My question is who decides if a hair cut conforms to gender stereotypes / norms. I somehow doubt the 1970s /1980s long shoulder length but parted and swept back blow dried hairstyles for guys would pass the test if religious conservatives get to say what is acceptable? What about women with cancer who are taking treatments for that cancer and lost their hair or are growing it back? Can the doctor be sued who prescribed the treatments? It is like trans people using the bathrooms of gender identity, who decides if that woman is feminine enough for the girl’s bathroom or that man manly enough for the boy’s bathroom? I have told everyone while the hell spawn could have any hair they wanted including long hair I was required to have a crew cut or nearly bald hairstyle as punishment for even existing in a time when everyone was wearing their hair long. What about parents rights? You know the reason all media with LGBTQ+ content must be removed from schools and all libraries, because some parents complain their kids might see it? Do the progressives or the former hippies get to allow their boy children to have long hair or their girls short hair? See how this can’t work, can’t be allowed. People lose all autonomy and individual rights to express themselves as they want to. It is again an attempt to return to the straight cis white Christian male dominated society of the 1950s. Women were subservient to men and needed their permission for most things outside the home. Raping your wife, forcing her to have sex against her will was legal as she had to perform her wifely duties. Non-white people knew their place and stayed there. The entire LGBTQ+ were hidden in their closets too frighted to be found out to demand their equality and rights. That is the world they want and are trying to create using the cover of trans people are harming the children. It is why they attacked drag queens so violently, they violate that 1950s norms. They are desperate to enforce a nearly religious observance of their preferred way to live based mostly on religion. Look at the bios of nearly every one of the republicans pushing these things and you see they are from a fundamentalist conservative religious faith that wants to control how other people live. Not to bring others closer to their godlike Rev Ed Trevors does, but to make themselves feel better about things and the idea that if they make all the people they don’t like, all the acts they don’t like to go away their god will praise them, give them an afterlife life, and their god will be so please with them he will come back right away to get them. Their god is a god of anger and smiting. He is not a loving god who loves people as they are or want to be. Hugs
Republicans in the Arkansas state legislature have introduced legislation that would make it effectively illegal for hairdressers to give gender-based haircuts to people of the opposite gender. The bill would allow the hairdressers to be sued if the haircut given does not conform with the gender assigned to a person at birth. This is reminiscent of the government-approved haircuts in North Korea, and equally as oppressive. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.
March 16, 1190 The entire Jewish community of York, England, perished while observing Shabbat ha-Gadol, the last sabbath before Passover. Gathered together inside Clifford’s Tower, the keep of York’s medieval castle, for protection from the violent mob outside, many of the Jews took their own lives; others died in the flames they had lit, and those who finally surrendered were massacred and murdered. Clifford’s Tower This occurred just after the beginning of the Third Crusade. “Before attempting to revenge ourselves upon the Moslem unbelievers, let us first revenge ourselves upon the ‘killers of Christ’ living in our midst!”
March 16, 1827 The first newspaper owned and edited by and for African-Americans, Freedom’s Journal, was published in New York City. It appeared the same year slavery was abolished in New York state. two of the early founders of Freedom’s Journal
March 16, 1921 The War Resisters International was founded with sections set up in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. By 1939 there were 54 WRI Sections in 24 countries, including the U.S.. WRI No More War demonstration in Berlin 1922 Their symbol: a broken gun. Their slogan: “The right to refuse to kill.” Their founding statement WRI today
March 16, 1968 U.S. troops in South Vietnam killed 504 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai, a pair of hamlets in the coastal lowlands of Quang Ngai Province. The victims were from 247 families, completely eliminating 24 of them, three generations with no survivors. Among the dead were 182 women, 17 of them pregnant, and 173 children, including 56 infants, and 60 older men. Young girls sheltering behind their mother during My Lai Lt. William L. Calley, Jr. commanded the men of Charlie Company, First Battalion, Americal Division, and was the only one tried out of 80 involved in what is called the My Lai Massacre. The Army, including a young Major Colin Powell, at first tried to cover it up and the media resisted reporting it. Some of Calley’s soldiers refused to participate, but only 24-year-old helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his crew stopped it by putting themselves between the villagers and the troops pursuing them. Chief My Lai prosecutor William Eckhardt described how Thompson responded to what he found when he put his helicopter down: “[Thompson] put his guns on Americans, said he would shoot them if they shot another Vietnamese, had his people wade in the ditch in gore to their knees, to their hips, took out children, took them to the hospital…flew back [to headquarters], standing in front of people, tears rolling down his cheeks, pounding on the table saying, ‘Notice, notice, notice’…then had the courage to testify time after time after time.” Lt. William L. Calley Some of Calley’s soldiers refused to participate, but only 24-year-old helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his crew stopped it by putting themselves between the villagers and the troops pursuing them. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson
March 16, 1972 Reference librarian Zoia Horn refused to testify against the Harrisburg Seven who were on trial for an alleged conspiracy to kidnap then-National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. Five of the seven were current or former Catholic priests or nuns. Horn had been implicated by an ex-convict informer placed in the Bucknell University library by the FBI. Reference librarian Zoia Horn Though given immunity from self-incrimination, Zoia objected to the idea that libraries could become places of infiltration and spying. Charged with contempt of court, she was sent to jail for 20 days until a mistrial was declared.
Judith Krug, longtime director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, said that Horn was “the first librarian who spent time in jail for a value of our profession.” At the trial she asked to read a statement of explanation, but was led away in handcuffs before she had begun her third sentence: “Your Honor, it is because I respect the function of this court to protect the rights of the individual, that I must refuse to testify. I cannot in my conscience lend myself to this black charade. I love and respect this country too much to see a farce made of the tenets upon which it stands. To me it stands on freedom of thought—but government spying in homes, in libraries and universities inhibits and destroys this freedom. It stands on freedom of association—yet in this case gatherings of friends, picnics and parties have been given sinister implications, and made suspect. It stands on freedom of speech—yet general discussions have been interpreted by the government as advocacies of conspiracies.” Zoia Horn in the California Library Hall of Fame
March 16, 1988 Iraqi forces acting under orders from President Saddam Hussein attacked the Kurdish village of Halabja with a variety of poison gasses including mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun, and VX. About 5,000 non-combatant men, but mostly women and children, died from the chemical weapons.This was part of Saddam’s al-Anfal campaign, a slow genocide of the Kurds in Iraq. About 2000 villages were emptied and leveled as well as a dozen larger towns and cities, tens of thousands were killed. Kurdish father Omar Osman and his infant son, victims of Saddam Hussein’s poison gas attack on Halabja, Kurdistan (Iraq) The Human Rights Watch full report on the al-Anfal Campaign
March 16, 2003 Rachel Corrie, an American college student in Gaza to protest Israeli military and security operations, was killed when run over by a bulldozer while trying to stop Israeli troops from demolishing a Palestinian home. The 23-year-old from Olympia, Washington, was a member of International Solidarity Movement and was the first nonviolent western protester to die in the occupied territories. In Memoriam Rachel Corrie 1979-2003
March 16, 2003 Over 5000 coordinated candlelight vigils and demonstrations took place, in more than 125 countries, in an eleventh-hour protest against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Knoxville, Tennessee Trafalgar Square, London
It’s fun to observe. For instance, my local grocery store sells all their bakery pies for 3.14 (which is a bargain on some of them.) I like to buy 3, and then put them in the store’s breakroom. I started that several years ago; they said someone would eat them if they were in there, so I did it, and brought home an apple pie. Now I do it each year, because it’s fun to observe with pie. I bet everyone knows someone who’d like some pie today!
If you work with people who enjoy math, and especially if you work with learners of math, well, have a great time today! It’s Friday, it’s Pi Day, and a fine day to play with pi and with the rest of math, too!
Simply very bad news. Precisely what Project 2025/Agenda 47/Republican National Platform said they want to do. I’m sorry; I don’t like to bring bad news. But people need to prepare. This is written in editorial/opinion style, but facts are within and there are citations. For people like us who need time to prepare for austerity, it’s news we ought to read.
Also, there are Senator names included for who we should write to regarding this bill. That’s our last chance. Shutdown is on Republicans, not Democrats, no matter how they try to deflect. We need to tell the Dem senators to speak what’s in this bill, every chance they get, and to refuse to vote in favor, pointing at Republicans the entire time.
There are parts in the article complaining about Democrats and their choices, etc., et. m. Read it if you want (you’ll have to click through for it,) but it won’t help anyone to read more complaining about Democrats. We the people need to energize Dem. Senators to speak out, and to vote no. Especially the speak out portion; Sen. Mark Kelly does that especially well, and is among those the author of this piece feels is wavering. I intend to start first thing in the morning, and I hope all of us will devote some time to this. It’s vital.
Without the luxury of Republicans falling apart, Democrats in the Senate need to decide whether to prevent a dangerous and harmful budget that shrinks the power of Congress in the government. Since operating on principle goes against their “adults in the room” mindset, they are wavering on what to do. But it should be an open-and-shut case.
A normal continuing resolution funds the government at the same level as the previous budget. This bill does not. It cuts non-defense discretionary spending by $13 billion below last year’s level, while increasing military spending by $6 billion. It zeroes out funding for programs that fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse. It cuts health care funding for clinics and hospitals, emergency preparedness for communities, clean water projects and tribal assistance. Meanwhile, it adds money for mass deportations, just as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has illegally detained a green card holder for his political beliefs.
Most of the budget cuts are achieved by removing earmarks, which members of Congress put in to direct projects. But usually when earmarks are removed, the money goes back to the agency to decide how to distribute it. This maneuver cuts the earmarks and the money.
The House Republican bill also fails to fix a carryover of a $20 billion rescission to IRS money from the Inflation Reduction Act, effectively doubling that cut. This was kind of pre-ordained when Democrats punted on this in a prior continuing resolution last December, but it still means that practically all of the IRA’s funding for greater enforcement of tax collection is now gone.
The bill not only adds $6 billion to the Department of Defense’s enormous budget, but adds $8 billion in “transfer authority” that allows the agency to shift spending where they deem important, a flexibility no other agency gets.
While Republicans tout a $6 billion increase in veterans health care in the bill, they neglect to mention the removal of a $23 billion appropriation to the Toxic Exposure Fund to implement the PACT Act, which cares for veterans exposed to burn pits and other cancer-causing chemicals. While there’s an extra $2.2 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund, there’s no additional money to support the rebuilding in southern California after the January wildfires.
But most important, the bill grants an open invitation to Trump and Elon Musk to continue to ignore Congress and toss out disfavored spending. Vice President JD Vance, while selling the deal to House Republicans, stated outright that “Trump would continue cutting federal funding with his Department of Government Efficiency initiative and pursue impoundment — that is, holding back money appropriated by Congress.” This has been reiterated by others in the Trump administration.
In fact, the House Republican bill gives the president more leeway to move money around. It appropriates money for things that Musk has eliminated, meaning that money can operate as a floating slush fund for Trump’s priorities, as long as the courts don’t roll back the illegal impoundments.
… The Trump administration is saying that they will sign a bill appropriating specific funding, and then go about cutting funding anyway. If you’re a member of Congress, you’re being told that your work product doesn’t matter, that the constitutional power of the purse doesn’t matter, and that there’s no guarantee that anything you pass will actually reach the people you serve.
I can see why Republicans would take this deal: they want budget cuts but know they don’t have the votes for them, so they’re plenty happy to outsource that to the president, even if it turns Congress into a separate and unequal branch of government. But why would Democrats willingly submit to a fake budget on paper that can be so easily circumvented? As Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on X, “The Republican spending plan will supercharge Musk’s theft from working people to pay for billionaire tax cuts. Senate Democrats must stop it.”
…
So far, only Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has committed to voting yes. But as Josh Marshall has documented at Talking Points Memo, a number of Senate Democrats have stated no position on the bill, leaving their options open. In general, senators have been hedging their bets until forced to make a decision. That time has come.
Credible sources indicate that the most likely Democrats to offer up the remaining seven votes to avoid a shutdown are Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Michael Bennet (D-CO), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Mark Warner (D-VA).
Becka Robbins of Fabulosa Books packs up LGBTQ+ books to send to parts of the country where they are banned, on 27 June 2024 in San Francisco. Photograph: Haven Daley/AP
The majority of banned books in US public schools last year dealt with people of color, LGBTQ+ people and other demographics, according to a new study from PEN America.
The report also counteracts claims by conservative lawmakers that books being removed from classrooms are sexually explicit and that book bans are altogether a “hoax”, an assertion made by Donald Trump.
There were more than 10,000 instances of books being banned in the 2023-24 school year, PEN America reported, a sharp increase from the previous year, as Republican-led states implemented new censorship laws.
Out of 4,218 book titles that were banned, 1,534 – or 36% – featured people of color, the most censored identity group in book bans. Some removed titles included August Wilson’s Pulitzer-prize winning play Fences and Innosanto Nagara’s A is for Activist, a picture book for children about social issues.
Books featuring people of color were disproportionately targeted in all banned-book categories, the report found, especially in removed historical and biographical titles. Of such banned books, 44% included people of color; more than one-fourth, or 26%, of those books featured Black people.
Advocates with PEN America noted that at the same time as the onslaught of book bannings, more than 50% of young people in the US are children of color, according to 2021 data from the Children’s Defense Fund.
“This targeted censorship amounts to a harmful assault on historically marginalized and underrepresented populations – a dangerous effort to erase their stories, achievements, and history from schools,” said Sabrina Baêta, senior manager for PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, in a press release about the report. “When we strip library shelves of books about particular groups, we defeat the purpose of a library collection that is supposed to reflect the lives of all people. The damaging consequences to young people are real.”
Titles featuring LGBTQ+ characters also made up a sizable number of book bans: 1,066 books, or 25% of all banned titles, included LGBTQ+ people. Transgender or genderqueer characters were specifically targeted in such book bans, as 28% of removed books featuring LGBTQ+ characters included that demographic.
Beyond people of color and LGBTQ+ people, books including disabled people were also affected by nationwide bans. About 10% of all removed titles included characters with physical, learning or developmental disabilities or who were neurodivergent. Several affected books with disabled characters focused on “confidence, self esteem, or experiences with ableism”, PEN America reported.
Meanwhile, only 13% of removed titles included “on the page” instances of sexual experiences. Inferred or “off the page” instances of sexual encounters were included in 31% of banned books.
The vast majority of banned books (85%) were fiction, with 14% being non-fiction and 1% poetry. About 67% of removed books were for younger audiences, PEN America reported.
The ongoing banning of books comes as the Trump administration has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in US public schools and universities. In a memo last week, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from any schools that refused to eliminate diversity initiatives, such as scholarships for students of certain identity groups and school programming.
I know this is old but I worked hard on it. Now that I got the issues between computers worked out and I am in the process of reinstalling all the programs I need to make the computer do what I want, checking to make sure the issue that came up a week ago from reappearing. The issues of full acceptance and equality for the full LGBTQ+ community. Hugs
Please notice that the entire campaign to erase LGBTQ+ from society started with the false premise that the LGBTQ+, especially children need to be protected from trans people and drag queens. But the same people claim to be grand Christians yet they never address sexual abuse of children in churches or other organizations like foster homes / orphanages. These same people support a man for president that was credibly accused of violently raping a 13, how many more did not report the abuse? They support a man who bragged about barging into the changing rooms of teen girls as they were in different states of being undressed some of them nude during the teen pageants claiming it was his right as the owner. He is a child sex predator by his own words claiming he would date / have sex with his own young not adult daughter. They supported a man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman with the commonly understood phrase raped her. But they claim the real problem is women being raped in bathrooms if trans women are in there also. They support Pete Hegseth for Sec. Of Def. He also has been accused of sexually assaulting / raping a woman and assaulting other women. It was reported that he was often drunk and enjoyed going to places where women take off their clothing and at least one occasion needed to be restrained from going on stage with the nude women. Tell me where is the effort to removed white men from the social media and from the military? Sorry but when they say woke it means anything they dislike just as CRT did. When they say DEI it is them saying the “N” word and that females are inferior to males. Well let me get to separating the posts. Hugs.
I wish I could still say it’s amazing that these bills even come up, while now instead, it’s amazing that they’re not brought into law. But here we are. Decent news from Montana!
Powerful Speeches From Trans Dems Flip 29 Republicans, Anti-Trans Bills Die In Montana by Erin Reed
Transgender Reps Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell delivered powerful speeches on the Montana House floor on Thursday. Republicans defected en masse to join them in voting against anti-trans bills. Read on Substack
Something remarkable happened in Montana today. As has become routine, anti-trans bills were up for debate—the state has spent more than half of its legislative days this session pushing such bills through committees and the House floor, with Republicans largely voting in lockstep. But something changed.
A week ago, transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr delivered a powerful speech against a bill that would create a separate indecent exposure law for transgender people. Since then, momentum on the House floor slowed. Today, two of the most extreme bills targeting the transgender community came up for a vote. Transgender Representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell gave impassioned speeches—this time, they broke through. In a stunning turn, 29 Republicans defected, killing both bills. One Republican even took the floor to deliver a scathing rebuke of the bill’s sponsor.
The first bill to reach the House floor was HB 675, a measure that would ban drag performances and Pride parades in Montana. A previous drag ban had already been struck down by the courts after it was enforced against a transgender woman—who was not a drag artist—to prevent her from speaking about public history at a library. In response, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Caleb Hinkle, introduced HB 675 to circumvent that ruling.
Rather than relying on state enforcement, this bill would grant individuals the private right to sue if a public drag performance took place, making it more difficult to challenge in court. During committee hearings, Hinkle went even further, calling being transgender “a fetish” and arguing that the law was necessary to prevent trans people from dancing in public.
And that’s when transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr took to the floor.
“Here I am again to rise on another bill targeting the LGBTQ+ community,” she said, exasperated. “At its very core, drag is art. It is very beautiful art. It has a deep history in this country, and it is important to my community. You know, if you are a woman in this body wearing a suit today, you are in some way challenging gender norms that existed long ago… There were three-article-of-clothing laws 50 years ago that said if you wore three articles of clothing that were indicative of the opposite gender, they could stop you, arrest you… it was those laws that led to the police raiding an LGBTQ+ bar that led to the Stonewall riots, one of the most important civil rights moments in my community’s history,” she began.
“When the sponsor closed on this bill, he said, this bill is needed… and I quote his words… ‘because transgenderism is a fetish based on crossdressing.’ And I am here to stand before the body and say that my life is not a fetish. My existence is not a fetish. I was proud within a month ago to have my son up in the gallery here. Many of you on the other side met him. When I go to walk him to school, that’s not a lascivious display. That is not a fetish. That is my family. This is what these bills are trying to come after… not obscene shows in front of children, we have the Miller test for that, we have laws for that. This is a way to target the trans community, and that is in my opinion, and in the speaker’s own words.”
Then something even more remarkable happened: A Republican, Representative Sherry Essman, rose to defend Rep. Zephyr and chastised the bill’s sponsor. “I’m speaking as a parent and a grandmother. And I’m very emotional because I know the representative in seat 20 is also a parent. No matter what you think of that, she is doing her best to raise a child. I did my best to raise my children as I saw fit, and I’m taking it for granted that my children are going to raise my grandchildren as they see fit,” she began.
“Everybody in here talks about how important parental rights are. I want to tell you, in addition to parental rights, parental responsibility is also important. And if you can’t trust a decent parent to decide where and when their kids should see what, then we have a bigger problem,” she turned to parental rights and spoke about how people who claim those rights should vote against the bill.
And then, she closed by chastising the bill’s sponsor for bringing the bill, “Trust the parents to do what’s right, and stop these crazy bills that are a waste of time. They’re a waste of energy. We should be working on property tax relief and not doing this sort of business on the floor of this house and having to even talk about this.”
Following the speeches, 13 Republicans, the most of any anti-trans bill this cycle, flipped and voted against the bill. See it as it happened here:
Were this all that happened, it would have been remarkable enough—such aisle-crossing has become rare in modern politics, and on transgender issues, it is almost unheard of. But Representative Zephyr is not the only transgender lawmaker in Montana. Representative SJ Howell, a powerhouse in their own right, took the floor when an even more extreme bill followed immediately afterwards—HB754, a measure that would remove transgender children from their parents. They had a powerful speech to deliver as well.
Representative Howell opened, “I stand to oppose this bill… When a state intervenes to remove a child from their family, that is one of the most serious and weighty responsibilities that the state has. That is not something to be taken lightly. Every time a child is removed from their family, it’s a tragedy. Sometimes a necessary tragedy, but a tragedy nonetheless. This bill does not come close to the seriousness with which those decisions should be contemplated.”
They pointed directly to the bill’s language: “On page 1, line 19, any child protective service specialist, peace officer, or county attorney who has reason to believe any child is in immediate danger or harm may immediately remove the child. What we are adding… a child transitioning gender with the support of a parent or guardian is considered in immediate or apparent danger or harm.”
Howell then turned to the bill’s vagueness and the dangers it posed to transgender children as well as any child who defies gender norms. “Transitioning gender is not defined in this bill… so what does that mean? Maybe it means, as the sponsor said, surgery or medical treatment. Maybe it means therapy, mental healthcare. Maybe it means a kid who gets a haircut and a new set of clothes. Maybe a name change… a legal name change, or someone who wants to try out a different name… a strict reading of this bill could include all of that.”
They urged lawmakers to consider the real consequences. “Put yourself in the shoes of a CPS worker who is confronted with a young person, 15 years old maybe, who is happy… healthy… living in a stable home with loving parents, who is supported and has their needs met? And they are supposed to remove that child from their home and put them in the care of the state? We should absolutely not be doing that.”
Then, the bill went to a vote. This time, the Montana Republican Party fully fractured—29 Republicans crossed the aisle to defeat it.
Watch it as it happened here:
Following the vote, Representative Zephyr took to social media to discuss the implications. “These kind of votes are born out of transgender representation in government,” she posted on her bluesky account. “Howell & I have built solid relationships with Republicans and those relationships change hearts, minds, and (eventually) votes. It is painful, grueling work. But it makes a difference.”
At a time when anti-trans bills are sailing through red-state legislatures, many are left wondering how they can be stopped. Some Democrats, like Gavin Newsom, have chosen appeasement—standing alongside anti-trans hate leaders like Charlie Kirk instead of standing up for transgender people. But Representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell offer a different path. As transgender lawmakers in a Republican-dominated government, they have shown that representation, relationships, and the power of speaking truth in hostile spaces can move hearts and minds. Their success is a reminder that even in the most challenging environments, refusing to back down can make a difference.
Editor’s Note: The writer of this article is happily married to Representative Zooey Zephyr. While I am mindful of disclosing personal relationships in my reporting as a transgender journalist, I also recognize the importance of covering major moments like today’s events in Montana, and so I chose to report on this story with this disclosure. My goal remains delivering critical LGBTQ+ news to my readers with the integrity and urgency it deserves.
March 7, 1932 The Ford Hunger March began on Detroit’s east side and proceeded 10 miles seeking relief during the Great Depression. Facing hunger and evictions, workers had formed neighborhood Unemployed Councils. Along the route, the marchers were given good wishes from Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy as well as two motorcycle escorts, and thousands joined the marchers along the route. At the Detroit city limit, the marchers were met by Dearborn police and doused by fire hoses. Despite the cold weather, they continued to the Employment Office of the Ford River Rouge plant, from which there had been massive layoffs. Five workers were killed and nineteen wounded by police and company “security” armed with pistols, rifles and a machine gun. Dave Moore According to Dave Moore, one of the marchers, “That blood was black blood and white blood. One of the photos that was published in the Detroit Times, but never seen since, shows a black woman, Mattie Woodson, wiping the blood off the head of Joe DiBlasio, a white man who lay there dying . . .
It’s been 75 years, but when you drive down Miller Road today, your car tires will be moistened with the blood that those five shed.” Grave markers with the words “His Life for the Union” pay tribute to the fallen hunger marchers in Woodmere Cemetery on Detroit’s west side.
March 7, 1965 525 civil rights advocates began a 54-mile march on a Sunday morning from Selma, Alabama, to the capital of Montgomery, to promote voting rights for blacks. Just after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma, the marchers were attacked in what became known as Bloody Sunday. Enforcing an order by Governor George Wallace, the group was broken up by state troopers and volunteer officers of the Dallas County sheriff who used tear gas, nightsticks, bullwhips and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. John Lewis, then head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a leader of the march, suffered a fractured skull.John Lewis was elected a member of Congress from Georgia in 1986 and served till his death in 2020.ABC television interrupted a Nazi war crimes documentary, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” to show footage of the violence in Selma, confusing some viewers about who was beating whom. Injured in Selma Selma 1965 – Edmund Pettus Bridge, video excerpt from a PBS documentary with Rep. John Lewis and others who were there Read more
March 7, 1988 A Federal Court ruled in Atlanta, Georgia, that a peace group must have the same access to students at high school career days as military recruiters. the anti-recruitment movement today: LEAVE MY CHILD ALONE!
Dave Moore
Scottie's Playtime 