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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, DEC 4–10
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_ Black Panthers Under the Gun - I (1969), Teddy Roosevelt Gives U.S.
Imperialism the Nod (1904), Racist Terror in Vicksburg (1874), Black
Panthers Under the Gun - II (1969), Coltrane Lays Down a Masterpiece
(1964), A Rocky Start for Gay Rights (1924) _
, By Emory Douglas
_BLACK PANTHERS UNDER THE GUN - I_
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, IS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY of a police raid in
Chicago that resulted in the killing of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark,
two skillful and charismatic leaders of the Black Panther Party. The
1969 raid was one of many law-enforcement actions at the time that
contributed to an eclipse of the Panthers’ influence and
effectiveness. (See December 8, below.)
Thanks to government documents that have been uncovered by years of
litigation, there is no doubt the raid was the fruit of a conspiracy
between the Chicago police and the FBI. The documents stop short of
proving the conspiracy included a plan to murder Hampton and Clark,
but circumstantial evidence and the behavior of the police during the
raid strongly indicate that the killing of Hampton, who was unarmed
and asleep, was the raid’s prime objective.
It took the survivors of the raid and the families of the dead men 13
years, but when their federal lawsuit forced Chicago and the federal
government to settle the case for more than six hundred thousand
dollars, the families’ lawyer told the media that the government’s
refusal to admit guilt was a sham. He said "The settlement is an
admission of the conspiracy that existed between the FBI and [Cook
County State Attorney Edward] Hanrahan's men to murder Fred Hampton."
Such a statement in contradiction of the settlement agreement’s
terms gave the Chicago police and the FBI an opening to refuse to pay
the amount agreed to – but Chicago and the FBI decided to cut their
losses and allow the conspiracy narrative’s worst interpretation to
stand. For an excellent 11-minute Democracy Now! 4-year-old broadcast
about the FBI’s role in the killing of Hampton and Clark, click
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_TEDDY ROOSEVELT GIVES U.S. IMPERIALISM THE NOD_
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, IS THE 120TH ANNIVERSARY of one of U.S.
imperialism’s red letter days, when in 1904 President Theodore
Roosevelt articulated his so-called corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Not only, wrote Roosevelt, would the U.S. continue its long-standing
policy of barring any outside interference within the Western
Hemisphere, but the U.S. would go one step farther and reserve the
right to intervene at will in the internal affairs of each and every
country in the Caribbean as well as North, Central, and South
America.
The Roosevelt administration and those that followed were not, of
course, kidding. Over the following two decades alone, the U.S.
military imposed the will of the United States on Columbia, Cuba,
Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.
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_RACIST TERROR IN VICKSBURG_
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, IS THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of a
2-month-long episode of white racist terror in and around Vicksburg,
Mississippi, during which at least 300 African-Americans were murdered
and uncounted more permanently driven out of the area. The so-called
Vicksburg massacre of 1874 was a foundational event in the white
supremecist domination of the state after the Civil War.
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_BLACK PANTHERS UNDER THE GUN - II_
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1969 – four days after Chicago police killed
Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark – a similarly
violent attack on the Panthers took place in Los Angeles. Nearly two
hundred members of the LAPD made a frontal assault on the Black
Panthers’ L.A. headquarters, leading to a 4-hour gun battle in which
six Panthers were wounded and 13 arrested. When the arrested Panthers
were later tried for, among other things, assault with a deadly weapon
and conspiracy to murder police, they were acquitted of almost all the
charges because the jury agreed with the defendants’ argument that
they had acted in self-defense.
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_COLTRANE LAYS DOWN A MASTERPIECE_
MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the 1964 recording of
the John Coltrane’s masterpiece A Love Supreme with Coltrane (tenor
sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass) and Elvin Jones
(percussion). You can listen to it here:
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_A ROCKY START FOR GAY RIGHTS_
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, IS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY of the founding of the
Society for Human Rights, which is thought to be the first gay rights
organization in the U.S. In 1924 the Chicago-based Society published
the gay-interest newsletter, Friendship and Freedom.
Less than a year after the Society was established, three of its
founders were simultaneously, but separately, arrested by Chicago
police. After prolonged proceedings, the charges against them were
dismissed, but by that time the Society for Human Rights had
permanently disbanded.
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* Black Panther Party
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* Gay Rights
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