion after Powell's funeral, monitored closely by barricaded police. After the funeral ended and most of the press left, the crowd and cops began to fight. Residents took to the rooftops, throwing bricks, bottles, and mortar at the police below. When one officer shouted "Go home, go home!" at the crowd, a reply was heard: "We are home, Baby."

The unrest lasted until July 22nd, and included a mix of moderate factions from the NAACP as well as black nationalists. When prominent civil rights activist Bayard Rustin tried to discourage rioting, the crowd booed and chanted "Tom, Uncle Tom". When an NAACP representative addressed the crowd, stating Bedford-Stuyvesant was a "community of law" and discouraging rioting, his van was rocked until he lost control of his microphone.

At the end of the conflict, reports counted one dead rioter, 118 injured, and 465 arrested. In September, Gilligan was cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury and charges were dropped.

• Date: 1964-07-16
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.blackpast.org.
• Tags: #Riots, #Protests.
• 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

Woody Guthrie (1912 - 1967)

Sun Jul 14, 1912

Image: Woody Guthrie, half-length portrait, seated, facing front, playing a guitar that has a sticker attached reading: This Machine Kills Fascists [Wikipedia]

Woody Guthrie, born on this day in 1912, was a socialist singer-songwriter whose output includes songs such as "This Land Is Your Land" and "Tear the Fascists Down".

Guthrie was raised by affluent parents in Okemah, Oklahoma and Pampa, Texas. When the Dust Bowl period began in the 1930s, he left his wife and three children to join thousands of Oklahomans migrating to California looking for work.

There, he worked at Los Angeles radio station KFVD, achieving some fame from playing hillbilly music. He also became friends with Will Geer and John Steinbeck and wrote a column for the communist newspaper People's World from May 1939 to January 1940.

After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, he wrote anti-fascist songs with the folk protest group the Almanac Singers and frequently performed with the slogan "This machine kills fascists" displayed on his guitar.

Although Guthrie did not consistently organize with any left party, he was associated with anti-capitalist movements throughout his life, stating "the best thing that I did in 1936 was to sign up with the Communist Party."

• Date: 1912-07-14
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, woodyguthrie.org.
• Tags: #Communism, #Birthdays, #Fascism.
• 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

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

Second International Founded (1889)

Sun Jul 14, 1889

On this day in 1889, delegations from twenty countries met together in Paris to launch the Second International, a socialist group whose members included Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky, and Jean Jaurès.

The Second International continued the work of the dissolved First International, though it excluded many anarchists and trade unions, including the powerful anarcho-syndicalist movement.

Among the Second International's notable actions were its declaration of May 1st as International Workers' Day and March 8th as International Women's Day. The group also initiated an international campaign for the eight-hour working day.

• Date: 1889-07-14
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.jacobinmag.com.
• Tags: #Anarchism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Bombardment of Greytown (1854)

Thu Jul 13, 1854

The Bombardment of Greytown was a naval bombing and invasion by the U.S. warship USS Cyane on this day in 1854 against the town of Greytown in the Miskito Kingdom (modern day Nicaragua), razing the city to the ground.

The town was completely destroyed by massive fires set by marines who came ashore, rather than the bombardment itself. The attack was in response to attempts by the British government to charge taxes on ships that used the town as a port, among other grievances.

In response to international outrage, President Franklin Pierce issued a statement acknowledging that, while it would have been more satisfactory if the Cyane's mission could have been completed without the use of force, "the arrogant contumacy of the offenders rendered it impossible to avoid the alternative either to break up their establishment or to leave them impressed with the idea that they might persevere with impunity in a career of insolence and plunder."

• Date: 1854-07-13
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.lawfareblog.com.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Bisbee Deportation (1917)

Thu Jul 12, 1917

Image: Striking miners and others being deported from Bisbee on the morning of July 12th, 1917. The men are boarding cattle cars provided by the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad. [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1917, a deputized posse in Bisbee, Arizona kidnapped more than 1,300 striking miners, their supporters, and bystanders, deporting them to New Mexico, more than 200 miles away. The miners were organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and had been on strike since June 26th.

The action was orchestrated by Phelps Dodge, the major mining company in the area, which provided lists of workers and others who were to be arrested to the Cochise County sheriff, Harry C. Wheeler.

The 16-hour journey was through desert without food and with little water. Once unloaded, the deportees, most without money or transportation, were warned against returning to Bisbee. The U.S. government soon brought in members of the US Army to assist with relocating the deportees to Columbus, New Mexico.

Phelps Dodge, in collusion with the sheriff, had closed down access to outside communications, so the story was not well reported at the time.

Although a federal commission concluded the kidnapping was done "wholly illegal and without authority in law, either State or Federal" and the U.S. Department of Justice ordered the arrest of 21 Phelps Dodge executives, no individual, company, or agency was ever convicted in connection with the deportations.

• Date: 1917-07-12
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, azlibrary.gov.
• Tags: #Labor, #IWW.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Malala Yousafzai (1997 - )

Sat Jul 12, 1997

Image: **

Malala Yousafzai, born on this day in 1997, is a Pakistani feminist and socialist activist who survived an attempted assassination by the Taliban at fifteen years old.

As a teen, Yousafzai began to achieve international prominence for her activism in favor of female education. She blogged for the BBC, appeared in a documentary by request of a New York Times reporter, made multiple media appearances, and was awarded Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize.

In a meeting held in the summer of 2012, Taliban leaders unanimously agreed to kill her. On October 9th that year, a Taliban gunman shot Yousafzai in the face, along with two other girls, as she rode home on a bus after taking an exam in Pakistan's Swat Valley. She survived.

In 2014, she was the co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Kailash Satyarthi of India. Aged 17 at the time, she was the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. In 2020, Malala graduated from Oxford University.

"We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced."

- Malala Yousafzai

• Date: 1997-07-12
• Learn More: www.womenshistory.org, america.aljazeera.com, socialistworker.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Niagara Movement Founded (1905)

Tue Jul 11, 1905

Image: A founders photo taken at Niagara movement meeting in Fort Erie, Canada featuring, top row, left to right: H.A. Thompson, New York; Alonzo F. Herndon, Georgia; John Hope, Georgia, (possibly James R.L. Diggs). Second row, left to right: Fred McGhee, Minnesota; Norris B. Herndon; J. Max Barber, Illinois; W.E.B. Du Bois, Atlanta; Robert Bonner, Massachusetts, (bottom row: left to right) Henry L. Baily, Washington, D.C.; Clement G. Morgan, Massachusetts; W.H.H. Hart, Washington, D.C.; and B.S. Smith, Kansas.

The Niagara Movement, founded on this day in 1905, was a civil rights organization led by WEB Du Bois and William Trotter whose "Declaration of Principles" demanded universal suffrage, free education, and an end to prison labor.

The movement was named for the "mighty current" of change the group wanted to effect and Niagara Falls, near Fort Erie, Ontario, where the first meeting took place, on July 11th, 1905. It is considered a precursor to the NAACP, which was founded by many of the same activists.

The Niagara Movement was organized in opposition to racial segregation and disenfranchisement, as well as the perceived conciliatory policies promoted by activists like Booker T. Washington.

During the three day meeting, Monroe and Du Bois co-authored a "Declaration of Principles", which defined the group's philosophy and demands. These demands included an end to the "convict lease" system (prison labor), equal punishment for crimes regardless of race, and universal free education, stating "either the United States will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States".

• Date: 1905-07-11
• Learn More: glc.yale.edu, www.blackpast.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #CivilRights.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

ILWU Longshoreman Occupy Terminal (2011)

Mon Jul 11, 2011

On this day in 2011, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and other dock workers were arrested for occupying the Port of Longview's new, highly automated terminal that was about to open with non-union labor. This was just one use of direct action by longshoremen in Longview, Washington that year.

Sheriff's deputies and city cops from Longview and neighboring city Kelso arrested the protesters, who did not resist. "We have worked this dock for 70 years", said Dan Coffman, President of ILWU Local 21, "and to have a big rich company come in and say, 'We don't want you' is a problem. We're all together. We're going to jail as a union."

Three days later, six hundred dock workers and supporters seized the railroad tracks that serve the Port. At 1:30 am, they stopped a train, 107 cars hauling corn, originating in Split Rock, Minnesota, headed for the Longview elevators.

On September 7th, 2011, a massive picket line of some 700 longshoremen and their supporters blocked another train from entering EGT's (a large shipping conglomerate) terminal. When cops started pepper spraying, the picketers pushed back.

The next day, longshoremen from the major Northwest ports, Seattle, Tacoma and Portland, seeing images of the ILWU president being manhandled by cops, stopped work and began destroying EGT property.

According to news reports, the cyclone fence was torn down, grain was dumped from the train cars, and the terminal was briefly occupied by angry longshore workers. Millions of dollars were lost in shipping, warning employers how far ILWU members were willing to go to protect their jobs.

• Date: 2011-07-11
• Learn More: libcom.org, www.counterpunch.org.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior (1985)

Wed Jul 10, 1985

Image: The Rainbow Warrior in Marsden Wharf in Auckland Harbour after the bombing by French secret service agents. © Greenpeace / John Miller [greenpeace.org]

On this day in 1985, the French government, in an act of state-sponsored terror, bombed the Greenpeace-operated boat Rainbow Warrior, which was en route to protest a nuclear weapons test planned by the French state. The bombing, later found to be personally ordered by French President François Mitterrand, killed a freelance photographer on board named Fernando Pereira.

France had been testing nuclear weapons on the Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia since 1966. In 1985 eight South Pacific countries, including New Zealand and Australia, signed a treaty declaring the region a nuclear-free zone.

Since being acquired by Greenpeace in 1977, Rainbow Warrior was active in supporting a number of anti-nuclear testing campaigns during the late 1970s and early 1980s, including relocating 300 Marshall Islanders from Rongelap Atoll, which had been polluted by radioactive fallout by past American nuclear tests.

For the 1985 tests, Greenpeace intended to monitor the impact of nuclear tests and place protesters on the island to observe the blasts. Three undercover French agents were on board, however, and they attached two limpet mines to Rainbow Warrior and detonated them ten minutes apart, sinking the ship.

France initially denied responsibility, but two of the French agents were captured by New Zealand Police and charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder.

The resulting scandal led to the resignation of the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu, while the two agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison. They spent a little over two years confined to the French island of Hao before being freed by the French government.

In 1987, after international pressure, France paid $8.16m to Greenpeace in damages, which helped finance another ship. It also paid compensation to the Pereira family, making reparation payments of 650,000 francs to Pereira's wife, 1.5 million francs to his two children, and 75,000 francs to each of his parents.

• Date: 1985-07-10
• Learn More: www.greenpeace.org, en.wikipedia.org, www.zinnedproject.org.
• Tags: #Terrorism, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875 - 1955)

Sat Jul 10, 1875

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Mary Bethune, born on this day in 1875, was a U.S. educator and civil rights activist.

Born in South Carolina to parents who had been enslaved, Bethune started working in fields with her family at age five. She took an early interest in becoming educated, and later became a big exponent of education within the black community. She started a school for young black girls that later, after merging with a boys' school, became known as the "Bethune-Cookman School", with Bethune serving as its president on multiple occasions.

Bethune founded the National Council for Negro Women in 1935, established the organization's flagship journal "Aframerican Women's Journal", and resided as president or leader for a myriad of black women's organizations. She also was appointed as a national adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom she worked with to create the Federal Council on Negro Affairs, also known as the "Black Cabinet."

According to Dr. Herb Ruffin of BlackPast.org, Bethune’s friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt led to Bethune becoming the Director of the National Youth Administration’s (NYA) Division of Negro Affairs, a post she held from 1936 to 1943. As director, she led an organization that trained tens of thousands of black youth for skilled positions that eventually became available in defense plants during World War II.

For her lifetime of activism, Bethune was deemed "First Lady of Negro America" by Ebony magazine in 1949 and was dubbed by the press as the "female Booker T. Washington". Journalist Louis E. Martin stated that "She gave out faith and hope as if they were pills and she some sort of doctor."

"The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth."

- Mary Bethune

• Date: 1875-07-10
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, www.womenshistory.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Phoenix Program Founded (1967)

Sun Jul 09, 1967

The Phoenix Program, founded on this day in 1967 via the MACV Directive, was a CIA program implemented to destroy the Viet Cong (VC) via infiltration, torture, interrogation, and assassination, explicitly targeting non-combatants. These non-combatants were described as "political infrastructure" for the VC.

The Phoenix Program "neutralized" 81,740 people suspected of VC membership, of whom 26,369 were killed, the rest either surrendered or captured. The program was controversial even with the U.S. security state, with one former U.S. military intelligence officer describing it as a "sterile depersonalized murder program".

There were widespread reports of torture and murder of prisoners and, because the program targeted apparent civilians, many innocent people were killed. In some cases, Vietnamese people would report their enemies as Viet Cong in order to get U.S. troops to kill them.

After the program's abuses began receiving negative publicity, it was officially shut down in 1971, although the program continued under the name "Plan F-6", with the government of South Vietnam placed in control.

• Date: 1967-07-09
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.hoosier84.com.
• Tags: #Assassinations.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

June Jordan (1936 - 2002)

Thu Jul 09, 1936

June Jordan, born on this day in 1936, was a queer Jamaican-American author, feminist, and educator whose works include Some of Us Did Not Die and Report From the Bahamas. "Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth."

In her writing, Jordan explores issues of gender, race, capitalism, privilege, immigration, and representation. Jordan was passionate about using Black English in both her writing and her classroom, teaching her students to treat Black English as its own language and as an important outlet for expressing Black culture.

As a professor at Berkeley, Jordan founded the "Poetry for the People" program in 1991. Its aim was to inspire and empower students to use poetry as a means of artistic expression.

Although not widely recognized when first published in 1982, Jordan's essay "Report from the Bahamas", has since become an important work in gender studies, sociology, and anthropology.

"Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth."

- June Jordan

• Date: 1936-07-09
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.poetryfoundation.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Ghassan Kanafani Assassinated (1972)

Sat Jul 08, 1972

Ghassan Kanafani was a Palestinian author and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), assassinated on this day in 1972 by Israeli forces in retaliation for the Lod Airport Massacre, claimed by the PLFP.

In May, when the outbreak of hostilities in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War spilled over into the city of Acre, Kanafani and his family were forced into exile while he was still a child. After fleeing ~eleven miles north to Lebanon, they settled in Damascus, Syria as Palestinian refugees.

In 1969, after establishing himself as an author and journalist, he joined The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and, resigned from his post as editor for the magazine Al-Anwar to edit the PFLP's weekly magazine, al-Hadaf ("The Goal"). He drafted a PFLP program in which the movement officially took up Marxism-Leninism, a notable departure from pan-Arab nationalist ideology.

On July 8th, 1972, at the age of 36, Kanafani was assassinated via car bomb by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad for his role in the PLFP, which claimed responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre.

The massacre, committed by three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by the PLFP, killed 26 people, injuring 80 others.

Ghassan Kanafani was an influential author, whose literary works have been translated into at least 17 languages and published in 20 countries. He began writing short stories when working as a teacher in refugee camps. Often written through the eyes of children, his stories were designed to help his students contextualize their surroundings.

"Everything in this world can be robbed and stolen, except one thing; this one thing is the love that emanates from a human being towards a solid commitment to a conviction or cause."

- Ghassan Kanafani

• Date: 1972-07-08
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.middleeastmonitor.com.
• Tags: #Marxism, #Assassinations, #Massacre.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Ghassan Kanafani Assassinated (1972)

Sat Jul 08, 1972

Ghassan Kanafani was a Palestinian author and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), assassinated on this day in 1972 by Israeli forces in retaliation for the Lod Airport Massacre, claimed by the PLFP.

In May, when the outbreak of hostilities in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War spilled over into the city of Acre, Kanafani and his family were forced into exile while he was still a child. After fleeing ~eleven miles north to Lebanon, they settled in Damascus, Syria as Palestinian refugees.

In 1969, after establishing himself as an author and journalist, he joined The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and, resigned from his post as editor for the magazine Al-Anwar to edit the PFLP's weekly magazine, al-Hadaf ("The Goal"). He drafted a PFLP program in which the movement officially took up Marxism-Leninism, a notable departure from pan-Arab nationalist ideology.

On July 8th, 1972, at the age of 36, Kanafani was assassinated via car bomb by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad for his role in the PLFP, which claimed responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre.

The massacre, committed by three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by the PLFP, killed 26 people, injuring 80 others.

Ghassan Kanafani was an influential author, whose literary works have been translated into at least 17 languages and published in 20 countries. He began writing short stories when working as a teacher in refugee camps. Often written through the eyes of children, his stories were designed to help his students contextualize their surroundings.

"Everything in this world can be robbed and stolen, except one thing; this one thing is the love that emanates from a human being towards a solid commitment to a conviction or cause."

- Ghassan Kanafani

• Date: 1972-07-08
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.middleeastmonitor.com.
• Tags: #Marxism, #Assassinations, #Massacre.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Ghassan Kanafani Assassinated (1972)

Sat Jul 08, 1972

Ghassan Kanafani was a Palestinian author and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), assassinated on this day in 1972 by Israeli forces in retaliation for the Lod Airport Massacre, claimed by the PLFP.

In May, when the outbreak of hostilities in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War spilled over into the city of Acre, Kanafani and his family were forced into exile while he was still a child. After fleeing ~eleven miles north to Lebanon, they settled in Damascus, Syria as Palestinian refugees.

In 1969, after establishing himself as an author and journalist, he joined The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and, resigned from his post as editor for the magazine Al-Anwar to edit the PFLP's weekly magazine, al-Hadaf ("The Goal"). He drafted a PFLP program in which the movement officially took up Marxism-Leninism, a notable departure from pan-Arab nationalist ideology.

On July 8th, 1972, at the age of 36, Kanafani was assassinated via car bomb by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad for his role in the PLFP, which claimed responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre.

The massacre, committed by three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by the PLFP, killed 26 people, injuring 80 others.

Ghassan Kanafani was an influential author, whose literary works have been translated into at least 17 languages and published in 20 countries. He began writing short stories when working as a teacher in refugee camps. Often written through the eyes of children, his stories were designed to help his students contextualize their surroundings.

"Everything in this world can be robbed and stolen, except one thing; this one thing is the love that emanates from a human being towards a solid commitment to a conviction or cause."

- Ghassan Kanafani

• Date: 1972-07-08
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.middleeastmonitor.com.
• Tags: #Marxism, #Assassinations, #Massacre.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org