Storming of the Bastille (1789)

Tue Jul 14, 1789

Image: Illustration of the storming of the Bastille prison, 14th July 1789. [time.com]

On this day in 1789, a crowd of nearly one thousand protesters stormed the Bastille in Paris, France, a major event in the French Revolution, commemorated annually as "Bastille Day".

In the months running up to the uprising, the people of France were facing a dire economic crisis, food shortage, and increased militarization of Paris on orders of King Louis XVI. The Bastille was an armory and prison, perceived by many as a symbol of royal authority in the city.

On the morning of July 14th, a crowd of approximately one thousand people surrounded the Bastille, calling for the surrender of the prison, the removal of its cannon, and the release of the arms and gunpowder stored there.

After negotiations stalled, the crowd surged into the courtyard of the Bastille and were fired upon by troops in the garrison. In the carnage that followed, ninety-eight protesters and one defender of the Bastille were killed.

Governor Marquis de Launay, fearing his troops could not hold out, capitulated to the crowd and opened up the Bastille doors. He was captured and dragged towards the Hôtel de Ville in a storm of abuse. While the crowd debated his fate, the badly beaten Launay shouted "Enough! Let me die!", kicked a pastry cook in the groin, and was then promptly stabbed to death.

As news of the successful seizure of the Bastille spread throughout the country, revolutionaries established parallel structures of power for government and militias for civic protection, burned deeds of property, and in some cases attacked wealthy landlords.

King Louis XVI first learned of the storming the next morning through the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. "Is it a revolt?" asked the King. The duke replied: "No sire, it's not a revolt; it's a revolution."

• Date: 1789-07-14
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.socialist.net.
• Tags: #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Rohana Wijeweera (1943 - 1989)

Wed Jul 14, 1943

Image: A photo portrait of Rohana Wijeweera, unknown date and location. [Wikipedia]

Rohana Wijeweera, born on this day in 1943, was a Sri Lankan Marxist revolutionary and the founding leader of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, English: "People's Liberation Front"). He was assassinated by the Sri Lankan government in 1989.

Born on Bastille Day to a father active in the Ceylon Communist Party, Wijeweera was raised in an environment of radical politics. In 1960, he began studying in the Soviet Union, learning Russian.

With the revolutionary party JVP, Wijeweera led two unsuccessful insurrections in Sri Lanka - the first in 1971 and the second from 1987 to 1989. Both insurrections featured revolutionary violence that was matched by brutal state repression; tens of thousands of JVP members were killed.

In 1989, during the second JVP insurrection, the Sri Lankan state launched "Operation Combine" to suppress the movement and assassinated Wijeweera on November 13th, 1989. In 2019, a biographical film of Wijeweera's life was released, titled "Ginnen Upan Seethala".

"I, a Bolshevik, am in no way a terrorist. As a proletarian revolutionary, however, I must emphatically state that I am committed to the overthrow of the prevailing capitalist system and its replacement by a socialist system."

- Rohana Wijeweera, speaking before the Ceylon Criminal Justice Commission in 1974

• Date: 1943-07-14
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.jvpsrilanka.com.
• Tags: #Marxism, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

NYC Draft Riots (1863)

Mon Jul 13, 1863

The NYC Draft Riots began on this day in 1863, the culmination of racist white anger and working-class discontent over new conscription laws, passed to bolster the ongoing Civil War. The riots were suppressed by the U.S. Army.

The rioters were overwhelmingly white working-class men, mostly Irish immigrants or of Irish descent, who feared free black people competing for work. They also resented that the wealthy, who could afford to pay a $300 (equivalent to $6,200 in 2019) commutation fee to hire a substitute and avoid the draft.

Although the event ostensibly began as anger against conscription, the disorder quickly devolved into a race riot. The exact death toll during the New York draft riots is unknown, but historian James M. McPherson has estimated that around 120 people were killed. Most of those killed were Irish, who were the majority of the rioters.

Eleven black people were lynched. The event lasted three days and was suppressed by the U.S. Army on orders from President Lincoln. The race riot remains one of the largest of its kind in U.S. history.

• Date: 1863-07-13
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.washingtonpost.com.
• Tags: #Riots.
• 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

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

E.D. Nixon (1899 - 1987)

Wed Jul 12, 1899

Image: **

Edgar Daniel Nixon, born on this day in 1899, was a civil rights leader and union organizer who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama.

The boycott highlighted the issues of segregation in the South, was upheld for more than a year by black residents, and nearly brought the city-owned bus system to bankruptcy.

To organize and sustain the boycott, Nixon helped launch the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). MLK Jr. was elected to lead the boycott as president, Nixon was elected treasurer. When some participants suggested forming a secret organization, Nixon stated "Am I to tell our people that you are cowards?"

In 1957, after the boycott's success, Nixon left the MIA to protest his own treatment as a newcomer, and what he perceived as the domination of the MIA by middle class leaders who refused to share power with low income black people, according to Joelle Jackson of BlackPast.org.

• Date: 1899-07-12
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Civil Rights, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Erich Mühsam (1934)

Wed Jul 11, 1934

Image: **

Erich Mühsam, murdered by Nazis on this day in 1934, was a Jewish anarchist author who openly condemned Nazism and satirized Hitler before being arrested by the Nazi regime in 1933.

In 1911, Mühsam founded the newspaper, "Kain" as a forum for anarcho-communist politics, stating that it would "be a personal organ for whatever the editor, as a poet, as a citizen of the world, and as a fellow man had on his mind." The paper opposed capital punishment and government censorship of theater.

After World War I, Mühsam was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for playing a leading role in the Bavarian Revolution. He was freed as part of the same general amnesty for political prisoners under the Weimar Republic that released Adolf Hitler.

As a cabaret performer and writer during this time, he achieved international prominence, promoting works which condemned Nazism and personally satirized Adolf Hitler.

In 1933, Mühsam was arrested, with propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels labeling him as one of "those Jewish subversives."

While imprisoned, he was brutally tortured, however his spirit remained unbroken. When his captors tried to force him to sing the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" (the Nazi's anthem), Mühsam sung The Internationale, instead.

According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Mühsam was murdered in the Oranienburg concentration camp on July 11th, 1934.

• Date: 1934-07-11
• Learn More: encyclopedia.ushmm.org, theanarchistlibrary.org, libcom.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Anarchism, #Fascism, #Assassinations.
• 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: #Civil Rights.
• 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

Image: **

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

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

Birmingham Coal Workers' Strike (1908)

Wed Jul 08, 1908

After years of escalating tensions over pay, 4,000 miners, organized across racial lines, in Birmingham, Alabama began striking on this day in 1908, quickly growing to more than 10,000 in strength and clashing with police.

The strike was declared by United Mine Workers (UMW) District 20, which had more than 20,000 members, against U.S. Steel, which had just purchased the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Rail Company (TCI) and instituted sharp pay cuts. More than 4,000 miners stayed off the job, but soon the protest grew to more than 10,000 people.

Mine owners responded to the strike by increasing their use of slave prison labor, deputizing hundreds of armed men to confront workers, and urging Governor Braxton Bragg Comer to declare martial law and dispatch state troops into the coalfields, a request he eventually granted.

Evicted from company housing, thousands of workers were forced to live in tent cities, which were later attacked by state troops.

The strike was also notable for the union's ability to unite miners across the racial divide, a development that was unusual for the United States in this period. A parade of striking black and white miners through the streets of Jasper angered members of Birmingham's business community, who denounced the UMW's interracial workforce as an insult to southern traditions and called for armed state intervention against the racially mixed strikers.

In mid-August, black UMW member William Millin was snatched from his jail cell and lynched by two mine deputies.

The strike was effectively put down after state troops destroyed the miners' tent cities on August 26th, and was officially called off by the union four days later. One year afterward, the mines' production had returned to normal.

• Date: 1908-07-08
• Learn More: encyclopediaofalabama.org, alabamanewscenter.com.
• Tags: #Labor.
• 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

Govan Mbeki (1910 - 2001)

Sat Jul 09, 1910

Image: Rivonia trialist and African National Congress (ANC) leader Govan Mbeki, who spent 23 years in jail on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, greets supporters and well-wishers on his first full day of release into freedom, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, November 6th, 1987.

Govan Mbeki, born on this day in 1910, was a communist journalist and South African revolutionary. He was imprisoned by the apartheid government for more than 24 years, and served in the post-apartheid government from 1994 to 1999.

Govan Mbeki was born in the Nqamakwe district of the Transkei region of South Africa, and was a member of the Xhosa ethnic group. As a teenager, Mbeki worked as a newsboy and messenger in the cities, where he witnessed urban black poverty and police repression.

Starting in the 1930s, Mbeki began to serve in a variety of radical organizations - the South African Communist Party, the African National Congress (ANC), and worked as the editor of the black-owned newspaper Inkundla Ya Bantu.

Mbeki left journalism in 1944 and became a government-nominated member of the Transkei Territorial Authorities General Council, serving until 1950. Mbeki disparagingly referred to the council as a "toy telephone", stating "You can say what you like, but your words have no effect because the wires are not connected to an exchange".

In 1960, the apartheid state banned the ANC. In response, the ANC and the already-banned Communist Party formed a paramilitary, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Mbeki was involved with MK and helped the group build explosives.

In July 1963, Mbeki was arrested along with several other MK leaders, including Walter Sisulu. After the subsequent "Rivonia Trial", Mbeki began a 24-year prison sentence Robben Island, during which he managed to run education classes with prisoners and author several texts, including The Peasants Revolt, "a major historical study of peasant struggles in Pondoland and Sekhukhuneland" according to South African History Online.

On November 5th, 1987, Mbeki was released from prison. He went on to serve in South Africa's post-apartheid Senate from 1994 to 1997 as Deputy President of the Senate, and then the Senate's successor, the National Council of Provinces, from 1997 to 1999.

"Our experience over the last 20 years has shown that indeed people must themselves become their own liberators. You cannot wait for somebody else to come and rescue you."

- Govan Mbeki

• Date: 1910-07-09
• Learn More: aaregistry.org, www.sahistory.org.za.
• Tags: #Communism, #Marxism, #Civil Rights, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Tappan Riot (1834)

Mon Jul 07, 1834

On this day in 1834, New York City was rocked by a huge anti-abolitionist riot (known as the Farren or Tappan Riot) that lasted for nearly a week until it was put down by military occupation.

The riot arose from tensions in the city as abolitionists became more politically active, black people demanded more dignity and freedom for themselves, and the city experienced a large immigration of Irish people.

White mobs, thousands strong, destroyed the homes and churches of black people and white abolitionists. At times, the rioters controlled whole sections of the city. The uprising was forcibly put down by the New York National Guard.

• Date: 1834-07-07
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Riots, #Abolitionism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

March of the Mill Children (1903)

Tue Jul 07, 1903

Image: Mother Jones surrounded by striking child mill workers. Source: Library of Congress [zinnedproject.org]

The March of the Mill Children was a three-week trek from Philadelphia to New York by striking child and adult textile workers, led by Mother Jones, launched on this day in 1903. At the time, approximately one out of six children under the age of sixteen were employed, according to the 1900 census.

The march began when Mother Jones tried to get newspapers to report on the conditions of child workers and they informed her that they would not run the stories about child labor because of the mill owners holding stock in the papers. Jones replied "Well, I've got stock in these little children and I'll arrange a little publicity."

The march successfully won that publicity, bringing national attention to the plight of working children. On July 29th, Jones and fellow marchers arrived at Roosevelt's Sagamore Hill summer home, where he refused to meet with them.

Although the strike was initially a failure, it galvanized support for anti-child labor laws to be passed on the national level, which finally occurred with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

• Date: 1903-07-07
• Learn More: philadelphiaencyclopedia.org, www.zinnedproject.org.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)

Sat Jul 06, 1907

Frida Kahlo, born on this day in 1907, was a Mexican artist and revolutionary communist known for her folk-art inspired style paintings, touching on themes on gender, race, class, self-perception, indigenous culture, and chronic pain.

Although she had always sketched as a hobby, she did not consider visual art as a career until a severe bus accident at the age of eighteen left her bedridden for three months and with a lifetime of chronic pain. Confined to her bed, Kahlo's mother provided her with a specially-made easel, which enabled her to paint while lying down.

With a mirror placed such so that she could see herself, Kahlo began to paint self-portraits, stating "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best".

Inspired by Mexico's popular culture, she employed an accessible, folk art style. In 1943, Kahlo accepted a teaching position at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado, the "La Esmeralda." She encouraged her students to treat her in an informal and non-hierarchical way and taught them to appreciate Mexican popular culture and folk art, and to derive their subjects from the street.

Frida Kahlo was a member of the Mexican Communist Party and committed to radical anti-capitalism throughout her entire adult life. In 1951, she stated:

"I have a great restlessness about my paintings. Mainly because I want to make it useful to the revolutionary communist movement...until now I have managed simply an honest expression of my own self...I must struggle with all my strength to ensure that the little positive my health allows me to do also benefits the Revolution, the only real reason to live."

• Date: 1907-07-06
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.fridakahlo.org.
• Tags: #Communism, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Wagner Act (1935)

Sat Jul 06, 1935

The National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) is a U.S. labor law that became effective on this day in 1935, guaranteeing the right of private sector employees to organize trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and strike.

The Act also set up a permanent three-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with the power to hear and resolve labor disputes through quasi-judicial proceedings and banned employers from refusing to negotiate with any union ratified by this board.

The Act does not apply to certain workers, including agricultural employees, domestic workers, government employees, and independent contractors. Despite demands by the NAACP and National Urban League, the Act was written without the inclusion of an anti-discrimination clause, allowing both employers and racist labor unions such as the AFL and CIO to maintain white supremacist labor practices.

Corporate interest was heavily against the NLRA, and, when it was challenged in court, the U.S. Supreme Court was compelled to uphold (5-4) the constitutionality of the Wagner Act in "National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp".

The Wagner Act would later be partially repealed and amended with the strongly anti-union Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, granting states the power to pass so-called "right-to-work" laws.

• Date: 1935-07-06
• Learn More: www.nlrb.gov, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Douglass's 4th of July Speech (1852)

Mon Jul 05, 1852

On this day in 1852, Frederick Douglass addressed an anti-slavery society, calling July 4th "a day that reveals to [the slave], more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim."

Douglass delivered the speech, later given the title "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July" in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York, speaking to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. The speech is perhaps the most widely known of all of Frederick Douglass' writings save his autobiographies.

Here is a brief excerpt:

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour."

• Date: 1852-07-05
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.thenation.com.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Immigration Act of 1864

Mon Jul 04, 1864

Image: An artist's depiction of immigrants arriving in New York City, undergoing health inspection in 1866

Passed on this day in 1864, the Immigration Act legalized wage-based indentured servitude to encourage immigration to the United States, allowing immigrants to forgo a year's wages to pay for their passage into the country.

Employers, such as railroad and mining companies, would contract an immigrant workers to come to the United States under guidelines established by the federal government and withhold their wages accordingly.

This law provided corporations with cheap labor that could and would be used to break strikes by domestic workers. After years of rigorous opposition by labor organizations, Congress repealed the law in 1868.

• Date: 1864-07-04
• Learn More: immigrationhistory.org, www.historyisaweapon.com.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Operation PBHistory (1954)

Sun Jul 04, 1954

Operation PBHistory was a covert CIA operation that began on this day in 1954, following their ousting of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz, seeking to damage his reputation, disseminate propaganda, and spy on Latin American communists.

PBHistory followed Operation PBSuccess, which led to the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in June 1954 and ended the Guatemalan Revolution, a decade long period of social reforms and representative democracy.

PBHistory seized documents (more than 500,000 in total) left behind by Árbenz's government and organizations related to the communist Guatemalan Party of Labor, attempting to use them to promote propaganda that Guatemala was under the control of the Soviet Union and obtain intelligence that would be useful in undermining left-wing movements in Latin America. One consequence of this intelligence was the CIA beginning to track Che Guevara, who was then only known to the Agency as a physician.

Operation PBHistory also helped set up the Guatemalan National Committee of Defense Against Communism, which was covertly funded by the CIA and responsible for mass repression of the population.

Despite successfully obtaining intelligence and collaborating with the new government of Castillo Armas (a vehement anti-communist on the CIA payroll who led the coup against Árbenz), the psy-op was not successful in undermining Árbenz's reputation or fostering pro-U.S. sentiment throughout Latin America.

• Date: 1954-07-04
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.cia.gov.
• Tags: #Communism, #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Paterson Textile Strike (1835)

Fri Jul 03, 1835

Image: Workers with rolls of finished silk in a Paterson silk factory in 1914. Image: Library of Congress

On this day in 1835, 2,000 workers, most of them children, from more than twenty textile mills in Paterson, New Jersey went on strike to demand working hours be reduced from their standard six day, seventy-eight hour work week.

In response to the strike, employers reduced hours to twelve on weekdays and nine on Saturday. This reduction broke the strike, and most of the workers returned to the mills.

Despite this concession, strike leaders and their families were permanently barred from employment in Paterson, blacklisted by the mill owners.

• Date: 1835-07-03
• Learn More: www.zinnedproject.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 - 1935)

Tue Jul 03, 1860

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, born on this day in 1860, was a prominent American humanist, author, socialist, and feminist, probably best known today for her loosely autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper".

Gilman served as a role model for future generations of feminists due to her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle, such as leaving her husband (rare for the era) and living with another woman in what was possibly, though unconfirmed, a romantic relationship.

Gilman is possibly best known today for her semi-autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", authored after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis. The story depicts the way in which sick women are maligned in a sexist society.

She was also an advocate for assisted suicide for the chronically ill, and died from a self-inflicted chloroform overdose in 1935 after a struggle with breast cancer.

"To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something, while to secure it in this world we must do something."

- Charlotte Gilman

• Date: 1860-07-03
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.gutenberg.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Sylvia Rivera (1951 - 2002)

Mon Jul 02, 1951

Sylvia Rivera, born on this day in 1951, was a Latina American queer rights activist, member of the Gay Liberation Front, and community worker from the state of New York.

Rivera, who identified as a "half-sister", participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front. With her close friend Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a socialist group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women.

At different times in her life, Rivera battled substance abuse and lived on the streets, largely in the gay homeless community at the Christopher Street docks. Her experiences made her more focused on advocacy for those who, in her view, mainstream society and the assimilationist factions of the LGBT community were leaving behind.

Rivera died during the dawn hours of February 19th, 2002, at St. Vincent's Hospital, of complications from liver cancer. Activist Riki Wilchins said this of her: "In many ways, Sylvia was the Rosa Parks of the modern transgender movement, a term that was not even coined until two decades after Stonewall".

• Date: 1951-07-02
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.workers.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Patrice Lumumba (1925 - 1961)

Thu Jul 02, 1925

Patrice Lumumba, born on this day in 1925, was a Congolese anti-colonial revolutionary who served as the first Prime Minister of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo from June until shortly before his assassination in 1961.

Lumumba played a significant role in the transformation of the Congo from a colony of Belgium into an independent republic. Ideologically an African nationalist and pan-Africanist, he led the Congolese National Movement (MNC) party from 1958 until his assassination on January 17th, 1961 in a coup by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, backed by Belgian colonizers.

Lumumba did not express a pro-capitalist or pro-communist ideology, attempting to remain neutral in Cold War politics. He sought assistance in stabilizing the new Congolese Republic from both the United States and the Soviet Union, accepting military aid from the latter after the U.S. refused to help him.

On Lumumba's legacy, his friend and colleague Thomas Kanza wrote "he lived as a free man, and an independent thinker. Everything he wrote, said and did was the product of someone who knew his vocation to be that of a liberator, and he represents for the Congo what Castro does for Cuba, Nasser for Egypt, Nkrumah for Ghana, Mao Tse-tung for China, and Lenin for Russia."

• Date: 1925-07-02
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.sahistory.org.za.
• Tags: #Birthdays, #Colonialism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org