[Union organizer fired for insubordination. In 1779, no peace for
Native Americans. Sojourner Truth takes her new name. Child labor on
the rise. "No nukes" on Long Island. Boston says NO! to
slave-catchers. Anti-slavery novel is a best-seller.]
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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, MAY 30 . . .
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_ Union organizer fired for insubordination. In 1779, no peace for
Native Americans. Sojourner Truth takes her new name. Child labor on
the rise. "No nukes" on Long Island. Boston says NO! to
slave-catchers. Anti-slavery novel is a best-seller. _
Sally Field portrays a textile worker organizer leading an in-plant,
on-the-job demonstration. ,
_MAY 30, 1973 (50 YEARS AGO). _ In Roanoke Rapids, N.C., managers
at the union-busting J.P. Stevens textile mill fire union organizer
Crystal Lee Sutton for "insubordination" and drag her off the
premises, an act that was immortalized six years later in the
Oscar-winning film "Norma Rae". At the start of this unforgettable
6-minute clip, the dialog is hard to hear because the machinery is
making so much noise, just like in real life.
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_MAY 31, 1779._ On this day, when the government of the United
States was less than three years old, it adopted an explicitly
genocidal policy in regard to any Native Americans who did not
actively support it. That might sound like a harsh judgment, but
what other interpretation could be put on the orders that George
Washington, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, wrote on
May 31, 1779? Washington had appointed General John Sullivan to
invade central New York State with four thousand soldiers, in what
Washington called an Expedition, and make war against the thousands of
Iroquois people who had lived there for hundreds, if not
thousands of years, in territory that had become a military no-man's
land between the British on the south shore of Lake Erie and the
revolutionary troops in Pennsylvania. These are the orders that
Washington gave to Sullivan: "The Expedition you are appointed to
command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six
Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate
objects are the total destruction and devastation of their
settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex
as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the
ground and prevent their planting more. . . . [troops] should be
detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to
do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely
overrun, but destroyed." Of course, the word "genocide" would not be
coined for more than 160 years, but it sure fits.
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_JUNE 1, 1843 (180 YEARS AGO)._ The formerly-enslaved and
self-emancipated Isabella Baumtree changes her name to Sojourner
Truth. Truth, who went on to be a leader of both the movement to
abolish slavery and the movement to fully enfranchise _ALL_ women, is
perhaps most famous for "Ain't I a woman?", a short speech she
delivered in 1851 on the equal importance of ensuring the rights of
all women and all men. [link removed]
_JUNE 2, 1924._ By substantial majorities, both the House and the
Senate vote in favor of adding an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
that would give Congress "the power to limit, regulate, and prohibit
the labor of persons under eighteen years of age." A majority of the
states have approved it, but it must be ratified by three-fourths of
the states before it can go into effect, which will only occur if
another 10 states agree. The 22 states that have not yet
approved the child labor amendment are Alabama, Alaska,
Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North
Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee,
Texas, Vermont and Virginia. I'd guess it will never be ratified,
even though the need for it is as clear as it ever was, as shown by
this very recent report.
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_JUNE 3, 1979__._ In Shoreham, N.Y., fifteen thousand
environmentalists and anti-nuke activists lay siege to what would have
been Long Island's only nuclear power plant, in the largest
demonstration ever held on Long Island. In the face of fierce public
opposition, the plant never went into operation.
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_JUNE 4, 1841__._ The Boston Vigilance Committee organizes itself to
protect self-emancipated former slaves from being captured and
returned to slavery in the South. During the Committee's 20-year
existence, it provided essential aid to hundreds of people, including
Ellen and William Craft and Shadrach Minkins. One person the
Committee famously tried unsuccessfully to protect was Anthony Burns.
In 1854 when Burns was arrested in Boston, some twenty thousand
protesters filled the city's streets in an effort to prevent his
deportation to the South. It required ten thousand heavily armed
federal troops and the entire Boston police department to keep Burns
in custody and deliver him from jail to a ship that was docked just a
few blocks away.
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_JUNE 5, 1851._ An abolitionist newspaper publishes the first
chapters of _Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly,_ by Harriet
Beecher Stowe. After the newspaper serialized the entire
anti-slavery novel in 40 installments, it was published as a book that
became the 19th century's No. 2 best seller (after the Bible).
Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said "So this is the little lady
who started this great war," when he was introduced to Stowe in
1862.
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* union organizing
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* Native Americans
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* Genocide
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* anti-slavery
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* Feminism
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* child labor
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* Anti-Nuclear
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* slavery and abolition
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