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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, APR 30–MAY 6  
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_ Environmental Justice Wins (in 1997), School Integration Loses
(1959), Wrist Slap for Torturers (2004), Pete Seeger’s Birthday
(1919), No Place to Be Somebody Opens (1969), National Conference on
Lynching (1919), ‘We Don’t Want to Radiate!’ (1979) _

, Dr. Robert Bullard

 

_A WIN FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE_

27 YEARS AGO, on April 30, 1997, after a years-long grassroots
organizing campaign, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission made the
unprecedented decision to come down on the side of environmental
justice. The commission denies a Louisiana Energy Services application
for a permit to build an uranium enrichment plant in the middle of an
African-American community in Claiborne Parish.
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_A LOSS FOR SCHOOL INTEGRATION_

65 YEARS AGO, on May 1, 1959, the racist movement in opposition to the
integration of public schools flexed its muscles in Prince Edward
County, Virginia, by eliminating all public education in the county
rather than comply with the legal requirement that the county’s
schools integrate. Prince Edward County was not the only jurisdiction
that did so, but it had the distinction of shutting down its schools
for the longest time, five years. In the fall of 1959, a private
school, which was supported in part by tuition vouchers from the state
government, opened for the country’s 1400 white students, but the
county’s two thousand African-American students had only
intermittent access to schools in the county for five years.
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_SLAP ON THE WRIST FOR TORTURERS_

20 YEARS AGO, on May 2, 2004, a secret 53-page U.S. Army “Report of
Abuse of Prisoners in Iraq,” was leaked to the press. It was the
first official confirmation that the Army had been routinely torturing
Iraqi prisoners, as had first been charged by Amnesty International
nine months earlier. The official report found and described
“numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses
[that] were inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal
abuse.” The investigation resulted in fewer than 20 enlisted men and
women being subjected to court-martials or lesser forms of discipline,
but no official repercussions for any commanders, despite the eventual
disclosure of ample evidence that high military and civilian officials
had facilitated the abuse.
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_PETE SEEGER’S BIRTHDAY_

105 YEARS AGO, on May 3, 1919, progressive troubadour and activist
Pete Seeger was born in Manhattan, New York. Visit the Zinn Education
Project for an excellent short introduction to his life and work at
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_NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY OPENS_

55 YEARS AGO, on May 4, 1969, Charles Gardone’s drama, No Place to
Be Somebody, opened at the Public Theater. Not only did it immediately
become a critical and box-office success, it gained the status of two
first-ever prize-winning achievements when it was awarded the Pulitzer
Prize for drama, making Gardone the first African-American to win the
Pulitzer for Drama and making it the first time the drama Pulitzer
went to an off-Broadway production.
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_NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LYNCHING_

105 YEARS AGO, on May 5, 1919, the first-ever National Conference on
Lynching, organized by the NAACP, was attended by some 2500 people
opened for two days in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall. One of the goals
of the conference was to pressure Congress to pass a bill to make
lynching a federal crime. The bill passed the House but was defeated
by a Senate filibuster. Similar bills went down to similar defeats for
more than a century, until a federal anti-lynching bill was finally
signed into law in April 2022. To view Thirty Years of Lynching in the
United States, 1889-1918, which was published by the NAACP for the
conference, click here:
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_‘WE DON’T WANT TO RADIATE!’_

45 YEARS AGO, on May 6, 1979, at least 100,000 protesters marched
through Washington, D.C., to demand an end to the construction of new
nuclear power plants in the U.S, chanting “Two, four, six, eight, we
don’t want to radiate!” The demonstration was by far the largest
of three that had taken place in that year, beginning with Seabrook,
New Hampshire, in 1978 and San Francisco, California, in April 1979.
Turnout for the Washington demonstration had been encouraged by the
potentially catastrophic meltdown of a nuclear reactor near
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, just five weeks earlier.
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