The Republican President has been in office one month today, and we’ve seen some of today’s history repeat itself already. Republicans are working very rapidly.
February 20, 1942 The vast majority of teachers in German-occupied Norway refused to comply with the forced Nazification of the school system. The government had ordered display of the portrait of German-installed Minister President Vidkun Quisling (formerly head of Nasjonal Samling, the Norwegian fascist party) in all classrooms, revision of the curriculum and textbooks to reflect Nazi ideology, and teaching of German to replace English as their second language.The teachers organized and 12,000 of 14,000 nationwide wrote the same letter on this day to the education department refusing membership in the newly formed Nazi teachers’ association. Two days later clergy throughout the country read a manifesto against Nazi control of the schools. Vidkun Quisling (on right), Germany’s puppet leader in Norway, allowed Germany to invade his country and declared himself Prime Minister. In Norway his name has become synonymous with traitor. How the teachers pushed back Norwegian teachers prevent the Nazification of education
February 20, 1956 The U.S. rejected a Soviet proposal to ban nuclear weapons tests and deployment. The U.S. continued atmospheric nuclear testing in the South Pacific and Nevada until 1963.
February 20, 2011 Nearly 40,000 pro-Democracy Moroccans demonstrated peacefully in 57 towns and cities across the country. Though there was sporadic violence later that night, Interior minister Taeib Cherqaoui called the earlier efforts “the healthy practice of the freedom of expression.”
(However, it’s not well-known, it’s chilling, and it could be upsetting, so take only what you can take. It’s like Rosewood+Greenwood, plus yet more. -A)
Photo: Unidentified Photographer, June 1921 (Getty Images)
Most Black Americans have never heard of the Red Summer of 1919…but it is an element of Black history that we need to pay attention to. This country specializes in committing monstrous atrocities and then ignoring the consequences of their actions. It happened with Native Americans and the Trail of Tears. And, of course, it happened with Black folks. This truth is best captured when we consider what happened in the year 1919.
When Austrian Archduke Franz was assassinated on 28 June 1914, it set off a chain of events that led to what we now call World War 1. Working age white men were drafted and sent to fight, so that left many job vacancies in northern cities that Black men were happy to fill. See, Black folks were feeing the racist South hoping to find less racism in northern cites. The population of Black Chicagoans increased by more than 100% while the number of Black folks in Philadelphia grew by 500%.
While that was happening, 367,000 Black Americans either enlisted or were drafted into service to fight in the war that had just popped off. Black men were eager to prove to white America that Black people deserved dignity. They hoped they would see that by fighting in what white folks were calling ‘The Great War.’ But once the war ended, Black soldiers returned to an ungrateful nation. Thinking about these men, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote on May of 1919 in the NAACP’s Crisis newsletter, “We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.”
Du Bois had no idea how prophetic his words would be. From May of that year to December, over 25 race massacres took place on American soil. More than 250 Black men, women and children’s lives were violently cut short. Black folks discovered that the racial violence they thought they escaped when they left places like Alabama and Mississippi was not a feature of Southern living. Instead, it was part of being Black in America.
Those white soldiers who came home and discovered that scores of Black people had moved to the north. They also found Black soldiers who felt that they had earned their place in American life by serving their country. An official put it like this: “one of the principle elements causing concern is the returned negro soldier who is not readily fitting back into his prior status of pre-war times.” Therefore, white soldiers became white terrorists to put these soldiers and anyone who looked like them back in their place. There were race massacres in Washington D.C., Omaha, Knoxville, and a massive race riot in Chicago where 38 people were killed and 537 injured. Few white people were arrested for these crimes, fewer were prosecuted. Two years later was the Tulsa race riot where the Greenwood district, what we now call Black Wallstreet, was burned to the ground.
As we celebrate Black History Month, we need to tell the entire truth of our history. Not just the accomplishments of men and women who embody Black excellence, but also the way that America has wronged us. The Red Summer of 1919 is one of those stories that we would like to forget. Yet don’t our accomplishments shine even more brightly considering the darkness we had to endure? No doubt we have endured days when hope unborn had died. But, somehow, against all odds, we came to the place for which our fathers sighed.
February 15, 1898 The man-of-war (battleship) USS Maine was sunk in Cuba’s Havana Harbor as the result of an explosion, 260 American naval personnel dying as a result, another 58 wounded. An insurrection against Spanish colonial rule in Cuba had persisted for years, and brutal Spanish tactics had engendered strong American reaction. That is why Consul General Fitzhugh Lee had asked President William McKinley to send the Maine “for the moral effect it might have.” Spain’s Governor-General Weyler had forced 300,000 Cubans into towns and cities to insulate them from the insurgents but had made no preparations for their food, housing or health care. Half of the reconcentrados, as they were called, died as a result. Pres. McKinley had tried since coming into office to reach a settlement through negotiation but Spain rejected his efforts. Following the sinking of the Maine, popular opinion in the U.S. moved toward war with Spain, partially in response to inflammatory press coverage. Congress then voted McKinley $50,000,000 to be used for the national defense at his discretion, and provided for a contingent increase of the army to 100,000 men. The cause of the explosion ???
February 15, 1998 About 2,000 people – including a tractor convoy consisting of over 100 farmers – staged a demonstration in the north German town of Ahaus in protest against the planned shipment of nuclear waste to a storage facility in the town. A consignment of full CASTOR (Casks for Storage and Transport of Radioactive Material) containers was expected at the Ahaus interim nuclear storage site within the next two weeks.
February 15, 2002 President George W. Bush approved Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the site for long-term disposal of 70,000 metric tons (77,000 tons) of highly radioactive nuclear power plant waste. 12 years and $6.8 billion worth of study and construction had gone into the site 90 miles from Las Vegas. It is officially estimated that, by the time it is completed in 2017, the total construction cost will be $23 billion. 2000 additional metric tons of such waste are generated by U.S. nuclear power plants each year, leading to concerns that the facility would be full shortly after its opening. All such waste is currently stored onsite at individual nuclear power plants. Problems with the Yucca Mountain site What are the alternatives FAQs on Yucca Mountain
February 15, 2003 The world said NO to war… In the single largest day of protest in world history, millions on 6 continents demonstrated against the U.S./U.K. plans to invade Iraq. Reported totals included 1 to 2 million in London and Rome; 1.3 million in Barcelona, Spain (a city of 1.5 million); 500,000 each in Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and New York. Smaller demonstrations were held in over 600 cities and towns across the U.S., including tens of thousands in several cities, and 150,000 the following day in San Francisco. Total participation is estimated at 25 million in more than 100 countries.
February 14, 1957 The organization that would shortly be called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) chose its leadership at a meeting in New Orleans. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend Ralph David Abernathy led the group which sought to coordinate civil rights protests throughout the South. Organizers of bus boycotts, inspired by the one in Montgomery, Alabama, had met in Atlanta a month earlier. During that meeting, Dr. Abernathy’s home and church were bombed. Reverend Ralph David Abernathy and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference history
February 14, 1971 President Richard Nixon ordered a secret taping system to be installed for his offices in the White House. Listen in on the presidents
February 14, 1989 At a meeting of the presidents of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, the Sandinista government of Nicaragua agreed to release a number of political prisoners and hold free elections within a year. In return, Honduras promised to close bases established by the U.S. for and used by the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels. Just over one year later, elections were held (with international observers including former President Jimmy Carter) though the nation was threatened with a continuing U.S. economic boycott, and was experiencing ongoing Contra violence. The Sandanista Front candidate was defeated 55% to 41%.
February 1, 1960 Greensboro first day: Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960.
Four black college students sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and were refused service because of their race. To protest the segregation of the eating facilities, they remained and sat-in at the lunch counter until the store closed. Four students returned the next day, and the same thing happened. Similar protests subsequently took place all over the South and in some northern communities. By September 1961, more than 70,000 students, both white and black, had participated, with many arrested, during sit-ins. On the second day of the Greensboro sit-in, Joseph A. McNeil and Franklin E. McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“Segregation makes me feel that I’m unwanted,” Joseph McNeil, one of the four, said later in an interview, “I don’t want my children exposed to it.”
February 1, 1961 On the first anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in, there were demonstrations all across the south, including a Nashville movie theater desegregation campaign (which sparked similar tactics in 10 other cities). Nine students were arrested at a lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and chose to take 30 days hard labor on a road gang. The next week, four other students repeated the sit-in, also chose jail.
February 1, 1968 General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes Nguyen Van Lem a NLF officer.
Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan summarily executed Nguyen Van Lem, suspected leader of a National Liberation Front (NLF aka Viet Cong) assassination platoon, with a pistol shot to the head on the street. AP photojournalist Eddie Adams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of the incident became one of the most famous, ubiquitous and lasting images of the war in Vietnam, affecting international and American public opinion regarding the war.
I love Ethel who is a grand young woman. I have watched her transition from an awkward teenager online who did not understand how to express what she felt inside and watched her blossom as she realized and started living openly as who she was. She is a wonderful resource for how to combat trans hate and misinformation. If she gives a stat or makes a claim you can take it to the bank that it is correct as she not only does meticulous research she also documents it all for others to see and read for themselves. Trans women are simply women, and trans men are simply men. I look forward to the day we can all drop the word trans, just we need to stop saying same sex marriage and simply say marriage. Hugs and loves.
January 31, 1865 The U.S. House of Representatives passed (119-56) the 13th constitutional amendment which abolished slavery, and sent it to the states for ratification (three-quarters of the states would do so by the end of the year). The Kentucky legislature didn’t vote to ratify until 1976. Mississippi’s legislature finally ratified it in 1995 but failed to submit the paperwork to the federal government until 2013. Text of the amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” More about the 13th Amendment
January 31, 1876 Sitting Bull: One of several chiefs who refused to comply. The U.S. government ordered that all Native Americans had to move to reservations by this date or be declared hostile. Most Sioux did not even hear of the ultimatum until after the deadline.
January 31, 1945 Eddie Slovik Private Eddie Slovik became the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion, and the only one who suffered such a fate during World War II.Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered Slovik’s execution be carried out, he said, to avoid further desertions in the late stages of the war. Eisenhower
January 31, 1950 U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announced his decision to support the development of the hydrogen (fusion) bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic (fission) bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.
January 31, 1971 The Winter Soldier Hearings began in a Howard Johnson’s motel in Detroit. Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the three days of hearings were an attempt by soldiers who had served in Vietnam to inform the public of the realities of U.S. conduct in the war. The veterans testified that the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident, and that some American troops had committed atrocities. Among those who spoke about aspects of their service in Vietnam was John Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant and future senator and presidential candidate. More than 100 veterans testified to sometimes brutal acts. Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield later entered the transcript of the Winter Soldier hearings into the Congressional Record but, otherwise, the proceedings captured little attention. The term “winter soldier” is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776. He spoke of the “sunshine patriot and summertime soldiers” who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. Winter Soldier film watchthetrailer (appox 4 minutes) watchthe entire movie (1:35) VVAW/Winter Soldier Organization
January 31, 1993 300,000 Berliners rallied to protest attacks on immigrants, and against racism and renewed support for Nazism on the 60th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. During the previous year there had been 2,285 racially motivated attacks, including 77 against Jewish sites, and the death of two young Turkish girls in an arson attack.
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