Peace & Justice History for 4/6

April 6, 1712
The first major slave rebellion in the North American British colonies took place in New York City. One out of every five New Yorkers was enslaved at the time. Twenty-three black slaves set fire to buildings, killed six white British subjects and wounded six others.
More on the rebellion and its aftermath 
Slavery in New York 
April 6, 1909
Robert Peary, his negro servant, Matthew Henson, and four Eskimos reached the geographic North Pole for the first time.

Matthew Peary at the White House, 1954
 
Stamp issued 2005
Though Henson was alongside Peary, widely hailed as a courageous explorer, during that and subsequent Arctic expeditions, Henson achieved little notice until much later in life.
Article about the unsung hero of the polar expedition 
April 6, 1968
Dozens of major cities in the United States experienced an escalation of rioting in reaction to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. two days before. At least 19 people had already died in the arson, looting and shootings. Several hundred had also been injured and about 3,000 arrested—most of those in Washington, D.C.
April 6, 1968
Bobby Hutton, the 17-year-old first member of the Black Panther Party was gunned down by officers of the Oakland Police Department. Police opened fire on a car of Black Panthers returning from a meeting. The Panthers escaped their vehicle and ran into a house. Police attacked the house with tear gas and gunfire. After the building was on fire, the Panthers tried to surrender. Hutton came out of the house with his hands in the air.

Bobby Hutton
But a police officer shouted, “He’s got a gun.” This prompted further police gunfire that left Hutton dead and Panthers co-founder Eldridge Cleaver wounded. Police later admitted that Hutton was unarmed.
More about Bobby Hutton 
April 6, 1983
President Ronald Reagan’s interior secretary, James Watt, banned all rock ‘n’ roll groups from the Fourth of July celebration on the Washington Mall.The bands scheduled to play included the Beach Boys, generally considered very wholesome. But Watt said such acts attracted the “wrong element.” ”We’re not going to encourage drug abuse and alcoholism as was done in the past.” The president’s wife, a fan, complained directly to Secretary Watt, but he claimed never to have heard of the band.
April 6, 1996
Eleven were arrested at the main post office near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., for attempting to mail medical supplies to Iraq in defiance of the U.S.-led embargo. Between 1990 and 1995 with the first Gulf War and the sanctions regime imposed by the U.S., its coalition and the U.N., infant and under-5 mortality rates in Iraq had more than doubled.
More about Voices in the Wilderness 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april6

2 thoughts on “Peace & Justice History for 4/6

  1. Despite all the truly awful Republican Interior Secretaries since, James ‘a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple’ Watt remains head and shoulders above them as the most purely evil Secretary of the Interior of the modern era.

    He literally advocated clearcutting the forests and strip-mining the world because “Gawd gave man dominon over the Earth

    “I WANT to change the course of America,” says James Watt, secretary of the Interior. “I believe we are battling for the form of government under which we and future generations will live . . . That’s the battle. The battle’s not over the environment. If it was, they would be with us. They want to control social behavior and conduct.”

    “They” are the environmentalists, and what Watt considers their lackeys in the Eastern press. It’s an unequivocal view, refreshing in a politician by virtue of its frankness, shocking otherwise. He believes it. “What I call ‘commercial’ environmentalists are hard-core, left-wing radicals, manipulating the press . . . They have a conspiracy of shared values. Their real objective is partisan politics to change the form of government.”

    That was The Washington Post forty-one years ago just to reinforce that they were just as bad then. In the Lifestyle section….

    Reagan was the proto-Trump

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