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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, JUL 2–8, 2025  
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_ Who You Gonna Call? (1965), THIS Is Why Haiti Is So Impoverished
(1825), ‘Fight—Don't Starve!’ (1930), One Pipeline Too Many
(2020), Happy Birthday to The Nation (1865), Mercury Poisoning at Its
Worst (1975), Cuba Stands Up to Uncle Sam (1960) _

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_WHO YOU GONNA CALL?_

JULY 2 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the first day of business for a
brand-new federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
which had been created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Today it is on
its deathbed.

Over the last six decades, EEOC was the primary enforcer of federal
laws that prohibit employment-related discrimination, including sex
discrimination, racial discrimination, and age discrimination. Just
last year, EEOC was able to compel hundreds of employers to pay a
total of more than $700 million in damages to some 21,000 individuals
who had been the victims of illegal employment discrimination.

For 60 years, EEOC has been responsible for attempting to ensure that
employers determine wages, benefits and working conditions without
regard to race, national origin, religion, sex, sexual preference, or
age. Yet despite the law and EEOC’s efforts, it is indisputable that
Blacks and women in the U.S. are the victims of employment
discrimination that is little different than it was in the 1980s. 

It was EEOC that determined that newspapers were violating the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 when they published “help-wanted” advertising
in separate sections for women and for men.

It was EEOC that determined it was illegal for employers to fire
female employees when they marry.

It was EEOC that required employers to desegregate restrooms, shower
and locker rooms and cafeterias. 

In its first full year of operations, EEOC handled 8854 cases of
employment discrimination. In 2011, it handled 99,947 cases. In 2025,
it handled 237,251 cases.

On January 28, 2025, President Trump fired two of the three EEOC
Commissioners. The Commission cannot meet or conduct business without
a quorum present. It will remain out of business until and unless a
second Commissioner is nominated by the President and confirmed by the
Senate. Don’t hold your breath. 

For a 25-minute journey down memory lane, you can watch “EEOC at 40:
Benchmark on a March to Justice” here:
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_THIS IS WHY HAITI IS SO IMPOVERISHED_

JULY 3 IS THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY of the arrival of three French
warships in the harbor of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, on a
mission of international blackmail.

On that 1825 day, more than 20 years had passed since the Haitian
Revolution had forced the departure of the last French soldier, but
France had never recognized (you might say, blessed) Haiti’s
independence and every major power had followed France’s lead. (The
U.S. did not do so until 1862, when Abraham Lincoln was President.) 

As soon as the French ships were joined by 11 more, they presented
Haiti with a decree issued Charles X, King of France, who demanded
Haiti compensate France for the value of what it lost in the Haitian
revolution, namely 150 million francs, the equivalent of about 1.5
billion of today’s dollars, or else.

If Haiti did not agree to pay the required sum, the French fleet would
proceed to reduce every Haitian coastal city to rubble. After a
week’s discussion, the Haitian Senate accepted the French
ultimatum. 

In 1922 Haiti had yet to pay France the entire sum, and France sold
the debt to National City Bank (now Citibank).  It was finally paid
off in 1947.
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_‘FIGHT—DON'T STARVE!’_

JULY 4 IS THE 95TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of the Communist
Party’s National Unemployment Convention in Chicago. More than 1300
delegates attended the 2-day meeting in 1930, which resulted in the
establishment of Unemployed Councils of the USA.

For a short, informative introduction to the Unemployed Councils, from
the perspective of the organization that created them, visit
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_ONE PIPELINE TOO MANY_

JULY 5 IS THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of environmental activists forcing two
of the largest utility companies in the U.S. to abandon their 6-year
effort to build the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline across North
Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia

Long before Duke Energy and Dominion Energy threw in the towel in
2020, a Dominion Energy agent told a Churchville, Virginia, father
whose home was in the path of the proposed pipeline, “We’re a
billion-dollar company and we’re going to put the pipeline wherever
we want to put it.”

But when the two giant companies abruptly cancelled the project,
Southern Environmental Law Center relished their success. SELC Program
Director DJ Gerken remarked, “No one is going to mess with public
lands or underserved communities in our six states again without
stopping, thinking, and worrying about SELC.” 

A representative of the Sustainable Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission Project of the Natural Resources Defense Council agreed,
saying “The costly and unneeded Atlantic Coast Pipeline would have
threatened waterways and communities across its 600-mile path. As they
abandon this dirty pipe dream, Dominion and Duke should now pivot to
investing more in energy efficiency, wind and solar — that’s how
to provide jobs and a better future for all.”
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_HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE NATION, AND MANY MORE_

JULY 6 IS THE 160TH ANNIVERSARY of the publication of the first issue
of The Nation, one of the most important magazines ever produced in
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_MERCURY POISONING AT ITS WORST_

JULY 7 IS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the publication of “Minamata,”
by W. Eugene Smith and Aileen M. Smith.  It is a sensational,
lavishly illustrated, 192-page expose of a violent corporate cover-up
of deadly mercury poisoning taking place in Minamata, Japan.

Minamata is a company town, dominated by a huge chemical company,
Chisso, the town's biggest employer and owner of the local hospital.

Some Minamata residents had been concerned for years about an
unidentified syndrome that was killing cats and crows and was
suspected of causing central nervous system problems in humans. Their
concerns were poo-pooed by local health authorities, who were all
either on the Chisso payroll or the public payroll, which was heavily
funded by taxes paid by the corporation.

Finally when multiple cases of unexplained paralysis among children
could not be ignored, the hospital director, a Chisso employee,
reported for the first time the existence of an "epidemic of an
unknown disease of the central nervous system."

The Chisso Corporation took charge investigating the cause of the
epidemic, which had a fatality rate of 35 percent.  It took them more
than three years to conclude that the victims had been poisoned by
mercury, more than 20 tons of which had been intentionally dumped by
Chisso into Minamata Bay.  The bay's fish and shellfish were a major
food source for Minamata residents.    

Faced with the certain knowledge that many Minamatans were suffering
from mercury poisoning, Chisso denied that its dumping was
responsible, and continued  to use the process that produced tons of
mercury-contaminated waste. Then children began to be born in Minamata
with horrible physical deformities and deafness and blindness, caused
by the mercury poisoning of their parents.

For nearly a decade after mercury was identified as the culprit,
Chisso continued to dispose of mercury waste in the bay. When
Minamatans and their supporters protested, Chisso unleashed their
second weapon against public health, namely thugs or goons, which in
Japan are known as yakuza. Any Minamatan bold enough to protest what
Chisso was doing was very likely to be heavily beaten.

And even though the mercury-caused disease had been officially
identified, Chisso was powerful enough to keep the lid on the story.
When W. Eugene and Aileen Smith decided in 1971 to live in Minamata in
order to document the disaster, yakuza beat Eugene badly enough to
cause permanent brain damage and considerably shorten his life. But
they were unable to prevent him and Aileen Smith from taking the
photographs and writing the text that appeared in Life magazine and
later formed the nucleus of the Smiths’ award-winning book. Eugene,
who had never recovered from the attack by Chisso's goons, died less
than three years later.
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_CUBA STANDS UP TO U.S. BULLYING_

JULY 8 IS THE 65TH ANNIVERSARY of Cuban Premier Fidel Castro
celebrating Cuba’s recent success in taking over two oil refineries
owned by U.S. corporations, Texaco and Standard Oil, and one owned by
British-owned Shell Oil. Cuba seized the three refineries when they
refused to refine crude oil from the Soviet Union.

Castro said Cuba had won “every round” in the fight against U.S.
economic aggression and that Cuba would continue to do so. He said
that the U.S. government had miscalculated when it thought the refusal
of the foreign-owned refineries to process Soviet crude oil would
deprive Cuba of essential fuel.
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For more People's History, visit
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* employment discrimination
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* Haiti
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* Great Depression
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* pipelines
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* The Nation magazine
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* Mercury poisoning
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* Cuban blockade
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