| September 28, 1836 Cherokee Chief John Ross wrote a letter to both houses of the U.S. Congress stating that the Treaty of New Echota was not negotiated by any legitimate representatives of his nation. Its terms required the Cherokees to relinquish all lands east of the Mississippi River for a payment of $5 million. Ross was the democratically chosen leader of a nation with its own language, its own newspaper, a bi-cameral legislature and a republican form of government.  Cherokee Chief John RossThe Cherokee Nation celebrated its own arts and sports, and produced a wide variety of agricultural and commercial goods. I had twelve political units ranging from northern Alabama to western North Carolina.Writing from north Georgia, Ross said: “The makers of it [the treaty] sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country . . . . “ We are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family!” Full text of the letter |
| September 28, 1917 166 people who were (or had been) active in the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World, whose members were also known as Wobblies) were indicted for protesting World War I.They were accused of trying to “cause insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces” in violation of the Espionage Act. One hundred and one defendants were found guilty, and received prison sentences ranging from days to twenty years, with accompanying fines of $10,000-$20,000. This was part of a successful U.S. government campaign to cripple the radical union movement.  The I.W.W. – A Brief History (U.S.) I.W.W. home |
| September 28, 1943 In Denmark, underground anti-Nazi activists began systematic smuggling of Jews to Sweden. In just three weeks, all but 481 of Denmark’s 8000 Jews had been moved to safety.  Kim Malthe-Bruun, a 21-year-old Danish resistance fighter. Unfortunately one of the ones who did not make it. A Danish Jewish family ready to go Read more about Kim |
| September 28, 2005 The lawyer who wrote the original legal complaint in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Constance Baker Motley, died in New York City. She had led a remarkable career which began at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) where she was their first female attorney. The first black woman to argue before the Supreme Court, she was successful in nine of her ten cases. Motley went on to achieve three more firsts as an African American woman: being elected to the New York State Senate and shortly thereafter to the Manhattan Borough presidency. Finally, Pres. Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1966 where she served until her passing. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september28
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