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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, MAR. 12–18  
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_ Who Wrecked the Trains? (in 1949), Forward Ever, Backward Never!
(1979), Take Your Blacklist and Shove It! (1954), Ain't Gonna Let
Nobody Turn Me 'Round (1964), Paris Commune and Marx (1884), Terror in
Nicaragua (1984), Terror in Arkansas (1899) _

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_WHO WRECKED THE TRAINS?_

75 YEARS AGO, on March 12, 1949, five giant corporations, including
General Motors and Standard Oil of California, were convicted of the
federal charge they had conspired to monopolize the sale of
transportation-related products and services. They corporations were
acquitted of having done so in order to destroy the public
transportation industry, despite a mountain of evidence that had been
their prime objectives.  A federal district Court in Chicago
determined that GM and SoCal, starting in 1938, had joined forces with
Firestone Tire, Mack [Truck] Manufacturing and Federal Engineering to
take over streetcar systems in more than two dozen cities -- including
 St. Louis, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Oakland and northeastern New
Jersey -- in order to replace them with much less efficient,
gas-guzzling and tire-consuming buses. The penalty imposed by the
court was less than a slap on the wrist: a $5001 fine.
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_"FORWARD EVER, BACKWARD NEVER!"_

45 YEARS AGO, on March 13, 1979, a bloodless coup led by the leftist
New Jewel Movement toppled the government of the Caribbean-island
nation Grenada and established the People's Revolutionary Government.
The successful radicals immediately began a bold experiment in
building popular power in a nation with a population of 110,000. The
U.S. government did not look kindly on the creation of a second
leftist regime (after Cuba) in the Caribbean, and the State Department
was quick to tell the new Grenadan government it would oppose any move
to establish a close connection with Cuba, to which Grenada's Prime
Minister responded: "no country has the right to tell us what to do or
how to run our country or who to be friendly with... We are not in
anybody’s backyard, and we are definitely not for sale." For much
more information, visit
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_TAKE YOUR HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST AND SHOVE IT!_

70 YEARS AGO, on March 14, 1954, a film that was both memorable and
very unusual was released. "Salt of the Earth," a riveting
dramatization of a long, bitter, and successful strike by Arizona
copper miners, was unusual for its subject matter, for the fact that
its cast and crew included many Hollywood pros who could not work in
Hollywood because their names were on a McCarthyite blacklist, and
because its production was bankrolled by the International Union of
Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. The film was an artistic and critical
triumph, but the blacklist made its distribution almost impossible for
many years after it was released. Read more about Salt of the Earth
here:
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You can watch the complete film here:
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_AIN'T GONNA LET NOBODY TURN ME 'ROUND_

60 YEARS AGO, on March 15, 1964, in Jackson, Mississippi, the Council
of Federated Organizations (COFO) -- a coalition of Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE), National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) -- unveiled plans for
Mississippi Freedom Summer. COFO would hire some 2000 civil rights
workers, half of them college students, and set up Freedom Schools
throughout the state (to offer a wide curriculum ranging from remedial
reading to political science), Community Centers (to provide job
training, classes in arts and crafts, athletics, as well as
health-related instruction such as prenatal care and nutrition),
Freedom Voter Registration (to place the names of Black Mississippians
on mock voter lists and challenge their exclusion from voter
registration), a Freedom Election on the same day as the Democratic
primary (for those who were not allowed to register), set up a rival
Freedom Democratic Party (to campaign for Congressional candidates
whose names would be excluded from the official ballot), and to
engineer challenges on the floor of House of Representatives to the
legitimacy of the Mississippi delegation on the ground that 94 percent
of Black Mississippians were denied the franchise. Over the next six
months, This Week in People's History will include regular Freedom
Summer 60th anniversary updates; for more information see
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_KARL MARX AND THE PARIS COMMUNE_

140 YEARS AGO, on March 16, 1884, a large contingent of London police
barred the gates of Highgate Cemetery to prevent some 5000 Social
Democrats and Communists from gathering at the grave of Karl Marx
after marching four miles from central London. The police were
blocking a public meeting that was a double commemoration. It was the
first anniversary of the death of Marx, who had played a central role
in the development of the workers' movement in Britain over the three
decades he had lived there. It was also the 13th anniversary of the
beginning of the Paris Commune, which had been by far the world's
largest proletarian uprising, the destruction of which remained a sore
point for all radicals. With Marx' gravesite inaccessible, the radical
throng assembled in a nearby park, where they listened to speeches and
heard messages from leading socialists throughout Europe. According to
a report of the event by communist organizer and Marx' daughter
Eleanor, "English Socialists will work the better . . . for the
feeling of their solidarity with the working men of all countries. It
is not only in memory of the 35,000 martyrs of the horrible 'semaine
sanglante' [the bloody reprisals that occurred when the Paris Commune
was defeated] — but because it contains a promise and a hope for the
future that we cry, Vive la Commune!"
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_YANKEE TERROR IN NICARAGUA_

40 YEARS AGO, on March 17, 1984, a contingent of terrorists (so-called
Contras), who were bent on overthrowing the elected leftist government
of Nicaragua, stormed into the farming town of San Ramon, Matagalpa,
in Nicaragua's mountainous north-central highlands. Before they left,
they tortured and beheaded the head of the local Sandinista
association, the director of the local school, a school teacher and
five farmworkers. According to a report by the Washington Office on
Latin America and the International Human Rights Law Group, "serious
Contra abuses against non-combatants occur far too often to justify
any American [that is, U.S. government] support -- public or private".
 During their 11-year terror campaign, which was carried out with the
financial and training support of U.S. taxpayers, Contras killed at
least 13,000 Nicaraguan civilians.
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_RACIST TERROR IN ARKANSAS_

125 YEARS AGO, on March 18, 1899, a deadly reign of terror against
Blacks in southwestern Arkansas' Little River County was set in motion
when a white farmer was allegedly murdered by a Black man. After the
murder, a rumor spread among whites that a Black "insurrection" was
about to begin. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, at the time
"accusations of 'insurrection' were commonly laid upon African
Americans who were politically active and/or had committed a crime
against a white person." Three days after the murder, the accused man
was captured by the county sheriff. Then a mob of some 200 vigilantes
seized the sheriff's prisoner and lynched him before he could be
delivered to the county jail, After the lynching, the vigilantes began
to scour the surrounding area and lynch every Black person accused of
involvement in the rumored insurrection. As a result, over the course
of less than a week, at least 23 African-Americans were murdered
without the slightest justification. It was, according to an editorial
in the New York Sun, "clearly evident that the white men of the
section were murdering many defenseless negroes to avenge the death of
one white man.”
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* US History
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* monopoly
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* Grenada's Revolution
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* Hollywood Blacklist
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* mississippi freedom summer
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* Paris Commune
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* lynching
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