[[link removed]]

THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, AUG 27-SEP 2, 2025  
[[link removed]]


 

xxxxxx

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Show-Business Witchhunters Hit Paydirt (1950), Jim Crow Justice,
Ugly as Sin (1955), Los Angeles Deputies Sow Deadly Chaos (1970), Like
a Rolling Stone (1965), What’s In a Name? (2015), This Land Is Your
Land . . . (1945), Familiar Sentiments (1945) _

,

 

_SHOW-BUSINESS WITCHHUNTERS HIT PAYDIRT (1950)_

AUGUST 27 IS THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY of the dawn of large-scale
anti-communist witchhunting in the U.S. entertainment industry, when
NBC television fired one of its star performers, Jean Muir, because
she held left-wing opinions.

Muir was not the first entertainment-industry blacklist target, but
she was the first victim of what might be called wholesale
blacklisting.  Beginning in late 1947 and up until August 1950,
show-business blacklisting had aimed at a small handful of 
well-known movie-industry progressives. The Hollywood 10 (which was
actually 11) were severely punished with year-long prison sentences or
permanent exile (in the case of Bertolt Brecht). After serving their
time, all but one of the ten (who turned stool-pigeon) found it
impossible to earn a living as they had previously because no one
would hire them.

But entertainment industry workers didn’t generally advertise their
politics, which left would-be witchhunters in the dark about who had
political opinions to attack. 

In June 1950, FBI files on “subversives” were leaked to a group of
right-wing journalists that included a retired FBI agent and a retired
U.S. Army Intelligence major with many years’ experience hunting
“subversives.” In a matter of weeks, the group published a
226-page pamphlet titled “Red Channels: The Report of Communist
Influence in Radio and Television”.  

 According to Red Channels, in 1949 Jean Muir had been vice-president
of the allegedly subversive Congress of American Women. She had also
allegedly attended Communist study groups, had allowed Communists to
use her car and to visit her house, and had met with Communist
leaders. All of which clearly made her ineligible to star in a
soon-to-be broadcast weekly situation comedy on NBC-TV.

After the Red Channels allegations appeared, NBC claimed to have
received multiple phone calls and letters protesting Muir’s
forthcoming appearance; that was all it took. Muir was the first of
many, many progressives who found it impossible to work at their craft
thanks to Red Channels publication of unverified information leaked by
the FBI.
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_BEARING WITNESS TO JIM CROW “JUSTICE” (1955)_

AUGUST 28 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of the torture and murder of
14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi, which ought never be
forgotten. [link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_UNDISCIPLINED DEPUTIES SOW DEADLY CHAOS (1970)_

AUGUST 29 IS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY of a very large and militant
demonstration against the U.S. war in Vietnam organized in Los Angeles
by the Chicano Moratorium Committee Against The Vietnam War. It was
generally agreed to be the largest Chicano political demonstration to
have ever occurred in the U.S.

Some 30,000 demonstrators marched peacefully across East Los Angeles,
but then violence broke out when Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Deputies began to use both tear gas and brute force against the
marchers for no apparently valid reason.  At least three
demonstrators and one prominent journalist died as a result of the
deputies’ deplorable lack of restraint.
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_LIKE A ROLLING STONE (1965)_

AUGUST 30 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the release of Bob Dylan’s
album “Highway 61, Revisited” by Columbia Records. It features
Dylan (vocals, guitar, harmonica and piano), Mike Bloomfield (electric
guitar), Charlie McCoy (guitar), Al Kooper (organ, piano), Paul
Griffin (piano, organ), Frank Owens (piano), Harvey Brooks (bass),
Russ Savakus (bass guitar, upright bass), Joe Macho, Jr. (bass
guitar), Bobby Gregg (drums), Sam Lay (drums) and Bruce Langhorne
(tambourine}

The album has 10 tracks: Like a Rolling Stone, Tombstone Blues, It
Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, From a Buick 6, Ballad
of a Thin Man, Queen Jane Approximately, Highway 61 Revisited, Just
Like Tom Thumb's Blues, and Desolation Row.

You can see and hear Dylan’s original music video of Like a Rolling
Stone here: [link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_WHAT’S IN A NAME? (2015)_

AUGUST 31 IS THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY of a crucial, but not decisive,
moment in the dispute over the name of the highest peak in North
America. For hundreds if not thousands of years the peak in central
Alaska had been called Denali by the Koyukon Athabaskan people who
lived in its vicinity.

In 1896, a gold prospector from that part of the U.S. that is south of
Canada decided to call it Mt. McKinley.  He was not naming it in
honor of the President of the United States, who was then Grover
Cleveland;  he was naming it in honor of Republican presidential
candidate William McKinley, who would soon beat Democratic and
Populist candidate William Jennings Bryan and then take office on
March 4, 1897.

In 1917, the U.S. government formally designated the peak as Mt.
McKinley. 

In August 2015 the U.S. government committed to calling the peak by
its ancient name, Denali.

On Jan. 20, 2025, the occupant of the White House signed Executive
Order 14172, "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," which
re-established the name to Mt. McKinley at the same time it renamed
the then-Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
[link removed]
[[link removed]] 

 

_THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND . . . . (1945) _

SEPTEMBER 1 IS THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY of the publication of the words
and music of “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie. You can
watch an 8-minute video about the Smithsonian’s rare copy of
Guthrie’s original recording here
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_FAMILIAR SENTIMENTS (1945)_

SEPTEMBER 2 IS THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY of two related events; off the
coast of Japan aboard the battleship USS Missouri, Japan’s Foreign
Minister and its military Chief of Staff ended World War 2 when they
signed the instrument of surrender. Almost simultaneously, more than
two thousand miles away in Hanoi, a crowd of nearly a half-million
listened to Ho Chi Minh proclaim the end of Vietnam’s occupation by
France and by Japan and the resulting independence of Vietnam. 

Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence starts like this:

 “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness. This immortal statement was made in the
Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776.
In a broader sense, this means: All the nations on the earth are equal
from birth, all the nations have the right to live, to be happy and
free.” [link removed]
[[link removed]]

For more People's History,
visit [link removed];

* Hollywood Blacklist
[[link removed]]
* Emmett Till
[[link removed]]
* Chicano Moratorium
[[link removed]]
* Bob Dylan
[[link removed]]
* Woody Guthrie
[[link removed]]
* Vietnam
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]