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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, MAY 20–26, 2026  
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_ JFK’s Profile in Cowardice (1961), Marvin Gaye’s Greatest Hit
(1971), George Washington, Frustrated Enslaver (1796), Can’t Repeal
an Anti-Racist Law? Then Just Try to Forget About It. (1951) Blacklist
Victim Lives to Laugh at Witchhunters (1956) _

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_JFK’S PROFILE IN COWARDICE (1961)_

MAY 20 IS THE 65TH ANNIVERSARY of what is known as one of President
John F. Kennedy’s profiles in cowardice. 

One day after mobs of Ku Klux Klan thugs and other racists viciously
attacked Freedom Riders in three Alabama cities–Birmingham,
Montgomery and Anniston–Kennedy issued this statement: “I would .
. . hope that any persons, whether a citizen of Alabama or a visitor
there, would refrain from any action which would in any way tend to
provoke further outbreaks.” In other words, it’s okay to legally
defy Jim Crow, but don’t do so in a way the Klan doesn’t like. 

By equating the blatantly criminal actions of Alabama racists with the
Freedom Riders’ non-violent, constitutionally protected, protest,
Kennedy earned well-deserved contempt from civil rights advocates. 

Freedom Ride leader James Farmer said “We’ve been cooling off for
350 years!” and Martin Luther King agreed, telling a mass meeting in
Montgomery "We've gone too far to turn back. Let us be calm, we are
together, we are not afraid, and we shall overcome."

The Freedom Riders ignored Kennedy’s advice and continued to risk
their lives until they succeeded in kicking Jim Crow off the bus, no
thanks to the President of the United
States. [link removed]

 

_MARVIN GAYE’S GREATEST HIT (1971)_

MAY 21 IS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY of Motown Records’ release of Marvin
Gaye’s album _What's Going On, _which _Rolling Stone_ magazine
rates as the greatest album of all time, a characterization that is
widely shared.

Gaye’s eloquent and melodious outrage against the war against
Vietnam (What’s Happening Brother), urban poverty and police
violence (Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)), and the
desecration of the natural world (Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) all
ring as true today as they did more than half a century
ago. [link removed] 

 

_GEORGE WASHINGTON, FRUSTRATED ENSLAVER (1796)_

MAY 23 IS THE 230TH ANNIVERSARY of President Washington taking out a
newspaper ad offering a $10 reward to anyone who would apprehend and
return to him a 20-year-old enslaved woman who had emancipated herself
from Washington’s household in Philadelphia (which was the location
of the U.S.capital then).

Washington made many attempts to reenslave Ona Judge, but he never
succeeded. She escaped to New Hampshire, where she lived for more that
50 years as a free woman, even though she was always in danger of
being arrested and forced back into slavery. For more information
about the self-emancipated Ona Judge and her frustrated enslaver,
visit [link removed]

 

_CAN’T REPEAL AN ANTI-RACIST LAW? THEN TRY TO JUST FORGET ABOUT IT.
(1951) _

MAY 24 IS THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY of a landmark legal victory over Jim
Crow that never should have been necessary.

In the early 1950s Washington, D.C., was a city that might as well
have been in the deep south as far as segregation was concerned. Only
a small minority of restaurants served both Black and White customers,
and Washington activists were trying to change that.

After lawyers associated with the progressive National Lawyers Guild
discovered that Washington had a Reconstruction Era law, passed in
1873, that required that restaurants serve “any well-behaved and
respectable person,” the Washington Coordinating Committee decided
to test it. 

When multiracial group of activists asked to be seated in Thompson’s
Restaurant and were refused service, they left, but later they
insisted that the city government prosecute the restaurant for
violating the law. The prosecution took place, but the trial judge
ruled that the law could not be enforced because it had “been
repealed by implication.”

Fortunately, on May 24, 1951, the D.C. Municipal Court of Appeals
ruled that laws could not be repealed by implication. That was not the
end of the case, which was eventually ended by the U.S. Supreme Court,
which ruled by a vote of 8-0 that D.C. restaurants were, indeed,
required to serve “any well-behaved and respectable
person.” [link removed]

 

_BLACKLIST VICTIM LIVES TO LAUGH AT WITCHHUNTERS (1956)_

MAY 26 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of the long-delayed abandonment of an
anti-communist witchhunt’s case against M.I.T. mathematics professor
Dirk Struik.

Struik was a world-renowned mathematician and expert on the history of
mathematics.  Among other accomplishments, he was a founder of the
Marxist scholarly journal Science & Society. 

After teaching mathematics at M.I.T. for 25 years, he was subpoenaed
by the House Un-American Activities Committee. When the committee
demanded to know whether Struik had ever been a member of the
Communist Party, Struik refused to answer, citing his Fifth Amendment
right to avoid possible self-incrimination.

Six weeks later, a Boston grand jury indicted Struik on the charge of
violating a Massachusetts law against “conspiracy to overthrow the
governments of the United States and Massachusetts, and for advocating
the overthrow by violence of the government of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts,”  

Struik pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. Later that day,
M.I.T. suspended Struik from his professorship. At the same time
M.I.T. agreed to keep him on the payroll because there was no known
evidence he had ever done anything other than asserting his
constitutional right against possible self-incrimination.

For more than four years the state of Massachusetts neglected to put
Struik on trial. Then in an unrelated case, in 1956 the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that a Pennsylvania law against sedition was invalid,
because it criminalized exactly the same conduct that would violate
the federal McCarran Act.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court took note and ruled the Massachusetts
law was invalid for the same reason. When the 54-month-old indictment
of Struik was dismissed, Struik said it was "good news for the forces
of sanity in this country." 

M.I.T. quickly restored Struik to his post, but he taught for only
three years before he turned 65, which was M.I.T.’s mandatory
retirement age. 

Before he died 41 years later at age 106, Struik said,
“Mathematicians grow very old; it is a healthy profession. The
reason you live long is that you have pleasant
thoughts.” [link removed]

For more People's History,
visithttps://www.facebook.com/jonathan.bennett.7771/

* Freedom Rides
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* Marvin Gaye
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* civil rights movement
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* McCarthyism
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