Pidjiguiti Massacre (1959)

Mon Aug 03, 1959

Image: The "Hand of Timba", erected to commemorate those killed during the Pidjiguiti Massacre [atlasobscura.com]

On this day in 1959, the Pidjiguiti Massacre occurred when Portuguese police (PIDE) fired on striking dock workers in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, killing 50 people. The incident led anti-colonial activists (PAIGC) to abandon non-violence.

When dock workers went on strike to seek higher pay, their manager called the Portuguese state police (PIDE) to the scene, who fired into the crowd, killing at least 50 people.

The government blamed the anti-colonial group "Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde" (PAIGC) for the labor unrest, arresting several of its members. The incident caused PAIGC to abandon their campaign of non-violent resistance, leading to the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence in 1963, which culminated in independence for Cape Verde and all of Portuguese Africa.

Today, near the Pidjiguiti docks, there is a large black fist known as the "Hand of Timba", which commemorates those killed that day.

• Date: 1959-08-03
• Learn More: www.dw.com, www.marxists.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Colonialism, #Massacre, #Independence.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964)

Sun Aug 02, 1964

Image: Official U.S. Navy photo taken from USS Maddox (DD-731) during her engagement with three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin, August 2nd, 1964. The view shows all three of the boats speeding towards the Maddox [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred when the American destroyer Maddox was damaged in North Vietnamese waters, an event the U.S. government lied about in order to justify military action against Vietnam.

The incident began when three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were surveilling the American destroyer USS Maddox as it performed intelligence operations in North Vietnamese waters. The Maddox initiated the incident by opening fire, shooting off three "warning" shots; the North Vietnamese boats replied with torpedoes and machine gun fire.

The exchange caused ten North Vietnamese casualties and damaged one U.S. helicopter; there were no American casualties.

In response, the U.S. Congress passed a "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution", which granted U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression". The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam.

On television, President Johnson made misleading statements about the incident and portrayed U.S. military escalation as an act of defense. Since then, the Pentagon Papers, the memoirs of Robert McNamara, and NSA publications from 2005 have proven that the U.S. government lied about the nature of the incident to justify a war against Vietnam.

• Date: 1964-08-02
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.wsws.org.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

James Baldwin (1924 - 1987)

Sat Aug 02, 1924

Image: **

James Baldwin, born on this day in 1924, was an American novelist, essayist, poet, and civil rights activist. "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

Baldwin is known for, among many other works, his first novel "Go Tell It on the Mountain" (1953), the non-fiction text "The Fire Next Time" (1963), and the unfinished manuscript "Remember This House", later adapted into the film "I Am Not Your Negro" by Raoul Peck.

In 1963, Baldwin conducted a lecture tour of the South for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), traveling to places like Durham and Greensboro in North Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

During the tour, Baldwin lectured to students, white liberals, and others about his thinking on matters of race, an ideological position between the "muscular approach" of Malcolm X and the non-violent program of Martin Luther King, Jr according to Baldwin biographer David Leeming.

In 1965, Baldwin debated and defeated conservative William F. Buckley at Cambridge University on the motion of "Has the American Dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro?", stating "I am stating this very seriously, and this is not an overstatement - I picked the cotton, and I carried it to market, and I built the railroads, under someone else's whip, for nothing. For nothing."

Baldwin was also an anti-capitalist who expressed hope that socialism would take root in the United States. In 1972, when asked "Do you think socialism will ever come to the U.S.A.?", Baldwin replied:

"I would think so. I don't see any other way for it to go. But then you have to be very careful what you mean by socialism. When I use the word I'm not thinking about Lenin for example...Bobby Seale talks about a Yankee Doodle-type socialism...So that a socialism achieved in America, if and when we do...will be a socialism very unlike the Chinese socialism or the Cuban socialism...

...the price of any real socialism here is the eradication of what we call the race problem...Racism is crucial to the system to keep blacks and whites at a division so both were and are a source of cheap labor."

After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Baldwin moved to Europe permanently, passing away in France on December 1st, 1987.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

- James Baldwin

• Date: 1924-08-02
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, www.theparisreview.org, www.gutenberg.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays, #Civil Rights.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Mother Jones (1837 - 1930)

Tue Aug 01, 1837

Mary "Mother" Jones, baptized on this day in 1837, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent and militant union organizer in American labor movement. "I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser." Jones helped coordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

Fighting to abolish child labor was one of Jones' flagship issues. In 1903, Jones organized children who were working in mills and mines to participate in a "Children's Crusade", a march from Kensington, Philadelphia to Oyster Bay, New York, the hometown of President Theodore Roosevelt with banners demanding "We want to go to school and not the mines!"

Mother Jones was present during the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia, speaking and organizing there despite a shooting war between United Mine Workers members and the private army of the mine owners.

Jones was arrested on February 13th, 1913, brought before a military court, and accused of conspiring to commit murder among other charges. She was sentenced to twenty years in the state penitentiary, but released after eighty-five days.

"I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser."

- Mother Jones

• Date: 1837-08-01
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.womenshistory.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #IWW.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Sid Hatfield Assassinated (1921)

Mon Aug 01, 1921

William "Sid" Hatfield was a police chief of Matewan, West Virginia who was supportive of coal miners' attempts to unionize, for which he was assassinated on this day in 1921 by anti-labor Baldwin-Felts agents.

As a police officer in Matewan, he had helped coal miners and their families resist the Baldwin-Felts agency, which was an anti-union force who evicted working families from their homes and harassed strikers.

He is most known for his role in "The Battle of Matewan", a shootout between Hatfield, armed miners, and Baldwin-Felts agents that killed ten people. The shootout occurred when Hatfield and Albert Felts tried to arrest each other, which culminated in Hatfield killing Felts.

Hatfield was later assassinated by Baldwin-Felts agents while standing trial for murder, which increased the tensions between coal miners and company owners. Although Hatfield was unarmed when he was gunned down by the agents, his assassins successfully avoided any conviction for their crime on the basis of self-defense.

• Date: 1921-08-01
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.wvencyclopedia.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Assassinations.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Jean Jaurès Assassinated (1914)

Fri Jul 31, 1914

On this day in 1914, prominent French socialist Jean Jaurès was assassinated by a nationalist at the outbreak of World War I after returning from a diplomatic meeting in Brussels where he had advocated against the coming war.

Initially a moderate republican, Jaurès was later one of the first social democrats, eventually becoming the leader of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. The two parties merged in 1905 in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).

Today, a key aspect of his legacy is his anti-militarism. Jaurès was an early opponent of the draft and desperately tried to prevent war between France and Germany before World War I, going so far as to try and organize a general strike in both countries to force their leaders to negotiate diplomatically.

In 1914, Jaurès returned to Paris from a diplomatic meeting in Brussels to advocate against the coming war. He was assassinated by a French nationalist at the outbreak of World War I, and remains a key figure in the history of the French Left.

"Tradition does not mean to look after the ash, but to keep the flame alive."

- Jean Jaurès

• Date: 1914-07-31
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, spartacus-educational.com.
• Tags: #Socialism, #Assassinations.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Washington Navy Yard Strike (1835)

Fri Jul 31, 1835

Image: Colored lithograph published by E. Sachse & Company, Baltimore, Maryland, c. 1862. It depicts the Navy Yard as seen from above the Anacostia River, looking north, with Building # 1 and the trophy gun park in the center. [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1835, the first strike of federal civilian employees in the U.S. began when workers at the Washington Navy Yard went on strike for a ten-hour day; the strike devolved into a race riot and failed to achieve its demands.

The strike, known as the Washington Navy Yard Strike, lasted just over two weeks and was part of the ten-hour day movement. Workers also demanded a redress of grievances such as newly imposed lunch hour regulations.

The striking workforce was all-white and took out its frustrations on nearby black communities. On August 12th, workers formed a lynch mob and rioted in the nation's capital, terrorizing the free black community there for days, until President Andrew Jackson ended the race riot by force.

In what is now known as the "Snow Riot", white workers attacked establishments run by free black people, such as schools, churches, and businesses. The riot caused public support for the strike to wane, and the black community received no compensation and little public sympathy for the violence they suffered.

Five years later, in 1840, all public workers finally received a ten hour day by order of President Martin Van Buren.

• Date: 1835-07-31
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, www.riotacts.org, blackandeducation.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Riots.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Jacob Joseph Funeral Riot (1902)

Wed Jul 30, 1902

Image: A photograph from 1902, depicting the massive crowd at Joseph's funeral [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1902, a massive funeral procession for Rabbi Jacob Joseph in New York City, attended by more than 50,000 Jews, was attacked by a group of factory workers and police.

The procession descended into chaos as funeral-goers passed by a factory, whose workers began to chuck debris at the procession from above. Jews threw the missiles back and, when some entered the factory to try and get the abuse to stop, the police were called and they were hosed down in an attempt to get them to leave.

As the melee escalated into a full-scale riot, hundreds of New York City policemen arrived and proceeded to pummel and arrest the mourners rather than the instigators. Factory workers poured out into the streets and joined the police in beating Jewish mourners.

Although historians have cited this anti-Semitic riot as a vivid example of Catholic Irish anti-Semitism, noting that both the workers and policemen were "predominantly Irish", recent historical research shows that the factory workers were mostly German, not Irish.

• Date: 1902-07-30
• Learn More: www.jstor.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Riots.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

New Orleans Massacre (1866)

Mon Jul 30, 1866

Image: A sketch of the New Orleans Massacre by Theodore R. Davis, Courtesy NY Public Library [blackpast.org]

On this day in 1866, the New Orleans Massacre took place when a delegation of 130 black city residents marching with the U.S. flag were attacked by a white lynch mob, including police, led by ex-Confederate Mayor John T. Monroe.

While the violence was typical of numerous racial conflicts during Southern Reconstruction, this incident took on special significance, galvanizing national opposition to the moderate Reconstruction policies of President Andrew Johnson and ushering in the much more sweeping Congressional Reconstruction in 1867.

The riot took place outside the Mechanics Institute in New Orleans as black and white delegates attended the Louisiana Constitutional Convention. As a delegation of 130 black New Orleans residents marched behind the U.S. flag toward the Mechanics Institute, Mayor John T. Monroe (who had supported the Confederacy) organized and led a mob of ex-Confederates and members of the New Orleans Police force to the Institute to block their way.

Once the marchers reached the Institute, the police and white mob members attacked them, beating some of the marchers while others rushed inside the building for safety. As the firing continued, some delegates attempted to flee or surrender.

Some of those who surrendered, mostly black people, were killed on the spot. Those who ran were chased, and the killing spread over several blocks around the Institute. Altogether, 238 people were killed and 46 were wounded, including 200 black Union veterans.

• Date: 1866-07-30
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Massacre.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

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, #Civil Rights, #Feminism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Tavio Amorin Assassinated (1992)

Wed Jul 29, 1992

Image: **

Tavio Amorin was a Togolese socialist politician, Pan-Africanist, and human rights activist who was likely assassinated by Togolese state police on this day in 1992. Amorin organized with the Togolese Pan-African Socialist Party, a movement associated with figures like Kwame Ture, Julius Nyerere, and Marcus Garvey.

In the 1980s, Amorin studied engineering in France. In 1991, after increasingly strong pressure from the Togolese public, President Eyadéma decided to legalize political parties.

Shortly afterward, the "Haut Conseil de la République" (English: High Council of the Republic, HCR) was formed, which Tavio participated in after his return to Togo. There, he became an outspoken critic of the government. In his role as the Chair of Political Affairs, Human Rights, and Liberties Commission, he worked to expose the human rights abuses committed by the Togolese state, and sought systemic reforms.

On July 29th, 1992, Amorin died of gunshot wounds sustained on the 23rd, when he was visiting a relative. He died at the age of 34, leaving behind a wife and a one year old child.

"I am fighting against all forms of tribalism and make no distinction between the north and south of Togo."

- Tavio Amorin

• Date: 1992-07-29
• Learn More: www.amnesty.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Socialism, #Pan-Africanism, #Assassinations.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Mulford Act (1967)

Fri Jul 28, 1967

Image: A Black Panther Party member holds a rifle outside the California State Capitol on May 2nd, 1967, during a protest against a bill that banned carrying loaded guns in public. From the Bettman Archive [buzzfeed.org]

On this day in 1967, the Mulford Act became law in California with bipartisan support, banning the public carrying of firearms after the Black Panthers began conducting armed patrols of Oakland communities to defend them from police.

Prior to this law, it was legal in the state of California to bear arms in public. The Panthers used this to their advantage when "copwatching" in their communities - armed Panthers would patrol the neighborhood and swarm on scene to arrests shortly after they began, informing the arrestee of their constitutional rights.

The Mulford Act, dubbed the "Panther Bill" by the media, enjoyed bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats. Before the law was passed, armed Panthers occupied the California capitol building to protest it on May 2nd (shown). The group was arrested on felony charges of conspiracy to disrupt a legislative session, but were able to plea down to various misdemeanors.

The Act was signed into law by then governor Ronald Reagan, and is still in effect today as California penal code 25850.

"The Mulford Act [will] work no hardship on the honest citizen."

- Ronald Reagan

• Date: 1967-07-28
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.pbs.org.
• Tags: #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Anne Braden (1924 - 2006)

Mon Jul 28, 1924

Image: **

Anne Braden, born on this day in 1924, was an American civil rights activist and educator who, along with her husband Carl, was arrested several times for breaking the law in the name of racial equality.

Raised in the rigidly segregated Anniston, Alabama, Braden grew up in a white, middle-class family that accepted southern racism, later experiencing a "a conversion of almost religious intensity" and becoming an anti-racist activist.

In 1954, Andrew and Charlotte Wade, a black couple who knew Anne and her husband Carl Braden, approached them with a proposal to buy a house on their behalf in a suburb in which they couldn't purchase a home due to Jim Crow laws.

The Bradens agreed to the deal, and, on the Wades' first night in the new suburbs, angry residents burned a cross in their yard and shot out the windows to the house. Six weeks later, the Wades' new house was dynamited one evening while they were out.

After a sensationalized trial, her husband Carl Braden - the perceived ringleader - was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment, although the Supreme Court ruled the laws on which he was convicted unconstitutional and he was freed after eight months.

Later in life, Anne Braden joined Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow/PUSH Coalition" and continued her social activism. In 2005, a year before her death, she joined Louisville antiwar demonstrations in a wheelchair.

• Date: 1924-07-28
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, snccdigital.org, crossculturalsolidarity.com, www.zinnedproject.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Cuban General Strike (1933)

Thu Jul 27, 1933

Image: Photo from libcom.org

On this day in 1933, Havana bus drivers went on strike for better working conditions, a labor action that quickly grew into an anti-government general strike throughout Cuba, ousting dictator Gerardo Machado two weeks later.

The uprising took place in the context of the violent resistance to the government of Gerardo Machado. For two years prior to this campaign there was a militant struggle to oust him which included gun battles, bombings, and political assassinations.

Two days after Havana bus drivers went on strike, they were joined by inter-city drivers who struck in solidarity. Soldiers fired on demonstrators in Havana on August 1st, killing two, and, on the same day in Santa Clara, shops and theaters closed.

When police attacked a group of striking teachers, more transportation workers went on strike, soon joined by workers from a variety of industries. By early August, railway workers, hotel and restaurant workers, physicians, bakers, cigarmakers, and state utility workers were all striking in protest of the state.

When an underground radio station controlled by an anti-Machado resistance group falsely claimed that Machado had resigned and called for a huge public demonstration, a mob marched on the Presidential Palace.

Police began to fire on the crowd before the marchers could reach the palace, killing twenty protesters. Seeing the public support against Machado, the military decided to switch sides, placing Havana under military control on August 9th. Machado resigned and fled the country two days later.

• Date: 1933-07-27
• Learn More: libcom.org, nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu.
• Tags: #Labor, #General Strikes, #Assassinations, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Albert Goodwin Murdered (1918)

Sat Jul 27, 1918

On this day in 1918, Canadian socialist and labor activist Albert "Ginger" Goodwin was murdered by police while avoiding his draft into World War I by hiding out in the hills of Cumberland, British Columbia.

Born in Yorkshire, England on May 10th, 1887, Goodwin immigrated to Canada in 1909, at the age of 19, working as a coal miner in Nova Scotia.

In Canada, he organized with the Socialist Party of Canada and became a notable labor leader during the 1912–1914 Coal Miner's Strike against Canadian Collieries. Following the strike, he was blacklisted and was forced to move away from Cumberland to find work.

In 1916, he joined the Mining and Smelter workers Union and was elected as Secretary for the Trail chapter. Following his involvement with trade unions, Goodwin entered politics running as a candidate for the Socialist Party of Canada in the 1916 British Columbian election, although he did not win.

As World War I broke out, Goodwin became an outspoken advocate against the draft, initially refusing to sign up. Eventually, he was compelled to be drafted, and, after exhausting multiple appeals against his conscription, he fled into the hills of Cumberland, British Columbia.

On July 27th (some sources say July 26th), Goodwin was shot and killed by a member of the Dominion Police, who had ventured into the hills surrounding Comox Lake to locate men evading the draft and arrest them for their evasion. The officer who killed Goodwin successfully claimed self-defense in court, although it is unknown how the two actually encountered each other.

In protest to his murder, the first general strike in Canada, the Vancouver General Strike, took place on August 2nd, 1918. In 2015, a film about his life titled "Goodwin's Way" was released.

"War is simply part of the process of Capitalism. Big financial interests are playing the game. They'll reap the victory, no matter how the war ends."

- Albert Goodwin

• Date: 1918-07-27
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca.
• Tags: #Socialism, #Labor, #General Strikes.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Bolsheviks Adopt Democratic Centralism (1917)

Thu Jul 26, 1917

On this day in 1917, the "Sixth Party Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party" began in Petrograd, wherein the Bolshevik movement formally defined and adopted the Leninist concept of democratic centralism.

Although the idea of democratic centralism was originally outlined in Vladimir Lenin's "What is To Be Done?" 1902 political pamphlet, it was at this meeting the concept was officially defined and adopted by the Bolsheviks.

The Congress defined democratic centralism as follows:

• That all directing bodies of the Party, from top to bottom, shall be elected.

• That Party bodies shall give periodical accounts of their activities to their respective Party organizations.

• That there shall be strict Party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority.

• That all decisions of higher bodies shall be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members.

The concept is sometimes briefly surmised as "freedom of discussion, unity of action", and was intended to prevent factions forming within the party. When the Bolsheviks consolidated power following the Russian Civil War, Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders instituted a ban on factions in the party during the 10th Party Congress of 1921.

The concept was widely influential in other communist movements; for example, it was adopted in Article 3 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China.

Libertarian socialists have been critical of the practice, with anarchist writer Scott Nappolas calling democratic centralism "the organizational theory of a rising ruling class".

• Date: 1917-07-26
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.marxists.org.
• Tags: #Marxism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Battle of the Viaduct (1877)

Thu Jul 26, 1877

Image: Violence in Chicago depicted on the August 11th, 1877 cover of Frank Leslie's "Illustrated Newspaper" [Wikipedia]

The Chicago Railroad Strike of 1877 was a series of work stoppages and civil unrest in Illinois which culminated in a crowd of more than 10,000 protesters battling with federal troops on this day that year. The episode of labor unrest was part of the broader, national strikes and rioting of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

On July 24th and 25th, various industries began to go on strike, and Chicago's local government prepared for unrest as other cities across the nation grappled with general strikes and rioting.

Large crowds, up to 25,000 people, began to gather and demand various labor reforms. On July 26th, 1877, violent clashes between protesters and police reached a fever pitch in the "Battle of the Viaduct", where cops and members of the crowd exchanged gunfire.

By that evening, the police had successfully dispersed crowds throughout the city. 14 to 30 rioters were dead or dying, while between 35 to 100 civilians and 9 to 13 policemen were wounded.

• Date: 1877-07-26
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Riots, #Protests.
• 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

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: #Civil Rights, #Birthdays.
• 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

Arvida Strike (1941)

Thu Jul 24, 1941

Image: Alcan facilities in Arvida, Saguenay (Quebec, Canada).

On this day in 1941, 700 workers from the aluminium company Alcan in Arvida, Québec went on a wildcat strike - more than 4,500 workers illegally occupied the factory the next day and had to be forced out with federal troops.

The catalyst for the strike were cuts from pay envelopes the previous day, as well as a stifling heat wave. Since the industry had been classified as essential to the war effort, the strike was illegal under federal law.

When the Minister of Munitions and Supply told the press that 300 men had seized the factory and "enemy sabotage" was suspected, two companies of soldiers were sent to Arvida to "protect" the factory.

Work resumed four days later, with negotiations taking place with the union acting as an intermediary. The company made amends several days later by giving a slight increase in salaries and cost-of-living bonuses.

• Date: 1941-07-24
• Learn More: www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca, www.utpjournals.press.
• 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

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: #General Strikes, #Riots.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

St. Louis General Strike (1877)

Sun Jul 22, 1877

Image: Blockading of engines in West Viriginia during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, illustration by Fred B. Schell for Harper's Weekly. (Library of Congress) [jacobin.org]

On this day in 1877, the demand of train workers in East St. Louis, Illinois for higher wages was rejected, marking the beginning of a general strike in which workers seized and destroyed property, dismantling over forty factories.

The 1877 St. Louis General Strike was one of the first general strikes in the United States, growing out of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, a national period of strikes and rioting due to economic depression. The St. Louis strike was largely organized by the Knights of Labor and the Marxist-leaning Workingmen's Party, the main radical political party of the era.

On this day in 1877, in East St. Louis, Illinois, train workers held a secret meeting, resolving to call for an increase in wages and to strike if their demands were not met. The demand was made and rejected that same night, and so, effective at midnight, the strike began.

Within hours, strikers virtually controlled the city. Although the strike was mostly bloodless, the protesters seized the city's Union Depot, stopped freight and some passenger trains from passing through the city.

Workers attacked productive capital, including flour mills and sugar refineries, dismantling over forty factories in total. The strike ended when the National Guard and U.S. Marshals began to break up demonstrations by force five days later.

• Date: 1877-07-22
• Learn More: jacobin.com, en.wikipedia.org, www.zinnedproject.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #General Strikes, #Marxism.
• 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