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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, SEP 2–8, 2026  
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_ The Minimum Wage Is Very Aptly Named (1961), What Does a
Non-violent Movement Do About Threats of Violence? (1966), If You
Haven’t Seen It, Now’s the Time (1966) _

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_THE MINIMUM WAGE IS VERY APTLY NAMED (1961)_

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, ON SEPTEMBER 2, 1961, the federally-mandated
minimum wage was increased from $1 an hour to $1.15. Doesn’t sound
like a lot of money, does it? 

But consider this: If the 1961 minimum wage, a measly buck-fifteen an
hour, had been automatically adjusted, just to keep pace with
inflation, today’s federal minimum wage would be $12.51. 

Which sure beats today’s federal minimum wage, $7.25, which has
remained the same for more than 17
years. [link removed]
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_WHAT DOES A NON-VIOLENT MOVEMENT DO ABOUT THREATS OF VIOLENCE?
(1966)_

_(The item below describes the resolution of the late-August tension
within the Chicago Freedom Movement, presented last week, over whether
peaceful demonstrators should defend themselves if violently
attacked.)_

SIXTY YEARS AGO, ON SEPTEMBER 4, 1966, some of the participants in
the summer-long coordinated actions of the Chicago Freedom Movement
planned to hold a march through the Chicago suburb of Cicero. 

In advance of the demonstration tensions were running high. One
anxiety-producing issue concerned the antagonism between the civil
rights activists and many of Cicero’s townspeople, because Cicero
was well-known to have a lily-white population in a metropolitan area
that was 25 percent people of color. Cicero was not only all-White,
but it was renowned as having a high concentration of outspoken
enemies of any effort to end the racial discrimination that prevented
people of color from living in Cicero, despite the Illinois law that
banned almost all race-based housing discrimination.

Several Chicago Freedom Movement demonstrations had been attacked
already that summer by mobs of bottle- and rock-throwing antagonists.
A number of people in Cicero were already threatening to oppose a
demonstration with force, so the potential for violence was clear.
Cicero and Chicago share a 6-mile-long border.

The planned demonstration was also a source of tension within the
Chicago Freedom Movement, because the physical attacks that had
occurred and the threats of future violence coming from Cicero had led
some of the civil rights activists to say that they would defend
themselves if attacked, which was a radical departure from the
commitment to nonviolence that was the creed of the largest
organizations of civil rights activists. 

The groups advocating self-defense were members of the Chicago chapter
of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Association of
Community Teams, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the
Oakland Committee for Community Improvement, and Deacons for Defense
and Justice. When asked to say how they would defend themselves, the
self-defense advocates declined to be specific.      

Faced with the potential for a major outbreak of politically-inspired
violence, the governor of Illinois mobilized hundreds of Illinois
State Police and 2,000 members of the Illinois National Guard in
addition to large numbers of police from Chicago and Cicero. During a
march that covered four miles in two hours, the Guard and police were
almost completely successful in minimizing violence by surrounding the
demonstrators with solid lines of both police and troops who
maintained a neutral zone many yards wide separating marchers from
onlookers. 

When onlookers attempted to break through the zone, most of them were
prevented from doing so by dense lines of officers. About a dozen of
the counter-demonstrators were wounded, none seriously, by National
Guard bayonets. At one point a Guard officer fired three warning shots
into the air, but no one was shot. Police arrested 32 of the
counter-demonstrators. None of the civil rights activists ever needed
to demonstrate what they intended to do to defend
themselves. [link removed]

 

_IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT, NOW’S THE TIME (1966)_

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SIXTY YEARS AGO, ON SEPTEMBER 8, 1966, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The
Battle of Algiers, an ultra-realistic dramatic presentation of the
events leading up to the Algerian people's victory over French
colonialism, premiered. 

If you’re interested in the fight against colonialism, or the
struggle against oppression, or having a profound cinematic
experience, you won’t be disappointed when you see
it. [link removed]

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

* Minimum Wage
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* Chicago Freedom Movement
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* strategic non-violence
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* Battle of Algiers
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