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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, AUG 6–12, 2025
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_ A Bomb Unlike Any Other (1945), When the K.K.K. Came to D.C.
(1925), An Authoritarian Racist in the White House (1835), Getting Rid
of a Brutal Occupation for 12 Years (1680), Rebellion in Watts, 60
Years Later (1965) _
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_A BOMB UNLIKE ANY OTHER_
AUGUST 6 IS THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.
Until the 1945 attack, which was the first time the newly-invented
atomic bomb was used in warfare, the very existence of atomic weapons
was a secret known to very few people, so the use of such an
unprecedentedly lethal weapon caught the world almost completely by
surprise.
Three days after Hiroshima was virtually destroyed, a second, more
powerful bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, with a similar result. Five
days later, the Japanese government agreed to stop fighting and
surrender unconditionally.
The use of an atomic weapon, twice, on populations that included far
more civilians than either combatants or those who contributed
directly to military activity has resulted in an 8-decade-long ethical
debate between those who argue that doing so was a necessary evil to
end the war and save more innocent lives than would have otherwise
been lost, and those argue that a more measured use of atomic weapons
could have produced the same result with much less innocent suffering.
Without attempting to resolve that debate, it is incontrovertible that
the U.S. government consciously delayed taking effective action to
provide medical care to the survivors of the attacks. Even though
Japanese and Chinese medical organizations began to undertake that
effort almost immediately, the U.S. military undercut them with
bureaucratic roadblocks. The U.S. government never took responsibility
for providing medical care, leaving it to Japanese and other civilian
organizations and charities.
Despite fervent pleas for quick action, the U.S. waited until 15
months after Japan’s surrender to establish a badly underfunded
civilian-led organization to coordinate long-term, continuing, studies
of their health. That organization, the Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission, did some important scientific work at the same time it was
guilty of suppressing reports on the humanitarian consequences of the
bomb in both the United States and Japan.
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_WHEN THE K.K.K. CAME TO D.C._
AUGUST 8 IS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY of the Washington, D.C., gathering
of at least 30 thousand members and supporters of the Ku Klux Klan,
who marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in full regalia, the largest-ever
Klan demonstration in the nation’s Capital. For a detailed,
fascinating, account of the event, click here:
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_AN AUTHORITARIAN RACIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE_
AUGUST 9, 1835, IS THE 190TH ANNIVERSARY of authoritarian, racist,
President Andrew Jackson writing a letter to encourage the U.S.
Postmaster General to violate the Constitution by refusing to deliver
pieces of mail containing abolitionist or other anti-slavery
information unless the mail’s recipient specifically requested to
receive it.
Jackson wrote that people who were opposed to slavery were
“monsters” who were using the mail “to stir up amongst the South
the horrors of a servile war” and called for them “to atone for
this wicked attempt, with their lives.”
According to Cumberland University historian Mark Cheathem, Jackson
“also recommended that Southern postmasters make a list of the
people in their communities who wanted the material so that they could
be ‘exposed’ in the media ‘as subscribers to this wicked plan of
exciting the negroes to insurrection and to massacre.’ Jackson hoped
that his fellow White Southerners would force those sympathetic to the
abolitionist cause to ‘de-sist’ in their support of freedom for
enslaved people ‘or move from the country.’”
Sound familiar?
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_GETTING RID OF A BRUTAL OCCUPATION FOR 12 YEARS_
AUGUST 10 IS THE 345TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of one of the
longest-lasting anti-colonial rebellions by North American Indigenous
people. On this day in 1680 several thousand Pueblo people in what is
now northern New Mexico began a well-planned rebellion against the
Spanish occupation that had forced them for 80 years to provide
tribute in the form of food, labor, and textiles while at the same
time brutally suppressing their religious practices.
The rebellion was so well-organized that it was a complete success,
killing hundreds of the colonists and driving thousands out of the
territory for the next 12 years.
But then a large and heavily armed group of Spanish soldiers marched
into the Pueblo territory and by threat of overwhelming deadly force
was able to reestablish control. The Spanish re-occupation was
peaceful at first, but the colonists soon resorted to terror,
executing at least 70 Pueblo warriors.
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_REBELLION IN WATTS, 60 YEARS LATER_
AUGUST 11 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of a week-long
rebellion against racism by the residents of the Los Angeles
neighborhood of Watts. Before the fighting ended, 34 people had been
killed and nearly four thousand had been arrested.
The significance of the 1965 Watts rebellion against a social and
economic catastrophe must not be forgotten. For an excellent
introduction to that struggle by Robin D.G. Kelley, please click here:
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* Hiroshima
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* Atomic Bomb
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* Ku Klux Klan
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* Andrew Jackson
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* Native Americans
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* Watts
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