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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, MAY 21–27  
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_ “Take Your War and Shove It!” (in 1969) |“The Shape of Jazz
to Come” (1959) | The Battle of Toledo (1934) | No Taxation Without
Representation (1764) | “Unite We Must” (1963) | Good Luck,
Huddled Masses (1924) | Close Only Counts in Horseshoes (1918) _

, Courtesy Washington, D.C., Historical Society

 

_“TAKE YOUR WAR AND SHOVE IT!”_

55 YEARS AGO, on May 21, 1969, three young men, Les Bayless, John
Bayless and Michael Bransome, walked into a Selective Service System
office in Silver Spring, Maryland, where they destroyed a large
quantity of the draft board’s files by drenching them with black
paint and human blood, overturned office furniture and threw two
typewriters out of the office’s windows. After ransacking the place,
they waited for, and surrendered to, the police. They gave the police
and bystanders copies of a statement, which declared: “We poured out
blood to symbolize America’s systematic destruction of life
throughout the world. We accuse you, the American government, of mass
murder in Vietnam and economic oppression.” The two older men were
convicted of destruction of government property and sentenced to three
years confinement. The third, who was 17 years old, was tried as a
juvenile; the outcome of his case is not in the public record.
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_“THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO COME”_

65 YEARS AGO, on May 22, 1959, saxophonist Ornette Coleman. trumpeter
Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins recorded
six of Coleman’s tracks that were soon released by Atlantic Records
as “The Shape of Jazz to Come.” The hugely influential
breakthrough album was one of the first entries in what soon became
known as the free jazz movement. Its enthusiastic reception led to the
quartet’s first gig in Manhattan, where they filled the Five Spot
Cafe for an exceptional 10 weeks. You can listen to one of album’s
trademark compositions,  “Lonely Woman,” here:
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_THE BATTLE OF TOLEDO_

90 YEARS AGO, on May 23, 1934, one of the most important successful
strikes in U.S. history culminated in what is called the Battle of
Toledo, 5 days of violent clashes between 1350 members of the Ohio
National Guard and some ten thousand striking auto workers and their
supporters. The strike took place in the earliest days of the effort
to unionize U.S. heavy industry, which was then almost totally
non-union. Union contracts in the automobile, steel, and electrical
equipment industries were still years in the future, so the successful
first effort to establish a union in the auto industry was nearly
unprecedented. 

The strike’s target was Auto-Lite, a medium-sized producer of parts
for the major auto manufacturers. On April 12, 1934, the United
Automotive Union struck Auto-Lite, calling for union recognition and a
10 percent wage increase. Soon after the strike began, the American
Workers Party, which had for years been organizing unemployed workers
in Toledo, got involved by asking its supporters to join the union
picket-lines. Despite court injunctions against the picketers, which
resulted in some arrests, the number of pickets mushroomed. 

By May 23, some six thousand picketers, most of whom were unemployed
workers, totally surrounded the plant, making it impossible for the
strikebreakers inside to leave. At the request of the local sheriff,
the Ohio National Guard dispatched 1350 troops with orders to make the
plant accessible. The Battle of Toledo had begun. Over the next five
days, troops and pickets repeatedly clashed outside the plant. The
troops and police constantly brandished their guns and fired them into
the air, but seldom fired them toward the pickets. 

Two picketers were shot to death by the National Guard, and scores
were wounded by gunfire and by tear-gas projectiles. The troops were
able to restore access to the plant, but never succeeded in driving
the huge crowd of picketers away. Finally, on June 2, management
agreed to recognize the union and to a 5-percent pay increase. A week
later, some 20,000 people celebrated the union victory by parading
peacefully through downtown Toledo.
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_“NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”_

260 YEARS AGO, on May 24, 1764, _"no taxation without
representation,"_ one of the most important demands that led up to the
American Revolution, had its first official expression. Seven weeks
after the British parliament enacted the Sugar Act, which was the
first law requiring the residents of the 13 colonies to pay taxes to
Britain, the Town Meeting of Boston, which was the city's governing
assembly, unanimously adopted a resolution denouncing the tax as an
infringement of the rights the colonists had under their Royal
Charter, which gave the colonists the right to govern and to tax
themselves. The Town Meeting's position was reported to the
Massachusetts Assembly with these words, which quickly became one of
the foundations of anti-British sentiment: "For if our trade may be
taxed, why not our lands? Why not the produce of our lands, and
everything we possess or make use of? This annihilates our charter
right to govern and tax ourselves -- It strikes at our British
privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common
with our fellow subjects who are natives of Britain"
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_“UNITE WE MUST”_

61 YEARS AGO, the Organization of African Unity was founded in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, with the objective of promoting the unity and
solidarity of the African states, coordinating their cooperation and
efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa, defending
their sovereignty, their territorial integrity and independence,
eradicating all forms of colonialism from Africa and promoting
international cooperation. It did not achieve all of its objectives,
but it succeeded in making major contributions to them. In 2002, the
OAU was succeeded by the African Union.
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_GOOD LUCK, HUDDLED MASSES_

100 YEARS AGO, on May 26, 1924, the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 went
into effect. In many (but not all) respects the law was a sharp
departure from the existing U.S. policy concerning immigration. It
banned all immigration from China, but that was nothing new. The U.S.
had been excluding Chinese immigrants since 1882. The new law added a
total ban on immigration from Japan, which was new. Also new were
strict quotas on the number of people from specific countries who
would be allowed to immigrate to the U.S. Under the law’s formula,
immigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia and Germany were most
welcome, while immigrants from Asia, Italy, southeastern Europe and
the Soviet Union were strictly limited. It was clearly a law to
encourage the immigration of light-skinned people and also to reduce
the number of immigrants from places where political radicalism was
widespread, those who were not (according to the Secretary of Labor)
“the kind [of worker that] the employer says he needs.”
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_CLOSE ONLY COUNTS IN HORSESHOES_

106 YEARS AGO, on May 27, 1918, Germany launched its last World War 1
offensive in what is called the third Battle of the Aisne. German
troops broke through Allied lines and caused many casualties, but they
failed to reach their objective, a strategically important ridge about
30 miles northeast of Paris. Before the advancing Germans ran out of
steam, panic was widespread in Paris. The battle’s end marked the
high tide of the German Empire.
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