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Off the shelves and onto the Internet!
Our images are housed on Flickr and can be accessed it a number of different ways: Albums (images that are related or of the same event), Camera Roll (in the order of the date of the image), Photostream (in order of the date the image was uploaded), and by using the search feature at the top of the Flickr page.
Mayday, May 3, 1971
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Anarchism
Emma Goldman was one of two prominent American women anarchists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The other was Lucy Parsons, the widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons. Goldman achieved fame as a labor activist, plotting to kill Homestead Steel owner William Frick, as a feminist and opponent of American participation into World War I. She was deported to the Soviet Union, but became an opponent of the Communist Party there and left for Western Europe in 1921. She later aided anarchists in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and died shortly after their defeat.
Hoffman was active in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s and with early anti-Vietnam War efforts. He gained attention when went with a group of supporters to the New York Stock Exchange and threw a mixture of real and fake dollar bills down to the traders below. Many booed while others scrambled to try to grab the money. Hoffman claimed that the protest was designed to expose what the traders were already doing: grabbing money.
At the massive march on the Pentagon in October 1967, Hoffman and Alan Ginsberg led a group to try to “levitate” the Pentagon. Hoffman and his often cohort Jerry Rubin helped hone the tactic of using stunts to garner publicity for his causes.
He was one of the Chicago 8 defendants charged with crossing state lines to incite to riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Convictions of the defendants, including contempt of court charges, were ultimately voided on appeal.
Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson was a former regional secretary of the Students for Democratic Society in Washington, D.C. who oversaw the development of chapters through the region. Rising through the ranks in SDS, she became editor of New Left Notes and in 1968 moved to Washington, D.C. working out of a rented office at 3 Thomas Circle NW, a building that housed a number of other radical organizations.
While in Washington, she was arrested during the takeover of the Sino-Soviet Institute at George Washington University and was a regular fixture at SDS meetings throughout the area, including those at the University of Maryland.
When SDS broke up into different factions in 1969, Wilkerson went with the Weatherman (later Weather Underground) group. She was indicted for the group’s activities during the 1969 Days of Rage in Chicago and went underground shortly after.
She has been alleged to have participated in a number of protest bombings of federal and corporate buildings during the group’s decade-long existence, including the bombing at the U.S. Capitol, Pentagon and State Department. Three people were killed at her father’s townhouse in an explosion in 1970 who were all members of the Weather Underground. They apparently died when a bomb they were preparing exploded prematurely. Wilkerson was reported to survived the explosion and fled the townhouse. They were the only deaths in the group’s long bombing campaign. Wilkerson received a three-year prison sentence of which she served 11 months.
Jerry Rubin was a prominent Yippie activist of the 1960s. Rubin gained increased fame when he was indicated as one of the Chicago 7/8; charged with conspiracy to riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
When called before a HUAC hearing that once ruined careers in the 1950s, Rubin and other activists in the 1960s were openly contemptuous of the hearings and often looked upon a subpoena to appear before the committee as a badge of honor.
Rubin was an early opponent of the Vietnam War, running for mayor of Berkeley on an antiwar platform and helping organize the influential Vietnam Day Committee that attempted to stop troop trains. Later helping to organize the antiwar 1967 March on the Pentagon and 1968 demonstrations at the Democratic Convention, Rubin was indicted as one of the Chicago 8 defendants whose trial transfixed the country. Later their convictions for conspiracy and contempt were overturned.
Perhaps most famously, as a prominent “Yippie” along with Abbie Hoffman, he helped hone the tactic of using stunts to garner publicity for his causes.
Sacco and Vanzetti were two immigrant Italian anarchists who were executed in 1927. Prior to their arrest in 1920, the two men were not prominent in anarchist circles in the United States.
The Galleanists, as they were known waged a bombing campaign starting in 1916 including an attempted mail bombings to 36 prominent industrialists, judges and polticians in April 1919, though none were killed.
Following this up in June, eight more powerful bombs went off eight U.S. cities, including at the home of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in Washington, D.C. Palmer used the bombings as an excuse to round up left wing activists, the overwhelming majority not linked to any crime, and deport them in the first red scare in 1919.
Against this backdrop, a robbery occurred at the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company factory in Braintree, Ma. Where two security guards were killed. Another attempted robbery occurred in nearby Bridgewater. Police speculated that anarchists conducted the robbery to finance their activities.
Sacco and Vanzetti were soon arrested on circumstantial evidence, while other alleged accomplices escaped.
The men were quickly convicted together on thin evidence for the robbery and attempted robbery that took place in two separate trial in 1920 and 1921. Support for the two built in the ensuing years until mass demonstrations were held urging freedom for the men in every major U.S. city and many around the world.
At their sentencing, Vanzetti said:[
“I would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth, I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I am an Italian and indeed I am an Italian…if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already.”
The two men were executed August 22, 1927.
D.C. Weather bombings: 1971-75
The Weather Underground Organization (originally Weathermen) was a Vietnam War era organization that waged a series of bombings against corporate and government targets in the early 1970s.
In Washington, D.C. the targets included the May 1, 1971 (International Workers Day) attack on the Capitol building where a bomb was placed in a restroom in protest of the U.S. invasion of Laos. On May 19, 1972 a bomb went off in the Pentagon in celebration of deceased Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. On January 29, 1975, the Weather Underground claimed responsibility for a bomb at the U.S. State Department in protest of the country continued support for regimes in South Vietnam and Cambodia.
The group had its origins in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the group was founded following the breakup of SDS in 1969. The former Washington, D.C. regional SDS secretary Cathy Wilkerson was a prominent member of the group.
It could be characterized as an anarchist movement that took militant action to oppose attempts to suppress the black liberation movement in the U.S. and Third World liberation movements. The bombings were not intended to kill and warnings were given before the bombs went off. Three members of the group were killed in a New York townhouse while assembling bombs in 1970.
The group had small, but significant support, that enabled many of its members to be undetected by the FBI and police departments.
As support for the group dwindled in the mid 1970s, the group disbanded, although some of its members went on to help form other groups that continued bombings and bank robberies. Other members of the group turned themselves into police in return for reduced jail time on outstanding charges.
“Big” Bill Haywood was a founder of the IWW and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party. He was an advocate of industrial unionism as opposed to craft unionism and advocated the overthrow of capitalism.
Violent confrontations between mine owners hired guns and union members occurred throughout the West. Haywood and other union members were charged with the murder of Idaho Gov. Frank Steunenberg, but were acquitted in the midst of nationwide publicity of the case.
Haywood also played a leading role in the Lawrence and Patterson Textile strikes of 1912-13 and opposed the U.S. entry into World War I. He was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for his war opposition and fled to the Soviet Union while the case was on appeal.
Haywood lived in the Soviet Union until his death in 1928. Half his ashes are buried in the Kremlin wall while an urn containing the rest of his ashes is buried near the Haymarket Martyrs Monument in Chicago.
The First Red Scare was a period in the United States from 1919-25 marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism by industrial and political figures, based on real and imagined events.
Real events included those such as the Russian Revolution of 1917 and a widespread bombing campaign by followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galliani.
After World War I, the five-day Seattle General Strike and the anarchist bombing campaign of April and June 1919 that included severely damaging the home of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer set off the initial wave of arrests and repression.
Later in the year the 1919 steel strike led by communist William Z. Foster and the 1919 Coal strike led by John L. Lewis that included local communist leaders of the United Mine Workers caused more fear.
Stoking these fears was the Boston police strike of 1919 causing industrialists and political leaders to fear that they would have no protection against insurrection.Fear of radicalism was used to explain the suppression of freedom of expression in form of display of certain flags and banners. The First Red Scare effectively ended in mid-1920, after Attorney General Palmer forecast a massive radical uprising on May Day and the day passed without incident.
Palmer launched a campaign directed at immigrants and quickly deported nearly 200, most of whom were members of the Union of Russian Workers. Legislation banning marching with red flags was passed in jurisdictions around the country and in 1920 the five socialist members of the New York Assembly were expelled for their political beliefs.
Palmer and rising Justice Department star J. Edgar Hoover continued to beat the drums of the red scare, arresting hundreds and seizing radical publications, but the wind began going out of their sails when predictions of May Day riots never occurred.
Antiwar
(See Vietnam War for Indochina conflict)
Amnesty for Political Prisoners: 1918-23
Images of a campaign to free those who spoke out against World War I or the draft and were imprisoned for sedition or espionage as a result.
The U.S. First Amendment protecting free speech was abandoned during World War I as several thousand people were arrested for speaking out against the war or conscription into the armed forces and these jailings in turn spurred an amnesty movement.
U.S. involvement in the war only lasted from April 2, 1917 until the armistice in November 1918.
An amnesty movement for all war resisters gained strength, particularly after the war was ended and after President Woodrow Wilson left office in January 1921.
Among the most famous of these prisoners was Eugene Debs, the longtime labor and Socialist Party leader who ran for President from his jail cell, who was serving a 10-year sentence for sedition for a speech against the war. Debs had his sentenced commuted in December 1921 by President Warren Harding Some 17 other prisoners also had their sentences commuted by Harding at that time.
The movement for amnesty began to gain steam as dozens of others remained imprisoned.
In August, Harding issued a statement refusing general amnesty, but committing to an expedited case-by-case review of anti-war prisoners. In December 1922, Harding issued another series of pardons and commutations, but many contained conditions of deportation and loss of citizenship.
In December 1923, President Calvin Coolidge commuted the sentences of all prisoners who had been convicted for opposing the government and Selective Service during World War I. By this point that commutation affected only 31 prisoners.
In March 1924, Coolidge restored the citizenship to those who had been convicted of desertion between the time of the Armistice of November 1918 and the war’s official end by the U.S. in 1921.
Coolidge’s successor Herbert Hoover refused to pardon or commute the sentences of any remaining prisoners or restore former prisoners citizenship in a 1929 letter to social activist Jane Adams, saying that any such decision would result in “acrimonious discussion” within the country.
It wouldn’t be until 1933 when President Franklin Roosevelt, 15 years after the end of fighting, issued a proclamation restoring civil rights to about 1,500 war resisters. The proclamation applied only to those convicted of violating the draft and espionage acts. There was no reduction in prison sentences, however, because all had already been released by that time and no restoration of rights for those convicted under the Sedition Act.
After a nationwide campaign involving petitions and resolutions, Debs’ citizenship was restored posthumously in 1976.
Rev. Daniel Berrigan was a prominent Catholic anti-Vietnam war critic who organized an antiwar group, took part in and spoke at numerous antiwar rallies, traveled to Hanoi to gain the release of three U.S. airmen, and joined in the Catonsville Nine burning of draft records to draw attention to opposition to the Vietnam War.
The Catonsville Nine were an early manifestation of what became known as the “hit and stay” movement where activists would damage or destroy military related records and then stay and await arrest, using their trials as a platform for their views.
Berrigan went into hiding after his conviction and lived more than one year underground, repeatedly popping up to speak at church services and antiwar events and embarrassing the FBI. He was finally captured by the FBI in Aug. 1970 and was imprisoned until Feb. 1972.
The New York Times wrote in his 2016 obituary that, “In retrospect, the trial of the Catonsville Nine was significant, because it "altered resistance to the Vietnam War, moving activists from street protests to repeated acts of civil disobedience, including the burning of draft cards."
After the Vietnam War ended, Berrigan joined his brother Phillip and others in establishing the Plowshares Movement that employed similar tactics to the “hit and stay” movement, but focused on nuclear weapons. He was also jailed for those activities.
Although much of his later work was devoted to assisting AIDS patients in New York City, Berrigan still held to his activist roots throughout his life.
He maintained his opposition to American interventions abroad, from Central America in the 1980s, through the Gulf War in 1991, the Kosovo War, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was also an opponent of capital punishment, a contributing editor of Sojourners, and a supporter of the Occupy movement.
Rev. Phillip Berrigan, a prominent advocate of peace, was a founder of the “hit and stay” movement where antiwar activists would destroy Vietnam War-related documents and await arrest—using their arrest, trial and incarceration to publicize the cause.
Berrigan first poured human and animal blood on draft records at the Baltimore draft board at the Customs House October 27, 1967.
Three others participated in the action with him were artist Tom Lewis, writer David Eberhardt and the Rev. James L. Mengel III, a U.S. Air Force veteran and United Church of Christ pastor.
The men became known as the Baltimore 4.
All the defendants were convicted with Berrigan, Lewis and Eberhardt drawing jail time. Berrigan was sentenced to six years in prison.
While out on bail in 1968, he participated in a similar raid on the Catonsville, Md. draft board in a similar action that was known as the Catonsville 9. He was arrested and sentenced to jail for three years along with eight other predominantly Catholic activists.
He was later charged with seven others with conspiring to kidnap national security advisor Henry Kissinger and blow up government buildings. One of defendants had his trial severed from the others when he insisted on acting as his own attorney.
The trial of the seven remaining defendants resulted in a hung jury on the major charges and the case was not re-tried by the government.
Berrigan, while in prison, married Sister Elizabeth McAlister by consent in 1969l. They later formalized their marriage and were ex-communicated by the Catholic church.
Berrigan started the Plowshares Movement when he and nine others entered a General Electric factory and hammered on two reentry vehicles, poured blood on documents, and offered prayers for peace.
He again participated in a Plowshares Movement action when he and a group of other protesters hammered on A-10 warplanes.
He received jail time for both actions. All his prison time over his career amounted to about 11 years of his life for non-violent civil disobedience.
Phillip Berrigan died in 2002.
Dagmar Wilson founded Women’s Strike for Peace in 1961 at the height of the Cold War calling for end to atmospheric nuclear testing and an end to nuclear weapons.Wilson organized women in 60 cities who turned out over 50,000 people nationwide in their first action in 1961.The protest struck a chord in the throughout the U.S.
Two years later a partial test ban treaty was signed by the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain—three of the four nuclear powers at that time. France has never signed the treaty. The treaty banned atmospheric testing but permitted underground testing.
Wilson’s group organized many subsequent demonstrations. Wilson and Women’s Strike for Peace were equally active during the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Upon Wilson’s death in 2011, the New York Times wrote:
“Ms. Wilson, an artist and illustrator of children’s books, had never been an activist but had long been worried about nuclear fallout. Women, she decided, should strike — take time from their jobs and homemaking for the cause of peace.”
“’I decided that there are some things the individual citizen can do,” she told The New York Times in 1962. ‘At least we can make some noise and see. If we are going to have to go under, I don’t want to have to go under without a shout.’”
Dagmar Wilson founded Women’s Strike for Peace in 1961 at the height of the Cold War calling for end to atmospheric nuclear testing and an end to nuclear weapons.Wilson organized women in 60 cities who turned out over 50,000 people nationwide in their first action in 1961.The protest struck a chord in the throughout the U.S.
Two years later a partial test ban treaty was signed by the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain—three of the four nuclear powers at that time. France has never signed the treaty. The treaty banned atmospheric testing but permitted underground testing.
Wilson’s group organized many subsequent demonstrations. Wilson and Women’s Strike for Peace were equally active during the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Protest against the Korean War was initially scattered and mainly confined to communists and their allies and advocates of non-violence. Some traditional opponents such isolationist Republicans and Socialist Norman Thomas supported the intervention.
However, the growing threat of atomic warfare initiated a widespread movement to halt the use of nuclear weapons. As U.S. casualties mounted, so did opposition to the war. Dwight Eisenhower campaigned in the 1952 election saying he would end the war.
One of the unusual features of the war were the prisoners of war who defected to the communist-led forces. Six Americans defected to the North and 21 prisoners refused repatriation. Many were African Americans seeking to flee discrimination in the Armed Forces and Jim Crow back home.
U.S. casualties totaled 36,914.
The hit and stay movement primarily involved non violent destruction of government or corporate offices that contributed to the war effort in Vietnam.
Activists, mainly led by left leaning Catholic priests, would enter buildings and destroy records, sometimes symbolically pouring human blood on the equipment, files and furniture.
After performing these acts, the participants would remain on site and await arrest. They would then attempt to use their trials to bring attention to injustices.
Phillip and Daniel Berrigan were the informal leading activists of this movement, but it spread across the country.
Garry Davis was an international peace activist best known for renouncing his United States citizenship and interrupting the United Nations in 1948 to advocate for world government as a way to end nationalistic wars.
Opposition to the U.S. led coalition that waged war against Iraq in 1991. The U.S. invasion began after a dispute between Kuwait and Iraq resulted Iraqi troops occupying Kuwait.
The heyday of the Student Peace Union (SPU) was between 1959 and 1963 when a nuclear test ban treaty was signed between the Soviet Union and the U.S. The SPU led numerous campus meetings, rallies and demonstrations against nuclear testing during that period.
The group spearheaded national demonstrations in Washington, D.C. in November 1961. A second “Washington Action” drew 5,000 to the city in February 1962 in a protest sponsored by Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), A tiny Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the SPU.
In October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the group spearheaded a demonstration of about 2,000 students in Washington, D.C. against the burgeoning confrontation that appeared to be leading to nuclear war.
During its peak in 1963, the group had about 3,500 members on dozens of campuses nationwide.
Its brief existence on the activism stage was marked by its spearheading campus activism against nuclear testing and nuclear war and for popularizing in the U.S. the peace symbol:
Eugene Debs, the inspirational labor and socialist leader of the late 19th and early 20th centuries visited Washington, D.C. several times during his life, including making several speeches in March 1898.
However his most famous visit occurred after his Christmas Day 1921 release from the Atlanta Penitentiary after U.S. President Warren Harding commuted his sentence, along with 23 others—most of them, like Debs, opponents of World War I.
Debs led the Pullman strike in 1894 where workers at the Pullman plant picketed railroad facilities that used Pullman railroad cars, causing a strike of over 250,000 workers and a halt to many rail lines west of Detroit.
To keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. Thirteen strikers were killed and thousands blacklisted.
As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison. The right of the government to use the injunction was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
He later helped found the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
He ran five times for U.S. president, receiving nearly a million votes in 1912 and 1920. In the latter election, he ran for the office from a prison cell.
Debs was opposed to U.S. workers fighting for the capitalist class in World War I and made a speech against the war in Canton, Ohio in 1918. He was charged with ten counts of sedition, convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
After his appeals were exhausted, he began serving his sentence April 13, 1919. More than one million signed a petition calling for Debs release. However, President Woodrow Wilson denied appeals for clemency saying at one point, “This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration.”
When Warren Harding succeeded Wilson, more appeals for clemency began in earnest. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty invited Debs to Washington in March 1921 and undertook an evaluation of Debs status. Debs then returned to prison.
On Christmas Day 1921, Debs sentenced was commuted. When he left the Atlanta Penitentiary, he was sent off with the cheers of 2,300 inmates. The warden provided him with a first class train ticket to Washington, D.C. (instead of to his home or to his place of sentence which is customary).
“I was courteously received by the Attorney General,” Debs said, “and expressed to him my interest in and my devotion to my fellow prisoners who were no more guilty than I and who still remain in prison.”
At the White House, he was received by President Harding and met with the president for about 30 minutes.
“At the White House I was received very cordially by President Harding, with whom I exchanged opinions and points of view, so that he might perfectly understand my attitude in reference to my future activities. During the visit I took occasion to express my appreciation of the consideration.”
Before leaving Washington, D.C. Debs held an unauthorized rally with several hundred supporters in Union Station where he said in part, “I believe in free speech. In the expression of these differing opinions we find our way to higher civilization.”
“With every drop of blood in my veins,” he concluded, “I am opposed to war. Human life is too sacred a thing to be spent in bloodshed.”
Many US citizens opposed the entry of the U.S. into World War I, though Congress ended up voting overwhelmingly in favor of declaring war against Germany. Demonstrations were held against U.S. entry into the war and later the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) led opposition during the war that resulted in the jailing of many including Socialist Party leader and presidential candidate Eugene Debs.
Images of women’s protests, demonstrations, rallies against war–Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Women’s Strike for Peace, Jeanette Rankin Brigade, Coretta Scott King, Mayday and more.
The first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives was a pacifist, suffragette and crusader for social justice.
She was elected to two terms–in 1916 and again in 1940. She voted against the U.S. entry into both World War I and World War II, becoming the only U.S. elected official to do so.
Women’s International League: 1915-90
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and its activities in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
Protests against compulsory Reserve Officer Training Corps service on college campus were widespread for many years.
The requirement was originally part of the 1862 Morrill Act that established land grant colleges
Over the years, the requirement was challenged and the courts imposed limitations. Eventually the federal requirement was lifted and many colleges and universities across the country during the 1960s and early 1970s dropped the requirement. Some ended the program altogether.
Resistance to compulsory military service began gathering momentum after the end of World War II and culminated during the Vietnam War–leading to the establishment of an all-volunteer U.S. military in July 1973.
The American Youth Congress was an organization that focused on issues affecting young people and by 1939 had over 4.5 million members across the country.
Among the issues taken up by the AYC were draft opposition, jobs and training for youth and equality among different races and nationalities. It opposed mandatory ROTC training on campuses and lobbied for more funding for education.
However, the group was accused by U.S. Rep. Martin Dies, chair of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as having communist leadership in 1939 and support for the organization began to decline.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attempted to bolster the group in 1940 by inviting some of the group to a picnic on the White House lawn where they were addressed by President Franklin Roosevelt.
But the AYC continued to decline and the group disbanded in 1941.
The American Peace Mobilization staged a continuous picket line in front of the White House during May and June of 1941 urging the U.S. to stay out of the European war.
The pickets ended on June 21, 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
Protests against nuclear testing. US & Soviet tests had caused radioactive levels to rise throughout the world during the 1950s and early 1960s. A series of test ban treaties and reduction of nuclear weapons treaties followed.
It seemed surreal. A group of well-known Catholic activists committed to non-violence charged with conspiracy to raid federal offices, blow up government buildings and kidnap National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger using Washington D.C.’s heating tunnels to carry out the plot.
The seven charged were primarily composed of Catholic non-violent direct action activists: Phillip Berrigan, Sister Elizabeth MacAlister, Rev. Neil McLaughlin, Rev. Joseph Wenderoth, Anthony Scoblick, Mary Cain Scoblick along with Eqbal Ahmad—a Pakistani journalist and political scientist.
The trial sparked a nationwide defense effort that included a rally in Harrisburg that drew upwards of 20,000 people to support the seven.
Father Berrigan was serving time in the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, in central Pennsylvania at the time of the alleged conspiracy.
Boyd Douglas, who eventually would become an FBI informant and star prosecution witness – was a fellow inmate. Douglas was on a work-release at the library at nearby Bucknell University.
Douglas used his real connection with Berrigan to convince some students at Bucknell that he was an anti-war activist, telling some that he was serving time for anti-war activities. In fact, he was in prison for check forgery. In the course of the investigation the government resorted to unauthorized and illegal wiretapping.
Douglas set up a mail drop and persuaded students to transcribe letters intended for Berrigan into his school notebooks to smuggle into the prison. (They were later called, unwillingly, as government witnesses.)
Librarian Zoia Horn was jailed for nearly three weeks for refusing to testify for the prosecution on the grounds that her forced testimony would threaten intellectual and academic freedom. She was the first United States librarian to be jailed for refusing to share information as a matter of conscience.
U.S. attorneys obtained an indictment charging the Harrisburg Seven with conspiracy to kidnap Kissinger and to bomb steam tunnels. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark led the defense team for their trial during the spring months of 1972. Clark used a then relatively untested theory of scientific jury selection—the use of demographic factors to identify unfavorable jurors.
Unconventionally, he didn’t call any witnesses in his clients’ defense, including the defendants themselves. He reasoned that the jury was sympathetic to his Catholic clients and that that sympathy would be ruined by their testimony that they’d burned their draft cards. After nearly 60 hours of deliberations, the jury remained hung and the defendants were freed.
Douglas testified that he transmitted transcribed letters between the defendants, which the prosecution used as evidence of a conspiracy among them. Several of Douglas’ former girlfriends testified at the trial that he acted not just as an informer, but also as a catalyst and agent provocateur for the group’s plans.
There were minor convictions for a few of the defendants, based on smuggling mail into the prison; most of those were overturned on appeal.
Civil Liberties
Washington Area Spark FBI file – 1973-74
The Washington Area Spark and its successor publication was a left-wing newspaper 1971-75 that began as an alternative student newspaper at Montgomery College and went through a number of iterations that eventually morphed into a workers’ newspaper.
It seemingly came under surveillance by the FBI from 1972-75 and Bureau agents (relying mainly on informants) developed a file that contained a mixture of facts, untruths, speculation, mis-analysis and an astounding failure to collect readily available information on the newspaper.
At least two informants to the FBI were identified by activists. Other informants appear to be mainly landlords, postal employees, employers and other people contacted by the Bureau.
Amnesty for Political Prisoners – 1918-23
Images of a campaign to free those who spoke out against World War I or the draft and were imprisoned for sedition or espionage as a result.
Under the 1917 Espionage Act and the Sedition Act of 1918, speech against the draft or the war was criminalized.
The U.S. First Amendment protecting free speech was abandoned during World War I as several thousand people were arrested for speaking out against the war or conscription into the armed forces and these jailings in turn spurred an amnesty movement.
Left wing socialists, anarchists and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) denounced the war as an imperialist squabble between the wealthy of different nations over how to divide up the world. Quakers and other pacifists opposed the war on moral grounds
U.S. involvement in the war only lasted from April 2, 1917 until the armistice in November 1918.
An amnesty movement for all war resisters gained strength, particularly after the war was ended and after President Woodrow Wilson left office in January 1921.
Around 300,000 American men evaded or refused conscription in World War I. Immigrants, including naturalized citizens such as leading anarchist Emma Goldman, were deported, while native-born citizens, including Socialist Party leader and presidential candidate Eugene Debs, were jailed and/or lost their citizenship for their activities.
The Sedition Act was repealed in 1921, but the Espionage Act remained, though U.S. Supreme Court decisions since then have substantially, but not explicitly, gutted the provisions used to squelch dissent.
Debs, serving a 10-year sentence for sedition for his speech, had his sentenced commuted in December 1921 by President Warren Harding who had succeeded Wilson that year. Some 17 other prisoners also had their sentences commuted by Harding at that time.
The movement for amnesty began to gain steam as dozens of others remained imprisoned.
In August 1922, Harding issued a statement refusing general amnesty, but committing to an expedited case-by-case review of anti-war prisoners.
In December 1922, Harding issued another series of pardons and commutations, but many contained conditions of deportation and loss of citizenship.
In December 1923, President Calvin Coolidge commuted the sentences of all prisoners who had been convicted for opposing the government and Selective Service during World War I. By this point that commutation affected only 31 prisoners.
In March 1924, Coolidge restored the citizenship to those who had been convicted of desertion between the time of the Armistice of November 1918 and the war’s official end by the U.S. in 1921.
It wouldn’t be until 1933 when President Franklin Roosevelt, 15 years after the end of fighting, issued a proclamation restoring civil rights to about 1,500 war resisters. The proclamation applied only to those convicted of violating the draft and espionage acts. There was no reduction in prison sentences, however, because all had already been released by that time and no restoration of rights for those convicted under the Sedition Act.
After a nationwide campaign involving petitions and resolutions, Debs’ citizenship was restored posthumously in 1976.
Civil Rights Congress: 1940-46
The Civil Rights Congress was formed in 1946 out of a merger of the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties and the National Negro Congress.
It led campaigns against white supremacy in the Rosa Lee Ingram, Martinsville 7, Willie McGee and Trenton 6 cases. It also fought for anti-lynching legislation and for a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission. The CRC also fought against restriction of first amendment rights directed against the Communist Party.
It was the object of an attack by the federal government that listed it as a subversive organization in 1947 and jailed many of its leaders. The cost of defending their leadership essentially bankrupted the organization along with a decrease in donations from liberals during the McCarthy era.
The organization disbanded in 1956.
The Washington Committee for Democratic Action was the local affiliate of the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, an organization that existed from 1940-46 before merging with the International labor Defense and the National Negro Congress to form the Civil Rights Congress.
The Washington Committee for Democratic Action focused on civil liberties, civil rights for black Americans and other minorities and civil and voting rights within the District of Columbia.
In 1947 the Civil Rights Congress, along with the predecessor organizations, was listed as subversive by U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark.
George E. C. Hayes was the lead attorney in several high profile cases including representing Annie Lee Moss at a McCarthy hearing in 1954. McCarthy’s questioning of Moss damaged his reputation and helped lead to his eventual downfall.
Hayes was also the lead attorney on the Bolling vs. Sharpe case that led to the desegregation of District of Columbia schools in 1954. He was co-counsel for Marie Richardson during her loyalty oath trial.
Hayes also served on the D.C. Public Service Commission.
Freedom House was a short-lived safe spot for predominantly white suburban teens, including runaways at 4927 Cordell Avenue in Bethesda, Md for a six-month period in 1968-69.
It was run by Compeers, a social action group made up of former Peace Corps and VISTA volunteers and headed by activist J. Brinton Dillingham, then 25 years old.
Initially, the Montgomery County Student Alliance with chapters in 18 high schools and over 1,000 members set up its headquarters at Freedom House.
But Freedom House quickly ran afoul of police who waged an ongoing campaign of harassment against the young people who gathered there that included raids and arrests.
What was Freedom House’s legacy?
Norman Solomon, the head of the Montgomery County Student Alliance, later wrote:
“Freedom House was a shack…but draped in dignity–blankets over the windows, a record player cajoled form the trunk of a [U.S.] Senator’s daughter, humble pictures on the wall: Ho Chi Minh, Eldridge Cleaver, Welcome here, Jefferson Airplane.”
Another young person, Vaille Walders, described Freedom House during its existence to the Washington Post, “A lot of people are unhappy at home and Freedom House is a nice place to go to get away, spend the night maybe. It’s not really running away—more like getting out of the home scene for a while.”
Annie Lee Moss was a communications clerk in the US Army Signal Corps in the Pentagon and accused member of the American Communist Party.
She was suspended from her job when she came to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s attention in his role as the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
McCarthy called her before the committee March 11, 1954 where she testified credibly that she was not a communist. The highly publicized case was damaging to McCarthy’s popularity and influence.
The hearing was recorded and later shown on the national television show See It Now.
Moss came across as a badgered witness testifying truthfully while committee counsel Roy Cohn came across as mean and vindictive toward a woman who performed routine tasks of a non-secure nature and seemed confused about what Cohn was talking about.
The public reaction toward the hearing helped turn the tide against McCarthy who had made a career out of fear-mongering, unsubstantiated accusations and public shaming of those that disagreed with his crusade against communists.
Moss had been suspended from her position when McCarthy announced his interest in the case. In January 1955 she was rehired to a non-sensitive position in the army’s finance and accounts office, and she remained an army clerk until her retirement in 1975.
She died in 1996, aged 90.
Clifford Durr and Virginia Foster Durr would become civil rights icons in the South in the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s and would also be hounded by right-wing political figures.
In 1938, Virginia was one of the founding members of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW), an interracial group working to reduce segregation and improve living conditions in the South.
Virginia rose to head the civil rights commission of SCHW by 1941 working primarily on a campaign to abolish the poll tax.
Durr resigned from the FCC in 1948 after dissenting from its adoption of a loyalty oath demanded by the Truman administration. Although Durr did not know it, the FBI had already put him under surveillance in 1942 because he had defended a colleague accused of left-wing political associations.
Virginia ran for the U.S. Senate from Virginia on the Progressive ticket in 1948.
His wife’s vigorous support for racial equality and voting rights for blacks and their friendship with Jessica Mitford, a member of the Communist Party, made both of them even more suspect. The FBI stepped up its interest in Clifford in 1949, when he joined the National Lawyers Guild. He subsequently became the President of the Guild.
Clifford opened a law practice in Washington, D.C. after leaving the FCC. He was one of the few lawyers willing to represent federal employees who had lost their jobs as a result of the loyalty oath program; he took many of their cases without charging them a fee.
The Durrs moved to Colorado so he could work for the National Farmers Union when it became evident that he could not make a living defending those accused of disloyalty.
However his Virginia’s political activities, as a member of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare and the National Committee for the Abolition of the Poll Tax, her past membership in the Progressive Party (including her campaign for governor of Virginia in 1948) and his own political activities caused him to lose that position as well.
The Durrs then returned to Montgomery, Alabama in the hope of returning to a more prosperous, less controversial life. However, Senator James Eastland of Mississippi soon subpoenaed Clifford Durr and his associate Aubrey Williams to a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security investigating the Highlander Folk School, with which both Durrs and Williams had been associated.
It was at this hearing where Clifford was surprisingly permitted to cross-examine former communist Paul Crouch and attempted to throw a punch when Crouch told one of his fanciful stories about Virginia. Clifford largely discredited Crouch during his cross examination.
Clifford’s health and law practice suffered, as he lost most of his white clients while the FBI increased its surveillance of him and those around him.
Clifford continued to practice in Montgomery as counsel, along with a local attorney Fred Gray, for black citizens whose rights had been violated.
At the same time Virginia befriended Rosa Parks who worked for the Durrs doing occasional seamstress work.
Myles Horton, a close friend of Durr, a co-founder of the Higherland Folk school asked Virginia to recommend a black person to attend workshops at the school–the purpose of which was to spark implementation of the recent Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Virginia arranged a full scholarship for Rosa Parks to go to the school in Tennessee.
Clifford and Gray were prepared to appeal the conviction of Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old African-American woman charged with violating Montgomery’s bus segregation laws in March, 1955.
However, they elected not to do so when E.D. Nixon, later of the Montgomery Improvement Association, and other black activists decided that hers was not the case to use to challenge the law.
However in December, 1955 when police arrested Rosa Parks for refusing to give her seat to a white man, Durr acted. Durr called the jail when authorities refused to tell Nixon what the charges against Parks were and he and Virginia accompanied Nixon to the jail when Nixon bailed her out.
Nixon and Clifford then went to the Parks’ home to discuss whether she was prepared to fight the charges against her. Clifford Durr and Gray represented Parks in her criminal appeals in state court, while Gray took on the federal court litigation challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance.
Clifford continued to represent activists in the Civil Rights Movement, supported by financial support from friends and philanthropists outside the South.
Virginia supported the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers by housing and taking care of many volunteers who came to Montgomery to work on voter registration issues.
Both Clifford and Virginia supported the Voting Rights Act, as well as provided legal advice to many blacks facing jail time and lawsuits despite the criticism they received from their white colleagues.
They supported the sit-in movement and Freedom Riders. Virginia and her husband offered sleeping space to students coming from the North to protest.
Clifford eventually closed his firm in 1964. He lectured in the United States and abroad after his retirement. He died at his grandfather’s farm in 1975.
Virginia Durr continued to write and speak about political issues and remained active in state and local politics until she was in her nineties.
Virginia Foster Durr died in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on February 24, 1999, at the age of 95.
William Worthy was an activist reporter for the Baltimore and Washington Afro American newspapers.
Worthy traveled to the People’s Republic of China in 1957 in violation of a US State Department ban on travel to the country. Worthy became the first American reporter to visit the country where he interviewed Samuel Hawkins, an African American soldier who was captured in Korea and defected to China in 1953.
Worthy’s passport was seized upon his return to the U.S. and with attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Boudin representing him, a lawsuit to regain the return of the passport was unsuccessful.
Unbowed, Worthy traveled to Cuba in 1961 in the early days of Fidel Castro’s revolution without a passport where he reported on conditions in Cuba. He was arrested upon his return and convicted of traveling without a U.S. passport. This time Kunstler was successful upon appeal when a U.S. Court of Appeals found the U.S. could not make it a crime to return home without a passport.
He worked for the Afro American on and off from 1953-1980. Later he was a professor at Boston University, U. Mass Boston and Howard University.
Worthy joined a long line of Baltimore Afro-American reporters who blended their journalism with activism including Ralph Matthews, John H. Murphy Sr., Carl J. Murphy, and Clarence Mitchell, Jr.
Worth was a conscientious objector during World War II and as early as 1953 an opponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
He was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1940s and was on the left wing of the civil rights movement and often issued sharp critiques of mainstream civil rights leaders for their “go slow” approach.
Worthy died at the age of 92 in 2014.
Chicago 8/7 conspiracy: 1968-70
The Chicago 8 (later 7) were prominent antiwar leaders charged with conspiracy to riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Their indictment and trial were the subject of numerous demonstrations in the Washington, D.C. area.
Conspiracy trials were used across the country in an attempt to dampen antiwar demonstrations and keep leaders tied up in lengthy, expensive court battles.
All of the defendants in this trial were eventually cleared, but the government succeeded in causing activists to spend considerable time and resources on the trials and subsequent appeals.
The trial of the Chicago 8/7 was the most prominent of these trials during the anti-Vietnam War and Black liberation movement era of the 1960s-70s.
United Cafeteria Workers Local 471 organized low wage restaurant workers and represented them from the 1930s until a merger with the Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union Local 25 in the early 1970s.
The union was nearly destroyed in 1948 when the U.S. government embarked on a drive to run communists and other radicals out of the unions.
The union called a strike in January 1948 after the private Government Services Inc. cafeteria operator refused to bargain citing the union’s failure to file non-communist affidavits with the government.
An eleven week strike followed that nearly broke the union, but a contract was salvaged even though the leaders had to relent on signing the affidavits.
The union joined with civil rights leader Mary Church Terrell to help lead the effort to desegregate public accommodations in the city—particularly its restaurants.
The successful effort led to the reinstatement of the District of Columbia’s so called “lost laws” from the 19th Century that prohibited discrimination.
The union affiliated with the Hotel and Restaurant Union in 1955 as Local 473 and was ultimately merged with other locals to form Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 25.
Madalyn Murray O’Hair was a lifelong atheist who repeatedly took on state sanctions of religion throughout her life.
Murray (who later married and took the name O’Hair) told the story that her son William came home from a Baltimore. Md. school one day in 1960 saying he was forced to participate in religious activities and challenging O’Hair to live up to and fight for her beliefs.
“When your 14-year old son asks you if you plan to stand up for your religious convictions—well I have to have the respect of my son.”
Murray’s ultimately successful suit caused Life magazine to call her, “The most hated woman in America.”
Neighborhood children were forbidden to play with William or Garth, bricks were thrown through her windows and the word “communist” was painted all over her back fence.
Murray responded by purchasing two dogs and naming them Marx and Engels. “I’m a troublemaker at heart and I don’t give a damn what people say,” Murray was quoted as saying.
Her suit was combined with a similar Pennsylvania case and the Court found that they constituted religious exercises and were therefore unconstitutional under the establishment clause.
The court dismissed as unconvincing the argument that the exercises and the laws requiring them served the secular purpose of “nonreligious moral inspiration.”
Nor was it pertinent that students could be excused from the exercises upon the request of a parent, “for that fact furnishes no defense to a claim of unconstitutionality under the Establishment Clause,” the Supreme Court had held.
Finally, the court denied that its finding amounted to an establishment of a “religion of secularism” or that by failing to uphold the exercises it was interfering in the free-exercise rights of religious students and their parents.
“While the Free Exercise Clause clearly prohibits the use of state action to deny the rights of free exercise to anyone,” the court declared, “it has never meant that a majority could use the machinery of the State to practice its beliefs.”
William later became a Christian and ultimately a Baptist minister and was disowned by Murray.
Murray filed many more suits on similar grounds throughout her life.
She continued to promote atheism for the rest of her life until she and her son Gath and granddaughter Robin were murdered in 1995.
The First Red Scare was a period in the United States from 1919-25 marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism by industrial and political figures, based on real and imagined events.
Real events included those such as the Russian Revolution of 1917 and a widespread bombing campaign by followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galliani.
After World War I, the five-day Seattle General Strike and the anarchist bombing campaign of April and June 1919 that included severely damaging the home of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer set off the initial wave of arrests and repression.
Later in the year the 1919 steel strike led by communist William Z. Foster and the 1919 Coal strike led by John L. Lewis that included local communist leaders of the United Mine Workers caused more fear.
Stoking these fears was the Boston police strike of 1919 causing industrialists and political leaders to fear that they would have no protection against insurrection. Fear of radicalism was used to explain the suppression of freedom of expression in form of display of certain flags and banners. The First Red Scare effectively ended in mid-1920, after Attorney General Palmer forecast a massive radical uprising on May Day and the day passed without incident.
Palmer launched a campaign directed at immigrants and quickly deported nearly 200, most of whom were members of the Union of Russian Workers. Legislation banning marching with red flags was passed in jurisdictions around the country and in 1920 the five socialist members of the New York Assembly were expelled for their political beliefs.
Palmer and rising Justice Department star J. Edgar Hoover continued to beat the drums of the red scare, arresting hundreds and seizing radical publications, but the wind began going out of their sails when predictions of May Day riots never occurred.
The second “red scare” flourished from 1947-1960 when members and supporters of the U.S. Communist Party, socialists, anarchists and many progressives were persecuted and prosecuted for their beliefs.
Anti-communist hysteria, often orchestrated by the U.S. government, was used regularly throughout the nineteen and twentieth centuries. The Haymarket “Riot” of 1886, The Palmer Raids of 1919-20, the McCarthy era of the 1950s and a host of other events were used regularly to suppress civil liberties and quash any attempts that provided even remote threats to the U.S. system of capitalism.
The USA Patriot Act and the general expansion of both private and government surveillance in the modern era act in similar ways to these past attempts to thwart social change.
Marie Richardson Harris was a leading organizer for civil and labor rights in the District of Columbia from the late 1930s until 1950.
Her pioneering work helped to organize the predominately African American Washington red caps union and their women’s auxiliary while still a teenager. She was a leader of the early fight to integrate Capital Transit operator jobs. She was an active member of the National Negro Congress and served as the executive secretary of the local branch.
According to the Afro American newspaper, she was the first African American woman to hold national office in a major labor union. In her role as national representative of the United Federal Workers (CIO), she helped lead the union’s organizing drives and battles against discrimination inside the federal government in the District.
The price she paid for her leadership was four and a half years in federal prison, a victim of McCarthy-era persecution.
Police raid Progressives: 1948
Washington, D.C. police raided a fundraiser for the Progressive Party on October 10, 1948–the second time in 10 days an interracial gathering had been broken up by authorities.
Authorities compiled files on over 350 people involved and arrested several dozen in the two incidents.
The raids prompted a demonstration by the local Civil Rights Congress and a spirited defense of those accused of wrong-doing by Charles Hamilton Houston and Leon Ransom.
President Richard Nixon proposed several “get tough on crime” bills, including one for the District of Columbia.
The D.C. bill included two controversial provisions—no knock and preventive detention. No-knock would permit police, under certain conditions, to enter a home without announcing themselves or their purpose. The preventive detention permitted police hold certain suspects up to sixty days without the possibility of bail.
At the time there was no elected local government in the District of Columbia.
Local activists vigorously opposed the bill including Marion Barry and Julius Hobson who urged residents to shoot anyone coming through their door without knocking. While other leaders didn’t go that far, they urged residents to “take appropriate action.”
The proposal by President Richard Nixon passed both houses of Congress and was signed by Nixon July 29, 1970. The law also permitted pre-trial detention in certain circumstances. A federal no-knock law was also passed in 1970.
Several high profile cases followed. A Norfolk, Va. woman terrified someone was breaking in fired through her door and killed a patrolman. No drugs were found.
In Eureka, Ca. a policeman shot and killed a man fleeing his house during a no-knock raid. No drugs were found.
Locally, Treasury agents and Montgomery County police executed a no-knock raid in 1973 in the Quebec Terrace apartments and shot and paralyzed Kenyon Ballew, a gun collector. No illegal weapons were found.
The federal law was repealed in 1974 after a number of high profile incidents across the country.
The issue has returned in recent years as federal judges are issuing no-knock warrants in increasing numbers.
The Washington Free Press, an alternative newspaper of the late 1960s, published for only three years. Its legacy was an epic clash with local authorities that ended in a blaze of glory as the tabloid battled against suppression gutted Maryland a McCarthy-era anti-subversive law and helped roll back the definitions of obscenity.
Its greatest victories were won after Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge James H. Pugh ordered a grand jury investigation into the newspaper in March 1969 for advocating, “the destruction of the state and destruction between the schools of this county and the duly constituted law enforcement agencies thereof.”
The Free Press won a resounding victory February 2 when a three judge federal court threw out most of Maryland “Ober law” and criticized Judge Pugh. The court left standing only the provisions that dealt with actual acts of violence and overt acts, striking down any parts dealing with speech or membership.
But the long battle against police harassment of street vendors of the paper and the small shops that carried the Free Press, along with the fight against obscenity charges and subversion, took its toll on the newspaper. In January 1970 the Free Press office was broken into and their files on undercover police officers were stolen while items of value were left alone. Holes were knocked through the wall of an adjacent men’s room to gain access. No arrests were made. After a toe-to-toe battle with authorities, the paper folded in March 1970.
Surveying police surveyors: 1971-73
This album contains one image of police taking notes on a demonstrator leaving a protest near the White House in Washington, DC sometime in 1973 as well as exposes of undercover police agents.
Catholic University students in Washington, D.C. staged a student strike in April 1967 in support of fired non-tenured faculty member Fr. Charles E. Curran.
Curran was an outspoken proponent of liberalization within the Catholic Church, including the use of birth control.
An estimated 95% of the students joined the strike and the faculty voted to support the strike also. The school backed down after two weeks, rescinded its decision and made Curran a tenured faculty member instead.
However, in a similar dispute, he was later forced to leave after being barred from teaching theology at Catholic University in 1986.
Civil Rights and Black Liberation before 1955
DC Institute on Race Relations: 1941-51
The Institute on Race Relations, headed by Tomlinson Todd from 1941-51, was a “one-man pressure organization if there ever was one,” according to Ernest E. Johnson of the Associated Negro Press. Todd lobbied, held mass meetings, sponsored speakers and hosted a radio show on WOOK called American All in Washington, DC attempting to desegregate public accommodations like restaurants and theatres, all while holding a day job at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving.
Todd was credited by veteran civil rights leader Mary Church Terrell with uncovering Washington, D.C. so-called “lost laws” from 1872 and 1873 that prohibited discrimination in public accommodations.
The laws were dropped from the statue book in 1901, but were not repealed. They continued to be enforced up until 1912. However, this was the period in which Jim Crow was being imposed in the federal government and in other facets of life in the District of Columbia and the laws were not enforced thereafter.
Despite his discovery of these old laws, Todd didn’t put all his eggs in one basket and prevailed upon U.S. Rep. William A Rowen (D-IL) and U.S. Sen. Warren Barbour (R-NJ) to introduce bills in 1943 that would prohibit discrimination in public accommodations in the District of Columbia. He hoped that Congress would act in the District of Columbia when they weren’t prepared to act nationwide—much like Congress ended slavery and granted the right to vote to Black males in Washington, D.C. prior to do so nationwide.
The bills were bottled up in committee, so Todd was lobbying to secure enough congressional signatures for a discharge petition that would force a floor vote.
He was using the mass meetings as one tool to put pressure on Congress to act. The effort was ultimately unsuccessful.
In one flyer, Todd cites the incident of a “one-legged colored soldier of this war [WWII] who was actually refused a cup of coffee in Thompson’s Restaurant.” Thompson’s was a national chain that was desegregated in the north, but refused to serve Black clientele at its restaurants in the south, including Washington, D.C.
Mary Church Terrell took up the fight to enforce the “lost laws” in 1948, forming a Coordinating Committee for Enforcement of the D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws (CCEDA). In early 1950, Terrell and other civil rights activists sought service at the same Thompson’s at 725 14th Street NW that refused service to the Black war veteran. The group was refused service and sued. The technicality of the law required the city to sue and Terrell persuaded the District government to do so.
In 1953, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1873 law and restaurants throughout the city then largely desegregated along with movie theaters. A year later the Bolling v. Sharpe US Supreme Court decision ended legal segregation of public schools. Actual desegregation remained a fight into modern times, with some gains being reversed in contemporary times.
Civil Rights Congress: 1946-46
The Civil Rights Congress was formed in 1946 out of a merger of the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties and the National Negro Congress.
It led campaigns against white supremacy in the Rosa Lee Ingram, Martinsville 7, Willie McGee and Trenton 6 cases. It also fought for anti-lynching legislation and for a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission. The CRC also fought against restriction of first amendment rights directed against the Communist Party.
It was the object of an attack by the federal government that listed it as a subversive organization in 1947 and jailed many of its leaders. The cost of defending their leadership essentially bankrupted the organization along with a decrease in donations from liberals during the McCarthy era.
The organization disbanded in 1956.
Individuals and activities associated with the Washington, D.C. branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and national NAACP activities in the city.
Thurgood Marshall was a crusader within the legal system for black Americans to obtain legal remedy against discrimination and bias. Charles Hamilton Houston served as his mentor and he went on to become NAACP General Counsel, a federal judge, U.S. Solicitor General and an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Houston often called him “Young Thurgood.”
In 1930, he applied to the University of Maryland Law School, but was denied admission because he was Black. Marshall sought admission and was accepted at the Howard University Law School that same year and came under the immediate influence of the dynamic new dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, who instilled in all of his students the desire to apply the tenets of the Constitution to all Americans.
Paramount in Houston’s outlook was the need to overturn the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson which established the legal doctrine called, "separate but equal."
Marshall’s first major court case came in 1933 when he successfully sued the University of Maryland to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named Donald Gaines Murray.
In 1934 he became one of the first black attorneys to represent a white man when he and Charles Hamilton Houston successfully defended Maryland Communist Party attorney Bernard Ades against disbarment. Ades’ real “crime” in the disbarment proceeding was defending a black man charged with murdering a white family.
Marshall followed his Howard University mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston to New York and later became Chief Counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During this period,
In the 1950s, Marshall tipped off the FBI about communist attempts to infiltrate the NAACP. But he was also the subject of FBI investigation, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover.
According to FBI files, critics tried to connect Marshall to communism through his membership in the National Lawyers Guild, a group that was called “the legal bulwark of the Communist Party” by the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee.
After amassing an impressive record of Supreme Court challenges to state-sponsored discrimination, including the landmark Brown v. Board decision in 1954, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
In this capacity, he wrote over 150 decisions including support for the rights of immigrants, limiting government intrusion in cases involving illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and right to privacy issues.
Frank D. Reeves (1916-1973) was a relatively unheralded lawyer and civil rights activist based in the District of Columbia who was part of the team that shaped the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) lawsuit that rendered segregated schools unconstitutional.
Reeves was involved in most of the prominent civil rights cases that arose in and around the District of Columbia from the late 1940s up until the late 1960s.
The Frank D. Reeves Center for Municipal Affairs at 14th and U streets, NW, was named in his honor when it opened in 1986.
Edwin Bancroft Henderson, a long-time civil rights warrior and advocate of physical education for black children, had a long and colorful career as a civil rights activist–the man who established black basketball, led the building of the black 12th Street YMCA, led integration of the Uline Arena and AAU boxing, among many other achievements. He established an NAACP branch in what was then rural Falls Church and headed the Virginia state NAACP. He was not only a target of white supremacist legislators, but of the Ku Klux Klan.
Images of Ku Klux Klan activity in Virginia and the opposition that they engendered.
Activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the District of Columbia where the national headquarters was once located and an active chapter with hundreds of members once thrived.
Marian Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century.
In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician.
After a campaign that involved hundreds of people in the District of Columbia, the federal government granted permission for Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial.
With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She sang before an integrated crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions.
Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993 was an American singer, one of the most celebrated of the twentieth century. Music critic Alan Blyth said: "Her voice was a rich, vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty."
She performed in concert and recital in major music venues and with famous orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although offered roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined, as she had no training in acting.
She preferred to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals. She made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire, which ranged from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals.
Walter White headed the national NAACP from 1929-55. He was first employed by the NAACP as an investigator in 1918.
He took a generally conservative approach, eschewing direct action and only grudging becoming involved in picketing around 1939.
He generally favored a courts and legislative approach to fighting discrimination and was a fervent anti-coimmunist only reluctantly partnering in the middle 1930s with the CP and breaking with them quickly.
He also battled the left wing within the NAACP behind the scenes–comprised of W. E. B. Dubois, Charles Hamilton Houston and Mary Church Terrell.
Hayes was the lead attorney in several high profile cases including representing Annie Lee Moss at a McCarthy hearing in 1954. McCarthy’s questioning of Moss damaged his reputation and helped lead to his eventual downfall.
Hayes was also the lead attorney on the Bolling vs. Sharpe case that led to the desegregation of District of Columbia schools in 1954. He was co-counsel for Marie Richardson during her loyalty oath trial.
Hayes also served on the D.C. Public Service Commission.
Eugene V. Davidson gained early fame as a civil rights advocate when he was named administrator of the New Negro Alliance in 1939.
Davidson broadened the group to include left-wing activists like Doxey Wilkerson, U. Simpson Tate and George H. Rycraw as well as moderates like future mayor Walter Washington and Roberta Hastie, wife of Judge William H. Hastie.
The group had been picketing and boycotting stores in the District since 1933 under the slogan, “Don’t buy where you can’t work.”
The group had intitial success in a number of smaller stores and early on convinced the A&P grocery store to integrate three of its stores located in black neighborhoods, but efforts had stalled.
Davidson renewed the offensive against smaller stores and quickly desegregated Joseph Oxenburg at 1314 7th Street NW, Bonnett’s Shore Store at 1310 7th Street and Capitol Shoe Store at 1338 7th Street.
He recruited national NAACP president Walter White and prominent rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune to picket People’s Drug Store demanding that the chain hire black clerks and cashiers.
Despite the renewed pressure, chains like Sanitary Grocery (Safeway) and People’s Drug Store successfully resisted the pressure.
During 1941, Davidson was help organize the local chapter of A. Phillip Randolph’s March on Washington Movement whose threatened demonstration prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to issue an executive order barring discrimination in defense-related industry.
While head of the local NAACP, Davidson oversaw the end of legal segregation in the District and challenged many institutions to live up to the law, including D.C. schools, the police and fire departments, and the board of realtors.
He charged the District police department with brutality in 1957 after a cross was burned in front of his house.
John Preston Davis was a prominent African American author, journalist, lawyer, civil rights leader, and co-founder of the National Negro Congress–an organization that was dedicated to the advancement of African Americans all over the country during the Great Depression.
Davis grew up in Washington, D.C. attending its segregated schools and graduated from the elite Dunbar High School in 1922. He graduated from Bates College in Maine in 1926. He moved to New York City where he became involved in the Harlem Renaissance.
Enrolling in Harvard University, he earned a masters degree in journalism and a bachelor of laws degree.
In 1933 he and Robert C. Weaver established an office in Washington, D.C. to pressure the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt to insure that black people received benefits from the New Deal. They successfully fought against a wage differential and for equal access to New Deal housing programs.
The two formed the Negro Industrial League to continue the pressure and then establish the Joint Committee on National Recovery, a group of 26 organizations to continue lobbying for inclusion of African Americans in New Deal programs.
In his most well-known role, he founded the National Negro Congress in 1936—a broad based organization that included Ralph Bunche, A Phillip Randolph, the Urban League’s Lester Granger, chief counsel of the NAACP Charles Hamilton Houston and James Ford of the Communist Party.
In Washington, D.C., Davis was also active in the local Negro Congress that helped lead the fight against police brutality and assisted in organizing unions among the cleaners and cafeteria workers and the women’s auxiliary of the Red Caps union. They were one of the main sponsors of the effort to desegregate the operator ranks of the Capital Transit Company.
The organization faltered when A. Phillip Randolph pulled out in 1940 and formed his own organization, The March on Washington Movement. Davis left the National Negro Congress in 1942.
In 1944 he attempted to enroll his son Michael in a white public school in Washington, D.C. and when rejected, promptly filed suit. The school board responded by prioritizing funds for building an all-black Lucy B. Slowe school in Davis’ Brookland neighborhood.
Although Davis’ suit was denied, it helped to lay the basis for a later successful suit—Bolling v. Sharpe—that outlawed public school segregation in the District of Columbia in 1954.
Davis was working as a journalist and as a clerk for U.S. Rep Vito Marcantonio (ALP-N.Y.) at the time of attempting to enroll his son in the white school.
Davis moved to New York City with his wife and children during the course of the suit and prior to the Slowe school opening.
He would go on to found Our World magazine—a black publication similar to Life Magazine and later compile the The American Negro Reference Book covered virtually every aspect of African-American life, present and past.
Charles Hamilton Houston was the premier black civil rights attorney prior to Thurgood Marshall. Marshall learned law activism at Houston’s knee, so to speak.
Houston is best known as an activist who used is law degree to change social conditions, winning landmark desegregation years cases prior to the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Houston was NAACP special counsel from 1936-40, head of Howard’s law department and operated his own private practice.
In the Washington, D.C. area Houston challenged Jim Crow at the University of Maryland in the Donald Gaines case.
He played a key role in the initial fight against Capital Transit, acting as one of the sponsors of Committee on Jobs for Negroes in Public Utilities. The Committee was composed of a broad range of organizations and individuals ranging from congressmen to communists that fought for breaking the color barrier for streetcar and bus operator jobs.
Houston later served on the federal Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) from 1944-45. Houston resigned from the FEPC in disgust, blasting President Truman who refused to force Capital Transit to integrate its operator ranks.
Houston first partnered with D.C. school activist Gardner Bishop to challenge Jim Crow schools in the District of Columbia, but died before the cases could be concluded.
He was also a fervent free speech advocate who defended the “Hollywood 10” against contempt of Congress charges when they refused to cooperate with an investigation into the Communist Party.
He is sometimes called the man who killed “Jim Crow.” The Capital Transit case is often cited as Houston’s biggest defeat. Houston, a Washington native, died April 22, 1950 and is buried in Lincoln Cemetery.
“We must never forget that the public officers, elective or appointive, are the servants of the class which places them in office and maintains them there.”
–Charles Hamilton Houston
Clifford Durr and Virginia Foster Durr would become civil rights icons in the South in the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s and would also be hounded by right-wing political figures.
In 1938, Virginia was one of the founding members of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW), an interracial group working to reduce segregation and improve living conditions in the South.
Virginia rose to head the civil rights commission of SCHW by 1941 working primarily on a campaign to abolish the poll tax.
Durr resigned from the FCC in 1948 after dissenting from its adoption of a loyalty oath demanded by the Truman administration. Although Durr did not know it, the FBI had already put him under surveillance in 1942 because he had defended a colleague accused of left-wing political associations.
Virginia ran for the U.S. Senate from Virginia on the Progressive ticket in 1948.
His wife’s vigorous support for racial equality and voting rights for blacks and their friendship with Jessica Mitford, a member of the Communist Party, made both of them even more suspect. The FBI stepped up its interest in Clifford in 1949, when he joined the National Lawyers Guild. He subsequently became the President of the Guild.
Clifford opened a law practice in Washington, D.C. after leaving the FCC. He was one of the few lawyers willing to represent federal employees who had lost their jobs as a result of the loyalty oath program; he took many of their cases without charging them a fee.
The Durrs moved to Colorado so he could work for the National Farmers Union when it became evident that he could not make a living defending those accused of disloyalty.
However his Virginia’s political activities, as a member of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare and the National Committee for the Abolition of the Poll Tax, her past membership in the Progressive Party (including her campaign for governor of Virginia in 1948) and his own political activities caused him to lose that position as well.
The Durrs then returned to Montgomery, Alabama in the hope of returning to a more prosperous, less controversial life. However, Senator James Eastland of Mississippi soon subpoenaed Clifford Durr and his associate Aubrey Williams to a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security investigating the Highlander Folk School, with which both Durrs and Williams had been associated.
It was at this hearing where Clifford was surprisingly permitted to cross-examine former communist Paul Crouch and attempted to throw a punch when Crouch told one of his fanciful stories about Virginia. Clifford largely discredited Crouch during his cross examination.
Clifford’s health and law practice suffered, as he lost most of his white clients while the FBI increased its surveillance of him and those around him.
Clifford continued to practice in Montgomery as counsel, along with a local attorney Fred Gray, for black citizens whose rights had been violated.
At the same time Virginia befriended Rosa Parks who worked for the Durrs doing occasional seamstress work.
Myles Horton, a close friend of Durr, a co-founder of the Higherland Folk school asked Virginia to recommend a black person to attend workshops at the school–the purpose of which was to spark implementation of the recent Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Virginia arranged a full scholarship for Rosa Parks to go to the school in Tennessee.
Clifford and Gray were prepared to appeal the conviction of Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old African-American woman charged with violating Montgomery’s bus segregation laws in March, 1955.
However, they elected not to do so when E.D. Nixon, later of the Montgomery Improvement Association, and other black activists decided that hers was not the case to use to challenge the law.
However in December, 1955 when police arrested Rosa Parks for refusing to give her seat to a white man, Durr acted. Durr called the jail when authorities refused to tell Nixon what the charges against Parks were and he and Virginia accompanied Nixon to the jail when Nixon bailed her out.
Nixon and Clifford then went to the Parks’ home to discuss whether she was prepared to fight the charges against her. Clifford Durr and Gray represented Parks in her criminal appeals in state court, while Gray took on the federal court litigation challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance.
Clifford continued to represent activists in the Civil Rights Movement, supported by financial support from friends and philanthropists outside the South.
Virginia supported the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers by housing and taking care of many volunteers who came to Montgomery to work on voter registration issues.
Both Clifford and Virginia supported the Voting Rights Act, as well as provided legal advice to many blacks facing jail time and lawsuits despite the criticism they received from their white colleagues.
They supported the sit-in movement and Freedom Riders. Virginia and her husband offered sleeping space to students coming from the North to protest.
Clifford eventually closed his firm in 1964. He lectured in the United States and abroad after his retirement. He died at his grandfather’s farm in 1975.
Virginia Durr continued to write and speak about political issues and remained active in state and local politics until she was in her nineties.
Virginia Foster Durr died in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on February 24, 1999, at the age of 95.
Asa Phillip Randolph was a black labor leader and civil rights leader from the 1920s until the 1960s.
He was an early labor organizer of elevator operators in New York City and dockworkers in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
Randolph was elected president of the newly formed Brotherhood of Sleep Car Porters, AFL in 1925.
He later served as president of the National Negro Congress from 1936-40.
He organized the March on Washington Movement in 1941 that pressured President Franklin Roosevelt to issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination in the armed services (although it was limited) and within the defense industry. He later organized a movement where black Americans would refuse service in the military until it desegregated and ended discrimination.
In the early 1950s, Randolph organized the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, an umbrella group for civil rights organizations, that played a role in working out policy and program among the different civil rights leaders.
In 1955, Randolph became the first black vice president of the newly merged American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
Along with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he organized the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom—a mass gathering in Washington, D.C. designed to spur federal enforcement of the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated public schools.
He followed that up by being a key organizer of the 1958-59 youth marches on Washington that had the same goals.
These marches provided the organization and tactical experience for pulling together that massive 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, of which Randolph was one of the principal organizers.
Soon after, he founded the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization aimed at studying the causes of poverty and co-founded by Randolph’s mentee Bayard Rustin.
He retired from public life in 1968 and died in 1979.
William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor.
Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University.
Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta compromise, an agreement crafted by Booker T. Washington which provided that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic educational and economic opportunities.
In 1934, Du Bois had a variation of this argument with Mordecai Johnson, the president of Howard University.
Students from Howard University went to the U.S. Capitol to protest Jim Crow in the House and Senate public restaurants. Five were arrested, though charges were dropped. Johnson, fearing the loss of federal funding for the university, wanted to discipline the students.
Du Bois argued that the students’ action was worth the price, if such price was to be paid.
Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite.
Racism was the main target of Du Bois’s polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for independence of African colonies from European powers.
Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia. After World War I, he surveyed the experiences of American black soldiers in France and documented widespread bigotry in the United States military.
Du Bois was a prolific author. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, was a seminal work in African-American literature; and his 1935 magnum opus Black Reconstruction in America challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era.
He wrote one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology, and he published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history.
In his role as editor of the NAACP’s journal The Crisis, he published many influential pieces. Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life.
He was an ardent peace activist and advocated nuclear disarmament. The United States’ Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted a year after his death.
Du Bois was generally sympathetic to Marxism throughout his career and saw capitalism as the root cause of racism and white supremacy.
Throughout his career he maintained distance from the Communist Party and was both critical and supportive of the Soviet Union.
As the United States entered the second Red Scare after World War II, Du Bois was targeted by the U.S. government, which put him on trial for failing to register the Peace Information Center as a foreign agent.
The group sought signatures on petitions asking all countries to ban nuclear weapons.
His former colleagues at the NAACP refused to support him, but charges were dismissed before the jury rendered a verdict. Despite the outcome, the U.S government seized his passport for eight years.
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the anti-communist McCarren Act in 1961, Du Bois in a spirit of defiance joined the Communist Party at the age of 93. He wrote, “I believe in communism. I mean by communism, a planned way of life in the production of wealth and work designed for building a state whose object is the highest welfare of its people and not merely the profit of a part.”
Du Bois carried the mantle of first being the preeminent spokesperson for black liberation early in his career after inheriting it from Frederick Douglas and later as its elder statesman.
He died in Ghana at the age of 95 August 27, 1963.
–partially excerpted from Wikipedia
Oliver Palmer served a business manager for the Washington, D.C. Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers Union Local 471 from 1943 until his death in 1975. He had previously served two years as secretary-treasurer and four years as president.
Palmer was one of the founders of the union in 1937 and helped lead the initial organizing drives that brought the union membership up to 5,000 during the 1940s.
He led the union through two bitter strikes in 1947 and 1948 against the dominant provider of federal cafeteria services, the private Government Services Incorporated.
The 1947 strike brought significant wage improvements, vacation improvements, established sick leave and fended off company attacks on binding arbitration for grievances and the withholding of union dues from paychecks.
The 1948 strike occurred at the beginning of the second Red Scare when GSI refused to negotiate unless the union leaders of both the local and its parent union signed affidavits that they were not communists.
Palmer charged GSI with using that as a cover for union busting and staged a two-month strike that finally reached an agreement with GSI after intervention by the Labor Department. The union was nearly broken but survived to fight another day.
Palmer oversaw the union as it made wage gains, established sick and vacation pay and ultimately health and welfare and pension benefits for the union members who were largely African American women.
The union was initially an affiliate of the CIO’s United Public Workers, but when that union collapsed during the second Red Scare, Local 471 continued as an independent union until it affiliated with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union in the city after the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955.
A longtime progressive force in District of Columbia politics, Palmer joined with Mary Church Terrell to provide the organizational strength to stage the pickets and demonstrations in the early 1950s that resulted in desegregation of Washington’s Jim Crow cafeterias and restaurants.
He was also active in the District’s home rule movement and served for many years on the District’s Democratic Central Committee.
Early in his career, he joined the International Labor Defense, the National Negro Congress and the NAACP. He served as a vice president of Washington’s Central Labor Council for 20 years.
When Palmer reflected on his life he said, “My activities in the labor movement, for the benefit of humanity, I consider the crowning glory of my life. They have been rewarding and very satisfying.”
Vito Anthony “Marc” Marcantonio joined the American Labor Party, a left-wing party based in New York in 1937 and was elected to Congress for six terms from 1939-51 from his seat in East Harlem. His district contained many immigrants of Puerto Rican and Italian heritage and he spoke both languages fluently.
Marcantonio was an ally of the U.S. Communist Party and fought vigorously for civil rights and labor rights in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. In the Washington, D.C. area, he was a regular speaker at civil rights events, including the effort to desegregate the operator ranks of the Washington, D.C. Capital Transit system.
He was a strong ally of the Progressive Party effort to win the presidency in 1948, backing Henry Wallace in a four-way race against Democrat Harry Truman, Republican Thomas Dewey and States Rights candidate Strom Thurmond.
As one of the most left-wing members ever to serve in Congress, he was never popular with his colleagues. After his vote to oppose U.S. entry into the Korean War, they painted a target on his back.
As the U.S. red scare widened, Marcantonio’s congressional district was changed through re-districting and the Republican, Democratic and Liberal parties united behind Democrat James Donovan to defeat him in the 1950 election 57%-43%.
Marcantonio remained active and was running for Congress on the Good Neighbor Party ticket in 1954 when he died of a heart attack.
Pauli Murray was a pioneering black, female lesbian activist who worked primarily for civil rights, but broke a number of barriers throughout her life.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Murray was raised in Durham, NC where she “passed” as white until graduation from high school.
In 1938 she was rejected for admission to the University of North Carolina and sought legal representation from the NAACP and other organizations. Her case was rejected, in part because she wore pants rather than the customary skirts and was open about her relationships with women.
In 1940 she and another woman moved out of broken black-only seats on a bus in Virginia into whites-only seating. They refused to move and were arrested and aided in their defense by the Workers Defense Committee, a U.S. Socialist Party group formed to counter the Communist Party’s International Labor Defense.
Murray was soon hired by the Workers Defense Committee and worked to commute the death sentence of Virginia sharecropper Odell Waller who had shot his white landlord during an argument. Her work was unsuccessful, but prompted her to seek at law degree at Howard University.
She was the only woman in her class and dubbed her treatment at Howard, “Jane Crow” after she was told by a professor that he did not know why women went to law school.
She joined the Congress of Racial Equality and participated in early sit-ins 1943-44 in Washington, D.C. seeking to desegregate restaurants in the city.
Murray was elected Chief Justice of the Howard Court of Peers, the highest student position and she graduated first in her class in 1944. However, Murray was rejected for graduate work at Harvard because the school did not accept women.
She ultimately did her post-graduate work at Boalt Hall School of Law at University of California, Berkeley and passed the California bar exam in 1945.
Murray was one of the early advocates for abandoning arguing for equality under the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine and instead challenge segregation as illegal under the Constitution. This approach ultimately led to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation decisions.
Murray worked most of her career as a lawyer and law professor until turning toward the clergy.
She was ordained as the first black woman to become an Episcopal priest in 1977, breaking yet another barrier.
She was an early critic of the sexism within the civil rights movement and an advocate for women. Open with about her sexuality during a time in which the vast majority of gay and lesbian people were in the closet, she described her sexuality as “inverted sex instinct” that caused her to behave as a man attracted to women.
Despite the prejudice and discrimination against her as a black, female lesbian, she excelled in her endeavors until her death in 1985.
William L. Patterson led the International Labor Defense (ILD) and its successor the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) and was an active member of the Communist Party, USA. The ILD gained fame during its campaign to free the “Scottsboro Boys” during the 1930s and acted as a left-wing legal defense arm for labor union members, civil rights issues and communists.
His 1940 marriage to Harlem Renaissance figure and civil rights activist Louise Patterson created a Black power couple.
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the CRC led campaigns against racial injustice in the Willie McGee, Martinsville Seven and Trenton Six cases. Patterson and Paul Robeson led a delegation to the United Nations in 1951 with a petition entitled “We Charge Genocide,” outlining the rampant discrimination and violence perpetrated against African Americans in the United States.
The CRC also led campaigns against the burgeoning red scare in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The U.S. Attorney General listed the organization as subversive and the success of the McCarthy era in stifling the much of the left-wing movement led the dissolution of the CRC in 1956.
William Patterson, a giant of the civil rights movement from the mid 1930s to mid 1950s, died in 1980 in relative obscurity as his role in the black rights movement was written out of history due to his communist affiliation.
Stanley David Levison, the lead International Labor Defense attorney, was active in the Washington, D. C. area many times–including the defense of Euel Lee, where he won the right of Black people to sit on juries in Maryland prior to the national Scottsboro case and also represented the Hunger Marches of 1931-32.
Paul Robeson was a renaissance man who excelled in college graduating Phi Beta Kappa, was class valedictorian and was an all-American football player who also won letters in multiple sports.
He attended both NYU School of Law and Columbia. while in school began performing on stage and as a singer. He also briefly played NFL football before graduating.
He briefly worked as a lawyer before denouncing the profession as racist. He then embraced a singing and acting career that led to multiple awards.
Among his best performances on stage and in film were those in The Emporer Jones, Othello, Sanders of the River, Showboat and Song of Freedom. He also released many popular albums
Always an advocate for social justice, he became deeply involved during the 1930s and appeared at many picket lines, rallies and concerts to benefit a multitude of causes.
After World War II, he led demonstrations in Washington, D.C. against lynching in 1946-47 as chair of the American Crusade Against Lynching.
As the Second Red Scare gained traction after World War II, Robeson was blacklisted and by 1949 was deprived of venues and roles in the United States. In August 1949, a benefit concert for the Civil Rights Congress in Peekskill, N.Y. was broken up by vigilantes who pulled concert goers from their cars while police stood idly by.
On December 17, 1951, Robeson presented to the United Nations an anti-lynching petition, "We Charge Genocide." The document asserted that the United States federal government, by its failure to act against lynching in the United States, was "guilty of genocide" under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention.
In 1955, he refused to answer whether he was a communist before the House Un American Activities Committee.
During this period, the FBI distributed anti-Robeson tracts and was thought to have ghost-written several articles criticizing him that were printed in the African American and mainstream press.
His career enjoyed a brief resurgence as the Red Scare eased in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but his health began to fail and his career was put on pause.
Civil rights leaders Bayard Rustin and James Farmer contacted Robeson about the possibility of becoming involved with the mainstream of the Civil Rights Movement.
Robeson refused to meet with Rustin because of his long-standing denunciations of the U.S. Communist Party, but agreed to see Farmer. However, Farmer demanded Robeson denounce the Soviet Union and communism as a condition for being invited to participate as a leader. Robeson refused.
He was not able to participate in many activities due to his health, but in 1973 he sent a taped message to a Carnegie Hall tribute to mark his 75th birthday.
It said in part, "Though I have not been able to be active for several years, I want you to know that I am the same Paul, dedicated as ever to the worldwide cause of humanity for freedom, peace and brotherhood."
Robeson died in January 1976.
Photos from the 54th gathering of the Ex-Slave Convention held at the Cosmopolitan Baptist Church near 9th and N Streets NW in Washington, D.C. Nov.-Dec. 1916.
The U.S. Congress, a so-called beacon for the “free world,” has for many years treated its African American workforce and visitors with disdain.
The Capitol building itself was partially built by African American slave labor.
Except for a brief period after the Civil War, the restaurants and pressrooms of the building were whites-only (unless you were a foreign dignitary—it wasn’t simply color of the skin, it was also specifically discrimination against the formerly enslaved).
Jim Crow was challenged in the restaurants and cafeterias on Capitol Hill in 1934 by as part of an ongoing campaign to desegregate restaurants in the city.
The sit-in tactic was used at the Capitol by left-leaning groups like the Socialist Party and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom along with liberal groups seeking desegregation.
The sit-ins had some limited success, but did not change the Jim Crow policy on the Hill.
At the same time a Howard University student working part time in the restaurant served another African American and was promptly fired.
William Hastie, a future judge, wrote an editorial for the Hilltop newspaper at Howard and Kenneth Clark, a future renowned psychologist, helped lead a demonstration of 30 students with picket signs who sought to enter the House of Representatives restaurant.
They were barred at the door by police and arrested, but charges were later dropped at the police station.
These early efforts at desegregation failed and were followed by protests by small interracial groups continued over the next 15 years.
Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas (D-Ca.) was instrumental in desegregating the House cafeteria and restaurant 1949-50 by persuading the private operator to end Jim Crow. Richard Nixon defeated Douglas in the 1950 California Senate race when Nixon famously redbaited her.
The Senate side desegregated later.
Labor relations were equally bad.
The African American workforce in the restaurants, cafeterias and snack bars was at best paid 20% below commercial rates—and congressmen and senators were notoriously low tippers.
A strike occurred in the House restaurant that served U.S. Representatives and their staff in 1942. The House was paying the workers far less than the below standard Senate.
The African American workforce went back to work after promises by elected representatives that they would look into the matter.
In 1969, a strike was called at the Senate cafeteria after management fired a worker that was trying to organize the group into an independent union seeking year-round pay (Congress recessed for a minimum of three months out of the year).
The strike also ended after a day and the unionization effort failed.
The House cafeteria voted to be represented by a union in 1987, although the Senate side remains unrepresented.
Sanitary Grocery Stores were a District of Columbia grocery store chain that was purchased by Safeway in 1928, but continued to operate under the Sanitary banner until 1940.
Sanitary was run as a white supremacist enterprise. African Americans were barred from front-line clerk positions that would bring them into contact with the public and warehouse and other ancillary operations were run Jim Crow with separate bathrooms and eating areas for African Americans and whites.
Efforts to break down Jim Crow were undertaken inside and outside the store’s facilities.
Teamsters Local 730, representing warehouse workers in the greater Washington, D.C. area was birthed at Sanitary’s bakery warehouse by an African American employee, John H. Cleveland in 1937.
Picketing and a boycott of Sanitary Stores by the New Negro Alliance resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1937 upholding the right to conduct such activities in an attempt to influence employment practices.
This ruling preserved those tools for civil rights activists through the years. The 1964 Civil Rights Act ultimately ended legal discrimination in employment, but many victories were won in the interim years because of the ruling at Sanitary.
Black postal clerks: 1868-1971
Barred from the Post Office before the Civil War, African Americans faced segregation on the job and within labor unions.
The formal segregation did not end until the 1960s.
The predominantly African American unions were excluded from bargaining under the Postal Reorganization of 1970. One-the National Postal Union–merged with others to form the American Postal Workers Union and gained bargaining rights in that manner.
The other–the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees (NAPFE), was excluded but continues to handle grievance and provides a benefit plan.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland in 1818. The plantation was between Hillsboro and Cordova; his birthplace was likely his grandmother’s shack east of Tappers Corner, (38.8845°N 75.958°W) and west of Tuckahoe Creek.
After several failed escape attempts, Douglass boarded a train in Baltimore disguised as a sailor and made the trip to New York City, aided by money and documents provided by his fiancé, Anna Murray who was a free black woman living in Baltimore.
There Douglass went on to become a social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his dazzling oratory[5] and incisive antislavery writings.
During the Civil War, he urged President Abraham Lincoln to utilize African American soldiers. In the 1864 election, he supported John C. Fremont against Lincoln because the President would not commit to voting rights for African Americans.
After the war, he enthusiastically supported President Ulysses S. Grant’s armed suppression of the White Leagues and Red Shirts that were paramilitary arms of the Democratic Party in the South attempting to overthrow elected governments.
In a speech delivered on November 15, 1867, Douglass said: “A man’s rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex.”
Douglass re-located to Washington, D.C. to publish The New National Era, a newspaper designed to cover Reconstruction, the Republican Party and African American Washington, D.C.
Douglass briefly served in the upper house of Washington’s form of self-government before resigning and clearing the way for his son Lewis to serve.
He served briefly as President of the insolvent Freedman’s Savings Bank and was confirmed by the Senate as the city’s United States Marshal during the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes.
He worked as Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia for five years and in 1889 was appointed Minister to Haiti.
During this period these jobs helped bring in income, but Douglass stayed true to his calling of being the premier spokesperson for African Americans.
He weighed in on the lack of suffrage in the District saying, “What have the people of the District done that they should be excluded from the privileges of the ballot box? Where, when and how did they incur the penalty of taxation without representation?”
Douglass’ home Cedar Hill in Anacostia often served as a meeting place for both city residents and national social justice advocates.
United Cafeteria Workers Local 471 organized low wage restaurant workers and represented them from the 1930s until a merger with the Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union Local 25 in the early 1970s.
The union was nearly destroyed in 1948 when the U.S. government embarked on a drive to run communists and other radicals out of the unions.
The union called a strike in January 1948 after the private Government Services Inc. cafeteria operator refused to bargain citing the union’s failure to file non-communist affidavits with the government.
An eleven week strike followed that nearly broke the union, but a contract was salvaged even though the leaders had to relent on signing the affidavits.
The union joined with civil rights leader Mary Church Terrell to help lead the effort to desegregate public accommodations in the city—particularly its restaurants.
The successful effort led to the reinstatement of the District of Columbia’s so called “lost laws” from the 19th Century that prohibited discrimination.
The union affiliated with the Hotel and Restaurant Union in 1955 as Local 473 and was ultimately merged with other locals to form Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 25.
Laundry workers staged a strike at 13 dry cleaning plants in 1937 seeking union recognition and better wages and working conditions.
The organizing campaign was significant because it was led by the local Communist Party and relied in part on community organizations to help with the drive.
After employers refused to negotiate with the union, a strike was called. A number of employers attempted to remain open with the use of scabs and clashes erupted between strikers and scabs.
Police generally sided with the owners and rarely arrested scabs who attacked strikers. Community pressure on the police and employers helped to end the strike favorably.
The owners at 11 plants agreed to a "consent" election conducted by the newly empowered National Labor Relations Board and to conduct bargaining with the union if the vote was successful.
Workers prevailed at 9 of the 11 plants and contracts soon followed that raised wages from 25-50% and reduced work hours.
The campaign provided a model for organizing predominantly low-wage African American workers in the city.
A series of dances in 1929-33 held by the Communist Party and Young Communist League directly confronted deeply held white supremacist beliefs and challenged conservative elements in black society.
The Communist Party through the 1930s and 1940s was the most consistent at rejecting the “go-slow” approach of mainstream civil rights leaders and organizations opting instead to take white supremacy head-on.
In Baltimore, communist leaders like Paddy Whalen, head of the local National Maritime Union and George Meyers, head of the Congress of Industrial Organizations used their union positions to break down racial barriers while attorney Bernard Ades used his law degree to set legal precedents for black defendants in the Euel Lee and other cases.
The communist role in the civil rights struggles during this period was largely written out of history during the Cold War/McCarthy period of the late 1940s and 1950s.
Adam Clayton Powell in DC: 1940-70
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast.
Powell was an activist in Harlem working to de-segregate facilities and break hiring barriers to Black people and worked closely with the Communist Party in the city until the Second Red Scare began to deepen when he broke most ties.
Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.
In 1961, after 16 years in the House, Powell became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, the most powerful position held by an African American in Congress to that date. As chairman, he supported the passage of important social and civil rights legislation under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Following allegations of corruption, in 1967 Powell was excluded from his seat by Democratic Representatives-elect of the 90th United States Congress, but he was re-elected and regained the seat in the 1969 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States in Powell v. McCormack. He lost his seat in 1970 to Charles Rangel and retired from electoral politics
Jim Crow at U.S. Engraving: 1947-50
The United Public Workers of America Local 3 (Bureau of Engraving branch) led a three-year campaign against discrimination at the agency resulting in a resounding victory when the government opened the ranks of skilled plate printers to African Americans.
Margaret Gilmore, chair of the Bureau’s branch, led a broad coalition against Jim Crow at agency that included the Federation of Civil Associations, the Cafeteria Workers Union, the DC Coordinating Committee to End Discrimination, the NAACP, the civil liberties committee of the Elks, and luminaries such as Howard University President Mordecai Johnson, long time civil rights activist Rev. William H. Jernagin and civil rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston.
The plate printer positions had traditionally been filled by the American Federation of Labor all-white printers union. The UPW, a Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO) organization railed against the fact that not a single African American was employed as a plate printer anywhere in the United States.
Charles Hamilton Houston wrote in February 1949:
“The Bureau maintains Jim Crow locker and rest rooms. Colored women can be printers’ helpers and colored men can be printers’ assistants but that is their limit regardless of education, aptitude, intelligence and experience.
“During World War II the labor demands on the Bureau were so heavy the Bureau hired hundreds and hundreds of workers (including printers, printers assistants and printers helpers) without competitive civil service examinations.
“The printers were all white; the printers assistants, in large number, colored males; and the printers helpers, predominantly colored women.
“After the War, the printers were “blanketed in” as permanent employees merely by fill out out forms showing they met the civil service requirements. They did not have to take any competitive examinations.
“But to thin out the predominantly colored printers helpers, the women were notified that before they could be made permanent they would have to take a competitive examination open not only to Bureau employees but to the women in the whole United States.
“On the other hand, colored men have never been promoted to the journeyman class either as printer, electrician or any other mechanic or tradesman. The Bureau has always conducted apprentice training programs especially for its printers.
“Before World War II colored people had never been admitted to the apprentice training programs. Then under UPW pressure the Bureau opened the plate printers apprentice training program to us [African Americans]; and, July 11, 1948 announced an examination for apprentice plate printers would be held.
“About 30 colored, including many World War II veterans, applied and qualified to take the examination For a moment it looked as if at last we [African Americans] would get our chance to start on the long road to become journeyman printers.
“Then suddenly the Bureau announced the examination was indefinitely postponed.
“This did not mean that the Bureau does not need printers. It is still recruiting white printers through the AFL white printers union which has a strangle hold on the Bureau.
“These new white printers have to be trained in the specialized Bureau work, and the colored printers assistants in many cases do most of the practical training.
“But the white printers get the money and the grade and the white AFL printers union keeps a closed shop against colored on U.S. government property.
“The UPW has now carried the fight director to the White House to see whether Executive Order 9080 establishing Fair Employment Practice policies in government service is the law, or whether the AFL white printers union is a force stronger than the Executive order as far as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is concerned.
“The next time you handle a dollar bill take a good look at it. It was printed by “white only.”
In February 1950 after three years of internal organizing and public pickets, rallies and speeches, the Bureau of Engraving opened the ranks of plate printers to African Americans.
The UPW was effectively destroyed during the second Red Scare. Its leaders first resisted signing affidavits that they were not members of the Communist Party and the Congress of Industrial Organizations later expelled the union along with nine others in February 1950. It quickly lost affiliates and dissolved in 1953.
A picket line sponsored by the NAACP calls for anti-lynching legislation to be considered and recommended by the U.S. crime conference held in the DAR Memorial Continental Hall in Washington, D.C. December 11, 1934.
Pickets from left to right: Roy W. Wilkins, assistant secretary of the NAACP; George B. Murphy, Jr., editor of the Washington Afro-American; Emmett Dorsey, professor of political science at Howard University; and Edward Lovett, attorney of the Washington, DC NAACP branch.
Howard University law school dean Charles Hamilton Houston is standing on the right. Houston would leave the post shortly after the picket to become the NAACP general counsel.
The NAACP waged a months-long campaign to get the issue on the agenda of Attorney General Homer S. Cummings’ National Crime Conference. However Cummings refused to put the issue on the conference schedule
D.C police also refused to issue a permit for picketing and arrested the four participants minutes after the picketing began.
Washington had a sign law prohibiting advertising signs and police used this to halt the picketing.
The NAACP did not give up, two days later 70 protesters—mainly Howard University students—greeted the conference silently with nooses around their necks and small signs that were under the size of those prohibited.
Despite the efforts of the attorney general to prohibit any discussion, the conference adopted a weak resolution which read, “That the conference condemns the use of methods of dealing with industrial conflicts and racial antagonisms which are not in accord with orderly and lawful procedures and urges the administration of all phases of public safety by legally constituted law enforcement agencies only.”
A campaign for an anti-lynching law began two decades earlier and never succeeded despite passing the House of Representatives on numerous occasions, but always died due to a filibuster by Southern Democrats in the Senate.
The first successful federal prosecutions for a lynching occurred after the disappearance of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. Schwerner and Goodman were white and their murder and subsequent burial in an earthen dam in Mississippi created national pressure on the federal government to take action.
Eighteen individuals were charged by the federal government in 1967 for violating the three men’s civil rights after the failure of the state to prosecute. Seven were convicted and received relatively minor sentences.
Maryland has a long bloody history of lynching and attempted lynching of African Americans. The last major wave occurred during the 1930s at a time when public interracial efforts to overturn Jim Crow were just beginning in the state.
The lynch mob killings and legal lynching executions served to send notice to African Americans and any potential White allies that any attempt to challenge the Jim Crow system would be met with violence that was tolerated and encouraged by authorities.
In two instances where the lynch mob failed, the state carried out the executions of those charged with crimes. At that time there was little consideration given to the racially charged atmosphere that attempted lynchings created and that Maryland counties systematically excluded African Americans from both jury and judge. Whether those charged were guilty of the crimes, the death sentences given were due in large part to the victims being White.
DC’s fighting barber: 1947-54 (Gardner Bishop)
District of Columbia schools had been segregated and unequal since 1862. However in 1947 a barber living on the H Street–Benning Road corridor organized the working class parents in his neighborhood to challenge the deplorable condition of African American schools.
Gardner Bishop, a barber by trade, sought better schools for his daughter Judine but she was turned down by for the elite black Banneker school because of her father’s “lowly” occupation. Bishop was also denied a transfer to an all white school because of the District’s school segregation.
Bishop disdained the school’s PTA that, according to him, was handpicked and made up of property owners, civic association representatives and non-parents. He also had contempt for the NAACP, which he regarded as a “social club.” In response he formed a group that would come to be known as the Consolidated Parents Group.
Bishop and his neighbors’ middle school-age children were crammed into a school with half the capacity, forced into part time shifts and walking blocks to annexes in order to sit at elementary school desks. There were no recreational facilities and no equipment for learning such as labs or typewriters. At the same time white only schools had vacancies and often had lavish facilities.
Bishop organized a strike, formed the new parents organization, picketed, rallied, and filed court suits until the whole so-called “separate but equal” system came crashing down in 1954. The lawsuit he was responsible for, Bolling v. Sharpe, not only desegregated schools in the District, but also broke new ground in interpreting the “due process” clause and the meaning of “liberty” in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
Following the victory in Bolling, Bishop stepped down as head of Consolidated Parents, but continued to hold court in his B&D barbershop at 15th & U Streets NW until he retired in 1985.
DC parks & pool integration: 1949-54
A fight between African American and white youths at the Anacostia swimming pool June 29, 1949 set off a chain of events that led to the integration of DC swimming pools five years later.
Members of the local Progressive Party youth group organized the initial attempt in June 1949 after the Interior Department took the position that it operated integrated facilities.
Government Services, Inc. operated the pool, along with five others, under contract with the Interior Department that prohibited segregation by policy. However, the Anacostia, Takoma, McKinley and East Potomac pools had long been a Whites-only. African Americans had used the Banneker and Francis pools.
The youth affiliate of the Progressive Party, the Young Progressives, decided to challenge the practice and began organizing integrated groups of youths to swim in the Anacostia and McKinley pools. The Progressive Party was a third party that ran Henry Wallace for president in 1948 on a pro-labor, pro-civil rights and anti-Cold War platform and received about 1.1 million votes.
A series of clashes occurred a the Anacostia pool June 23-28, 1949
The first youths tried to test the waters at Anacostia on June 23rd but were run out by white youths before they were able to enter the water. The following day more than 50 African Americans entered the pool and on June 25th 50-60 also entered the pool and swam.
By Sunday June 26 a crowd of about 1,000 white youths was waiting. The first two African Americans, both 14, were surrounded by about 50 white youths who splashed and drove them out of the pool while the rest of the crowd taunted the would be swimmers. Another five African American youths who arrived later were similarly driven away.
On June 28 another incident occurred similar to the previous ones.
The biggest confrontation took place June 29th when 10 white and 10 black members and supporters of the Young Progressives entered the pool. Later, about 70 African Americans arrived and entered the pool area while about 100 waiting white opponents began a scuffle. Scattered fighting broke out both inside and outside the facility between the groups. Most of those injuries during melees were the Progressives and several of their members were arrested.
The pool was temporarily closed as result of the clashes. The Interior Department had been scheduled to transfer the six pools to the District’s recreation department, but held off because DC insisted on segregating pools by race.
The recreation department ultimately adopted a “gradualization” policy where parks, swimming pools, golf courses and other facilities under its control would be slowly converted to integrated facilities over a period of years. The six pools operated by the Interior Department continued to be open to all.
More confrontations at pools occurred in 1952 that resulted in integration of the Rosedale pool.
As lawsuits piled up, the District decided to integrate all of its facilities on May 19, 1954 in the wake of the Bolling v. Sharpe school decision. By that time, there were still 88 of 125 DC parks or facilities still segregated. This included the Georgetown pool at 34th & Volta Place NW—the last public pool to be integrated in the District. The Supreme Court outlawed public park segregation nationwide in 1958.
DC New Negro Alliance: 1934-43
The New Negro Alliance was a local District of Columbia African American organization based among professionals that sought to use the boycott to force firms doing business in the black community to integrate their workforces.
The impetus for the Alliance came in August 1933 when 21-year old John Aubrey Davis staged a boycott of the Hamburger Grill. The Grill was a white owned business that fired three black workers and replaced them with whites.
On August 28, 1933 Davis organized a picket and boycott of the establishment. Two days later, the Hamburger Grill re-hired the three black employees.
Following this victory, Davis along with Belford V. Lawson and M. Franklin Thorne formed the Alliance and began campaigns that targeted chain stores like People’s Drug Store, Safeway and Sanitary Groceries.
Using slogans like “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” and “Jobs for Negroes,” the group set up ongoing pickets outside of the stores.
Sanitary Groceries challenged the Alliance’s right to picket outside one of their more than 140 stores at 1936 11th Street NW. Lawson, who was an attorney, took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled in 1938 “…. those having a direct or indirect interest in the matters of employment have the freedom to take action against discrimination and peacefully persuade others."
Despite victories at smaller stores the group was unable to break through in the big chains and by the end World War II in 1945, the group was essentially defunct.
The Alliance, however, because of its unique position in the District of Columbia, helped to bring the issue of fair employment into the national spotlight. A Phillip Randolph’s threatened march on Washington in 1941 caused President Franklin Roosevelt to issue an executive order for fair employment practices in the defense and defense related industries.
The color barrier began to break down during World War II, but legal discrimination did not end until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
DC National Negro Congress: 1936-55
The National Negro Congress (NNC) and its successor the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) were organizations that rivaled the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for influence in the civil rights movement prior the emergence of the 1950s civil rights movement under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The organization was formed in 1936 and delegates from the District of Columbia attended the first convention.
It was a broad-based organization, but mainly concentrated in the working class. During its peak years of 1936-41, the NNC was headed by A. Phillip Randolph as president with John P. Davis serving as national secretary.
Socialists, labor union leaders, Democratic Party activists, Communists, ministers and a wide variety of others found room in the big tent of the organization, but it began to fall apart when A. Phillip Randolph quit the organization in 1941 in a dispute over U.S. involvement in the burgeoning war in Europe and the turn of the NNC toward an alliance with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Randolph’s sleeping car porters were affiliated with the rival American Federation of Labor (AFL).
In the District, the group focused on direct action around police brutality, organizing unions, and advocating for desegregation of Washington’s schools and parks.
The broadest campaign was their mass campaign against police brutality that lasted from 1936-41, although the organization continued work on this issue into the late 1940s.
Some of the successful union work that the DC NNC was involved with included the Cleaners & Dyers union organization of dry cleaning plants, strike support for the Laborer’s Union and the integration of the Glen L. Martin aircraft facility near Baltimore.
The local NNC/CRC also participated in the national campaigns to free the “Scottsboro Boys,” Willie McGee and the “Martinsville 7.”
After merging with the International Labor Defense, it became the Civil Rights Congress that worked as both legal defense and mobilization of action. It was listed as a subversive organization in the late 1940s and ultimately dissolved in 1956 as a result of the Red Scare.
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator and life rights leader best known for starting a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida. She attracted donations of time and money, and developed the academic school as a college. It later continued to develop as Bethune-Cookman University. She also was appointed as a national adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was known as “The First Lady of The Struggle” because of her commitment to give the African Americans a better life.
President Harry S. Truman becomes the first president to address the NAACP June 29, 1947 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..
DC African American veterans of the GAR–Grand Army of the Republic–that were active during the Civil War.
The American Youth Congress was an organization that focused on issues affecting young people and by 1939 had over 4.5 million members across the country.
Among the issues taken up by the AYC were draft opposition, jobs and training for youth and equality among different races and nationalities. It opposed mandatory ROTC training on campuses and lobbied for more funding for education.
However, the group was accused by U.S. Rep. Martin Dies, chair of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as having communist leadership in 1939 and support for the organization began to decline.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attempted to bolster the group in 1940 by inviting some of the group to a picnic on the White House lawn where they were addressed by President Franklin Roosevelt.
But the AYC continued to decline and the group disbanded in 1941.
One of the main pillars for the African American civil rights movement of the 1940s was the creation of a Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) that would insure legal equality in hiring and promotion in the workplace. Other major issues were passage of a federal anti-lynching law and a federal law prohibiting imposition of poll taxes. Of these, only the FEPC achieved partial success in that decade.
The fight for a permanent FEPC was hampered by a split in the civil rights movement between A. Phillip Randolph and his allies and activists allied with the U.S. Communist Party.
Randolph, formerly head of the National Negro Congress (NNC), split with the broad-based group in 1940 over a resolution opposing “imperialist” war in Europe and another moving the group closer to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Randolph headed the American Federation of Labor (AFL) affiliated Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Randolph understood that the U.S. was moving closer to intervention in Europe through its build-up of defense industry and sought to pressure the federal government to guarantee non-discrimination in the workplace. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to act, Randolph called for a march on Washington to be held July 1 1941.
Randolph established March on Washington Movement committees in many cities and called for the establishment of an FEPC. The NNC also took up the cry but work was done independently by the two organizations.
Pressure on President Roosevelt built as 100,000 African Americans were predicted to march in Washington, D.C. Such an event would be a major embarrassment for the U.S. since fascist forces in Europe could point to American hypocrisy. A week before the march, Roosevelt agreed to issue an executive order desegregating defense industries and establishing an FEPC. In return, Randolph cancelled the march.
Throughout the war, MOWM and the NNC picketed and pressured the federal government to desegregate. The biggest victory locally occurred at the Glenn L. Martin aircraft factory outside of Baltimore and the biggest defeat at the Capital Transit Company in Washington.
The FEPC terminated with the war’s end in 1945 and activists waged a serious campaign for a permanent FEPC until 1950. The campaign resulted in President Harry S. Truman issuing an executive order desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces in 1948. The House approved a permanent FEPC in 1950, but Southern Democrats staged a filibuster in the Senate and the bill failed.
This largely ended the effort along with the post-World War II red scare that robbed many civil rights leaders of their jobs and some of their freedom.
The civil rights movement of the 1960s ultimately succeeded in this goal through passage of Title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent Executive Orders.
Poll taxes (a tax levied when voting in an election) were imposed in many U.S. Southern states as one of several methods to minimize African American voters. Laws typically excluded from the tax anyone whose father and/or grandfather, had voted prior to the Civil War—assuring that nearly all African Americans were subject to the tax and most white Southerners were not.
Any poll tax imposed in federal elections was outlawed with the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified in 1964 as the modern civil rights movement gained momentum. Poll taxes in state elections were outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966
Protests greeted the openings of the film “Gone With the Wind” at theaters in major cities across the country in 1940 due to its portrayal of African Americans as passive and supportive of the slave system that existed in the South until the end of the Civil War in 1865.
The images in this set show pickets at the Lincoln Theater at 1215 U Street NW in March 1940. The D.C. protests were organized by the National Negro Congress, a broad coalition based in the working class that employed more aggressive tactics than the older NAACP.
The pickets provoked controversy because Hattie McDaniel’s role was one of the largest roles in major Hollywood production at that time and her performance was viewed by a number of critics as groundbreaking. McDaniel won an Oscar for the performance as Best Supporting Actress.
Protesters likened the film to “Birth of a Nation,” an early film that broke new ground in cinema and was praised by critics while glorifying the Ku Klux Klan.
“Down here on the Shore, where in the past the only time whites ever visited a jail in connection with a colored prisoner was to lynch him, a group of white strikers went to a jail and made police turn a colored striker loose.”–William N. Jones, 1937, Baltimore Afro-American newspaper.
Jones was not exaggerating. Maryland’s Eastern Shore in June 1937 was a hotbed of racial intolerance. The brutal lynching of Matthew Williams in Salisbury in 1931 and George Armstead in Princess Anne in 1933 had just occurred. The two-year legal battle of Euel Lee, also known as “Orphan Jones,” involved an attempted lynching at Snow Hill and ended with the legal lynching (blacks were excluded from his jury) of Lee in 1933.
However, barbaric, racially motivated violence wasn’t the only force in play in that period in the middle of the Great Depression. New unions that ultimately became the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) were organizing workers into single industrial unions of all races and sexes–not along the craft lines of most unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), where African Americans and women were often excluded. The new unions were also winning wage gains from employers and the AFL and CIO became bitter rivals during that period.
In 1937 a single employer, The Phillips Packing Company that employed over 2,000 workers canning vegetables grown on local farms, dominated Cambridge. The CIO began organizing through the union that became the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing & Allied Workers. The effort was headed locally by Leif Dahl and at least one organizer had obtained work at the plant.
On the evening of June 23, 1937, a relatively small number of workers at the can-making factory within the massive Phillips plant struck after the company announced plans to reduce the workforce. The strike quickly spread to the rest of the workers who were engaged in packing.
That night, a crowd of 1,000 marched through the streets rallying support and overturning trucks carrying vegetables. The workers were majority African American with a substantial minority of whites.
For the first few days of the strike they convinced migratory bean pickers, who were destitute and lived in farmer or packer provided shanties, to join the strike.
However, company president Albanus Phillips invited the American Federation of Labor in for talks and quickly recognized the AFL as a union for the workers. Workers, however, turned down the agreement.
That night, a crowd of 1,000 predominantly white strikers and their supporters gathered at the jail to demand the release of an African American striker named James “Midnight” McKnight who had been arrested earlier in the day during a confrontation with truck drivers. McKnight was charged with disorderly conduct after a trucker was hit with a rock. The sheriff, confronted with the likelihood of more violence, released McKnight. It was an astonishing display of racial solidarity never before seen on the Eastern Shore.
The victory, however, was short-lived. On the following day (June 25), John Cephas, an African-American, was killed by a truck loaded with vegetables that swerved and struck him beside a road near the plant. Cephas was an occasional worker at the plant who had come out to support the strikers. His killers were not prosecuted.
By June 30, the strike was beginning to falter. When police arrested one of the strikers, a crowd of only 200 was mustered at the local police station and was held back by a dozen local policemen. The strikers eventually raised enough bail money to get him out. Meetings of strikers were attended by less than 300.
Phillips, through a Merchants Association, set up a company union called the Cambridge Workers Association. He quickly recognized the bogus union and “settled” the strike for the original offer of 10%. Powell, the striker who was shot, was given a quick trial and a 12-month jail sentence.
The strike began to crumble and Phillips re-opened some of the plant. Phillips filed suit against the town for damages as a result of the strike. By July 9, the strike was over.
Both the AFL and the CIO appealed to the federal government. The newly formed National Labor Relations Board twice ruled against Phillips’ bogus company union and ordered several strikers reinstated, but the cause was lost. A number of strikers were sentenced to jail by the local courts.
The company-inspired union was later rcontinued to “represent” the workers, with the CIO cannery union losing a final close vote in 1947 when the union was under attack for alleged communist influence.
The Phillips Company continued to dominate Cambridge until the mid 1950s when the company began to layoff workers. The company was sold to Consolidated Foods in 1957.
The packing industry in Cambridge was finally unionized by the Chicago-based United Packing House Workers (originally a CIO union) in the 1960s when local civil rights activists led by Gloria Richardson joined their efforts.
Georgia lynching protest: 1946
Handmade Software, Inc. Image Alchemy v1.14
Nationwide protests, including months of activity in Washington, D.C., were sparked by the slayings of Roger and Dorothy Malcolm and George and Mae Dorsey on July 25, 1946 near Monroe, Georgia. The two women were sisters.
The four were traveling with white farmer Loy Harrison when the auto was stopped at gunpoint by an unmasked white mob. Harrison had come to Monroe to pick up Roger Malcolm who had made bond for stabbing and wounding his white employer on July 14.
As the men were led out of the automobile, one of the women recognized one of the lynch mob. The mob then took the women also. The men were bound and the mob fired three volleys of bullets into the four victims. More than 60 shots were fired.
The killings set off a round of demonstrations and demands for passage of a federal anti-lynching law. Despite the brazen nature of the crime, no one was ever prosecuted for the killings and no federal anti-lynching law was passed until 2022.
Photos, newspapers and flyers related to the beginnings of mass protest and civil disobedience surrounding the “Scottsboro Boys” trials and convictions.
The 1933 march on Washington, DC was only the second mass march on the capital related to civil rights in the century. The first was a 1922 march against lynching.
The Scottsboro campaign marked the first civil rights campaign that combined direct action, legal defense and political action with the tactics of mass protest that included letters, postcards, telegrams, rallies, mass marches, meetings and civil disobedience.
Adapted from the website ExecutedToday.com:
It is over 60 years since the May 8, 1951 Laurel, Mississippi execution of Willie McGee for rape — a lightning rod for controversy over race, crime, and justice in one of the Cold War’s principal antagonists.
McGee died silent in the state’s portable electric chair, rigged up in the very courtroom of his trial, right in front of the box from whence his all-white jury had retired two and a half minutes before convicting him. Fifty or so observers were there with him — plus those of the hundreds of local residents milling around outside intrepid enough to scale a tree for an illicit view through the courthouse windows.
(Given the setting, some sources call this a “public execution,” which is not technically correct. This courtroom tableau was actually a standard deployment for the mobile electric chair.)
But McGee’s own silence hardly muted global outrage: for years, appeals for McGee’s life had deluged Mississippi and the White House from Europe, the Soviet Union, and what was quaintly known as “Red China.”
Oh, yes. The Reds.
Willie McGee’s case popped out of backwoods obscurity when he got from the pinko Civil Rights Congress a leftist young attorney — future U.S. Congresswoman Bella Abzug.
Once it got out there, it became the Free Mumia case of the nascent civil rights movement and the nascent Cold War. Its appeal to communist countries and cadres only raised the hackles of American establishment types. This was a Negro raping a white housewife literally and metaphorically.
Author Jessica Mitford (The American Way of Death) campaigning to save Willie McGee’s life. William Faulkner, Albert Einstein, and Josephine Baker also publicly supported McGee.
Whether there actually was a literal rape is the enduring mystery — the enduring Rorschach blot — of the McGee case. The accused himself remained silent on the matter for years; eventually, he claimed that the two were having a consensual but forbidden interracial affair and that he had been brutalized into a confession.
McGee’s defenders believed that the “victim” herself initiated the affair, and threatened to cry rape if he refused her flirtatious advances … McGee reluctantly went [along] with Hawkins, fearing the tragic consequences of turning her away. “People who don’t know the South don’t know what would have happened to Willie if he told her no,” [Willie’s wife] Rosalee told a friend. “Down South you tell a woman like that no, and she’ll cry rape anyway. So what else could Willie do?”
In another version, the manipulative Hawkins executed the threat when her husband — who later witnessed McGee’s electrocution — found out. McGee’s cited reason for changing his story was the very plausible fear of lynching.)
A Laurel African-American who was then a child remembers being taken by his family to view the body, and impress upon him the lesson of its electrical burns: “Don’t mess with white girls.”
McGee’s persecutors considered all that miscegenation stuff so much subversive rubbish, a “revolting insinuation,” in the words of the Mississippi Supreme Court.
And if at its apex the controversy generated more heat than light, its historical fade to embers has not sufficed to resolve the factual questions.
McGee has benefited from a recent rediscovery — one that indicates such memories of the McGee case as persevere in Laurel still divide starkly along racial lines.
Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo had been a virulent racist throughout his career, but in the immediate post-WWII era, his attacks on African Americans, people of the Jewish faith and Italians were at odds with most Americans understanding of the fight against fascism.
A broad campaign included Republicans, Democrats, Communists and others who demanded his expulsion from the Senate.
The movement picked up steam when Bilbo made outrageous statements during his 1946 election campaign while in the national spotlight.
“I call on every red-blooded American white man to use any mean to keep the [derogatory term for African Americans] away from the polls. If you don’t understand what that means, you are just plain dumb.,” he said during the campaign.
Bilbo was a long-time racist who appealed to poor white sharecroppers while railing against African Americans and the wealthy. He was an open member of the Ku Klux Klan declaring on the radio program Meet the Press, “No man can leave the Klan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux.”
Bilbo was a particular thorn for Washington, D.C. residents because the Democrats assigned him the Senate District of Columbia committee with oversight over the city where he worked to bar African American voting.
The Senate refused to seat him in 1946 citing his appeals to use violence to keep African Americans from voting and allegations of bribery. While Bilbo intended to continue fighting the charges, his health failed him and he died in August 21, 1947.
Mary Church Terrell: 1863-1954
Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) broke barrier after barrier in her long campaign for civil rights.
She was born Mary Church and married Robert Terrell. She was one of the first college educated black women and graduated from Oberlin College. She was appointed to the District of Columbia school board in 1895 and was the first black woman in the United States to hold such a position.
Terrell was the first president of the National Association of Colored Women, a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and helped organize Delta Sigma Theta.
She was an active women’s suffrage advocate and a leader of the fight against lynching.
She also was a leader of the Committee for Equal Justice that campaigned to bring charges against the white men who raped an African American woman, Recy Taylor, in Alabama in 1944.
While many turned their heads away, she stood up for civil liberties during the late 1940s and early 1950s when Americans were jailed for their political beliefs in communism or socialism.
Generally noted for her achievements in the early period of her life, she led the campaign to desegregate Washington, DC’s restaurants in the early 1950s.
Terrell entered Thompson’s restaurant along with several others and filing a lawsuit when she was refused service. She allied herself with the left-leaning predominantly African American Cafeteria Workers Union Local 471 and led picketing of Thompson’s and other restaurants and theaters until they desegregated.
She lived to see the courts overturn segregation in the District of Columbia in a number of rulings in the early 1950s.
The Martinsville 7 were charged with the rape of a white woman, Ruby Stroud Floyd, in a black neighborhood of Martinsville, Virginia on January 8, 1949. After a long legal battle led by the NAACP and a grassroots campaign led by the Civil Rights Congress, the seven were executed in 1951 on February 2nd and February 5th.
The mass executions were the largest in Virginia in modern times. Every single one of the 45 men executed by Virginia’s electric chair for rape at that point were African American men charged with assaulting white women.
The seven executed were all workers. Three worked in a sawmill, one was a plasterer’s helper, one a stonecutter and one a foundry man.
On January 31, a mass demonstration of over 400 took place in Richmond while the demonstrators picketed the White House. Hundreds stayed in Richmond for a prayer vigil until the executions took place.
The hope generated by the Scottsboro campaign in the 1930s was followed by bitter setbacks in the post World War II period. The campaigns to stop the legal lynching of the Martinsville 7 and Willie McGee in Mississippi were met with red-baiting and gruesome determination by the white elite to protect strict racial codes.
In denying appeals to commute the Martinville 7 death sentences, Virginia’s Governor John S. Battle said, that the wave of messages that flooded his desks was “cosponsored” by the Civil Rights Congress and the Communist Party.
“The propaganda emanating from these sources bears no semblance of truth and is designed for no other purpose than to forment ill feeling between the races and to mislead those who have no knowledge of the true fact of these cases.”
The seven executed were Francis Grayson, James L. Hairston, John Claybon Taylor, Frank Hairston, Jr., Booker T. Millner, Howard Lee Hairston and Joe Henry Hampton.
Images related to rallies and marches sponsored by the Citizens Committee Against Police Brutality in Washington in September, 1941.
The protests were organized after four African Americans were shot to death by D.C. police in three separate incidents.
The committee was a broad based group originally organized by the National Negro Congress and supported by the NAACP, Elks, Interdenominational Ministers Alliance and a number of other groups.
This set contains images related to the Washington, DC campaign by a broad coalition of African American rights groups and supporters against police brutality in the city.
The campaign marked the first use of mass marches for a local civil rights campaign in the city and was led by the Washington Branch of the National Negro Congress.
Charles Hamilton Houston, counsel to the NAACP, described the campaign as follows:
"The persistent and forceful campaign, which the Washington Council [of the National Negro Congress] and allied organizations have waged against police brutality in Washington, has been one of the most significant battles for civil rights and personal freedom and security ever conducted in the District of Columbia."
The campaign lasted from 1936-41.
On June 3, 1946 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Virginia law requiring separate seating on buses for African Americans and whites.
The Court ruled that Virginia’s 1930 Jim Crow law for buses, which had replaced an earlier 1902 Jim Crow law, could not be applied to interstate travel.
The law read in part that all passenger motor vehicles operating in the state shall,
"Separate white and colored passengers in their motor buses and set apart and designate in each bus or vehicle a portion thereof, or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored passengers."
"Each driver, or person in charge of any vehicle, while actively engaged in the operation of a vehicle, shall be a special policeman and have all the powers of conservator of the peace in the enforcement of the provision of this act."
The case arose when Irene Morgan boarded a bus on July 15, 1944 in Hayes Store in Gloucester County, Va. to her home in Baltimore, Maryland. She refused to move to rear of a bus when ordered by a driver in Saluda, Virginia. She was arrested for violating Virginia’s Jim Crow law and fined $10.
Upon hearing the verdict, Morgan said, “I’m glad mine was a test case to bring the issue into the open. It’s a victory for me and all colored people. The question remains whether the Greyhound Bus Company will instruct its drivers to observe the Court’s ruling.”
Spottswood Robinson from Richmond, Va. represented her with the support of the NAACP in the early stages of the case. William Hastie argued the case before the Supreme Court.
Justice Stanley Reed explained the Court’s opinion by noting that “an interstate passenger must, if necessary [under Virginia law] repeatedly shift seats while moving in Virginia to meet the seating requirements of the changing passenger group.”
The Arnold and WMA lines running between Northern Virginia to the District of Columbia abolished Jim Crow, but most southern states and bus companies refused to comply with the Court’s ruling. In 1947, the Congress of Racial Equality and the Fellowship for Reconciliation conducted an early “Journey for Reconciliation” to test the new Court ruling. They were met with violence and arrests in North Carolina.
Even after further Court decisions outlawing the practice, southern states enforced their Jim Crow laws. The racist practice wasn’t broken up until the Freedom Riders of 1961 and civil rights movement and black power movements that followed in the 1960s.
The long fight over Jim Crow in performing arts venues in the District of Columbia is illustrated in this set.
The Lincoln Memorial opened in 1922 and the invited African American guests, with the exception of Civil War veterans, were placed in Jim Crow seating roped off from the rest of the crowd.
Theaters were likewise usually segregated, including the major venues like Constitution Hall which barred African American performers and the National Theater which barred African Americans from the audience.
A long battle was waged in the city during the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s before theaters were finally desegregated.
This set relates to an anti-lynching campaign, including the first mass civil rights march on Washington, that culminated in 1922.
The campaign was ultimately unsuccessful–the legislation passed the House of Representatives, but southern Democrats staged a filibuster in the Senate and the bill died in December 1922.
A federal anti-lynching bill wouldn’t pass until 2022.
A historic strike by 600 predominantly Black women on the Jim Crow Maryland Eastern Shore in 1938 against two dozen packinghouses that featured a communist organizer, vigilante raids, the burning of a union organizers car, the expulsion of a federal mediator from town and a blockade preventing food from reaching strikers. After the workers held strongt for six weeks, the packinghouses reached an agreement with the CIO union.
Marie Richardson Harris was a leading organizer for civil and labor rights in the District of Columbia from the late 1930s until 1950.
Her pioneering work helped to organize the predominately African American Washington red caps union and their women’s auxiliary while still a teenager. She was a leader of the early fight to integrate Capital Transit operator jobs. She was an active member of the National Negro Congress and served as the executive secretary of the local branch.
According to the Afro American newspaper, she was the first African American woman to hold national office in a major labor union. In her role as national representative of the United Federal Workers (CIO), she helped lead the union’s organizing drives and battles against discrimination inside the federal government in the District.
The price she paid for her leadership was four and a half years in federal prison, a victim of McCarthy-era persecution.
Fighting Capital Transit racism: 1941-55
In 1941, a group of predominantly young African American activists organized to take on the challenge of integrating one of the most visible examples of job discrimination in the city: The Washington, DC Capital Transit public transportation system.
The 15-year campaign went through a period of highs and lows as the company, aided at times by the union representing its workers and the federal government, stubbornly clung to its racist practices before finally succumbing in 1955.
Civil Rights and Black Liberation after 1955
GUARD–Government Employees United Against Racial Discrimination: 1969-75
The umbrella anti-discrimination group Government Employees United Against Racial Discrimination (GUARD) was initiated in March 1969 by the Urban League and was active at upwards of two dozen departments and agencies, including Health, Education & Welfare, Housing and Urban Development, General Services Administration, Bureau of Engraving, Library of Congress, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Institutes of Health, Commerce Department, and the District of Columbia Government, among others.
GUARD co-chairman Arthur Parks, a biology lab technician at the NIH, recalled, many black federal workers were “suffocating in thankless, low-paying, dead end jobs, without any real prospects of meaningful advancement,” according to a DC Preservation League online post on Black History in the city.
GUARD was headed for a time by Reginal Booker, the confrontational anti-freeway activist leader.
The organization employed multiple tactics including direct action, once chasing HUD Secretary George Romney down the stairs of the building. Workers at the Library of Congress and other institutions staged sit-ins and rallies at the facilities where they worked.
The groups affiliated with GUARD also initiated lawsuits, represented employees in internal agency grievance hearings, investigated diversity, held public hearings and rallies and sought support through media events.
GUARD was also involved in the community, supporting African Liberation Day, the Children’s March for Survival and other causes. The group also conducted internal education on Black History and on topical issues.
GUARD affiliates would also support each other by attending events and protests of each other.
The group continued to function at least until 1975.
Joan (often misspelled Joanne) Little was jailed for minor crimes in the Beauford County, NC jail. On August 27, 1974 white guard Clarence Alligood was found dead on Joan Little’s bunk naked from the waist down with stab wounds to his temple and heart. Semen was later discovered on his leg.
Little turned herself in a week later and claimed self-defense against sexual assault but was charged with first degree murder.
The case attracted national attention in part because Little would have received the death penalty if convicted. Civil rights advocates, death penalty opponents and women’s rights advocates all rallied to her defense.
The jury of six blacks and six whites deliberated for about an hour and a half before delivering a not guilty verdict.
Little may have been the first woman in United States history to be acquitted using the defense that she used deadly force to resist sexual assault. Her case also has become classic in legal circles as a pioneering instance of the application of scientific jury selection.
The Wilmington 10—Rev. Ben Chavis, eight Black high school students and one White woman—were charged with arson and conspiracy during racial disturbances in Wilmington, N.C. in 1971.
The Wilmington 10 charges stemmed from protests against the closure of a historically Black high school. During a time of ongoing demonstrations, a White owned store was firebombed. The same night the disturbances erupted where two people died, six were injured and a half million dollars in property damage was sustained, according to authorities.
Rev. Chavis, a racial justice organizer for the United Church of Christ and the other nine were convicted in what many neutral observers called a frame-up and sentenced to long prison terms. The Black defendants received sentences ranging from 28 to 34 years and the white woman was sentenced to 15 years in prison for an alleged firebombing where no injuries occurred.
Afterwards a nationwide campaign was launched to free the ten. The main prosecution witnesses recanted and on appeal in 1980, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions based primarily on the prosecutors’ withholding exculpatory evidence and the trial judge limited defense questioning of witnesses about special treatment they received from the prosecution.
Chavis went on to become a national civil rights leader, including heading the NAACP for a period of time.
Jesse Jackson’s introduction to the civil rights movement came in 1965 when he traveled to Selma, Alabama to join in the campaign for voting rights. While there Jackson met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the man who would launch his career as a national civil rights leader.
Through King’s influence, Jackson quickly established himself prominently within King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
When SCLC launched its first northern campaign in Chicago in 1966, Jackson was put in charge of its Operation Breadbasket which used boycotts and selective buying campaigns to win contracts for black businesses and jobs for black workers.
In 1968 he was the “mayor” of the Poor People’s Campaign Resurrection City in Washington, D.C.
During the years Jackson headed Operation Breadbasket (1966 to 1971), the campaign generated over three thousand jobs for Southside Chicago residents and enlarged the income of the area by $22 million.
Despite its success, Jackson and Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King’s successor at SCLC, clashed. In 1971, Jackson left the organization and found Operation PUSH where he continued his campaign of economic empowerment.
By the early 1980s Jackson had acquired a national reputation as a racial justice activist. That reputation was enhanced when in 1983 he traveled to Syria and made a dramatic personal appeal to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to secure the release of a captured American pilot, Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, who had been shot down over Lebanon.
In June 1984 Jackson traveled to Havana to meet with Cuban President Fidel Castro to negotiate the release of 22 Americans being held by Castro’s government.
In 1984, following the success of his Syrian mission, Jesse Jackson mounted the second major effort by an African American (after Shirley Chisholm in 1972) to seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
He and his followers adopted the term “Rainbow Coalition” to describe the broad coalition of groups of color, working poor, gays and lesbians, and white progressives that Jackson hoped would propel him to the nomination and eventually the White House.
Despite controversial anti-Semitic remarks made during the campaign, Jackson ran a surprisingly strong race, winning primaries in five states including Michigan. Jackson garnered 21% of the primary vote but gained only 8% of the delegates and ultimately lost the nomination to former Vice President Walter Mondale.
Jackson mounted a second effort in 1988, this time winning more than seven million primary votes across the nation in another failed attempt to win the nomination. After winning the South Carolina primary, finishing second in the Illinois primary and winning the Democratic caucus in Michigan, Jackson became the Democratic frontrunner.
Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis recaptured the lead with wins in the Colorado and Wisconsin primaries forcing Jackson to drop out of the race.
Jesse Jackson did not make another bid for the presidential nomination and since 1992 has functioned as a power broker within the Democratic Party.
In 1990 he won the largely ceremonial position of District of Columbia’s statehood senator, a platform from which he argued for statehood for the nation’s capital.
In 1997 Jackson launched the Wall Street Project which encouraged African Americans to become stockholders to use their leverage to force changes in corporate culture and behavior.
Two years later Jackson engaged in personal diplomacy once again when during the Kosovo War he traveled to Belgrade to meet with Yugoslav (now Serbia) president Slobodan Milosevic where he secured the release of three U.S. prisoners of war. In the same year, 1999, he brokered a cease-fire in war-ravaged Sierra Leone.
Both his supporters and critics describe Jackson as bold, defiant, and controversial. He has elicited praise for inspiring the poor with speeches punctuated by catchword phrases such as “I am somebody” and “keep hope alive.”
Critics, however, blamed Jackson for mounting blatantly self-promoting campaigns that exploited racial grievances and inflamed racial outrage.
The revelation that Jackson, married since 1962, fathered a child in 2001 with Rainbow Coalition staffer Karin Stanford, sullied his well-crafted public image as a moral leader. Nevertheless, Jesse Jackson remains enormously popular both in the United States and abroad.
–Biography largely from The Black Past Remembered and Reclaimed
Images of Alpha Kappa Alpha (ΑΚΑ) working for civil rights in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
AKA is a Greek-lettered sorority, the first established by African-American college women. Membership is for college-educated women. The organization was founded on five basic tenets:
“To cultivate and encourage high scholastic and ethical standards, to promote unity and friendship among college women, to study and help alleviate problems concerning girls and women in order to improve their social stature, to maintain a progressive interest in college life, and to be of ‘Service to All Mankind.’”
The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of sixteen students led by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle.
Forming a sorority broke barriers for African-American women in areas where they had little power or authority due to a lack of opportunities for minorities and women in the early 20th century. Alpha Kappa Alpha was incorporated on January 29, 1913.
Consisting of college-educated women of many diverse backgrounds from around the world, the sorority serves through a membership of more than 300,000 women in 1,024 chapters in the United States and several other countries.
After the organization’s establishment, Alpha Kappa Alpha has helped to improve social and economic conditions through community service programs.
Members have improved education through independent initiatives, contributed to community-building by creating programs and associations, such as the Mississippi Health Clinic, and influenced federal legislation by Congressional lobbying through the National Non-Partisan Lobby on Civil and Democratic Rights.
–partially excerpted from Wikipedia
Photos related to the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons Union Local 96 or 891 in the Washington, D.C. area. The union was one of the few integrated building trades unions during this period.
Individuals and activities associated with the Washington, D.C. branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and national NAACP activities in the city.
Hosea Williams achieved his greatest successes as a leader with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and twice was a critical figure in Washington, D.C. demonstrations—the Poor People’s March of 1968 and the antiwar demonstrations of 1971.
Williams served with the United States Army during World War II in an all-African-American unit under General George S. Patton, Jr. and advanced to the rank of Staff Sergeant. He was the only survivor of a Nazi bombing, which left him in a hospital in Europe for more than a year and earned him a Purple Heart.
Upon his return home from the war, Williams was savagely beaten by a group of angry whites at a bus station for drinking from a water fountain marked "Whites Only."
Of the attack, Williams was quoted as saying, "I was deemed 100 percent disabled by the military and required a cane to walk. My wounds had earned me a Purple Heart. The war had just ended and I was still in my uniform for god’s sake! But on my way home, to the brink of death, they beat me like a common dog.
The very same people whose freedoms and liberties I had fought and suffered to secure in the horrors of war…they beat me like a dog…merely because I wanted a drink of water."
The attack led Williams to become a civil rights activist, first with the NAACP and later with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
In 1963 he was recruited to the staff of King. He was active in the Freedom Summer voting registration campaign and was arrested on 124 occasions. King once described Williams as "My wild man, my Castro".
With John Lewis, Williams led the Selma to Montgomery protest march on 7th March, 1965, that was attacked by mounted police. The sight of state troopers using nightsticks and tear gas was filmed by television cameras and the event became known as Bloody Sunday.
During the late 1960s, at King’s urging, Williams collaborated with the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations on the Chicago Campaign. In 1968, he returned to the South as field director for the SCLC’s Poor People’s Campaign, and in April of that year witnessed King’s assassination. In the 1970s, Williams was elected executive director of the SCLC.
After leaving SCLC, Williams played an active role in supporting strikes in the Atlanta, Georgia area by black workers who had first been hired because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Williams was elected to Georgia General Council in 1974 and controversially endorsed Ronald Reagan for president in 1980. After becoming a member of the Atlanta City Council, he led a march in Forsyth County, which resulted in a violent confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan in 1987. Two years later, Williams failed in his bid to be elected mayor of Atlanta. Hosea Williams died in Atlanta on 16th November, 2000.
Williams motto was “Unbossed and Unbought.”
Thurgood Marshall was a crusader within the legal system for black Americans to obtain legal remedy against discrimination and bias. Charles Hamilton Houston served as his mentor and he went on to become NAACP General Counsel, a federal judge, U.S. Solicitor General and an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Houston often called him “Young Thurgood.”
In 1930, he applied to the University of Maryland Law School, but was denied admission because he was Black. Marshall sought admission and was accepted at the Howard University Law School that same year and came under the immediate influence of the dynamic new dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, who instilled in all of his students the desire to apply the tenets of the Constitution to all Americans.
Paramount in Houston’s outlook was the need to overturn the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson which established the legal doctrine called, "separate but equal."
Marshall’s first major court case came in 1933 when he successfully sued the University of Maryland to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named Donald Gaines Murray.
In 1934 he became one of the first black attorneys to represent a white man when he and Charles Hamilton Houston successfully defended Maryland Communist Party attorney Bernard Ades against disbarment. Ades’ real “crime” in the disbarment proceeding was defending a black man charged with murdering a white family.
Marshall followed his Howard University mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston to New York and later became Chief Counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During this period,
In the 1950s, Marshall tipped off the FBI about communist attempts to infiltrate the NAACP. But he was also the subject of FBI investigation, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover.
According to FBI files, critics tried to connect Marshall to communism through his membership in the National Lawyers Guild, a group that was called “the legal bulwark of the Communist Party” by the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee.
After amassing an impressive record of Supreme Court challenges to state-sponsored discrimination, including the landmark Brown v. Board decision in 1954, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
In this capacity, he wrote over 150 decisions including support for the rights of immigrants, limiting government intrusion in cases involving illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and right to privacy issues.
Ronald C. Clark, a co-founder of the Regional Addiction Prevention (RAP), “pioneered a therapeutic approach to addiction aimed not just at detoxing the body but also the mind,” according to the Washington Post,
Clark was a bass player in the Charles Mingus band when addiction derailed his music career. After going through the Synanon treatment facility, he came to Washington, D.C. and never left.
The Post wrote upon his death in May 2019, “Many of his clients were African Americans, and he wanted to help them rid themselves of the poisonous effects of racism —the inferiority complexes, the low self-esteem, internalized oppression and self-hatred.”
“In a residential treatment setting that could last more than a year, patients studied African and African American history. Jazz musicians, black poets and artists performed and participated in group therapy sessions. Recovering addicts received nutrition counseling, reading lessons and job-skills training.”
The vintage Montgomery Spark wrote in 1971:
“The center’s approach is radically different from other ‘addict rehabilitation centers’ in the area. RAP operates as a collective, with staff and residents making decisions together.”
“RAP’s left-wing analysis of the heroin plague has led to attacks on the organization from reactionary elements who seek to capitalize on an addict’s plight through methadone maintenance or other exploitive methods.”
“RAP’s ‘success rate,’ as government authorities call it, has been remarkably higher than other types of treatment. This is probably because RAP’s residents learn that the root of the heroin problem lies in society’s illnesses, and by knowing this, the individual can better realize how to cope with their problems.”
Early counselors included radicals like Montgomery County’s John Dillingham that were supporters of the Black Panther Party.
RAP initially offered outpatient services before opening a residential facility at 1904 T Street NW in July 1970 and moved into the Willard Street property in 1973 when they were offered the facility for $1 in rent. They later opened other facilities in the District and Maryland.
Part of the program for the live-in treatment facility was community service. RAP organized to give out free vegetables and clothes, information on legal aid, welfare rights and where to find medical attention.
They worked to clean up the neighborhood around their facilities and ran workshops for the community called “survival teaching.”
RAP vigorously opposed the methadone as a drug that produced “Zombies” instead of instilling self-reliance.
Connie Clark, a co-director of RAP, said in a 1972 Washington Post interview, “Authorities like it because it cuts down on crime and makes people docile—easy to control. But all the same it addictive and babies born to methadone-taking mothers are addicts and persons on the drug are never free to think for themselves.”
RAP struggled financially in its first years of existence, holding benefits throughout the city to keep the facility functioning. Later grants from the city and private-pay residents would help to sustain it.
RAP adapted its treatment through the years as one drug epidemic after another swept through the city—heroin, crack, PCP, fentanyl—and everything in between, including alcoholism.
Nearly 50 years after opening, RAP describes itself, “RAP’s overarching mission is to promote and enhance human health – physically, spiritually, emotionally and socially. Individualized intensive and comprehensive assessment and case management guarantee an all-inclusive care plan.”
“RAP, Inc. has served the Washington metropolitan area since 1970. We base our treatment approach on cultural values, respecting and supporting all individuals and their communities and recognizing that a client’s culture is an inseparable part of his or her self-image.”
“Teaching from the work of giants such as Malcom X, Frederick Douglass, and Maya Angelou who are models of recovery and overcoming abuse, we motivate clients to embrace the possibilities for their own sobriety.”
Rufus “Catfish” Mayfield gained prominence as an activist in the city when he led a campaign against police brutality in the spring of 1967 after a friend was shot and killed by police.
After police officer William L. Ruff shot and killed Clarence Booker in Northeast Washington, D.C., the 20-year-old Mayfield led a series of protests, including a sit-in demanding a citizens inquiry into the shooting.
A grand jury was convened, but no indictment returned.
The confrontations, however, caught the eye of former D.C. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee chair Marion Barry.
Barry quit SNCC earlier in the year, took a job with the United Planning Organization and was looking for ways to further black economic empowerment.
He teamed up with Mayfield and Mary Treadwell to form Pride, Inc. on a $300,000 grant to put inner city young people to work during a summer jobs program.
Mayfield became chairman of the board and the chief spokesperson for Pride and led the effort of 1,000 youths in green uniforms to clean up litter, clear weeds and remove trash from a number of targeted neighborhoods during the summer of 1967.
The choice of Mayfield led Rep. Joel Broyhill (D-Va.) to blast Pride, Inc.
He said the U.S. Department of Labor, which provided the funding, was “guilty of a direct and deliberate affront to the House and Senate of the United States Congress in placing convicted felon Rufus Mayfield in a position of guidance and authority over 900 District of Columbia youth.”
Broyhill also attacked the program for paying $56 a week which he said would “undoubtedly be more than the fathers earn in many instances.”
Mayfield survived Broyhill’s attack and the Pride ultimately received $1 million more in funding to carry the program through for a full year.
However, the District police charged him in separate incidents with assault and auto theft in arrests that were covered widely in the local press, although charges were ultimately dropped in both cases.
By November, Mayfield resigned from Pride—under internal pressure, according to Mayfield. Treadwell, Barry and executive director Carroll Harvey allegedly were taking the organization in a direction that Mayfield disagreed with, although whatever differences existed were never spelled out publicly.
While his star shined brightly for only a few months, Mayfield was responsible for inspiring young people in the District and in launching what became Marion Barry’s summer jobs for youth program.
He later found work as a stand-up comedian before Mayor Marion Barry gave him a job as a community relations specialist in 1985 with the Department of Human Services.
Mayfield briefly resurfaced publicly in 1991 when he led a campaign against newly-elected Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon’s effort to fire 2,000 District employees grade DS-11 and above. Mayfield lost the battle to keep his job, but was rehired to the D.C. government in 1995 where he helped lead an immunization campaign for D.C. children among other responsibilities.
Mayfield has continued to remain active in D.C. political life, campaigning more recently for Muriel Bowser, but he will probably best be remembered for the fiery youth who sought to uplift District of Columbia young people.
Frank D. Reeves (1916-1973) was a relatively unheralded lawyer and civil rights activist based in the District of Columbia who was part of the team that shaped the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) lawsuit that rendered segregated schools unconstitutional.
Reeves pursued his education and became an attorney and in 1942, the NAACP opened a Washington, D.C. bureau that Reeves headed up.
Among his many D.C. area activities were:
Reeves joined other civil rights leaders in 1942 in appealing for a presidential investigation into the Odell Waller case, a Virginia sharecropper sentenced to death for shooting his white landlord. An all-white jury convicted Waller despite evidence of self-defense. The appeal for Waller was unsuccessful and he was executed.
He successfully defended Frank D. Boston in 1949, a Baltimore postal employee dismissed for alleged communist ties during the Red Scare.
In 1950 when civil rights activists were staging sit-ins and protests to desegregate D.C. restaurants, Reeves took up the case of an integrated group of 15 people who sought service at a Sholl’s Cafeteria. The group was charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful entry. Reeves was able to get the unlawful entry dropped, but a judge found the group guilty of disorderly conduct for standing in the cafeteria line waiting to be served. In convoluted reasoning an appeal was denied based on the pending Thompson’s Restaurant that would ultimately result in a ruling barring segregation in public accommodations in the District.
In 1952, he took on the case of the Greene family that was attacked and brutalized by police. James Green, 18; his wife Delores, 19 and Alexander Green Jr, 10; all required hospital treatment. The Greens were charged with disorderly conduct.
When Virginia passed eight laws in 1956 designed to curb the NAACP during the state’s massive resistance to school integration, Reeves was one of the attorneys that successfully challenged Virginia’s attempt to disbar lawyers who took on NAACP desegregation cases.
He represented a group of black children whose right to enroll in a school in Arlington, Va., was upheld by the Supreme Court and the county became the first in Virginia to desegregate its schools..
He was the first African American chosen to sit on the DC Board of Commissioners, the three-man panel that ran the city from 1874 until limited home rule was instituted in 1967. How3ever, he declined the appointment after a controversy about filing late taxers.
In 1960 Reeves became the first African American member of the Democratic National Committee. He served as an advisor on minority affairs to Senator John F. Kennedy during his campaign for the presidency.
Reeves taught at the Howard University School of Law during the 1960s. At the same time he was legal counsel to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and helped negotiate the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as well as the Poor Peoples Campaign in 1967.
He was part of the team in 1967 that would successfully sue to reinstate Rep. Adam Clayton Powell to Congress in a 1969 Supreme Court ruling.
He served as counsel to Pride, Inc., the youth employment group that Marion Barry headed and was Barry’s personal attorney.
Reeves was known for taking pro bono, or free, cases and organized others to do the same as part of Neighborhood Legal Services at Howard University.
He co-founded the National Conference of Black Lawyers, committed to struggle against racism through the use of the law. He also founded the Joint Center for Political Studies.
The Frank D. Reeves Center for Municipal Affairs at 14th and U streets, NW, was named in his honor when it opened in 1986.
Edwin Bancroft Henderson, a long-time civil rights warrior and advocate of physical education for black children, had a long and colorful career as a civil rights activist and as the man who established black basketball. He led the building of the black 12th Street YMCA, led integration of the Uline Arena and AAU boxing, among many other achievements. He established an NAACP branch in what was then rural Falls Church and headed the Virginia state NAACP. He was not only a target of white supremacist legislators, but of the Ku Klux Klan.
Photos of civil rights leader, wife and widow of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr during activities in the District of Columbia
Lowell D. Pratt is shown in the Washington, D.C. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) office on U Street NW May 18, 1966 after helping to coordinate a successful boycott of D.C. Transit buses against a fare increase and while the “Free D.C.” campaign was enlisting business support for District of Columbia home rule.
Lowell D. Pratt had no real background in civil rights when he teamed up with Local SNCC leader Marion Barry in Washington D.C. in 1965, acting as an advisor and organizing actions.
He was the impetus behind the bus boycott and the later strategy to boycott local businesses that failed to endorse the drive to obtain D.C. voting rights during the “Free D.C.” movement.
He also led a brief effort with SNCC worker Ralph Featherstone to win board seats on the Greenbelt Consumer Cooperative that then ran seven grocery stores, two gas stations, a movie theater and other non-profit ventures. The effort failed, but was an attempt to bring non-profit, low-cost food into under-served areas of the inner city.
Pratt lost influence within SNCC in 1967 when black nationalism gained sway within the organization and when Barry left to form Pride, Inc. He and Barry would fall out later that year when Barry forced out Rufus “Catfish” Mayfield as head of the board of directors of Pride.
As quickly as Pratt had come on to the D.C. civil rights scene, he was gone.
Images of Ku Klux Klan activity in Virginia and the opposition they engendered.
Activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the District of Columbia where the national headquarters was once located and an active chapter with hundreds of members once thrived.
Library of Congress employees Howard Cook and Tommy Shaw formed an organization in 1970 to combat discrimination.
The organization was known as Black Employees of the Library of Congress (BELC) and Cook was chosen as its executive director,
Deck attendants at the Library of Congress staged a sit-down strike in the main reading room June 23, 1971 protesting low pay and discrimination against black employees.
About 100 joined the sit-in at 8:00 a.m. saying they had little chance of advancement and were locked in at GS-2 to GS-4 salary schedules. The work in the stacks involved heavy lifting.
Howard Cook, executive director of Black Employees of the Library of Congress (BELC) charged that the library was run by a “white racist administration” determined to keep black people out of upper level positions.
28 black employees were then suspended.
At the time of the protest there were no black people and one Asian among the 63 top GS16-18 jobholders. Only three blacks, six Asians and two Latinos were among the 183 GS 14-15 jobs.
On June 28th, another sit-in was attempted and the Library fired 13 workers. A group later returned, entered the reading room chanting and carrying signs. The Library then had four former employees in the group arrested.
The firings led to a series of rallies, Congressional Hearings and lawsuits. It took years of struggle, but the lawsuits were ultimately successful with the primary suit winning $8.5 million in 1995.
The final disposition wasn’t done until 2002 when the Howard Cook and Tommy Shaw Foundation was established with money from covered persons who could not be located.
The judge authorized the committee to use interest generated by the foundation principal–or enhanced by foundation fundraising –to pay for the education and training of African-American employees seeking to advance their careers at the Library and to assist employees pursuing discrimination claims against the Library.
The principal was to be held until persons not found could be located. Cook is retired from the Library and passed in 2023..
Rev. Douglas Moore led the Black United Front in the District of Columbia after Stokely Carmichael resigned in 1968. Moore staged a number of high profile confrontations around the city while pursuing a Black Nationalist agenda.
Moore led the BUF to make a number of demands for reparations from churches around the city to fund the BEDC—an attempt to jump start economic development controlled by African Americans in the wake of the devastation in the city following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The BUF met with some limited success, receiving some substantive contributions from All Souls Unitarian Church and St. Stephens Episcopal, but was rejected by the Catholic Church, the Jewish community and other large denominations and parishes.
Moore would go on to win a city council seat in 1974, but personal troubles and his confrontational style did not sit well with many constituency groups or with his peers who worked to undermine him. He lost a 1978 race for council chair and a 1979 race for at-large council. He attempted a comeback in 1982 for a Ward 5 seat, but was again defeated.
Gwendolyn Greene (later Britt) was a civil rights activist at Howard University with the Non-Violent Action Group (NAG) and participated in desegregation sit-ins throughout Virginia and Maryland in 1960.
She was one of five arrested at Glen Echo Amusement Park whose conviction was voided upon appeal when the U.S. Supreme Court invalided their arrest and conviction on the narrow grounds that the arresting officer–a sheriff deputy working at the park–was an agent of the state and such enforcement was prohibited by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
She later participated in the Freedom Rides in the south and was jailed in Mississippi and later worked to register black voters in that state.
The had a professional career with AT&T and Giant Food and also worked as a real estate broker before being elected to the Maryland State Senate in 2002 where she was a voice for civil rights and liberal causes before she passed in 2007.
Northern Virginia civil rights: 1938-68
Images of the long ongoing fight to end discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and other areas in the state where the capital of the Confederacy was located.
The large chain grocery stores, Safeway and Giant, began a long series of closures of small stores without replacing them with large format stores that led to food deserts in many areas of the city.
Independent stores that opened in their place employed fewer neighborhood residents at lower wages than the unionized Safeway and Giant, which dominated the market. Further, the economics of operating an independent meant higher prices for fewer goods.
Overall this meant lower incomes to purchase the few available goods at higher prices.
The District’s solution to food and retail deserts in these lower-income areas in recent years has been to gentrify the neighborhoods, using economic pressures to force out low-income black families and replacing them with higher income single people or couples who are mostly white.
The effort usually, though not always, begins with a mixed use development or two around a Metrorail station in lower income sections of the District—sometimes with tax abatements.
Small scale developers often buy up neighboring single-family townhouses and convert them into multi-unit dwellings. Others renovate the properties and re-sell at exorbitant prices. Other shops and developments soon follow.
The District government establishes bike lanes and Circulator bus routes, allocates space for zip-cars and others and renovates or creates park facilities.
The economic pressures of higher property taxes and offers of cash by developers either force or lure lower income residents to leave the area.
Eugene V. Davidson gained early fame as a civil rights advocate when he was named administrator of the New Negro Alliance in 1939.
Davidson broadened the group to include left-wing activists like Doxey Wilkerson, U. Simpson Tate and George H. Rycraw as well as moderates like future mayor Walter Washington and Roberta Hastie, wife of Judge William H. Hastie.
The group had been picketing and boycotting stores in the District since 1933 under the slogan, “Don’t buy where you can’t work.”
The group had intitial success in a number of smaller stores and early on convinced the A&P grocery store to integrate three of its stores located in black neighborhoods, but efforts had stalled.
Davidson renewed the offensive against smaller stores and quickly desegregated Joseph Oxenburg at 1314 7th Street NW, Bonnett’s Shore Store at 1310 7th Street and Capitol Shoe Store at 1338 7th Street.
He recruited national NAACP president Walter White and prominent rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune to picket People’s Drug Store demanding that the chain hire black clerks and cashiers.
Despite the renewed pressure, chains like Sanitary Grocery (Safeway) and People’s Drug Store successfully resisted the pressure.
During 1941, Davidson was help organize the local chapter of A. Phillip Randolph’s March on Washington Movement whose threatened demonstration prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to issue an executive order barring discrimination in defense-related industry.
While head of the local NAACP, Davidson oversaw the end of legal segregation in the District and challenged many institutions to live up to the law, including D.C. schools, the police and fire departments, and the board of realtors.
He charged the District police department with brutality in 1957 after a cross was burned in front of his house.
Asa Phillip Randolph was a black labor leader and civil rights leader from the 1920s until the 1960s.
He was an early labor organizer of elevator operators in New York City and dockworkers in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
Randolph was elected president of the newly formed Brotherhood of Sleep Car Porters, AFL in 1925.
He later served as president of the National Negro Congress from 1936-40.
He organized the March on Washington Movement in 1941 that pressured President Franklin Roosevelt to issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination in the armed services (although it was limited) and within the defense industry. He later organized a movement where black Americans would refuse service in the military until it desegregated and ended discrimination.
In the early 1950s, Randolph organized the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, an umbrella group for civil rights organizations, that played a role in working out policy and program among the different civil rights leaders.
In 1955, Randolph became the first black vice president of the newly merged American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
Along with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he organized the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom—a mass gathering in Washington, D.C. designed to spur federal enforcement of the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated public schools.
He followed that up by being a key organizer of the 1958-59 youth marches on Washington that had the same goals.
These marches provided the organization and tactical experience for pulling together that massive 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, of which Randolph was one of the principal organizers.
Soon after, he founded the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization aimed at studying the causes of poverty and co-founded by Randolph’s mentee Bayard Rustin.
He retired from public life in 1968 and died in 1979.
William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor.
Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University.
Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta compromise, an agreement crafted by Booker T. Washington which provided that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic educational and economic opportunities.
In 1934, Du Bois had a variation of this argument with Mordecai Johnson, the president of Howard University.
Students from Howard University went to the U.S. Capitol to protest Jim Crow in the House and Senate public restaurants. Five were arrested, though charges were dropped. Johnson, fearing the loss of federal funding for the university, wanted to discipline the students.
Du Bois argued that the students’ action was worth the price, if such price was to be paid.
Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite.
Racism was the main target of Du Bois’s polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for independence of African colonies from European powers.
Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia. After World War I, he surveyed the experiences of American black soldiers in France and documented widespread bigotry in the United States military.
Du Bois was a prolific author. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, was a seminal work in African-American literature; and his 1935 magnum opus Black Reconstruction in America challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era.
He wrote one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology, and he published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history.
In his role as editor of the NAACP’s journal The Crisis, he published many influential pieces. Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life.
He was an ardent peace activist and advocated nuclear disarmament. The United States’ Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted a year after his death.
Du Bois was generally sympathetic to Marxism throughout his career and saw capitalism as the root cause of racism and white supremacy.
Throughout his career he maintained distance from the Communist Party and was both critical and supportive of the Soviet Union.
As the United States entered the second Red Scare after World War II, Du Bois was targeted by the U.S. government, which put him on trial for failing to register the Peace Information Center as a foreign agent.
The group sought signatures on petitions asking all countries to ban nuclear weapons.
His former colleagues at the NAACP refused to support him, but charges were dismissed before the jury rendered a verdict. Despite the outcome, the U.S government seized his passport for eight years.
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the anti-communist McCarren Act in 1961, Du Bois in a spirit of defiance joined the Communist Party at the age of 93. He wrote, “I believe in communism. I mean by communism, a planned way of life in the production of wealth and work designed for building a state whose object is the highest welfare of its people and not merely the profit of a part.”
Du Bois carried the mantle of first being the preeminent spokesperson for black liberation early in his career after inheriting it from Frederick Douglas and later as its elder statesman.
He died in Ghana at the age of 95 August 27, 1963.
–partially excerpted from Wikipedia
Cleveland Sellers was born in Denmark, South Carolina, in 1945, where he attended high school at Voorhees College and led a brief sit-in at age 15.
In 1962, he enrolled at Howard University and joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NVA), a SNCC affiliate. As a member of this organization, Sellers participated in picketing in front of the White House, arranging for Malcolm X to speak at Howard, and bringing black Mississippians to Washington, D.C., to speak to their Congressman and report racist activities.
He also worked closely with Gloria Richardson who was leading a black liberation movement in Cambridge, Maryland.
He went to Mississippi in 1964 as a part of SNCC’s "Freedom Summer" and in 1965 was elected the organization’s program director. Sellers also participated in SNCC’s Alabama initiatives and in the march from Selma to Montgomery led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1967, Sellers refused induction into the U.S. Army citing the lack of black draft board members and charging that his induction was speeded up because of his civil rights activity.
He was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $10,000. However, a long series of appeals led the court to order that Sellers may examine transcripts of illegally wiretapped coversations that may have led credence to his charges. The government then dropped the case.
In 1968, Sellers helped organize a protest of segregated bowling alleys in which three South Carolina State students were killed by Highway Patrol officers. Sellars was later convicted of inciting this riot, known as the "Orangeburg Massacre."
Although he was eventually pardoned, Sellars spent seven months in prison, during which time he completed an autobiography, The River of No Return.
Sellers then returned to Howard to complete his undergraduate degree and went on to earn a master’s degree at Harvard University. In 1987, he earned his Doctorate in Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and participated in the presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson.
Sellers later directed the African-American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina in Columbia."
–partially excerpted from Greensboro VOICES Biography
Julius Wilson Hobson was a crusading civil rights activist and self-described socialist in the District of Columbia who was later elected to the D.C. school board and city council.
In the early 1950s, he walked his son past the all-white neighborhood school to Slowe elementary in the Brookland area and became increasingly angry.
“That was just about the first fight I got involved in,” Hobson said years later. He became president of the local PTA arguing that students at overcrowded black schools should be permitted to go to under-utilized white schools.
This was the era of pickets, demonstrations and a student strike that was organized by Consolidated Parents over the same issue in another part of Northeast Washington that resulted in the Bolling v. Sharpe U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1954 that ordered desegregation of D.C. schools.
Hobson became increasingly active—first in his local civic association and rising to become vice president of the Federation of Civil Associations and also becoming a member of the executive committee of the local NAACP.
In 1961, the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) asked Hobson to be its president. For three years he led pickets—primarily directed at businesses that failed to hire black personnel. When the picketing was over, 120 businesses had hired black workers.
While Washington’s transit system first opened the operator job to African Americans in 1955, the company dragged its feet on hiring any substantial number of black drivers. After Hobson threatened a boycott, the D.C. Transit Company hired 44 black operators and clerks.
CORE conducted a sit in at the Washington Hospital Center and not long afterward, the facility desegregated its wards.
He led a march of 4,500 people to the District Building (now John Wilson) demanding an end to segregated housing in the city. Shortly afterward the appointed commissioners outlawed segregation in housing rental units.
Hobson’s confrontational style made enemies not only of white supremacists, but within the civil rights movement itself. In 1964 the national leadership of CORE expelled him for running a dictatorship in the Washington, D.C. chapter.
Hobson formed his own group and, if anything, engaged in even wilder theatrics. To dramatize the rat problem in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, Hobson drove around the city with possum-sized rats in cages and threatened to release them in Georgetown unless the city focused on eradicating rats in poor and working class neighborhoods.
His greatest accomplishment though came through meticulous research into the school system’s expenditure of resources.
Despite the Bolling v. Sharpe decision in 1954, the city schools spent far more proportionately on white students than on black students.
Hobson took aim with a lawsuit at the city’s tracking system where black students were channeled into vocational education while white students were targeted for academics.
On June 19, 1967, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Skelly Wright agreed with Hobson and abolished the track system and ordered schools integrated even if it meant busing students from overcrowded black schools to white schools west of Rock Creek Park.
Hobson was an outspoken foe of freeway construction and supporter of building the Washington Metro system. He was a leader of a bus boycott in 1968 protesting an increase in the fare.
Hobson turned his attention to the District’s newly created elected positions, running for and winning an at-large seat on the school board in 1968. The following year he ran for a ward seat and lost.
Next he ran for D.C. Delegate to Congress in 1971 under the Statehood Party banner, but lost to Democrat Walter Fauntroy.
He was the People’s Party, a loose-knit left wing party, candidate for Vice President in 1972 with pediatrician Benjamin Spock as the Presidential candidate.
He was elected as an at-large councilmember in the District in 1974 again under the Statehood Party banner and served until his death in 1977 after a long bout with spinal cancer.
His reputation was tarnished after his death in 1981 when the Washington Post obtained his FBI file under a Freedom of Information request that revealed he had been a source of information for the government for more than five years.
The Post article reported that FBI Agent Elmer Lee Todd "said he met regularly with Hobson — sometimes as often as twice a month — from about 1961 to late 1964, mostly to discuss and assess potentially violent or disruptive demonstrations, organizations and individuals in the civil rights movement."
Friends defended him saying that he often joked about telling the FBI stories but others condemned the incongruous behavior as a stain on his otherwise exemplary record.
Many of those who knew him preferred to ignore the FBI allegations and remember him more fondly.
Angela Davis achieved prominence in 1969 when she was fired as associate professor at the University of California Los Angeles campus at the urging of then Gov. Ronald Reagan because of her membership in the Communist Party.
She was subsequently charged with providing guns to black prison activist Jonathan Jackson that were used in an escape attempt in which Jackson, two other men and the judge were killed.
After two months underground, she was apprehended by the FBI. A national “Free Angela” campaign was launched and a jury ultimately found her not guilty of the charges.
Davis continued her activism and continues to work for social justice. She left the Communist Party in 1991, along with about a third of the group to form the Committees for Correspondence (now For Democracy and Socialism) that seeks to work within the Democratic Party for socialist goals.
A civil rights leader, antiwar activist, and Pan-African revolutionary, Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) is best known for popularizing the slogan “Black Power,” which in the mid 1960s galvanized a movement toward more militant and separatist assertions of black identity, nationalism, and empowerment and away from the liberal, interracial pacifism of Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Carmichael was born in 1941 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. His family moved to New York City, New York when he was eleven. He showed promise as a young student and was accepted into the mostly white Bronx High School of Science in 1956.
He began his radicalization through his high school friendship with Eugene Dennis Jr., son of a U.S. Communist Party leader.
He attended Howard University and joined the local Non-Violent Action Group (NAG) and the newly formed Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960.
He participated in local Washington, D.C. actions, including staging a sit-in at the offices of Attorney General Robert Kennedy when former NAG activist Dion Diamond was arrested for insurrection when he walked onto the campus of Southern University.
He participated in SNCC sit-ins and Freedom Rides throughout the Deep South, and when SNCC turned its attention to voter registration, Carmichael led the campaign that established the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, a symbolic forerunner to the Black Panther Party.
In 1964 Carmichael graduated from Howard and, along with other young SNCC activists, became increasingly frustrated with the movement’s reliance on white liberals and its advocacy of non-violent reform, especially in the wake of the Democratic Party’s betrayal of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
In May 1965 Carmichael was elected to replace John Lewis as SNCC chairman, formalizing the shift in SNCC ideology.
During a 1966 march in Selma, Alabama, Carmichael first proclaimed “Black Power.” The slogan, and Carmichael’s subsequent efforts to both define it and put it into practice, turned him into a media celebrity and a lightning rod for white criticism and government repression.
“Black Power” fragmented the liberal civil rights coalition of the 1950s and early 1960s but inspired subsequent groups such as the Black Panther Party, which despite ideological disagreements named Carmichael as its Honorary Prime Minister in 1968.
Carmichael spent the last decades of his life abroad, denouncing U.S. racism and imperialism while working to build the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party.
He changed his name to Kwame Ture in 1968, in honor of his friends and political allies, Pan-African leaders Sekou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah. In 1969 Ture settled permanently in Conakry, Guinea where he died of prostate cancer in 1998.
–biography is partially excerpted from The Black Past
Gloria Richardson Dandridge led the Cambridge Non-Violent Action Committee CNAC on Maryland’s Eastern Shore seeking better jobs, health care, schools and desegregated public accommodations and facilities 1962-64.
Richardson attended SNCC’s 1962 Atlanta conference and returned to Cambridge with a new outlook on organizing. She became a member of SNCC’s executive board. With the help of students from Swarthmore College, they surveyed the Second Ward to ensure that the organization prioritized the needs of the community.
The Cambridge Movement directed its work towards improving living conditions for the people of the Second Ward. Meanwhile, continuing militant CNAC protests angered not only the Kennedy administration nearby in Washington, D.C., but also national civil rights leaders.
The Maryland National Guard occupied the town for two years 1963-64.
When the state of Maryland and federal negotiators, led by Robert Kennedy, proposed voting for the right of access to public accommodations in 1963–a so-called “Treaty of Cambridge“–CNAC boycotted the vote.
At a press conference, Richardson stated, “A first-class citizen does not beg for freedom. A first-class citizen does not plead to the white power-structure to give him something that the whites have no power to give or take away. Human rights are human rights, not white rights.” The civil rights movement establishment was angered at her refusal.
Richardson was invited to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to be honored as a woman leader, However, she was snubbed at the event when a seat was not provided for her on the stage.
National hostility toward her activism did not hinder Richardson’s local efforts. Protest continued.
One of Richardson’s thrusts was to organize Cambridge’s non-union packinghouse workers into unions. The successful effort ended a 30-year attempt to unionize the industry.
In May 1964, local youth began protesting for desegregated swimming pools when staunch segregationist and former Alabama governor George Wallace arrived in Cambridge to campaign for the presidential election.
During one protest, Richardson faced bayoneted guardsmen and urged protesters forward. It was ugly. Soldiers resorted to gassing demonstrators with (Cyanogen) CN2, a gas for military use. The gas made protestors sick and led to the death of an elderly man and infant from the fumes.
Two years of struggle and the passage of the national 1964 Civil Rights Act finally broke the back of segregation, though other problems continued.
Richardson married photographer Frank Dandridge and moved to New York in early 1965 where she continued her activism.
She returned to Cambridge briefly in 1967 before and after the disturbances there that led to the indictment of SNCC chair H. Rap Brown for inciting to riot. Richardson acted as an informal advisor to the 1967 civil rights activists.
Richardson’s work left a legacy for Black women to be unabashedly radical in the fight for civil rights. She believed that “all of us, in Cambridge and throughout America will have to sacrifice and risk our personal lives and future in a nonviolent battle that could turn into civil war. For now, Negroes throughout the nation owe it to themselves and to their Country to have Freedom — all of it, here and now!”
–partially excerpted from SNCC Digital Gateway
Hubert “Rap” Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), chair of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and black liberation leader in the Maryland-DC-Virginia area. He was famously charged with inciting to riot in Cambridge, MD in 1967 when fires broke out after he gave a Black power speech in the town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Demonstrations and protests were organized across the country after a lower court decision in favor of Allan Bakke, a white student denied admission to the University of California Davis medical school who challenged the use of racial quotas to address discrimination.
Prior to the use of quotas, institutions such as colleges and workplaces struggled with low percentages of African Americans. UC-Davis medical school set a quota of 16 slots reserved for minorities out of a total of 100 freshmen admitted.
Bakke had scores that rated above the average admitted to the school and sued after twice being denied admission.
The case became one of the first to establish so-called “reverse-discrimination.”
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a widely split decision, found in Bakke’s favor and outlawed quotas to address racial discrimination. It upheld the use of race as a factor, thereby permitting affirmative action programs to continue, though more recent court decisions have severely limited that as a factor.
According to some studies since the Supreme Court decision, progress in achieving racial parity essentially flat-lined. African Americans have held steady, or in some instances declined, in the percentage of students attending highly rated schools.
Critics point to the Bakke decision as the beginning of the end of racial progress in the U.S.
Protests against police brutality occurred regularly through the years including the death of 16-year-old Gregory Coleman, shot in the back by a police officer for attempting to ride away on a bicycle planted by police.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was no stranger to Washington, D.C., coming to the city numerous times to meet with other activists, lobby elected officials and lead demonstrations.
VA school segregation: 1954-66
The state of Virginia adopted a policy of massive resistance following the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing public school segregation in 1954.
Schools were closed by the state if they integrated. The effort delayed for years integration and resulted in denying African American children an education.
The Youth March for Integrated Schools was the third march on Washington in as many years designed to speed integration of schools following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision outlawing segregation.
The 1959 march drew the largest of the three at 26,000 and nearly exceeded the 1932 Bonus Army’s 30,000 as the largest protest demonstration up to that time in D.C.
The march cemented Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s status as the preeminent civil rights leader and helped hone the mobilization and logistics necessary to stage the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom.
Adam Clayton Powell in DC: 1940-70
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast.
Powell was an activist in Harlem working to de-segregate facilities and break hiring barriers to Black people and worked closely with the Communist Party in the city until the Second Red Scare began to deepen when he broke most ties.
Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.
In 1961, after 16 years in the House, Powell became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, the most powerful position held by an African American in Congress to that date. As chairman, he supported the passage of important social and civil rights legislation under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Following allegations of corruption, in 1967 Powell was excluded from his seat by Democratic Representatives-elect of the 90th United States Congress, but he was re-elected and regained the seat in the 1969 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States in Powell v. McCormack. He lost his seat in 1970 to Charles Rangel and retired from electoral politics
Images of Black liberation leader Malcolm X travels and speeches in Washington, D.C. during his time in the National of Islam.
NoVa theater Jim Crow: 1962-63
The campaign to desegregate Northern Virginia’s movie theaters lasted from 1962-63 and involved pickets, arrests, court cases and finally victory in June 1963.
Goodman, Schwerner, Chaney: 1964
Protests related to the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi by police and Ku Klux Klan. The three were conducting voter registration of African Americans in 1964.
Wallace was a segregationist who in his inaugural speech in 1963 as governor of Alabama called for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” and who famously “stood in the schoolhouse door” to block African American students from entering the University of Alabama.
He ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1964, 1972 and 1976. He ran as a third party candidate in 1968 and is the last third party candidate to win electoral votes. In his campaigns, he called for “states’ rights” and used other coded racial language.
In 1972, Wallace was the object of protesters in Maryland at Frederick, Hagerstown Capital Plaza and Wheaton Plaza prior to being shot at Laurel Shopping Center May 15, 1972 by Arthur Bremer.
At his appearance in Cambridge, Maryland during the height of desegregation protest and occupation by the National Guard, a demonstration was broken up by police and National Guard using tear gas and batons.
Wallace later moderated his racial views and expressed regret for his earlier remarks. He died in 1998.
MD school segregation: 1954-74
Resistance to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public schools was limited in Maryland.
Despite some scattered initial incidents, the process went relatively smoothly compared with Virginia where some public school systems shut down rather than integrate.
There were confrontations in Baltimore, Maryland outside Southern High School Oct. 1-4, 1954 and in Rockville, Maryland September 6, 1956.
Montgomery schools did not begin integration until 1956 and took five years before every school was desegregated.
In Baltimore, no redistricting took place—white and black schools were simply opened to integrated enrollment to the small number of students whose parents availed themselves of the opportunity in the fall of 1954.
Similarly, Prince George’s County implemented a so-called “freedom of choice” plan where parents either send children to their currently assigned school or request a transfer to another school.
This plan was in effect for 10 years from 1955-56 school year until the 1964-65 school year. While the number of black students in predominantly white schools increased during this 10 year period, the vast majority of black students went to predominantly or all black schools.
More common in Maryland was a trend over subsequent years of white parents either moving to predominantly white neighborhoods or sending their children to private schools.
Later when the courts found that Maryland schools were still segregated and ordered busing of students in order to achieve equal education, resistance escalated. In both Baltimore City and Prince George’s County mass demonstrations took place.
Beginning in 1972, protests and demonstrations continued In Prince George’s for an extended period. White parents in Prince George’s began a flight out of the county that in turn led to one of the largest majority black jurisdictions in the country with a population of close to 900,000.
In Baltimore, the relatively modest integration plan was initially scrapped after protests by white students and parents also erupted in 1974 in Baltimore. Similar to Prince George’s, white flight turned a majority African American system into a nearly all black system.
Today the disparities in education are not much different than the old “separate but equal” days.
Demonstrators entered a House visitors’ gallery in August 1967 and began chanting “Rats cause riots!” in protest of the defeat of a bill that would have provided funds for rat control.
Police herded the group out of the Capitol building in a wild melee that resulted in eight arrests and three injured police officers.
At one point a male demonstrator screamed, “Kill me! Shoot me!” Captain L. H. Ballard of the Capitol police responded, “See if I don’t, you bastard.” Ballard reached for, but did not draw, his gun.
Before returning to New York, protest leader Jesse Gray threatened to “relocate” New York City rats to Washington, D.C. in protest. When organizing in New York in 1963, Gray had people bring rats “live or dead” to court proceedings and to city hall. The threat garnered widespread publicity—and fear—among Washington’s elite.
The backdrop to the action was that following the 1967 black uprisings in Detroit, Newark and other cities, a number of lawmakers moved to kill anti-poverty measures.
George Romney, governor of Michigan, said, “We ought to deal with these people on the basis of the laws of treason.” Another presidential hopeful George Wallace of Alabama scoffed at complaints of poverty saying a “firmer hand” is needed to stop rebellions. He added that the outbreaks were “downright lawlessness” and that, There’s no other reason, no other excuse”
The Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 brought thousands to Washington, D.C. to occupy the capital city and stage demonstrations demanding economic justice.
Some historians identify the ultimately unsuccessful campaign as marking the end of the national Civil Rights Movement that began with the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957.
The campaign was planned by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), to demand an economic bill of rights and an end to the Vietnam War.
King envisioned using massive civil disobedience to dramatize the plight of poor people, but was assassinated April 4, 1968 before his vision could be realized.
Rev. Ralph Abernathy took control of the SCLC and began steering the Poor People’s Campaign toward a sanctioned event with permits.
Nevertheless, the U.S. government mobilized 20,000 soldiers to prepare for the march and the FBI began its campaign of de-stabilization by recruiting spies, spreading rumors of discontent, potential violence and that marchers would lose government benefits such as welfare and food stamps through their participation.
Meanwhile the SCLC spearheaded a broad spectrum of groups including participation from Puerto Ricans, Chicanos and Native Americans as well as the non-violent wing of the peace movement.
Thousands of people participated in nine caravans to Washington, D.C. where the SCLC secured a permit for an encampment on the national mall for a period of six weeks. The last caravan was an emblematic mule train from Mississippi.
On May 21, 1968 what came to be known as Resurrection City was set up near on the grassy area on the south side of the Reflecting Pool. Tents, plywood shelters, walkways, and other necessities of life were erected to house the 3,000 overnight participants that were permitted.
Conditions were miserable due to seemingly endless days of rain that brought up to five inches of standing water in the camp. While security had been organized, there were occasional breakdowns that were widely publicized in the press.
Abernathy organized marches and delegations to lobby Congress through the six-week period. Nearly all were uneventful as well as unsuccessful.
The demands of the Economic Bill of Rights that included a living wage, adequate income for all, access to land and capital for economic development and a significant role in government for poor people.
Abernathy included in the last point the demand for collective bargaining in a tribute to King’s efforts during the Memphis sanitation strike.
The largest event was a “Solidarity Day” held June 19th that brought between 50,000 and 100,000 people to Washington, D.C. where they were addressed by a narrower group of luminaries than King’s 1963 march.
The permit for the encampment ended June 23rd and the following day over 1,000 police swept through the area arresting a total of 288 demonstrators, including Abernathy, without any real resistance from the protesters.
That evening a minor disturbance broke out at 14th & U Streets NW, the location where the riots following King’s assassination in April were sparked.
Authorities sent in police with tear gas, declared a curfew and sent in 450 National Guard troops to patrol the streets.
The camp on the mall was quickly dismantled. An economic bill of rights was never enacted and much of the programs that were in place were swept away in subsequent decades.
The 20th Anniversary march of the historic 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom. The 1983 march kept the original demands, but added peace to its list.
In July 1961, three young African Americans had been fishing in the Patuxent River in a rural part of Montgomery County, Maryland.
They stumbled upon a parked car occupied a young white couple. One of the men tried to bum a cigarette and was met with racial epithets by the white man. A fistfight ensued and the three men left the scene.
The stories diverged at this point with the African American men saying the woman accompanied them voluntarily and the 16-year old woman later claiming she was dragged from the car and raped.
James (17) and John (19) Giles were quickly found guilty by an all-white jury and sentenced to death by the infamous Montgomery County Judge James Pugh. Joe Johnson (23) was tried separately, but with the same result.
The story would probably have ended with their execution, except that their mother worked as a maid inn the home of Frances Baker Ross, a Democratic Party precinct chairwoman. Ross was did not believe the three men to be innocent, but felt the death penalty was too harsh and formed the Giles-Johnson Defense Committee. The campaign focused on the death sentences as none really believed the three to be innocent.
However, Dr. Harold Knapp, an MIT educated nuclear-weapons scientist, working for the Department of Defense in Washington came upon the Giles-Johnson case (and the campaign of their Defense Committee) in a local newspaper column that supported the death sentences.
Knapp, using the theatrical term was “cast against type” and wrote a letter to the editor against the death sentence and became involved in the Defense Committee. Knapp began examining evidence and interviewing witnesses himself. Over time, Knapp became convinced of the three men’s innocence.
Ultimately, Knapp wrote Maryland Governor Millard Tawes with a long list of facts and arguments along with a petition for the commutation of the sentence.
His work, along with the work of the Defense Committee, led to Governor Tawes’ decision to commute the sentences to life.
The fight turned towards a full exoneration for the men. Due to new evidence Knapp uncovered, the men’s defense team was awarded a new trial, which was then overturned by the Maryland Court of Appeals. Famed civil rights attorney Joseph Forer was the lead attorney for the defendants.
Miraculously, the case then went to the United States Supreme Court, where it was decided in a 5-4 vote that the conviction was not to be upheld, and the case was sent back to the state of Maryland again.
The Court of Appeals ordered a new trial, but the young woman declined to testify. Her refusal to appear in court drove a stake through the State’s case, and the Giles brothers were released in 1967, after six years of incarceration. Johnson was not granted a new trial by the state of Maryland, and he remained in prison until he was granted a gubernatorial pardon in 1968.
The case is sometimes referred to as Maryland’s “Scottsboro Boys” – a reference to the 1930s campaign to free eight black men charged with rape of two white women and sentenced to death in Alabama in the 1930s.
However, unlike their more radical communist predecessors in the Scottsboro case 30 years before, white liberals in Montgomery County at that time did not see the initial prosecution as a problem. It was only the severity of the sentence for the African Americans that caused a problem for them.
After the commutation of the sentences, the Committee focused on the legal issues of dues process and rarely raised the issue of why the men were prosecuted in the first place.
Knapp’s own determination and unique position in society to get the facts ultimately shed light on evidence that was never considered by investigators, the prosecution, the jury or the judge.
In the end, it was a number of twists of fate that laid bare the blatantly racist judicial system of 1960s Montgomery County: the mother working in the home of a connected white liberal and the subsequent formation of a defense committee followed by the publicity of the defense committee that drew Knapp into the case. This combined with a rising awareness created by the larger civil rights movement saved the lives of three men.
Thanks to Hannah Riley for some of the information contained in this summary.
Images surrounding the effort to establish a U.S. national holiday honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At first demands for April 4th–the date of his assassination– were put forward. But rights leaders later coalesced around King’s birthday. A number of demonstrations and celebrations took place prior to the declaration of a national holiday.
Images related to civil rights activities in the greater Washington, D.C. area in 1965-66. See D.C. Selma reaction: 1965 for images of those protests.
Civil rights demonstrations in Washington, DC other than the massive 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
On March 27, 1968 students at the predominantly black Bowie State College began a boycott of classes protesting an inferior physical plant, poor food and the denial of tenure to a popular professor.
Four days after the boycott that was nearly 100% effective began, 200 students seized buildings on the campus and Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew called out the state police riot unit.
Although Agnew refused to negotiate, a confrontation was avoided when school officials promised that demands would be dealt with and students would meet with the state Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on school funding issues.
Agnew had blamed outsiders for the campus unrest, saying, “The activities of publicity seeking outsiders can only injure the cause of higher education in Maryland.”
The dispute escalated April 4th when nearly 250 students traveled to Annapolis and staged a “study-in” in the halls of the state house when Agnew refused to meet with them.
Agnew ordered their arrest and 227—more than a third of the 600 enrollees–were jailed along with a local civil rights leader. The governor then closed the campus saying he would not yield “to unlawful and illegal tactics.”
Agnew said his use of the phrases “outside influences” and “outside agitators” referred to NAACP mid-Atlantic youth director Kenneth R. Brown and students from Howard University who spoke on campus.
Agnew continued, “I guess I don’t get along with many Mr. Browns,” referring to his public disparagement of H. Rap Brown.
Agnew later approved accelerated spending of $500,000 for capital projects at the school and ordered the school reopened on April 16th.
The school, however, continued to struggle with unequal funding compared to the state’s historically white universities in College Park and Baltimore. The phrase “separate and unequal” has been used for many years to describe Maryland’s historically black state colleges.
Charges were later dropped against the 227 students and their records expunged. However, Brown’s arrest remained on his record.
UMD Black Student Union: 1968-75
University of Maryland African American students formed the Black Student Union in 1968 after a high profile protest during the convocation presided over by university president Wilson Elkins.
The chapter was formed out of an existing Congress of Racial Equality chapter that had been active in protesting the vestiges of Jim Crow in surrounding communities.
The BSU waged many struggles to end discrimination against African American students and continues to do so today.
This album includes strikes by vendors, players and also protests at RFK Stadium against the use of the “Redskins” name.
Terrence Johnson was 15 when he shot officers Claggett and James Swart in the basement of the Hyattsville, Maryland police station using a gun he grabbed from Claggett.
Johnson, who was initially arrested and charged with the theft of $29.75 in coins from a Laundromat, presented evidence at his trial as an adult for murder that Claggett was beating him and he feared for his life.
Johnson was ultimately convicted of manslaughter in Claggett’s death and the illegal use of a handgun..
Johnson was African American and the two officers were white. At the time of his conviction, Prince George’s County was under federal pressure to desegregate its police department and had a reputation for racially motivated brutality.
Johnson supporters charged that state’s attorney Arthur “Bud” Marshall did not try to get an indictment against the white policemen who shot unarmed black suspects last year.
Marshall was quoted as saying, "I didn’t go before the grand jury to seek an indictment in the Johnson case, either. I have always made it a policy to prosecute shootings involving the police, whether they are victims or defendants," once charges are brought.
No police officer involved in a shooting incident had ever been indicted in Prince George’s County.
Additionally, the county had just undergone several tumultuous years of court ordered busing of students to achieve integration prompting mass demonstrations by white parents against the courts.
Demonstrations in support of and against Johnson occurred before, during and after the trial.
During the trial protesters gathered outside courtroom beating drums and chanting “Free Terrance” and “We say no to police brutality and racism.” The day after the verdict, 142 of 150 Prince George’s officers scheduled for the day shift failed to show in protest of the jury verdict.
The judge gave him the maximum sentence on both counts. Johnson served 17 years in prison before being released on parole. He earned a B.A. from Morgan State while in prison and enrolled in law school upon his release.
However, in 1997, police encircled Johnson and a brother after the robbery of an Aberdeen Maryland bank. Johnson used a pistol to shoot himself dead before he could be arrested.
John A. Bartlett Jr., the president of the county’s Fraternal Order of Police, spoke about the divided feelings among Prince George’s officers upon hearing the news of Johnson’s death.
“There are those who say this man killed two individuals who were respected law enforcement officers, but not all officers feel that way. I have officers who feel it might have been racially motivated and that Terrence might have been defending his life.”
The seminal March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom August 28, 1963 that helped the momentum toward the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. There were fears by many White officials that the march would lead to rioting, but the event was complete peaceful. Within the civil rights movement there was controversy over suppression of the left wing of the movement with the requirement that Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee Chair John Lewis tone down the fiery words in his speech and the exclusion of Cambridge, MD civil rights leader Gloria Richardson from the stage.
Laurence Henry’s led largely successful desegregation demonstrations against the Glen Echo Amusement Park, local restaurants, bowling alleys and movie theaters in 1960-61, but ran afoul with institutions such as the Democratic Party and some labor unions who nominally supported civil rights.
Most of the images are of protests by the Nonviolent Action Group–an early DC area group affiliated with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that acted to desegregate facilities open to the public in the area.
Laurence Henry was removed from leadership of NAG at the urging of chief lobbyist of the AFL-CIO Hyman Bookbinder after Henry advocated staging direct action protests against Democratic Sen. Joseph Clark who was blocking a civil rights bill. Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) opposed federal action on civil rights in 1960 and seemingly urged Clark to kill the bill and there is some evidence they may have been behind the effort to remove Henry from NAG leadership.
The October 26, 1958 youth march on Washington drew upwards of 10,000 people demanding the federal government enforce school desegregation and other civil rights.
The march occurred with the backdrop of Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus closing public schools in order to halt integration. He attempted to re-open the schools as segregated private schools.
This march, along with the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, lay the groundwork for the more famous 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom and cemented Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s status as the leader of the civil rights movement.
In the midst of ongoing fist fights, rock throwing and gun battles between white segregationists and African American seeking civil rights in 1963 Cambridge, Maryland, there was an astonishing phenomenon.
White workers sought black leadership to aid the struggle to organize and strengthen interracial unions in the town.
The Cambridge, Maryland. civil rights struggle from 1963-67 involved the longest occupation by armed forces of a U.S. town since Reconstruction and presents a far different narrative than that of the Civil Rights movement taught in schoolbooks today.
Early on, the leadership deviated from other concurrent civil rights struggles for legal equality by taking up social justice demands such as good jobs, housing, schools and health care. It was also different because it was an indigenous struggle to the town as opposed to one orchestrated by national rights leaders.
The leadership of the Cambridge Non-Violent Action Committee (CNAC) also did not reject armed self-defense. CNAC, which affiliated with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was the only chapter led by adults and probably the only one whose principal strategist was a woman.
The bloody attack by police in Alabama on civil rights demonstrators provoked a series of confrontational demonstrations in Washington, D.C. beginning March 8, 1965 and continuing for days afterward.
They included sit-ins at the Justice Department, White House and U.S. Capitol, blockading traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House and mass demonstrations, picketing and vigils. The protesters were demanding federal action to protect civil rights demonstrators and to enforce civil rights.
The DC protests were in response to a March 7, 1965, march organized locally by James Bevel, Amelia Boynton, and others. State troopers and county possemen attacked the unarmed marchers with billy clubs and tear gas after they passed over the county line at the Edmond Pettus Bridge, and the event became known as Bloody Sunday.
Law enforcement beat Boynton unconscious, and the media publicized worldwide a picture of her lying wounded on the bridge.
The incident at the bridge and subsequent demonstrations helped spur passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act by Congress that was signed by President Lyndon Johnson.
The Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom May 17, 1957 in Washington, D.C. was designed to spur President Dwight Eisenhower to federal action enforcing the 1954 Supreme Court school desegregation decisions.
The newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spearheaded the prayer rally.
Estimates of the crowd vary, but most place it between 17,000 and 25,000 people—making it the largest civil rights rally in Washington, D.C. up until that point.
Among the major leaders were King, Roy Wilkins, Adam Clayton Powell and A. Phillip Randolph.
Ethel Payne wrote in the Chicago Defender, “Those who a few months ago thought of young King as a brilliant comet shooting across the sky never to be seen again, came away from the rally with a firmer conviction than ever of his mature wise leadership when he pinpointed the whole basic struggle of the Negro in these simple phrases:”
“Give us the ballot and we will go quietly and non-violently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court’s decision of May 17, 1954. Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights,” said King in part.
While the pilgrimage was in effect a rally, the organizers sought to distance themselves from militant action.
“On behalf of the three chairmen and myself, all activation will take place solely at the Lincoln Memorial. There will be no picketing, no poster walking and no lobbing in connection with Prayer Pilgrimage,” King declared.
King also directly rebuked communists and socialists saying in part, “We have not invited communists…We do not want the participation of these groups nor of individuals or other organizations holding similar views.”
Across the South, civil rights activists had begun a campaign to register black students at public schools. The resistance to integration was widespread and at times violent.
While it could be debated whether the rally was the cause of his actions, Eisenhower did intervene by using federal troops to enforce desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas later that year.
Perhaps as important, the pilgrimage and smaller marches on Washington in 1958 and 1959 served as dry runs for the massive 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom and cemented Rev. Dr Martin Luther King’s leadership of the movement..
Segregation in housing was one of the toughest civil rights fights in the greater Washington, D.C. area during the civil rights era. Demonstrations throughout the early and mid-sixties largely failed to integrate developments and apartment buildings until the passage of open housing laws later in the decade.
The problem remains today as communities re-segregated in many areas.
The highest profile demonstrations in the area were staged by the Congress of Racial Equality in 1963 and a local group called ACCESS in 1966. While both sets of protests set the stage for eventual elimination of Jim Crow housing, both sets of protests had little immediate effect.
The refusal of many white people to accept that black people had a right to live next door to them resulted in the 1966 Democratic nomination of George P. Mahoney for Maryland Governor. Mahoney’s slogan was “A man’s home is his castle.” Republican Spiro Agnew then won the general election when liberals abandoned the Democratic Party. Maryland voters rejected by a wide margin an open housing law in 1967.
Local housing was eventually opened to Black people when the original homeowners began to sell homes to African Americans and the federal government began enforcing no discrimination on FHA and VA loans and later when the federal 1968 Civil Rights Act was enacted.
Maryland was no exception to civil rights protests sweeping the nation in the early 1960s as pickets, rallies, demonstrations, sit-ins, marches and other forms of protests targeted restaurants, amusement parks, bowling alleys, movie theaters, police brutality, open housing and other civil rights issues were staged across the state with mixed results.
As the news of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spread on the evening of April 4, 1968, George Scurlock stayed in his photography studio at 900 U Street NW in Washington, D.C.
This location placed Scurlock in the middle of the historic “downtown” for African Americans in the city and one of the corridors where Washington, D.C. residents lashed out in anger at nearby businesses.
Scurlock photographed the residents’ enraged actions, the police response, the military occupation and the aftermath.
Scurlock shot some of the few photographs that exist of disturbances as they took place – most pictures were taken from the safety of police lines or after troops occupied the city. One photo with an overview of the 7th Street NW corridor has been added to give the collection context.
More than 100 cities experienced the fury of African Americans as they learned of the assassination of the most prominent civil rights leader of the era. Of those cities, Washington, D.C. experienced among the greatest property damage April 4-7 and set a then U.S. record for mass arrests when more than 6,100 were detained.
Twelve died, mostly due to becoming entrapped in burning buildings and over 1,100 were injured. Property damage was extensive as corridors along 14th Street NW, 7th Street NW, U Street NW, H Street NE and Nichols Ave SE (later Martin Luther King Jr. Ave) were set afire. 1,200 buildings were burned.
A few images have been added to this album in addition to the Scurlock photos in order to give additional context.
After quick victories in Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia desegregating lunch counters, the student activists of the local Non-Violent Action Group (NAG) moved on to Maryland.
Maryland proved more difficult and Glen Echo Amusement Park became an ongoing battle where the protesters used pickets, civil disobedience, courts, and political pressure to end segregation at the facility.
The park owners who had vowed to continue their Jim Crow policies bowed to the pressure and announced they would open the park to all prior their Spring 1961 opening.
A sit in at the Hi Boy restaurant protesting the refusal to serve African Americans inside resulted in 25 arrests and daily picketing for two weeks in July 1960 until the restaurant agreed to desegregate.
On June 21 1969, a group of over 100 people descended on the 2700 block of 10th Street NW with the intention of renovating homes that had been seized by the District of Columbia government in order to build the proposed North Central Freeway.
Reginald Booker, chair of the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis (ECTC), led the demonstration. The ECTC had led many confrontational protests against proposed new highways in the city that were planned to go through predominantly African American neighborhoods.
In this instance, sixty-nine homes belonging to African American residents in the Brookland area had been grabbed by the city to make room for the planned North Central Freeway. The protestors demanded that the homes be renovated and restored to their original owners.
A crowd organized by the ECTC, and armed with brooms, rakes and hedge clippers, entered the property at 2732 10th Street NE and began to clean and fix it up before being stopped by 25 D.C. riot police.
Police arrested Booker, Thomas Rooney, Thomas Coleman and the Rev. John A Mote inside the home for unlawful entry. Sammie Abdullah Abbott was arrested outside for disorderly conduct when he attempted to join those arrested in the police paddy wagon. Abbott, the communications director of the group, designed many graphic posters and flyers for the group, including the iconic “White Man’s Roads Thru Black Man’s Home.”
The proposed freeway had been effectively killed the year before after heated protests and a court decision that ruled that residents had not been adequately consulted over plans for the road.
However, Congressional leaders held money for construction of the Washington Metro system hostage for several more years, demanding that the North Central Freeway and other highways and bridges be built before the project was officially scuttled.
The District government did eventually renovate and sell the homes after lengthy delays and the homes pictured in the set still stand.
Demonstrators picket in the median strip on July 27, 1960 demanding desegregation of the Hiser Theater at 7414 Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Maryland.
Four demonstrators had been arrested a day earlier for trespassing and protestors responded by setting up a picket line that was part of a 100-hour consecutive protest. Each hour marked a year that had passed since the Emancipation Proclamation that was announced in September 1862 with the protestors adding an extra two hours.
The demonstrators were part of the Non-Violent Action Group (NAG) that had desegregated Arlington, Virginia and helped with the Hi-Boy restaurant in Rockville, Maryland. They were also picketed Glen Echo amusement park in Maryland at the time.
Counter-demonstrators in the background are picketing to keep the theater all-white. The sign that is visible reads, “Free Enterprise, Not Socialism.”
The theater was believed at the time to be the only one in Montgomery County that barred African Americans. Longtime owner John Hiser sold the theater in September 1960 rather than desegregate. The new owners opened the theater to all.
Dion Diamond was a leading member of a small integrated group called Non-Violent Action Group (NAG)) that successfully challenged Jim Crow in the Washington, DC suburbs in 1960.
Their sit-in movement and pickets followed the Greenboro, NC sit-ins by four months and resulted in the desegregation of eating establishments in Arlington, Virginia.
They were also responsible for integrating a theater and a restaurant in Montgomery County and opening up the Glen Echo Amusement Park to African Americans.
In their brief, successful campaigns they suffered harassment by the counter-demonstrators organized by the American Nazi Party and a number of arrests by police.
Images of Klansmen and their cross burnings and the response of counter-demonstrators in Maryland.
Images of solidarity demonstrations from the long fight against colonialism and White minority rule in African nations.
The Black Panther Party had an established chapter in Northwest Washington, D.C. from 1970-74. As soon as they set up an office in the city, they were raided by police July 4, 1970. The harassment would continue throughout their existence that included the arrest of key organizers on weapons charges, arrests for Panther activities in Rockville and the beating of a Panther at a DC police precinct when he went to secure the release of a woman who had been arrested..
Their White allies, the Patriot Party, also operated out of the Black Panther Community Center.
The Panthers did have some success with community organizing. In 1971, The District Panthers set up a free bus program for those who wished to visit their kin at Lorton Prison and set up an Angela Davis People’s Free Food Program food bank operating out of the community center on 17th street.
By 1972, the DC Panthers made their move from Northwest to Anacostia and set up a People’s Free Health Clinic in the basement of the Johenning Baptist Center at 4025 9th Street SE (near Southern Avenue). Later in the year free rides for the elderly were arranged to the bank on the first of the month.
In November 1972, the Party supported the American Indian Movement takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Building, holding a joint press conference and promising to provide “soldiers.”
Many of the most dedicated members were recalled to the Party’s Oakland headquarters in the Spring of 1973, but the chapter lingered on for another year until the Spring of 1974. One of the chapter’s last official acts was to co-sponsor an International Women’s Day rally in support of Sheridan Hotel strikers in Lanham MD.
The main buildings utilized by the Panthers still stand: 2327 18th Street NW (first Panther HQ) is occupied in 2012 by Club Heaven & Hell. 1932 17th Street NW (The Panther Community Center) is a private residence. The Johenning Baptist Center at 4025 9th Street SE (near Southern Avenue) is still used for community meetings and events, including a charter school.
This set contains images of the sit-ins and related activities in Arlington, Virginia from June 9-23, 1960 that resulted in the desegregation of most restaurants and lunch counters in the city.
A small interracial group led by Howard University divinity student Laurence Henry staged sit-ins at various lunch counters and restaurants, including at least two Drug Fairs, People’s Drug Store, Woolworth’s, Landsburgh’s and a Howard Johnson.
The group faced opposition from the American Nazis who were headquartered in Arlington. The civil rights actions resulted in victory on June 22 when most restaurants announced they were desegregating.
The Non-Violent Action Group (NAG) then moved across the river to Montgomery County where they staged sit-ins and pickets at Glen Echo Amusement Park, the Hi-Boy Restaurant in Rockville and the Hiser Theater in Bethesda.
Racism at the Library of Congress: 1971-73
In the early 1970s, black employees at the Library of Congress were occupying the lowest paying jobs without opportunity for promotion. BELC was formed in a lunchroom conversation in July 1970.
In 1971, there were only seven African Americans out of 230 people occupying GS grades 9-18.
Protests began in earnest in 1971 when a sit-in was staged. Library management had six workers arrested and fired 13. This led to a series of rallies, Congressional Hearings and lawsuits.
BELC was the primary mover of all these and was headed by Executive Director Howard Cook (pictured on far right in photos) and President Joslyn Williams. Williams was fired from Library during this period, but went on to lead the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO as president where he serves today.
It took years of struggle, but the lawsuits were ultimately successful with the primary suit winning $8.5 million in 1995. The final disposition wasn’t done until 2002 when the Howard Cook and Tommy Shaw Foundation was established with money from covered persons who could not be located.
The judge authorized the committee to use interest generated by the foundation principal–or enhanced by foundation fundraising –to pay for the education and training of African-American employees seeking to advance their careers at the Library and to assist employees pursuing discrimination claims against the Library. The principal was to be held until persons not found could be located. Cook retired from the Library and passed in 2023.
Children’s march for survival: 1972
Most images in this set are from the Children’s March for Survival held in Washington, D.C March 25, 1972.
The children’s march was to encircle the White House. Some of the participants are shown on the Washington Monument grounds.
The march was principally sponsored by the National Welfare Rights Organization, although was endorsed by other organizations. Washington, D.C. schools came under intense criticism for permitting District school children to attend the march.
Social safety net programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Food Stamps and other minimal income measures were under attack by the Nixon administration and their allies in Congress.
Communists
Communist Veterans Encampment: 1947
The Communist Party, U.S.A. held a Communist Veterans Encampment May 8-9, 1947 in Washington, D.C. where they lobbied government agencies and Congress on a variety of issues and held a rally at Turner’s Arena at 14th & W Streets NW.
Leaders of the veterans’ encampment included Robert Thompson, a vet and chair of the NY state committee of the Communist Party; James Jackson of Richmond, VA and education director of the Michigan district of the Communist Party; and John Bates of New York City, head of the veterans’ department of the Communist Party.
Thompson told the delegates that communists are “angered at the government’s failure to provide jobs and security for all veterans.”
Most of the attendees were World War II veterans.
It doesn’t appear that the Communist Party organized a second veterans’ encampment.
The Communist Party also organized the more famous United Negro and Allied Veterans of America (1947-56) that challenged racial discrimination both within the military, within the application of the GI bill and within society at large. Jackie Robinson, the first Major League Black baseball player, was briefly a leading member until anti-communists in the House and Senate denounced him and he quickly quit the organization.
Patrick B. “Paddy” Whalen had a long history as a labor activist on the railroads. He was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World before becoming active in the Communist Party-aligned Martine Workers Industrial Union in New York.
He fought for and won many concessions for sailors and when he moved to Baltimore in the mid 1930s led strikes, organized relief and recruited seamen and others into the Communist Party.
He led the integration of crews and the surrounding waterfront and fought for integrated housing around the big defense plants that ringed the city.
Despite having a draft deferment as a port agent during World War II, he entered the Merchant Marine where he was killed when a Nazi torpedo sunk his ship.
William Remington was as an economist at the U.S. Commerce Department and other federal agencies over a 15 year period. He was investigated numerous times for alleged communist ties, tried twice for perjury and sent to jail where he was murdered.
Whether or not he ever officially joined the party later became a point of contention in his legal battles.
He was first investigated in 1941 where he admitted having been active in Communist-allied groups such as the American Peace Mobilization, but denied any sympathy with communism and swore under oath that he was not and had never been a member of the Communist Party. His security clearance was granted.
In March 1942 and continuing for two years, Remington had occasional meetings with Elizabeth Bentley at which he passed her information. Bentley was a spy for the Soviet Union.
This material included data on airplane production and other matters concerning the aircraft industry, as well as some information on an experimental process for manufacturing synthetic rubber. Remington later claimed that he was unaware that Bentley was connected with the Communist Party, that he believed she was a journalist and researcher, and that the information he gave her was not secret.
Fearing the FBI was closing in on her, Bentley became an informant for the government in 1945 and named Remington as one of her sources of information.
Remington was investigated several times by congressional committees and the federal loyalty board, but was exonerated on each occasion and retained his federal employment.
In 1950 a grand jury decided to indict Remington for committing perjury when he denied ever being a member of the Communist Party.
Remington was convicted at trial, but it was revealed that the jury foreman had a personal relationship with Elizabeth Bentley and had agreed to co-author a book with her.
He was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to five years in prison. His conviction was overturned on appeal for “judicial improprieties” and unclear instructions from the judge as to what constituted membership in the Communist Party.
The second Remington trial began in January 1953 and he was quickly convicted of two counts of perjury—specifically for lying when he said he had not given secret information to Elizabeth Bentley and that he did not know of the existence of the Young Communist League, which had a chapter at Dartmouth while Remington was a student there.
He was sentenced to three years in prison. On the morning of Nov. 22, 1954 he was murdered in Lewisburg Penitentiary for his communist association by three inmates—a career criminal named George McCoy, a juvenile offender named Lewis Cagle Jr. and a third man—D.C. resident Carl Parker.
Cagle used a piece of brick in a sock as a weapon, striking Remington four times on the head. Despite McCoy’s repeated remarks about Remington’s communism, the FBI said that robbery was the motive.
When Cagle confessed, the FBI instructed him to describe the crime as if he and McCoy had been trying to rob Remington. When McCoy confessed four days later, he said he hated Remington for being a Communist and denied any robbery motive.
Both men pled guilty and were sentenced to life in prison. Parker received a 20-year term. All three had been in prison for transporting stolen cars across state lines.
Remington’s legacy is that of the third person to die as a result of the Second Red Scare following Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s execution.
George Aloysius Meyers was the former president of the Celanese textile plant union Local 1874 in Cumberland, Md., former president of the Maryland-DC CIO, former chairman of the Maryland Communist Party and national director of the Party’s labor activities.
Important strikes at the Celanese plant took place in 1936 and 1939 that resulted in the unionization of 10,000 production workers and helped create a key union leader, George A. Meyers.
Meyers helped lead the in-plant organizing and led a number of sit-down strikes within the plant. He would go on to become president of the local union and, in 1941, president of the Maryland and District of Columbia Industrial Union Council of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Meyers joined the Communist Party during the fight to organize the union at Celanese and as president of the MD-DC CIO, led the fight to integrate basic industry—overseeing the successful efforts to integrate the Celanese and Kelly-Springfield plants in Cumberland, Glen L. Martin aircraft factory in Middle River and the Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyard in Baltimore.
Efforts throughout World War II by the CIO to desegregate jobs within the Bureau of Engraving in federal government and the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C. were waged in earnest but were ultimately less successful. The CIO also played a key role in the fight against police brutality in the District of Columbia in 1941.
After World War II, the onset of the cold war led to the expulsion of Communist Party members from most unions, including the Textile Workers.
Meyers went to jail for 3 ½ years for his membership in the Communist Party in the 1950s but went on to head the Party’s labor activities until his death in 1999.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008.
A Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, Castro also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state, while industry and business were nationalized and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
Born in Birán, Oriente as the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana.
After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953.
After a year’s imprisonment, Castro traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl Castro and Che Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista’s forces from the Sierra Maestra.
Castro led the Cuban revolutionary forces to victory in January 1959. He then traveled to the United States seeking ties and business relations between the two countries and was greeted by enthusiastic crowds on several of his unscheduled outings.
The Castro-led revolution that ousted corrupt dictator Fulgencia Batista enjoyed considerable support in the United States until the new Cuban government began nationalizing the property of U.S. corporations in August 1960.
President Dwight Eisenhower froze Cuban assets in the United States and severed diplomatic ties. A long period of hostile relations followed that included several U.S. backed invasions of Cuba, the Cuban missile crisis and the Cuban government’s export of criminals to the United States when the U.S. opened its doors to all Cuban exiles.
The Castro-led government instituted a number of reforms including medical facilities, health, housing, and education that nearly eliminated illiteracy and substantially reduced unemployment. The collapse of the sugar industry, the fall of the Soviet Union and American boycott of Cuba contributed substantially to stagnant economic progress of the tiny island nation.
The government was criticized after its victory for executing former members of the Batista regime and others after quick trials. Most observers did not fault the guilty findings, but found that the trials lacked due process and criticized the excessive use of the death penalty.
Castro stepped down as head of the Cuban government in 2008 and resigned from the Communist Party central committee in 2011.
U.S. President George Bush commented on Castro’s recovery from illness in 2008 and said,
“One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away.” Hearing about this, the atheist Castro with more than a touch of humor replied, “Now I understand why I survived Bush’s plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me.”
Castro died of natural causes in 2011.
Martin Chancey headed the D.C. Communist Party during its period of greatest influence in the city, including a broad campaign against police brutality from 1936-41.
He oversaw the unionization of cafeteria and dry cleaning workers and carried out organizing at the Washington Navy Yard, Library of Congress and Bureau of Engraving, among other places. During his tenure, communists led the Washington Industrial Council, CIO and had significant influence in the cooks and laborer’s unions in the AFL, among others.
He was a prominent voice in the city, often quoted in the mainstream newspapers.
Prior to being assigned by the Communist Party to Washington, D.C., he was a communist organizer in New York and Ohio.
He entered the army in 1943 and resumed his Communist Party activities in Ohio upon his discharge in 1945.
He was charged and convicted of being a communist in a 3 1/2 month Smith Act trial in Cleveland in 1956 along with four other men and one woman. Four other alleged communists were acquitted at the time.
The specific charges included conspiring to teach and advocate violent overthrow of the U.S. government and having organized the Communist Party as a group for such purpose.
Chancey was sentenced to five years in prison. In 1958 a U.S. Court of Appeals sent the case back for possible retrial or dismissal based on an erroneous interpretation of the law. In 1959, Chancey was freed when the government dismissed the case.
In a statement before the court, the U.S. Attorney said, “The government has reappraised the evidence and has come to the conclusion that the evidence is insufficient to warrant a new trial. It reluctantly is compelled to ask for dismissal of the indictment.”
The 1971 march organized by Progressive Labor Party was one of the high points for the group in that era as it mobilized over 3,000 supporters to demonstrate in the nation’s capital.
The Progressive Labor Party was formed by a group of Communist Party members who split from the group in 1962 over “revisionism” in the Party. The group initially supported the People’s Republic of China against the Soviet Union.
The group achieved early prominence with its defense of Cuba and allegations that it was responsible for the Harlem riots of 1964. One of its leading African American members, Bill Epton, was charged with inciting to riot and jailed. His speech to the court remains a poignant indictment of the United States <a href=”http://www.mltranslations.org/US/epton.htm” rel=”noreferrer nofollow”>www.mltranslations.org/US/epton.htm</a>
It broke with the Chinese in 1971 proclaiming that, “all nationalism is reactionary.” The group was critical of the North Vietnamese leadership in the later stages of the Vietnam War and opposed the Black Panther Party.
It played a significant part in the break-up of Students for A Democratic Society (SDS), the large, mass student group of the 1960s, when it registered the majority of delegates at the 1969 SDS convention. Two other factions emerged from the convention—one becoming the Weather Underground and the other becoming the Maoist groups Revolutionary Union and October League.
PLP emerged with its “Worker-Student Alliance” faction in control of SDS and continued the organization for several years until changing the name International Committee Against Racism.
Locally in Washington, D.C. the group achieved some prominence when long-time PLP member Mike Golash was elected president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 in a re-run election in 2004, serving the remainder of the term and one full term before he was defeated in the next election.
In contemporary times the group urges a “fight for communism now,” eschewing the orthodox Marxist belief in the need for socialism as a transitory step toward communism.
Laundry workers staged a strike at 13 dry cleaning plants in 1937 seeking union recognition and better wages and working conditions.
The organizing campaign was significant because it was led by the local Communist Party and relied in part on community organizations to help with the drive.
After employers refused to negotiate with the union, a strike was called. A number of employers attempted to remain open with the use of scabs and clashes erupted between strikers and scabs.
Police generally sided with the owners and rarely arrested scabs who attacked strikers. Community pressure on the police and employers helped to end the strike favorably.
The owners at 11 plants agreed to a "consent" election conducted by the newly empowered National Labor Relations Board and to conduct bargaining with the union if the vote was successful.
Workers prevailed at 9 of the 11 plants and contracts soon followed that raised wages from 25-50% and reduced work hours.
The campaign provided a model for organizing predominantly low-wage African American workers in the city.
United Cafeteria Workers Local 471 organized low wage restaurant workers and represented them from the 1930s until a merger with the Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union Local 25 in the early 1970s.
The union was nearly destroyed in 1948 when the U.S. government embarked on a drive to run communists and other radicals out of the unions.
The union called a strike in January 1948 after the private Government Services Inc. cafeteria operator refused to bargain citing the union’s failure to file non-communist affidavits with the government.
An eleven week strike followed that nearly broke the union, but a contract was salvaged even though the leaders had to relent on signing the affidavits.
The union joined with civil rights leader Mary Church Terrell to help lead the effort to desegregate public accommodations in the city—particularly its restaurants.
The successful effort led to the reinstatement of the District of Columbia’s so called “lost laws” from the 19th Century that prohibited discrimination.
The union affiliated with the Hotel and Restaurant Union in 1955 as Local 473 and was ultimately merged with other locals to form Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 25.
The United Federal Workers sponsored a short-lived school to improve the skills of Washington, D.C. residents in 1937.
The CIO affiliated union led by alleged communists lasted only a little over 10 years as it was red-baited out of existence at the onset of the Cold War.
A series of dances in 1929-33 held by the Communist Party and Young Communist League directly confronted deeply held white supremacist beliefs and challenged conservative elements in black society.
The Communist Party through the 1930s and 1940s was the most consistent at rejecting the “go-slow” approach of mainstream civil rights leaders and organizations opting instead to take white supremacy head-on.
In Baltimore, communist leaders like Paddy Whalen, head of the local National Maritime Union and George Meyers, head of the Congress of Industrial Organizations used their union positions to break down racial barriers while attorney Bernard Ades used his law degree to set legal precedents for black defendants in the Euel Lee and other cases.
The communist role in the civil rights struggles during this period was largely written out of history during the Cold War/McCarthy period of the late 1940s and 1950s.
Images related to the dissolution of the Communist Party USA in 1944 and the formation of the non-partisan Communist Political Association led by Earl Browder.
Communists in the Soviet Union were aghast at this development and drafted a letter released in 1945 by French communist leader Jacques Declos criticizing the liquidation of the U.S. Communist Party.
While they had offered scant resistance to Browder’s efforts in 1944, other U.S. communist leaders moved to expel Browder from the party and re-constitute the organization. However, the U.S. party failed to grasp the roots of their error and were haunted by that failure as the Second Red Scare took hold a few years later.
Anti-revisionists protests in 1979 in Washington, D.C. against Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping who had jailed former Chinese Communist Party Chair Mao Zedong’s supporters.
Several days of demonstrations culminated in a pitched battle between police and protesters where both sides fought with clubs and batons. The demonstrations was publicized worldwide and gave inspiration to many anti-revisionist Communist Parties around the world.
Images of a 1935 May Day rally organized by the Communist Party in Washington, D.C. The event, held in Franklin Park, called for freedom of the Scottsboro Boys, Tom Mooney, immediate payment of a World War I bonus and support of the Soviet Union.
A historic strike by 600 predominantly Black women on the Jim Crow Maryland Eastern Shore in 1938 against two dozen packinghouses that featured a communist organizer, vigilante raids, the burning of a union organizers car, the expulsion of a federal mediator from town and a blockade preventing food from reaching strikers. After the workers held strongt for six weeks, the packinghouses reached an agreement with the CIO union.
The Midnight March of the Baltimore Brigade January 17, 1937 was a seminal event in the development of rank-and-file power on the waterfront.
The key figure that turned things around was Patrick B. “Paddy” Whalen. At perhaps 5’5” and 120 lbs., his physical appearance didn’t strike fear into the shipping companies, but his fiery leadership on the waterfront did.
Whalen was a former member of the radical Industrial Workers of the World who became a leader on the New York waterfront of the Marine Workers Industrial Union—a radical union that organized all waterfront workers.
Moving to Baltimore in the mid 1930s, Whalen and other radicals entered the mainstream International Seamen’s Union with the hopes of gaining more influence.
They organized a rank and file caucus to oppose the ISU’s conservative leadership and led East Coast seamen out on strike in support of their West Coast brothers in late 1936,
For a time, nearly all waterfront workers in the port of Baltimore joined in. However the shipping companies, the conservative American Federation of Labor and ISU leadership, and others eventually undermined support for the strike.
On their heels and near defeat, Whalen rallied the Baltimore seamen to march on Washington, D.C. to oppose anti-union legislation and demonstrate that seamen were a legitimate bargaining unit to the new National Labor Relations Board.
The march succeeded in rallying seamen to the rank and file caucus up and down the East Coast. The legislation that would have permitted blacklisting sailors was amended and the NLRB ruled in favor of maritime workers.
The strike ended a few days after the march with some wage increases, but the caucus went on to become the National Maritime Union (NMU) that ousted the conservative ISU in the vast majority of union elections held under the NLRB.
Whalen became the port agent of the new union and established fair procedures for the order sailors shipped out to sea. He ended the discrimination against sailors of color that had relegated many to the backbenches and consigned nearly all to be cooks.
Whalen was a passionate member of the Communist Party that fought vigorously to improve the lives of waterfront workers. He also led the fight to integrate the waterfront itself and fought for equal housing for black workers. Whalen organized a demonstration in front of the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. against the Nazi regime.
After the U.S. was attacked by Japan and the Nazi regime in Germany declared war on the U.S., Whalen went back to sea to help transport war supplies. He did so despite his draft exemption for his job of port agent that would have kept him out of the war.
He was killed June 2, 1942 when a Nazi U-boat fired two torpedoes into the engine room of the S.S Illinois off Bermuda.
We can thank Paddy Whalen for helping to blaze the trail for integration in the defense industry and for a 20-year period when union democracy prevailed in maritime industry. And we can thank him for being an uncompromising “tribune of the people” who fought to the death for workers.
A collection of Maryland-DC Communist Party USA leaders and members from 1920-1965.
A communist-led campaign to release New Bedford textile strike labor leader John Porter from charges stemming from his absent without leave status from the U.S. Army in 1928.
Protests and demonstrations surrounding the 200th birthday of the United States of America. Left-wing groups criticized the government for representing the wealthiest interests to the detriment of working people. The Revolutionary Communist Party’s slogan was “We’ve carried the rich for 200 years, let’s get them off our backs.”
The Washington, D.C. Hunger marches of 1931-32 gained nearly as much publicity at the time as the more enduring Bonus Army marchers of 1932-34.
With one-third of the nation unemployed, the call for a march demanding relief and jobs struck a chord throughout the nation.
Organized and led by the Unemployed Councils that were heavily influenced by the Communist Party, the marches were the subject of a fear campaign by officials who warned of a revolution. This only made the public more curious and thousands gathered along the arrival route to watch the Hunger March on December 6, 1931.
The main chant form the marchers was “We want unemployment insurance” but others included singing “The Internationale,” and “John Brown’s Body, changing “Long live the Soviet government,” “Long live the solidarity of the Negro and the white workers. Down with Jim Crow and lynching,” “Down with charity! We want security.”
Buoyed by the arrival of several thousand others, close to 5,000 persons made their way past the White House to the Washington Auditorium where they joined in singing “The Internationale” and stood for a minute in silence to “martyred” comrades.
Concerned about communist influence and taken aback by the lack of sympathy for the unemployed demonstrated by government leaders, Father James Cox organized a caravan of 25,000 unemployed from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to march on Washington in January 1932.
It was the largest demonstration to date in Washington. Cox hoped the action would stir Congress to start a public works program and to increase the inheritance tax to 70%.
Even Pennsylvania’s Republican governor Gifford Pinchot backed Cox’s march. Pinchot hoped Cox would back his own hopes to wrest away the Republican nomination for president away from Hoover. Cox had other plans.
Herbert Hoover was sufficiently embarrassed by the march that a full-scale investigation was launched against Cox. The Republican National Committee wanted to know how Cox was able to purchase enough gasoline to get the marchers to Washington, suggesting the Vatican, or Democratic supporters of Al Smith funded the operation.
It turned out that Andrew Mellon had quietly ordered his Gulf Oil gas stations to dispense free gas to the marchers. This proved to be the pretext for Hoover to remove Mellon from his post as Secretary of the Treasury.
It also provided fodder for communists and other leftists to blast Cox for being funded by the wealthy and ultimately undermined his support among the downtrodden.
The second Hunger March organized by the Unemployed Councils began in early December 1932.
Despite the problems on the way in and the massive police presence in the nation’s capital, the march by 3,000 and observed by upwards of 100,000 proceeded peacefully on December 6th.
Permission had been granted to march near the Capitol and this time a delegation led by leader Herbert Benjamin met with Vice President Curtis and Speaker of the House John Garner.
A number of prominent elected officials and other such as Lady Astor visited the Hunger March camp off of New York Avenue NE near the railroad tracks.
The hunger marches did not lead immediately to unemployment insurance, but helped to galvanize public opinion in favor of a relief system.
Wisconsin acted in 1932, followed by California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Utah and Washington before the federal act passed in 1935.
Protests against restrictions on immigration greeted the 71st Congress.
Police using tear gas broke up repeated attempts to stage a rally on the Capitol steps calling for an end to discrimination against the foreign born and for an end to immigration quotas and restrictions.
The protests were sponsored by the National Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born headed by Israel Amter, a founding member of the Communist Party USA jailed in conjunction with the New York Unemployed Day demonstration of 1930 and as a frequent candidate for public office, including three runs for governor of New York.
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg were great heroes, victims, or the worst traitors in U.S. history depending on your point of view.
The two U.S. citizens were executed June 19, 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage related to the passing of information on the construction of an atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
At the time of their trial that began March 6, 1951 evidence against the Rosenbergs was thin and depended on the testimony of Ethel’s brother David Greenglass. Greenglass’ testimony that he passed documents from Los Alamos National Laboratory to Julius and that Ethel typed up the notes.
The two along with Morton Sobell, who was tried with them, became an international cause with demonstrations, letter writing and pleas to first free the Rosenbergs and for clemency after their conviction and death sentence.
The political climate in the U.S. was one of fear with the onset of the Cold War with the Soviet Union following confrontation in Europe and the Soviet Union’s test of an atomic bomb in 1949. Leadership at many levels of the Communist Party USA were being sentenced to jail for their beliefs while the rank and file members were blacklisted from employment and persecuted during the second red scare.
At the same time, U.S. forces were fighting in Korea against the communist regime centered in North Korea and aided by the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union.
Greenglass made a deal with the federal government to testify in order to reduce his sentence and obtain immunity for his wife. Years later he recanted his testimony regarding Ethel saying he believed it was his own wife who typed up the notes.
While the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies in World War II, the U.S. did not share information on the atom bomb project.
The Rosenbergs joined the Young Communist League in the late 1930s. According to his former Soviet handler Alexander Feklisov, Julius began passing classified documents to the Soviet Union while at the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey in 1940.
The prosecution saw Julius’ potential cooperation as a chance to break a larger Soviet intelligence group in the U.S. and believed the only way to break Julius was to expose his wife Ethel to the death penalty. The ploy didn’t work.
The Rosenbergs were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War.
In imposing the death penalty, Judge Irving Kaufman noted that he held them responsible not only for espionage but also for the deaths of the Korean War:
“I consider your crime worse than murder… I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-Bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country. No one can say that we do not live in a constant state of tension. We have evidence of your treachery all around us every day for the civilian defense activities throughout the nation are aimed at preparing us for an atom bomb attack”
Commenting on the sentence given to them, Julius Rosenberg claimed the case was a political frame-up.
“This death sentence is not surprising. It had to be. There had to be a Rosenberg case, because there had to be an intensification of the hysteria in America to make the Korean War acceptable to the American people. There had to be hysteria and a fear sent through America in order to get increased war budgets. And there had to be a dagger thrust in the heart of the left to tell them that you are no longer gonna get five years for a Smith Act prosecution or one year for contempt of court, but we’re gonna kill you.”
An article by Norman Markowitz for Political Affairs in 2008 sums up another point of view.
“These were people who, for ill or for good, admired both Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and President Franklin Roosevelt as advancing the struggle for working-class liberation against fascism. They saw them as helping to bring about more than a “better world,” but a world with a socialist system that fostered equality, peace and social justice. If patriotism in its most simple definition means love of country, this was the America that communists defended and loved, rather than the America of Standard Oil, Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover, the corporate leadership ready and willing to do business with Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese militarists both to make money and fight socialist revolutions.”
This point of view also holds that providing the Soviets with intelligence on the atomic bomb helped insure that the U.S. would not launch nuclear weapons again after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.
Those charged or implicated with the Rosenbergs include:
Julius Rosenberg: executed June 19, 1953
Ethel Rosenberg: executed June 19, 1953
David Greenglass: served 9 and half years of a 15-year sentence
Ruth Greenglass: not charged, granted immunity
Morton Sobell: served 17 years, nine months of a 30-year sentence
Harry Gold: served 14 years of a 30-year sentence
Klaus Fuchs: served 9 years of a 14-year sentence in Great Britain
Later documents and memoirs indicate fairly conclusively that all were involved in the effort to provide the Soviet Union with information on the atomic bomb except Ethel Rosenberg where there is no conclusive evidence.
Important strikes at the Celanese textile plant in Cumberland, Maryland took place in 1936 and 1939 that resulted in the unionization of 10,000 production workers and helped create a key union leader, George A. Meyers.
Meyers helped lead the in-plant organizing and led a number of sit-down strikes within the plant. He would go on to become president of the local union and, in 1941, president of the Maryland and District of Columbia Industrial Union Council of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Meyers joined the Communist Party during the fight to organize the union at Celanese and as president of the MD-DC CIO, led the fight to integrate basic industry—overseeing the successful efforts to integrate the Celanese and Kelly-Springfield plants in Cumberland, Glen L. Martin aircraft factory in Middle River and the Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyard in Baltimore.
Efforts throughout World War II by the CIO to desegregate jobs within the Bureau of Engraving in federal government and the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C. were waged in earnest but were ultimately less successful. The CIO also played a key role in the fight against police brutality in the District of Columbia in 1941.
After World War II, the onset of the cold war led to the expulsion of Communist Party members from most unions, including the Textile Workers.
Meyers went to jail for 3 ½ years for his membership in the Communist Party in the 1950s but went on to head the Party’s labor activities until his death in 1999.
The Celanese plant at its peak employed 13,000 workers producing materials made from synthetic fiber and closed in 1983.
The year-long 1926-27 communist-led Passaic strike by 15,000 woolen mill workers in New Jersey was a seminal event in the labor movement.
Conducted in its initial phase by a “United Front Committee” organized by the Trade Union Educational League of the Workers (Communist) Party, the strike began on January 25, 1926, and officially ended only on March 1, 1927, when the final mill being picketed signed a contract with the striking workers. It was the first Communist-led work stoppage in the United States.
Support was organized around the country, including Washington, D.C.
Madalyn Murray O’Hair was a lifelong atheist who repeatedly took on state sanctions of religion throughout her life.
Murray (who later married and took the name O’Hair) told the story that her son William came home from a Baltimore. Md. school one day in 1960 saying he was forced to participate in religious activities and challenging O’Hair to live up to and fight for her beliefs.
“When your 14-year old son asks you if you plan to stand up for your religious convictions—well I have to have the respect of my son.”
Murray’s ultimately successful suit caused Life magazine to call her, “The most hated woman in America.”
Neighborhood children were forbidden to play with William or Garth, bricks were thrown through her windows and the word “communist” was painted all over her back fence.
Murray responded by purchasing two dogs and naming them Marx and Engels. “I’m a troublemaker at heart and I don’t give a damn what people say,” Murray was quoted as saying.
Her suit was combined with a similar Pennsylvania case and the Court found that they constituted religious exercises and were therefore unconstitutional under the establishment clause.
The court dismissed as unconvincing the argument that the exercises and the laws requiring them served the secular purpose of “nonreligious moral inspiration.”
Nor was it pertinent that students could be excused from the exercises upon the request of a parent, “for that fact furnishes no defense to a claim of unconstitutionality under the Establishment Clause,” the Supreme Court had held.
Finally, the court denied that its finding amounted to an establishment of a “religion of secularism” or that by failing to uphold the exercises it was interfering in the free-exercise rights of religious students and their parents.
“While the Free Exercise Clause clearly prohibits the use of state action to deny the rights of free exercise to anyone,” the court declared, “it has never meant that a majority could use the machinery of the State to practice its beliefs.”
William later became a Christian and ultimately a Baptist minister and was disowned by Murray.
Murray filed many more suits on similar grounds throughout her life.
She continued to promote atheism for the rest of her life until she and her son Gath and granddaughter Robin were murdered in 1995.
The Communist Party organized demonstrations of March 6, 1930 were the first nationwide protest response to the Great Depression that had begun the previous fall. The economic collapse ultimately put one in three out of work in the U.S.
Protests were held in Detroit, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, Milwaukee, Seattle, Las Angeles and San Francisco among other cities. Demonstrations were also held on the same day in cities around the world.
The DC Communist Party and allied groups had begun preparations in the city for several weeks and police responded by arresting 10 people on April 30 for holding soapbox style speeches on the street corners near the Communist Party headquarters at 7th & P Streets NW. Similar meetings and police harassment took place at the Women’s Christian Temperance Union statue at 7th Street and Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
They held a rally the night before at their headquarters where speeches were given and signs were made for the next day’s demonstration. The main themes were demands for good jobs, against police brutality, Jim Crow schools in the District and lynching.
Among the organizers were William “Bert” Lawrence, local party chair, Solomon Harper, International Labor Defense and Edith Briscoe of the Young Communist League.
Public demonstrations of this type were fairly infrequent at that time and public protests involving blacks and whites even more infrequent.
The picket in front of the White House was held with blacks and whites locking arms while picketing. Press reports estimated that several thousand nearby office workers came out to watch. When Lawrence stopped and began to speak to the crowd, someone in street clothes attacked him. Police then attacked the picketers and bystanders with tear gas and black jacks. Some fought back against the police.
Press reports indicate that 13 were arrested with an unknown number of injured, but only one that required hospital treatment.
The demonstrations made front-page news and were the lead stories in the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun and helped put the Communist Party at the forefront of the fight against unemployment and racial discrimination in the District for the next decade.
The second “red scare” flourished from 1947-1960 when members and supporters of the U.S. Communist Party, socialists, anarchists and many progressives were persecuted and prosecuted for their beliefs. The effort to suppress the left wing in the U.S. began as the U.S. began challenging the Soviet Union for dominance in Europe after World War II that led to what was called the Cold War. Anxious to suppress any pro-Soviet sentiments in the U.S., an effort targeting communists, their supporters and any free speech advocates that was also called the McCarthy Era, named after U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI).
Anti-communist hysteria, often orchestrated by the U.S. government, was used regularly throughout the nineteen and twentieth centuries. The Haymarket “Riot” of 1886, The Palmer Raids of 1919-20, the McCarthy era of the 1950s and a host of other events were used regularly to suppress civil liberties and quash any attempts that provided even remote threats to the U.S. system of capitalism.
The USA Patriot Act and the general expansion of both private and government surveillance in the modern era act in similar ways to these past attempts to thwart social change.
Marie Richardson Harris was a leading organizer for civil and labor rights in the District of Columbia from the late 1930s until 1950.
Her pioneering work helped to organize the predominately African American Washington red caps union and their women’s auxiliary while still a teenager. She was a leader of the early fight to integrate Capital Transit operator jobs. She was an active member of the National Negro Congress and served as the executive secretary of the local branch.
According to the Afro American newspaper, she was the first African American woman to hold national office in a major labor union. In her role as national representative of the United Federal Workers (CIO), she helped lead the union’s organizing drives and battles against discrimination inside the federal government in the District.
The price she paid for her leadership was four and a half years in federal prison, a victim of McCarthy-era persecution.
Sammie Abdullah Abbott waged a lifelong struggle against economic and social injustice. Abbott was studying architecture at Cornell University when he was radicalized by the economic catastrophe that was called the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Abbott became active with the Communist Party and his father’s grocery business failed when a local bank pulled financing because they felt threatened by the younger Abbott’s radicalism. Abbott ran for Congress in 1934 in New York’s 37th District on the Communist Party ticket.
Abbott became an organizer for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in Buffalo’s steel mills and met his wife Ruth when he was jailed for picketing. They married and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1940 where he worked as a hod carrier on construction jobs and later worked for a local union.
When the US entered World War II, Abbott joined the Air Force where he received a Bronze Star. After the war, Abbott worked as a commercial artist for the Henry J. Kauffman agency. During this time he was head of the local committee that gathered thousands of signatures demanding the US never use nuclear weapons again.
In 1954, when members of the Communist Party were being sentenced to prison for their beliefs (not for any acts), Abbott was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Abbott stood up to the committee and refused to “name names” and wouldn’t even confirm the license plate number on his automobile. He was fired from the Kauffman agency for being a “red.” To his friends, Abbott described himself as a marxist, but not a communist.
After being blacklisted, he worked as a freelance commercial artist and later started his own firm that operated out of the Dupont Building at 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW. He remained active in the civil rights and peace movements throughout the 1950s and 1960s and was repeatedly questioned by the FBI and local police about his politics.
When the District of Columbia proposed building a new freeway that would slash through African-American neighborhoods, Abbott lay down in the path of the proposed Northeast Freeway. At that time, planned freeway routes had largely been moved out of white neighborhoods and pushed into black neighborhoods. Abbott joined a young African-American civil rights activist named Reginald Booker to head the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis.
Abbott designed a number of the great anti-freeway posters including the “White Man’s Roads Thru Black Man’s Homes” posters. Together Booker and he led demonstrations, sit-ins and mass protests at Washington, DC city council meetings and other local and federal government sites that stopped the North Central Freeway and Three Sisters Bridges and instead diverted the funds toward building the Metrorail system.
Abbott continued his activism against the Vietnam War and helped young students in Maryland publish the “Radical Guide to the University of Maryland.” Later he was active in the anti-apartheid movement. He started the Takoma Park Folk Festival that continues today and ran for mayor of the town in 1980 and won. Abbott led the fight for rent control in the city, offered sanctuary to undocumented workers and established the town as a “nuclear free zone.”
Abbott died in 1990 and his wife Ruth carried on their activism until her death in 2009. Sammie Abbott was arrested more than 40 times for his activism and was quoted once saying, “I’m a perpetually mad person. I hate injustice. As far as I’m concerned, I’m living to fight injustice. I’m living to fight the goddamned thing. I’m too mad to sleep.”
His own favorite quote was from Dante’s Inferno, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.”
Some say, however, that Abbott’s favorite hot pepper sandwiches might have been hotter than anything Dante imagined. Abbott wolfed down the fire of those sandwiches and breathed it back against injustice wherever he encountered it.
Photos, newspapers and flyers related to the beginnings of mass protest and civil disobedience surrounding the “Scottsboro Boys” trials and convictions.
The 1933 march on Washington, DC was only the second mass march on the capital related to civil rights in the century. The first was a 1922 march against lynching.
The Scottsboro campaign marked the first civil rights campaign that combined direct action, legal defense and political action with the tactics of mass protest that included letters, postcards, telegrams, rallies, mass marches, meetings and civil disobedience.
Images related to rallies and marches sponsored by the Citizens Committee Against Police Brutality in Washington in September, 1941.
The protests were organized after four African Americans were shot to death by D.C. police in three separate incidents.
The committee was a broad based group originally organized by the National Negro Congress and supported by the NAACP, Elks, Interdenominational Ministers Alliance and a number of other groups. The local Communist Party played an open and leading role.
This set contains images related to the Washington, DC campaign by a broad coalition of African American rights groups and supporters against police brutality in the city.
The campaign marked the first use of mass marches for a local civil rights campaign in the city and was led by the Washington Branch of the National Negro Congress. The local Communist Party played an open and leading role.
Charles Hamilton Houston, counsel to the NAACP, described the campaign as follows:
“The persistent and forceful campaign, which the Washington Council [of the National Negro Congress] and allied organizations have waged against police brutality in Washington, has been one of the most significant battles for civil rights and personal freedom and security ever conducted in the District of Columbia.”
The campaign lasted from 1936-41.
Police raid Progressives: 1948
Washington, D.C. police raided a fundraiser for the Progressive Party on October 10, 1948–the second time in 10 days an interracial gathering had been broken up by authorities.
Authorities compiled files on over 350 people involved and arrested several dozen in the two incidents.
The raids prompted a demonstration by the local Civil Rights Congress and a spirited defense of those accused of wrong-doing by Charles Hamilton Houston and Leon Ransom.
Most of the organization strength and leadership of the local Progressive Party chapter was by members of the local Communist Party.
The war against fascism drew Washington, D.C. and surrounding area residents to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a volunteer army, to fight the forces of right wing leader Francisco Franco in Spain beginning in 1937and ending late in 1938.
The Spanish Civil War was in some respects a trial run for the larger conflict of World War II. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany backed Franco’s efforts to overthrow the left wing elected government of Spain backed by the Soviet Union.
Western countries imposed an arms embargo on both sides that meant the only arms flowing to the democratic government were those coming a circuitous route from the Soviet Union.
As the war began to turn against the Republicans, the International Brigades were withdrawn in late 1938.
After three brutal years of war 1936-39, the Republicans were defeated. Democracy was not restored to the country until after Franco’s death in 1975.
Washington, DC residents (listed on papers departing for Spain as “Washington, D.C.”) who joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade are listed in the Flickr album description on the Washington Area Spark Flickr page.
The First Red Scare was a period in the United States from 1919-25 marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism by industrial and political figures, based on real and imagined events.
Real events included those such as the Russian Revolution of 1917 and a widespread bombing campaign by followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galliani.
After World War I, the five-day Seattle General Strike and the anarchist bombing campaign of April and June 1919 that included severely damaging the home of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer set off the initial wave of arrests and repression.
Later in the year the 1919 steel strike led by communist William Z. Foster and the 1919 Coal strike led by John L. Lewis that included local communist leaders of the United Mine Workers caused more fear.
Stoking these fears was the Boston police strike of 1919 causing industrialists and political leaders to fear that they would have no protection against insurrection. Fear of radicalism was used to explain the suppression of freedom of expression in form of display of certain flags and banners. The First Red Scare effectively ended in mid-1920, after Attorney General Palmer forecast a massive radical uprising on May Day and the day passed without incident.
Palmer launched a campaign directed at immigrants and quickly deported nearly 200, most of whom were members of the Union of Russian Workers. Legislation banning marching with red flags was passed in jurisdictions around the country and in 1920 the five socialist members of the New York Assembly were expelled for their political beliefs.
Palmer and rising Justice Department star J. Edgar Hoover continued to beat the drums of the red scare, arresting hundreds and seizing radical publications, but the wind began going out of their sails when predictions of May Day riots never occurred.
D.C. Area Miscellaneous
The Washington Committee for Democratic Action was the local affiliate of the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, an organization that existed from 1940-46 before merging with the International labor Defense and the National Negro Congress to form the Civil Rights Congress.
The Washington Committee for Democratic Action focused on civil liberties, civil rights for black Americans and other minorities and civil and voting rights within the District of Columbia.
In 1947 the Civil Rights Congress, along with the predecessor organizations, was listed as subversive by U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark.
Demonstrations to save the Office of Price Controls which had kept prices low and inflation in check during World War II.
After the war, a Republican Congress sought to repeal many of the New Deal and World War II programs. Later in the decade, women in Washington, D.C. launched a successful meat boycott.
The tactic was revived in the 1960s as a spontaneous boycott of rising prices swept the nation, including in Washington, D.C.
Henry Wallace ran a Third Party campaign for U.S. president in as the candidate of Progressive Party in the 1948 presidential election.
Wallace served as the head of the agriculture department from 1933-41 where he earned a reputation as an advocate on behalf of African Americans and of federal intervention on behalf of the poor.
President Franklin Roosevelt nominated him for vice-president at the 1940 Democratic Convention and southern and conservative Democrats rebelled. The rebellion was quashed after Roosevelt threatened to quit the race if the delegates did not accept Wallace.
During his term as vice president during World War II from 1941-45, he remained a fervent “New Deal” Democrat and advocated a cooperative relationship with the Soviet Union after the war. This position further inflamed the conservative wing of the party.
During the 1944 Democratic Convention, the conservatives were able to nominate Harry Truman for vice president under Roosevelt. Roosevelt kept Wallace on as Secretary of Commerce, but the longest serving President died three months after he took office in 1945 and Truman took over the office.
Wallace served as the head of Commerce until September 1946 when he was fired by Truman over disputes about relations with the Soviet Union.
Wallace decided to run for President in the 1948 elections on the Progressive Party ticket and campaigned with Idaho Sen. Glen Taylor as his vice presidential candidate. When he announced, observers believed he could win at least several states, possibly throwing the election into the U.S. House of Representatives.
He ran on a platform favoring labor, civil rights, universal health care and peaceful relations with the Soviet Union. He notably refused to appear in segregated halls and appeared side-by-side with African American candidates of the party.
Truman’s advisor Clark Clifford ran a campaign of “dirty tricks” designed to undercut Wallace’s support—mainly by painting him as bumbling tool of the communists. The effort succeeded and whether Clifford personally organized them or not, Wallace was greeted by pickets, eggs and tomatoes at many campaign appearances, particularly in the south.
When the election came, Wallace received about 1.2 million votes, finishing fourth behind segregationist Strom Thurmond and didn’t win a single state. Truman defeated Thomas Dewey largely by marginalizing the Wallace vote.
In 1950, Wallace broke with earlier positions and came out in favor of U.S. intervention in Korea. He later amended his earlier positions on the Soviet Union saying he had been duped and became an anti-communist.
Photos of overt anti-Semitic acts or speeches in the Greater Washington, D.C. area prior to 1990. Includes Klan rallies, Nazi speeches, vandalism and other hate acts against people of the Jewish faith.
Ronald C. Clark, a co-founder of the Regional Addiction Prevention (RAP), “pioneered a therapeutic approach to addiction aimed not just at detoxing the body but also the mind,” according to the Washington Post,
Clark was a bass player in the Charles Mingus band when addiction derailed his music career. After going through the Synanon treatment facility, he came to Washington, D.C. and never left.
The Post wrote upon his death in May 2019, “Many of his clients were African Americans, and he wanted to help them rid themselves of the poisonous effects of racism —the inferiority complexes, the low self-esteem, internalized oppression and self-hatred.”
“In a residential treatment setting that could last more than a year, patients studied African and African American history. Jazz musicians, black poets and artists performed and participated in group therapy sessions. Recovering addicts received nutrition counseling, reading lessons and job-skills training.”
The vintage Montgomery Spark wrote in 1971:
“The center’s approach is radically different from other ‘addict rehabilitation centers’ in the area. RAP operates as a collective, with staff and residents making decisions together.”
“RAP’s left-wing analysis of the heroin plague has led to attacks on the organization from reactionary elements who seek to capitalize on an addict’s plight through methadone maintenance or other exploitive methods.”
“RAP’s ‘success rate,’ as government authorities call it, has been remarkably higher than other types of treatment. This is probably because RAP’s residents learn that the root of the heroin problem lies in society’s illnesses, and by knowing this, the individual can better realize how to cope with their problems.”
Early counselors included radicals like Montgomery County’s John Dillingham that were supporters of the Black Panther Party.
RAP initially offered outpatient services before opening a residential facility at 1904 T Street NW in July 1970 and moved into the Willard Street property in 1973 when they were offered the facility for $1 in rent. They later opened other facilities in the District and Maryland.
Part of the program for the live-in treatment facility was community service. RAP organized to give out free vegetables and clothes, information on legal aid, welfare rights and where to find medical attention.
They worked to clean up the neighborhood around their facilities and ran workshops for the community called “survival teaching.”
RAP vigorously opposed the methadone as a drug that produced “Zombies” instead of instilling self-reliance.
Connie Clark, a co-director of RAP, said in a 1972 Washington Post interview, “Authorities like it because it cuts down on crime and makes people docile—easy to control. But all the same it addictive and babies born to methadone-taking mothers are addicts and persons on the drug are never free to think for themselves.”
RAP struggled financially in its first years of existence, holding benefits throughout the city to keep the facility functioning. Later grants from the city and private-pay residents would help to sustain it.
RAP adapted its treatment through the years as one drug epidemic after another swept through the city—heroin, crack, PCP, fentanyl—and everything in between, including alcoholism.
Nearly 50 years after opening, RAP describes itself, “RAP’s overarching mission is to promote and enhance human health – physically, spiritually, emotionally and socially. Individualized intensive and comprehensive assessment and case management guarantee an all-inclusive care plan.”
“RAP, Inc. has served the Washington metropolitan area since 1970. We base our treatment approach on cultural values, respecting and supporting all individuals and their communities and recognizing that a client’s culture is an inseparable part of his or her self-image.”
“Teaching from the work of giants such as Malcom X, Frederick Douglass, and Maya Angelou who are models of recovery and overcoming abuse, we motivate clients to embrace the possibilities for their own sobriety.”
Ralph W. “Petey” Greene grew up in the African American section of Georgetown, dropped out of high school and was given a bad conduct discharge from the Army.
Greene had more than 50 arrests when his life turned around in the Lorton Reformatory, becoming an organizer for prisoners’ social functions and a model prisoner.
Upon his release he helped organize welfare mothers into the local chapter of the National Welfare Rights Organization and stage noisy demonstrations demanding reforms.
When trash collection stopped on a block in the Shaw neighborhood, Greene organized a group to go the Sanitation Department that resulted in thrice-weekly sweep-ups.
When a builder wanted to raze part of the block and put up high rises, Greene organized the residents to go to a zoning hearing where the builder was requesting a special exception.
The hearing examiner and the builder were shocked to see the room packed and the zoning change was denied.
Greene later entered show business as a stand-up weaving his own real life experiences as a burglar, stick-up man, drug addict, alcoholic and ex-con into his shtick.
His nightclub gigs started when he performed for drinks and tips. He went on to become a television and radio talk-show host and a two-time Emmy Award-winner.
Later when he got his Washington, D.C. radio and TV shows, Greene often discussed issues such as racism, poverty, drug usage, and current events among others—one of the pioneering “shock jocks” and reality TV hosts.
He served as an inspiration to many of the downtrodden who struggled to leave behind alcohol, drugs and crime.
Greene died in January 1984 at age 53.
Sam Smith was on the front lines of many of the struggles in the District of Columbia from the mid 1960s until after the turn of the century as a progressive journalist/activist..
In 1966 Smith took part in a day-long SNCC boycott of Washington DC transit buses, giving rides to boycotters with his car.
After his article on the action appeared, Smith was visited by the local chair of SNCC, Marion Barry who was seeking help with public relations and a long relationship was established.
That same year, 1966, Smith launched a community newspaper called the Capitol East Gazette to serve a largely poor, black neighborhood of Washington DC.
Aided by a $2,000 grant from a local Lutheran church, the Gazette went on to cover such issues as plans to build a huge network of freeways in the city, the war on poverty, public education, neighborhood battles, and urban planning.
Smith’s paper was pro-civil rights and anti-Vietnam War
Smith also became a vociferous advocate of statehood for the District of Columbia and was a founder of the D.C. Statehood Party
In 1969, the paper was renamed the DC Gazette and became a citywide alternative newspaper.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the activist journalist Smith was a fixture at demonstrations, picket lines, public hearings, press conferences and meetings of activist causes of many stripes.
Smith later help found the Green Party.
In 1984, the Gazette’s name was changed to Progressive Review which published until 2004. Smith was also the author of a number of books.
Alternative newspapers, newsletters and periodicals published for the greater Washington, D.C. area. See the collection that includes national alternative periodicals.
The large chain grocery stores, Safeway and Giant, began a long series of closures of small stores without replacing them with large format stores that led to food deserts in many areas of the city.
Independent stores that opened in their place employed fewer neighborhood residents at lower wages than the unionized Safeway and Giant, which dominated the market. Further, the economics of operating an independent meant higher prices for fewer goods.
Overall this meant lower incomes to purchase the few available goods at higher prices.The District’s solution to food and retail deserts in these lower-income areas in recent years has been to gentrify the neighborhoods, using economic pressures to force out low-income black families and replacing them with higher income single people or couples who are mostly white.
The effort usually, though not always, begins with a mixed use development or two around a Metrorail station in lower income sections of the District—sometimes with tax abatements.
Small scale developers often buy up neighboring single-family townhouses and convert them into multi-unit dwellings. Others renovate the properties and re-sell at exorbitant prices. Other shops and developments soon follow.
The District government establishes bike lanes and Circulator bus routes, allocates space for zip-cars and others and renovates or creates park facilities.
The economic pressures of higher property taxes and offers of cash by developers either force or lure lower income residents to leave the area.
Charles Cassell was an anti-freeway activist, Vietnam War opponent, school board member and D.C. Statehood Party leader who grew up in a house designed by his father near Howard University in Washington, D.C.
“After graduating from Dunbar High School, he followed his father’s wish and entered architecture school at Cornell in 1942. But two years later, he was drafted into the Army. He served his conscription ‘in the most dangerous theater of all: southern USA.’ where he said his race consciousness crystallized.
“In the ’40s, that was not the safest place for a black person to be,’ Cassell said. ‘In the South, a black man could die just for a look. Sometimes I wanted so badly to be overseas where it was safer.’
“After World War II, Charles Cassell finished his training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., and returned to Washington and a rather ordinary life as husband and father, involved in civic associations and working as an architect for the Veterans Administration and the General Services Administration.
“It all changed when he met [Julius] Hobson in 1962 and joined him on the picket lines to speak for the poor and downtrodden.
“We were constantly–Hobson, Doug Moore, Marion Barry–out there on the front line, testifying, demonstrating against a variety of things that we thought worked to the disadvantage’ of city residents, he said.
“Cassell and many others ‘integrated all sorts of things,’ stopped the freeways that had disrupted black neighborhoods, blocked the building of the Three Sisters bridge, and challenged the FCC license of WMAL-TV, which effectively opened up television newscasts to black reporters and anchors.
“He is a man with intense pride in black culture and history, given to quoting King, Malcolm X and Paul Robeson.
“His ego is ‘the best thing I got going for me . . . and that lack of apology is what white folks can’t deal with, or even your black opponents. Why should you apologize for it?’
“He concedes, though, that ‘sometimes my ego is misdirected, sometimes it gets me into trouble, but that’s because it’s used improperly, not because you shouldn’t have it.’"
“In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Cassell often made headlines by interrupting City Council meetings with his own agenda, urging welfare activists to ‘disrupt’ Council deliberations, and leading school children in antiwar demonstrations.
“He won the school board seat by two votes in a run-off election in 1968, and afterward lost races for congressional delegate in 1972, for reelection to the school board in 1973 and for at-large city councilman in 1976.
“Absalom Jordan Jr., who met Cassell when Cassell cochaired the Black United Front with Stokeley Carmichael in 1968, finds him ‘competent, sensitive, and knowledgeable,’ but unelectable because he is ‘an antagonist to the white power structure. People saw what he did on the school board and it scared them.’"
“Julius Hobson Jr. said he likes and admires Cassell for his firmness on issues, but "I’m just not sure if he was able to make the kind of personality change and compromises" necessary to win votes, he said.
“Cassell insists he is ‘not a politician. I never wanted to be mayor. . . . Otherwise I wouldn’t have done the things I did that in effect antagonized the kind of support you need to run for political office.’
“He said his election failures are insignificant because he ‘did something more valuable than getting one lonely voice in public office. . . . Each political office I ran for was . . . an opportunity to push the concept of statehood. That’s always been my purpose.’
“I like the fact that I don’t have to answer to anybody,’ said Cassell, who claims to be the proud inheritor of Hobson’s methods. ‘I can say what I want, when I want. That’s a great freedom.’
–Cassell biography is excerpted from a longer 1982 profile by Alice Bonner published in the Washington Post.
Jerry Wilson was the field operations commander and later police chief in Washington, D.C. during the peak period of demonstrations and confrontations with police during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Jerry Wilson joined the U.S. Navy in 1943, and served aboard a mine sweeper that was engaged in several actions during World War Two. He served in the Navy until 1946, when he left the Navy and joined the United States Marine Corps, as a Military Policeman. He left the Marine Corps in 1947 and returned home to complete High School.
Then in 1949, another recruitment poster caught his eye, and Jerry Wilson joined the Metropolitan Police Department.
By 1961, he attained the rank of Captain and was placed in charge of fiscal affairs. Jerry Wilson would then rise quickly up the chain as he became the Director of Planning and Development, and then became the Field Operations Commander at the rank of Assistant Chief of Police.
It was from this assignment amid growing civic tension and rising crime that Jerry Wilson was promoted to Chief of Police in 1969.
Chief Wilson reorganized the Police Department, and oversaw the addition of one thousand new officers, which swelled the ranks to 5100. He led the department to a statistical 34% reduction in crime from its all-time high of 82,000 reported offenses.
He was always at the forefront of demonstrations and major incidents and in many instances directed police action personally.
During his tenure as Chief the Department put women into uniformed patrol and helped to ease many of the simmering racial tensions in the City.
Chief Wilson, unlike many of his predecessors also had a unique relationship with the Nixon Administration, which took a strong interest in D.C.’s crime and antiwar protests.
Chief Wilson resigned in 1974, and went on to work for American University as a Chairman and Project Director , for Peoples Drug Stores as a Senior Vice President in charge of Security, for Maryland University as an instructor in private security, and for the Crime Control research Corporation as a Senior Vice President in crime analysis.
–partially excerpted from the Metropolitan Police Department biography
J. Brinton "Brint" Dillingham (1943-1990) — Known for his wit even in the face of tense situations; for his organizing skills in antiwar, civil rights and social justice campaigns from the mid-1960s on; for his research on behalf of Native Americans and unjustly accused criminal defendants; for his role in overturning two notorious Maryland anti-civil liberties laws,
Dillingham in his short life was one of D.C.’s and suburban Maryland’s most effective activists — and, certainly, the funniest. In the 1969-1971 period alone, Brint was arrested more than 70 times for antiwar and anti-racism actions. Brint was one of the key D.C. area organizers of the May Day 1971 antiwar protests, which resulted in some 13,000 arrests over a several-day period in D.C.
His investigation in support of a D.C.-area African American man facing execution in Pennsylvania for the murder of a white woman resulted in the death sentence being overturned and in the ultimate exoneration of the prisoner.
Deliberately arrested, and then convicted, for selling copies of an underground newspaper deemed "obscene" by Montgomery County, Md. police, Brint’s case eventually resulted in his exoneration and the overturning of the Maryland anti-subversion law by the state’s high court.
He was director of Compeers, Inc., a metropolitan-wide organization that established anti-racism training for suburban teenagers, and that helped to organize locally the grape boycott, antiwar protests and the Poor People’s Campaign.
He was also co-founder of the People’s Law Institute, and organized a coalition that lobbied successfully to overturn key portions of the onerous "indeterminate sentencing" practices at Maryland’s Patuxent Institution. [National Lawyer’s Guild D.C. Chapter Community Justice Award, Feb. 28, 1985]
Biography excerpted from “Lessons of the Sixties.”
On May 25, 1971 Lawrence Caldwell, Eros Timm and Heidi Ann Fletcher robbed a savings and loan company at Arizona Avenue and MacArthur Blvd. NW, Washington, D.C.
There had been a spate of bank robberies across the District and police had staked out this savings and loan.
As the two men made their way out of the bank to their getaway van driven by Fletcher, two police officers burst from the back of the loan company.
Caldwell and Timm said their guns were tucked away when officer William Sigmon opened fire.
Caldwell wrote a letter to the Washington Post explaining his version:
“We were coming out of the parking lot with our backs to the door when I heard, ‘alright, hold it right there,’ Our guns were in our pockets, his was drawn. We turned to him and he fired! At that point it became an escape or die situation.”
As Sigmon pursued Timm, the officer took up a defensive position below a stairwell. Caldwell came up behind him at shot him in the back, striking his heart. Timm was wounded in the shoot-out.
The three made their escape, but hours later they were stopped in their van on Connecticut Avenue near Van Ness shopping center and arrested for murder, among other charges.
Caldwell claimed they were conducting bank robberies in order to buy a farm they hoped to use as a base for revolutionary activity.
Caldwell had a history of political activism and was arrested during a February 1970 march on the Watergate home of Attorney General John Mitchell protesting the convictions of the Chicago 7. He was one of the plaintiffs in a suit against police that resulted in the dropping of all charges against the 142 arrested that day.
He claimed that the three struck against financial institutions not for personal monetary gain, but instead to strike a blow against “banking institutions, stock exchanges, et. al.”
Fletcher, the daughter of a former deputy mayor of Washington, D.C., pled guilty and received an indeterminate sentence under the Youth Corrections Act. She served 53 months before being released.
Timm and Caldwell received life sentences. Timm was murdered in prison in 1983. Caldwell pursued somewhat of a career in prison as a jailhouse lawyer and an escape artist. He was skilled enough at brief writing to obtain hearings, sometimes winning cases including winning damages against the District of Columbia for denying him medical attention.
He tried many times to escape and succeeded for 14 months, but was recaptured. He was ultimately released in December 2003 after 33 years.
Caldwell recalled after his release, “There was a saying: ‘Kill a commie for Christ.’ So we said, ‘Off a pig for Krishna.’”
Prince George’s County Community College students conduct civil disobedience by blocking traffic on Route 202 in Largo, Md. adjacent to the school.
The students were protesting the more than one hour wait to turn onto the busy two-lane road after classes were over.
No freeways; build Metro: 1964-74
A long battle to halt highway projects and instead build the Washington, D.C. Metrorail system raged for over a decade.
Local residents were pitted against Congress that directly ran the city in the absence of Home Rule.
The residents of the greater Washington area overwhelmingly supported Metro while congressional leaders, particularly William Natcher (D-Ky.), who as chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations for the District of Columbia of the House Committee on Appropriations blocked Metro construction funds and insisted on building highways.
Opponents of highway construction were a broad group composed of left-leaning students, neighborhood associations, environmentalists, preservationists and African American activists.
The Three Sisters Bridge and the Center Leg of the Freeway system sparked the most opposition.
At every public hearing or meeting, opponents would pack the rooms and denounce the planned freeways or picket the proceedings.
The artwork from the protests remains classic with slogans like “No white man’s roads through black men’s homes.”
The Three Sisters Bridge site was the subject of numerous demonstrations resulting in arrests and a bloody battle in 1969.
Natcher was a key ally of the highway construction lobby.
A series of court actions and opposition from local bodies consistently delayed Natcher’s freeway plans and Natcher in turn blocked Metro construction funds.
After years of delay, Metro proponents finally out-maneuvered Natcher with the help of President Richard Nixon. The House voted in 196 to 183 with a significant number of Republicans joining Democrats to defeat Natcher and release Metro construction funds.
The Three Sisters Bridge and the Center Leg Freeway died many deaths and were resurrected many times.
Hurricane Agnes washed away the partially finished piers that had been built in 1972.
Finally in 1976, Virginia altered the route of I-66 due to opposition from residents of Arlington County. The route made construction of the Three Sisters Bridge moot. The freeways were removed from the regions plans around the same time.
The faltering and ultimately dissipation of the broad-based coalition that led to building the Metro is one of the reasons that the city’s rail system was denied sufficient capital funds to overhaul the system as it aged while multi-billion dollar projects like Beltway widening, a new Wilson Bridge, a new Springfield interchange and other major highway projects moved forward in recent decades.
The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized a bus boycott centered in the Benning Road corridor that was upwards of 90 percent effective in January 1966.
The proposed five-cent fare increase was voted down by the transit commission two days later.
A bus boycott was organized by the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis after a bus fare increase from 27 cents to 30 cents was approved in 1968.
Alternative transportation was organized along the Benning Road corridor where the boycott was centered.
The boycott did not achieve its initial goals, but furthered the issue of a public takeover of the privately owned bus company.
When the Washington Transit Commission approved a fare hike request by D.C. Transit owner O. Roy Chalk in 1970 to raise the bus fares from 32 cents to 40 cents—a 25% increase—it set off a firestorm of protest.
Prominent activists were arrested for refusing to pay the fare, marches and rallies were held.
Alternative transportation was arranged and a boycott was launched.
Protest leaders demanded the fare be lowered to 25 cents to accommodate the District of Columbia’s poor and working class residents and a civil disobedience campaign was launched where patrons paid only 25 cents on the buses.
At the time, streetcar service had ended and the Metro system had not been built, so public transportation was entirely by bus.
However, without self-government in the District, options for overturning the fare increase were limited. Both the courts and Congress refused to act.
Ultimately the campaign failed in its immediate goals, but led to the takeover of four private bus companies in the area by Metro. Metro was originally intended only to build and operate the rail system.
A limited form of Home Rule for the city was obtained in 1973.
An Election Day protest in Washington, D.C. against the lack of choice and substance of the three major candidates running for president in 1968.
The demonstration was sponsored by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the Students for a Democratic Society.
It came after hopes for peace were raised by the candidacy of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy for the Democratic nomination earlier in the year followed by the clashes at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
About 1,000 gathered in Washington November 5, 1968 to protest the election. There were a number of arrests—first at Lafayette Park when police cleared the area despite demonstrators holding a permit and later at George Washington University.
The relatively small demonstrations across the country resulted in a re-thinking of antiwar strategy that increasingly moved from protest to confrontation.
CCNV was founded in the 1970’s by Father Guinan and a group of George Washington students as an expression of both faith and moral outrage. CCNV was their response to questions about justice and human rights during a time of war — the Viet Nam war.
During the first months, CCNV’s focus was on education and outreach. Through speakers and workshops, we tried to bring people together in an atmosphere of seriousness and dialogue. At the same time, they realized that words without action are like flesh without bones: they simply will not stand up. So while the group continued to talk of peace and oppose the war in Southeast Asia, they also began to make peace with their neighbors. They opened a soup kitchen in 1972 and soon were feeding 200 to 300 homeless people a day, seven days a week.
Through the process of sharing their lives with the poor, they were able to discern and respond to more of their needs. They realized that people who are in need of a bowl of soup may also lack basic shelter and adequate medical care and may need assistance with negotiating various bureaucracies.
Therefore, in addition to the soup kitchen, CCNV soon opened two hospitality houses, as well as a medical clinic. In retrospect, these efforts appear modest, but they were a reflection of our limited resources at the time and our best understanding of the needs of the homeless people.
In December 1976, CCNV began in earnest the task of securing adequate, accessible space, offered in an atmosphere of reasonable dignity, for every man, woman, and child in need of shelter. In committing ourselves to that task, the group has also committed to putting spiritual and physical resources into an unfolding struggle whose dimensions have grown dramatically.
A protest in Lafayette Park across from the White House – dubbed "Reaganville" – brought the presence of unsheltered people closer to the center of power and became a symbol of the great discrepancy in values in our nation.
In 1982, CCNV helped organize and participated in the first congressional hearings on homelessness in America in nearly 50 years. Follow-up hearings occurred at the CCNV’s Federal City Shelter in 1984. Since that time, CCNV has helped organize and participated in dozens of House and Senate hearings on homelessness and hosted a hearing in 1993 that foreshadowed the introduction of the D.C. Homeless Initiative.
On November 4, 1984, after Mitch Snyder’s highly-publicized fast and CCNV’s aggressive campaign, President Reagan ordered the renovation of the Federal City Shelter. With the 1988 completion of the $14 million renovation, the 1,350-bed Federal City Shelter is the largest and most comprehensive facility of it’s kind in America.
In November, 1984, D.C. voters passed the CCNV-sponsored Initiative 17-"The D.C. Right to Overnight Shelter Act of 1984." Passage of the Act, with more than 70 percent of the vote, marked the first time that voters in America created a legal right to shelter for the homeless people.
For over a decade CCNV has made visible the hunger in this land of plenty by sponsoring an annual Thanksgiving Dinner for the Homeless in the shadow of the seats of power-originally in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, then on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol.
Beginning in November 1986, members of CCNV lived outside on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol during a five-month campaign for passage of The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act. This presence, along with other shelter providers, propelled the April 1987 passage of the Act which authorized $1 billion in aid to unsheltered people. In the Fall of 1988, just prior to the Presidential election, 12 activists, led by members of CCNV, began a 48-day water-only fast to focus attention on the lack of domestic agenda by either party. Activists from around the nation came to express their concern through six weeks of daily acts of civil disobedience at the Capitol.
CCNV also played a leading role in the organization of the National Housing Now march. On October 7, 1989, 200,000 people from around the nation marched on the U.S. Capitol to demand affordable housing.
Today, CCNV provides up to 2,500 poor and homeless people a day with food, shelter, clothing, medical care, case management, educational support, and art programs. decades later, the needs of the poor and the concerns of CCNV have not changed.
–adapted from CCNV’s history on their website
Photos of the long and ongoing struggle to secure voting rights in the District of Columbia.
Group Health Association was an early non-profit HMO that was owned by its members in the Washington, D.C. area. In 1959 the Transit Employees Health & Welfare trustees (Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 and D.C. Transit) built a health center at the intersection of East West Highway and New Hampshire Avenue in Prince George’s County–Group Health’s first facility outside of the District of Columbia.
The hit and stay movement primarily involved non violent destruction of government or corporate offices that contributed to the war effort in Vietnam.
Activists, mainly led by left leaning Catholic priests, would enter buildings and destroy records, sometimes symbolically pouring human blood on the equipment, files and furniture.
After performing these acts, the participants would remain on site and await arrest. They would then attempt to use their trials to bring attention to injustices.
Phillip and Daniel Berrigan were the informal leading activists of this movement, but it spread across the country.
Police raid Progressives: 1948
Washington, D.C. police raided a fundraiser for the Progressive Party on October 10, 1948–the second time in 10 days an interracial gathering had been broken up by authorities.
Authorities compiled files on over 350 people involved and arrested several dozen in the two incidents.
The raids prompted a demonstration by the local Civil Rights Congress and a spirited defense of those accused of wrong-doing by Charles Hamilton Houston and Leon Ransom.
Sammie Abdullah Abbott waged a lifelong struggle against economic and social injustice. Abbott was studying architecture at Cornell University when he was radicalized by the economic catastrophe that was called the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Abbott became active with the Communist Party and his father’s grocery business failed when a local bank pulled financing because they felt threatened by the younger Abbott’s radicalism. Abbott ran for Congress in 1934 in New York’s 37th District on the Communist Party ticket.
Abbott became an organizer for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in Buffalo’s steel mills and met his wife Ruth when he was jailed for picketing. They married and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1940 where he worked as a hod carrier on construction jobs and later worked for a local union.
When the US entered World War II, Abbott joined the Air Force where he received a Bronze Star. After the war, Abbott worked as a commercial artist for the Henry J. Kauffman agency. During this time he was head of the local committee that gathered thousands of signatures demanding the US never use nuclear weapons again.
In 1954, when members of the Communist Party were being sentenced to prison for their beliefs (not for any acts), Abbott was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Abbott stood up to the committee and refused to “name names” and wouldn’t even confirm the license plate number on his automobile. He was fired from the Kauffman agency for being a “red.” To his friends, Abbott described himself as a marxist, but not a communist.
After being blacklisted, he worked as a freelance commercial artist and later started his own firm that operated out of the Dupont Building at 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW. He remained active in the civil rights and peace movements throughout the 1950s and 1960s and was repeatedly questioned by the FBI and local police about his politics.
When the District of Columbia proposed building a new freeway that would slash through African-American neighborhoods, Abbott lay down in the path of the proposed Northeast Freeway. At that time, planned freeway routes had largely been moved out of white neighborhoods and pushed into black neighborhoods. Abbott joined a young African-American civil rights activist named Reginald Booker to head the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis.
Abbott designed a number of the great anti-freeway posters including the “White Man’s Roads Thru Black Man’s Homes” posters. Together Booker and he led demonstrations, sit-ins and mass protests at Washington, DC city council meetings and other local and federal government sites that stopped the North Central Freeway and Three Sisters Bridges and instead diverted the funds toward building the Metrorail system.
Abbott continued his activism against the Vietnam War and helped young students in Maryland publish the “Radical Guide to the University of Maryland.” Later he was active in the anti-apartheid movement. He started the Takoma Park Folk Festival that continues today and ran for mayor of the town in 1980 and won. Abbott led the fight for rent control in the city, offered sanctuary to undocumented workers and established the town as a “nuclear free zone.”
Abbott died in 1990 and his wife Ruth carried on their activism until her death in 2009. Sammie Abbott was arrested more than 40 times for his activism and was quoted once saying, “I’m a perpetually mad person. I hate injustice. As far as I’m concerned, I’m living to fight injustice. I’m living to fight the goddamned thing. I’m too mad to sleep.”
His own favorite quote was from Dante’s Inferno, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.”
Some say, however, that Abbott’s favorite hot pepper sandwiches might have been hotter than anything Dante imagined. Abbott wolfed down the fire of those sandwiches and breathed it back against injustice wherever he encountered it.
The Washington Free Press, an alternative newspaper of the late 1960s, published for only three years. Its legacy was an epic clash with local authorities that ended in a blaze of glory as the tabloid battled against suppression gutted Maryland a McCarthy-era anti-subversive law and helped roll back the definitions of obscenity.
Its greatest victories were won after Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge James H. Pugh ordered a grand jury investigation into the newspaper in March 1969 for advocating, “the destruction of the state and destruction between the schools of this county and the duly constituted law enforcement agencies thereof.”
The Free Press won a resounding victory February 2 when a three judge federal court threw out most of Maryland “Ober law” and criticized Judge Pugh. The court left standing only the provisions that dealt with actual acts of violence and overt acts, striking down any parts dealing with speech or membership.
But the long battle against police harassment of street vendors of the paper and the small shops that carried the Free Press, along with the fight against obscenity charges and subversion, took its toll on the newspaper. In January 1970 the Free Press office was broken into and their files on undercover police officers were stolen while items of value were left alone. Holes were knocked through the wall of an adjacent men’s room to gain access. No arrests were made. After a toe-to-toe battle with authorities, the paper folded in March 1970.
Surveying police surveyors: 1971-73
This album contains one image of police taking notes on a demonstrator leaving a protest near the White House in Washington, DC sometime in 1973 as well as exposes of undercover police agents.
Fight Against Fascism
The war against fascism drew Washington, D.C. and surrounding area residents to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a volunteer army, to fight the forces of right wing leader Francisco Franco in Spain beginning in 1937and ending late in 1938.
The Spanish Civil War was in some respects a trial run for the larger conflict of World War II. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany backed Franco’s efforts to overthrow the left wing elected government of Spain backed by the Soviet Union.
Western countries imposed an arms embargo on both sides that meant the only arms flowing to the democratic government were those coming a circuitous route from the Soviet Union.
As the war began to turn against the Republicans, the International Brigades were withdrawn in late 1938.
After three brutal years of war 1936-39, the Republicans were defeated. Democracy was not restored to the country until after Franco’s death in 1975.
Washington, DC residents (listed on papers departing for Spain as “Washington, D.C.”) who joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade are listed in the Flickr album description on the Washington Area Spark Flickr page.
Wallace was a segregationist who in his inaugural speech in 1963 as governor of Alabama called for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” and who famously “stood in the schoolhouse door” to block African American students from entering the University of Alabama.
He ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1964, 1972 and 1976. He ran as a third party candidate in 1968 and is the last third party candidate to win electoral votes. In his campaigns, he called for “states’ rights” and used other coded racial language.
In 1972, Wallace was the object of protesters in Maryland at Frederick, Hagerstown Capital Plaza and Wheaton Plaza prior to being shot at Laurel Shopping Center May 15, 1972 by Arthur Bremer.
At his appearance in Cambridge, Maryland during the height of desegregation protest and occupation by the National Guard, a demonstration was broken up by police and National Guard using tear gas and batons.
Wallace later moderated his racial views and expressed regret for his earlier remarks. He died in 1998.
Responding to the right: 1940-85
The American Nazi Party, Ku Klux Klan, Rev. Carl Mcintyre, Gov. George Wallace and countless others mobilized supporters in favor of white supremacy, the Vietnam War and other right wing causes during the 1960s & 70s.
This album contains some of their efforts and the counter-demonstrations by left-leaning activists.
About the Dachau photographs in this album:
As we approach the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, we are publishing these grim prints from the day(s) immediately after U.S. troops entered the camp April 29, 1945.
Most of the Dachau photographs were scanned after being found in William L. Simpson’s personal albums after he passed on May 2, 2009. They are glossy photo prints that appear to be reprints or scans. Many of the same scenes can be seen in other photographs of the camp made April 29-May 3, 1945 after the camp was liberated by elements of the U.S. Army 42nd and 45th divisions.
William L. Simpson, a Washington, D.C. resident, entered the U.S. army in May 7, 1942 and was able to distinguish a “dit” from a “dah” and became a radio operator. He was assigned to the 45th Division, a National Guard unit based in Oklahoma that had been activated. He sailed from the U.S. via the southern Atlantic route on June 5, 1943 and arrived in Africa on June 29, 1943.
He survived taking part in four amphibious invasions: Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Southern France. Battle campaigns were Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Rome-Arno, Southern France, Rhineland and Central Europe. He contacted malaria in the spring of 1945 and was not present during the liberation of Nuremberg, the Dachau concentration camp or Hitler’s Eagles Nest in the Bavarian mountains.
He returned to the U.S. July 5, 1945 and was discharged August 1, 1945.
Many images of Simpson and other soldiers in the 45th Division appear to be printed contemporary with those times. The Dachau images were likely sent to him from someone in his unit much later. There is no identifying information on the Dauchau prints and all identifications have been made based on comparisons with other photographs of the camp taken during and shortly after liberation. Please feel free to add or clarify the identifications through comments.
Dachau was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazi regime in 1933. It initially held political opponents, but soon opened to other groups targeted by the Nazis throughout Europe. It was primarily a labor camp, though thousands died during its 12 years of use—some by execution, some by disease, some by starvation.
While allied hierarchy knew the grisly details of Nazi concentration and death camps, soldiers knew little about them.
Elements of the 45th Division entered the camp along the railroad tracks that harbored the “death train.” Soon after the bodies piled near the crematorium were observed and the crematorium itself uncovered. Many believed the gas-fed “showers” found in the crematorium building and the clothing hung outside them was evidence of extermination of human prisoners.
There is evidence that several incidents of summary execution of SS guards took place by elements of both the U.S. 42nd and 45th Divisions at Dachau. Upon liberation, camp survivors also apparently executed several Nazi SS guards and inmate trustees.
The photos are grim reminders of some of the reasons for the fight against fascism.
Washington, D.C. resident William Simpson went to war with millions of others during the struggle against fascism. Images of his departure for war and of army life are contained in this set.
Many of these scans were made of photographic prints that appear to be contemporary with the scenes depicted 1942-45. Others appeared to be reprints or scans of photographs. There are notes on the back of the photographs for only a few of the images.
All are from the personal collection of William L. Simpson (1918-2009). The dates and location of most of the European photos are unidentified dates and places from 1943-45 in Italy, France and Germany.
William L. Simpson, a Washington, D.C. resident, entered the U.S. army in May 7, 1942 and was able to distinguish a “dit” from a “dah” and became a radio operator. He was assigned to the 45th Division, a National Guard unit based in Oklahoma that had been activated. He sailed from the U.S. via the southern Atlantic route on June 5, 1943 and arrived in Africa on June 29, 1943.
He survived taking part in four amphibious invasions: Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Southern France. Battle campaigns were Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Rome-Arno, Southern France, Rhineland and Central Europe. He contacted malaria in the spring of 1945 and was not present during the liberation of Nuremberg, the Dachau concentration camp or Hitler’s Eagles Nest in the Bavarian mountains.
He returned to the U.S. July 5, 1945 and was discharged August 1, 1945.
As fascism began to rise in Europe and take power in a number of countries, constitutional government forces, socialists and communists began organizing public opposition. This album contains protests of fascists in Hungary, Spain, Italy and Germany.
The Klan had a long presence in Maryland up throughout the 20th Century, including incidents of violence. Opposition to their presence also has a long history in the state.
Housing
On June 21 1969, a group of over 100 people descended on the 2700 block of 10th Street NW with the intention of renovating homes that had been seized by the District of Columbia government in order to build the proposed North Central Freeway.
Reginald Booker, chair of the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis (ECTC), led the demonstration. The ECTC had led many confrontational protests against proposed new highways in the city that were planned to go through predominantly African American neighborhoods.
In this instance, sixty-nine homes belonging to African American residents in the Brookland area had been grabbed by the city to make room for the planned North Central Freeway. The protestors demanded that the homes be renovated and restored to their original owners.
A crowd organized by the ECTC, and armed with brooms, rakes and hedge clippers, entered the property at 2732 10th Street NE and began to clean and fix it up before being stopped by 25 D.C. riot police.
Police arrested Booker, Thomas Rooney, Thomas Coleman and the Rev. John A Mote inside the home for unlawful entry. Sammie Abdullah Abbott was arrested outside for disorderly conduct when he attempted to join those arrested in the police paddy wagon. Abbott, the communications director of the group, designed many graphic posters and flyers for the group, including the iconic “White Man’s Roads Thru Black Man’s Home.”
The proposed freeway had been effectively killed the year before after heated protests and a court decision that ruled that residents had not been adequately consulted over plans for the road.
However, Congressional leaders held money for construction of the Washington Metro system hostage for several more years, demanding that the North Central Freeway and other highways and bridges be built before the project was officially scuttled.
The District government did eventually renovate and sell the homes after lengthy delays and the homes pictured in the set still stand.
Struggles for affordable housing and against eviction in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
Immigrant Rights
Sacco and Vanzetti were two immigrant Italian anarchists who were executed in 1927. Prior to their arrest in 1920, the two men were not prominent in anarchist circles in the United States.
The Galleanists, as they were known waged a bombing campaign starting in 1916 including an attempted mail bombings to 36 prominent industrialists, judges and polticians in April 1919, though none were killed.
Following this up in June, eight more powerful bombs went off eight U.S. cities, including at the home of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in Washington, D.C. Palmer used the bombings as an excuse to round up left wing activists, the overwhelming majority not linked to any crime, and deport them in the first red scare in 1919.
Against this backdrop, a robbery occurred at the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company factory in Braintree, Ma. Where two security guards were killed. Another attempted robbery occurred in nearby Bridgewater. Police speculated that anarchists conducted the robbery to finance their activities.
Sacco and Vanzetti were soon arrested on circumstantial evidence, while other alleged accomplices escaped.
The men were quickly convicted together on thin evidence for the robbery and attempted robbery that took place in two separate trial in 1920 and 1921. Support for the two built in the ensuing years until mass demonstrations were held urging freedom for the men in every major U.S. city and many around the world.
At their sentencing, Vanzetti said:[
“I would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth, I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I am an Italian and indeed I am an Italian…if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already.”
The two men were executed August 22, 1927.
Maurice Posada was the object of a petition drive by American University students in Washington, D.C. in 1940 opposed to his deportation to Columbia.
The students also threatened to picket the U.S. Justice Department if the immigration order were to be carried out.
Posada lived in London with his family for 12 years and left the U.K. for the United States en route to Columbia accompanied by his mother.
He was admitted at New York on a 60-day visitor’s visa, however Posada changed his mind and decided to attend college in the U.S. rather than South America. Applying for an extension of his visa, he enrolled at American University.
Posada’s extension was denied by immigration authorities who told him he must leave the country and re-apply.
More than 250 American University students met at Hurst Hall on the campus to protest the order.
As one student noted according to an article in the Washington Post, “This is a fine situation…[fascist] Italy and Germany welcome South American students with open arms, but we kick them out.”
As a result of the protests and resulting publicity, immigration authorities changed Posada’s visa to student status until July 1, 1941–after the school year ends–and changed his mother’s visa to the same date.
Three members of the fledging National Workers Organization (NWO) picketed at the federal courthouse in Baltimore July 28, 1977 protesting Immigration authorities arrest of 57 men in Somerset County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
David Matthews, Len Shindel and Patrick Quigley charged that INS agents waited until the undocumented workers had harvested vegetables and then arrested them for deportation.
The NWO explained that the INS actively endorsed the system of cheap labor by waiting until the end of the harvest in 1977 while claiming they were just rounding up undocumented workers.
The group called for legal status for the undocumented workers.
What is called the Mount Pleasant riot was an uprising by primarily Salvadoran immigrants in May 1991 after police shot and wounded a Salvadoran man during a Cinco de Mayo festival.
Mount Pleasant was a diverse community in Washington, D.C. roughly bounded by 16th Street, Harvard Street and Rock Creek Park in northwest.
Police moved to arrest three men for public drinking on May 5, 1991 during the street festival.
The version of events differ from this point with the police claiming that Daniel Enrique Gomez moved toward an officer with a knife while handcuffs dangled from one arm.
Three witnesses testified at Gomez trial that he was on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back when he was shot and that he had no knife.
While the injured man lay handcuffed on the ground, crowds of youths, mixed with a few older adults, began attacking police with rocks, bottles and bricks.
Many in the neighborhood were veterans of the long civil war in El Salvador which was just winding down at that time. They were unintimidated by the police.
Police began to retreat while they called reinforcements, but a burgeoning crowd began setting police, transit vehicles and some buildings afire while others looted stores. A battle between police who fired tear gas and the crowd that responded with whatever objects were available continued late into the night.
The city tried to calm the neighborhood the next day with a community meeting, but by dusk rocks, bottles and tear gas were again filling the streets. Fires were again set, vehicles burned and stores looted.
Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelley imposed a curfew and more than 80 people were arrested—mostly for minor crimes. On the third night a crowd again gathered and confronted police, but were quickly dispersed. By the end of the third night, the neighborhood, flooded with police, was calm.
In the aftermath, residents roundly criticized police for harassment and demanded more attention from the city. Authorities prosecuted Gomez, but his case ended in a mistrial.
Protests against restrictions on immigration greeted the 71st Congress.
Police using tear gas broke up repeated attempts to stage a rally on the Capitol steps calling for an end to discrimination against the foreign born and for an end to immigration quotas and restrictions.
The protests were sponsored by the National Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born headed by Israel Amter, a founding member of the Communist Party USA jailed in conjunction with the New York Unemployed Day demonstration of 1930 and as a frequent candidate for public office, including three runs for governor of New York.
Meeting at Central Presbyterian: 1973
This set contains images of people arriving for a rally or meeting at the Central Presbyterian Church at 3047 15th Street NW sometime in September 1973. One image is of women preparing food for the event.
There are no surviving images of the event itself, but “thunderbird” images that were the official image of the United Farm Workers union (UFW) and widely used in the “Chicano Movement” at the time are visible in images # 1 and # 3.
An image of a man in a sombrero holding a rifle is visible on the T shirt of a young man in image 1. Images of Mexican revolutionary Emilio Zapata were popular in the “Chicano Movement” and images of Augusto Caesar Sandino were also popular among left-wing Nicaraguans at the time. Other more generic representations of Central and South American revolutionaries were also in widespread use. This particular image closely resembles a likeness of a famous photograph of Zapata, but remains unidentified.
A counter-revolution that killed Chilean President Salvadore Allende occurred September 11, 1973 and the UFW was also at the height of its battle with the Teamsters union at this time. It is not clear that either event is related to these images.
The congregation of the Central Presbyterian Church dissolved in January 1973 and donated the building to the National Capital Union Presbytery. The Central Presbyterian congregation was established after the Civil War by the Southern Presbyterians in 1868 and was denounced as a “nest of spies” in a local newspaper. The building pictured was built in 1913 with President Woodrow Wilson laying the cornerstone. Wilson was noted for his institution of “Jim Crow” in many areas of the federal government.
A Spanish speaking congregation began meeting at the church in the early 1970s and for a time it became a center for Latino activities in the Washington, DC area. The building has been renovated and the steps pictured have been removed. It currently houses the Capital City Public Charter School.
LBGTQ+
Franklin Kameny was fired from his job at the Army Map Service in 1957 after he was arrested in Lafayette Park—then a gay male cruising location. The Civil Service fired him as a “sexual pervert.”
Kameny unlike others who hid their heads in shame, fought the dismissal. He lost, but went on to become one of the founders of the Mattachine Society in Washington, D.C.—an early gay rights group.
He brought a militancy to the nascent gay rights movement in the years before the Stonewall Rebellion—generally credited with the start of the gay rights movement.
Kameny was an early gay activist, who together with others, organized picket lines at the White House, Civil Service Commission and Pentagon in 1965.
Kameny was one of the leaders among those who campaigned to overturn the American Psychiatric Association’s classification of homosexuality as a “sickness.”
He and other advocates succeeded in 1973 when the trustees of the APA removed the designation. Dissident psychiatrists petitioned the issue to the membership but the trustees’ decision was upheld 20,000-3,800—a resounding victory for Kameny and the other advocates.
Kameny died in 2011.
Pauli Murray was a pioneering black, female lesbian activist who worked primarily for civil rights, but broke a number of barriers throughout her life.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Murray was raised in Durham, NC where she “passed” as white until graduation from high school.
In 1938 she was rejected for admission to the University of North Carolina and sought legal representation from the NAACP and other organizations. Her case was rejected, in part because she wore pants rather than the customary skirts and was open about her relationships with women.
In 1940 she and another woman moved out of broken black-only seats on a bus in Virginia into whites-only seating. They refused to move and were arrested and aided in their defense by the Workers Defense Committee, a U.S. Socialist Party group formed to counter the Communist Party’s International Labor Defense.
Murray was soon hired by the Workers Defense Committee and worked to commute the death sentence of Virginia sharecropper Odell Waller who had shot his white landlord during an argument. Her work was unsuccessful, but prompted her to seek at law degree at Howard University.
She was the only woman in her class and dubbed her treatment at Howard, “Jane Crow” after she was told by a professor that he did not know why women went to law school.
She joined the Congress of Racial Equality and participated in early sit-ins 1943-44 in Washington, D.C. seeking to desegregate restaurants in the city.
Murray was elected Chief Justice of the Howard Court of Peers, the highest student position and she graduated first in her class in 1944. However, Murray was rejected for graduate work at Harvard because the school did not accept women.
She ultimately did her post-graduate work at Boalt Hall School of Law at University of California, Berkeley and passed the California bar exam in 1945.
Murray was one of the early advocates for abandoning arguing for equality under the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine and instead challenge segregation as illegal under the Constitution. This approach ultimately led to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation decisions.
Murray worked most of her career as a lawyer and law professor until turning toward the clergy.
She was ordained as the first black woman to become an Episcopal priest in 1977, breaking yet another barrier.
She was an early critic of the sexism within the civil rights movement and an advocate for women. Open with about her sexuality during a time in which the vast majority of gay and lesbian people were in the closet, she described her sexuality as “inverted sex instinct” that caused her to behave as a man attracted to women.
Despite the prejudice and discrimination against her as a black, female lesbian, she excelled in her endeavors until her death in 1985.
The fight for equality for LGBTQ+ people blossomed in the late during this period as hundreds of thousands came out of the closet and into the streets during mass gay pride events. Discrimination began to be outlawed and legal equality began to be obtained.
However, he fight for equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people took a dark turn in 1981 when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was identified.
Thousands died, LGBT people were ostracized and attacked in ways reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Prominent officials declared that it was God’s punishment. Funding for research was paltry.
However, the crisis strengthened the movement for LGBT rights as hundreds of thousands came out of the closet and family, friends and neighbors rallied to support them.
Funding increases for research were ultimately won and LGBT rights issues were put in the spotlight.
An effective treatment did not not emerge until the mid 1990s and a massive publicity campaign began to curtail new cases.
Sixty years ago sodomy laws made lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender relationships illegal—defined by authorities at that time as sexual perversion.
LGBT individuals were routinely arrested, fired from employment from both the federal government and private employers and condemned as mentally ill by psychiatrists.
This album contains a images from the early battles and the beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement.
MoCo gay teacher fired: 1972-73
Images related to Joe Acanfora’s struggle to be a public school teacher in Pennsylvania and Maryland in the early 1970s.
Labor Movement
Early federal worker action: 1916-31
The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) was established in Washington in 1916 and some craft unions organized federal employees prior to that. Postal unions were also organized in the early part of the twentieth century.
The other main federal unions were organized later. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) was chartered by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1931 after NFFE left the AFL and the United Federal Workers of America was chartered by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937.
This album contains images of those early federal labor struggles prior to 1931.
GUARD–Government Employees United Against Racial Discrimination: 1969-75
The umbrella anti-discrimination group Government Employees United Against Racial Discrimination (GUARD) was initiated in March 1969 by the Urban League and was active at upwards of two dozen departments and agencies, including Health, Education & Welfare, Housing and Urban Development, General Services Administration, Bureau of Engraving, Library of Congress, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Institutes of Health, Commerce Department, and the District of Columbia Government, among others.
GUARD co-chairman Arthur Parks, a biology lab technician at the NIH, recalled, many black federal workers were “suffocating in thankless, low-paying, dead end jobs, without any real prospects of meaningful advancement,” according to a DC Preservation League online post on Black History in the city.
GUARD was headed for a time by Reginal Booker, the confrontational anti-freeway activist leader.
The organization employed multiple tactics including direct action, once chasing HUD Secretary George Romney down the stairs of the building. Workers at the Library of Congress and other institutions staged sit-ins and rallies at the facilities where they worked.
The groups affiliated with GUARD also initiated lawsuits, represented employees in internal agency grievance hearings, investigated diversity, held public hearings and rallies and sought support through media events.
GUARD was also involved in the community, supporting African Liberation Day, the Children’s March for Survival and other causes. The group also conducted internal education on Black History and on topical issues.
GUARD affiliates would also support each other by attending events and protests of each other.
The group continued to function at least until 1975.
The Labor Canteen at 1212 18th St. NW, Washington, DC was sponsored by the United Federal Workers of America, CIO and acted as a entertainment and dance club that welcomed all people, regardless of race, religion or nationality.
The canteen held a grand opening February 13, 1944 where First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt welcomed attendees and labor troubadour Pete Seeger provided entertainment.
It was one of the few clubs open in Jim Crow Washington, D.C. where Black and White servicemen and women could mix.
Selden Menefee reported on the club in the June 8, 1944 Washington Post:
“One complaint of Negro soldiers, especially those from the North, is the limited e3ntertainment available for them in Washington. One of the few servicemen’s canteens intown where Negroes as well as White are really welcome is the CIO Labor Canteen, which operates only on Sundays and has difficulty getting publicity for its efforts.
“I visited this canteen the other night, incidentally, and found a very cordial atmosphere. Here is evidence that the races can meet on equal terms at home as they do on the field of battle with no untoward consequences.
“I suppose that Senator [Theodore] Bilbo [D-MS, chair of the Senate District Committee and member of the Ku Klux Klan] would have been shocked to see Negro and White soldiers and girls playing musical chairs and drinking cider and Pepsi-Cola under the same roof. But to this observer they were simply having a good time.”
In keeping with the progressive CIO’s social stands, in 1944 the canteen was a co-sponsor of a mass meeting protesting Sen. Bilbo’s White supremacist plans for the District of Columbia.
In 1945 the canteen urged First Lady Elizabeth “Bess” Truman to resign from the Daughters of the American Revolution in protest of the DAR’s ban of Black performers at Constitution Hall.
The canteen operated at least through 1946. In February of that year, the canteen held a second anniversary celebration featuring performers from the Howard Theater and from Club Bali.
The United Federal Workers would be re-named the United Public Workers when it merged with the CIO’s state employee organization.
Locally, the union had strength in the Library of Congress, the government cafeterias, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Office of Price Management, the Labor Department and the Department of Agriculture and had a presence in the Washington Navy Yard among other locations.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s the union was Red-baited out of existence, though the Panama Canal workers and public workers in Hawaii retained the name as independent organizations that still exist in contemporary times.
United Federal Workers Local 28: 1937-52
The United Federal Workers of America Local 28 at the Library of Congress was organized in July 1937 after the officers of the former American Federation of Government Employees local union resigned en masse.
The letter said in part:
“We, the undersigned, your representatives to the Board of Local No. 2 herewith surrender our offices and our membership in Federal Employees Union, Local No. 2. We take this step only after deep thought and consultation believing as firmly as ever in the value of unionism to Government workers and fully recognizing the disadvantage of a divided front
“Our decision to leave the N. F. F. E. [National Federation of Federal Employees] is the result not merely of our dissatisfaction with that organization but of the formation of another union which we believe offers us the opportunity of supporting the principles which we approve.
“This organization is the United Federal Workers of America, affiliated with the C.I.O. [Committee of Industrial Organizations]. Believing that the destiny of Government workers is bound up with that of other workers we feel that our place is in an organization which will unite Government employees with other sections of the labor movement instead of isolating them in a separate group.”
Local 28 put out a monthly newsletter and led fights for fairness in promotion through the use of seniority, against racial discrimination at the library, against forced overtime, and lobbied congressional committees for increased pay, among other issues.
In one instance, it successfully defended a Black employee, Seth Major, against a racially motivated dismissal. The union showed that Major was only guilty of demanding to be treated as an equal with Whites.
It was successful in lobbying, along with the National Negro Congress and the CIO, for the hiring of the first two Black professional grade employees at the Library.
The national union merged with the CIO’s state employees’ union in 1946 becoming the United Public Workers of America.
The activist union represented employees at the Library of Congress into the early 1950s before the national union succumbed to red-baiting during the 2nd Red Scare and dissolved in 1952.
Red-baiting of former Local 28 members continued after the dissolution of the UPWA with Sen. Joseph McCarthy seeking to deny a passport to William P Bundy in 1953, who was a member of Local 28 for two months and attended one meeting.
Marie Richardson Harris was indicted on loyalty oath violations in 1951. She worked briefly at the Library of Congress with non-classified materials for a few months in 1948 and again 1949 and at the time of her arrest was living in New York City and operating a dry cleaning establishment with her husband.
She was charged with being a member of the Communist Party and the National Negro Congress, both of which were designated as subversive organizations by the U.S. Attorney General and failing to disclose them. She was convicted and served 4 ½ years in prison.
AFSCME Local 2910 representing professional employees and AFSCME Local 2477 representing blue collar employees are currently active at the Library of Congress. Black Employees of the Library of Congress was founded in 1970 and waged a long fight against discrimination within the Library and made significant gains.
“In the late 19th century, as trade unions and the labor movement grew, a variety of days were chosen by trade unionists as a day to celebrate labor. May Day was chosen to be International Workers’ Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago.
“On May 1st, 1886, there was a general strike for an eight-hour workday. On May 4th, the police acted to disperse a public assembly in support of the strike, when an unidentified individual threw a bomb. The police responded by firing on the workers.
“This led to the deaths of seven police officers and four civilians; sixty police officers were injured as well as numerous civilians. Hundreds of labor leaders and sympathizers were later rounded up and four were executed by hanging, after a trial that was seen as a miscarriage of justice.
“On May 5th, 1886, in Milwaukee, the state militia was called out by the Governor of Wisconsin at the request of North Chicago Rolling Mills in Bay View to protect their mill. A strike for the eight-hour day a few days earlier had shut down most of the businesses in the area except for North Chicago Rolling Mills.
“As the workers, supports, and their families approached the mill, one of the militias fired upon the crowd which resulted in chaos as a total of seven individuals were killed, including a seven-year-old boy and a man feeding chickens in his yard. This became known as the Bay View Massacre, or the Bay View Tragedy.
“In 1889, at a meeting in Paris held by the first congress of the Second International (an organization of Socialists and Labor Parties,) Raymond Lavigne set forth a proposal calling for an international demonstration on the 1890 anniversary of the Haymarket Massacre.
“May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International’s second congress in 1891. In Amsterdam in 1904, the International Socialist Congress called on all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8=hour day.
“On May 1st, 2017, workers around the country joined with Immigrants and Immigrant Worker Rights organizations to march for rights and dignity for all workers.
“May 1st continues to this day to be an international day to honor all workers and lift up the need for workers’ rights around the globe.”–by Jay Reinke, Milwaukee Area Labor Council
The United States and some other capitalist countries enacted alternative days to celebrate labor in an effort to downplay the radical roots of May Day.
In the U.S., Labor Day is the official holiday, not May Day.
From Wikipedia:
“There was disagreement among labor unions at this time about when a holiday celebrating workers should be, with some advocating for continued emphasis of the September march-and-picnic date while others sought the designation of the more politically charged date of May 1.
“Conservative Democratic President Grover Cleveland was one of those concerned that a labor holiday on May 1 would tend to become a commemoration of the Haymarket affair and would strengthen socialist and anarchist movements that backed the May 1 commemoration around the globe.
“In 1887, he publicly supported the September Labor Day holiday as a less inflammatory alternative, formally adopting the date as a United States federal holiday through a law that he signed in 1894.”
Nevertheless, socialist, anarchist and communist organizations along with some trade unions have continued the May Day celebration in the United States.
GW Hospital union organizing: 1973-74
The National Union of Hospital and Health Care Workers Local 1199 carried out an organizing drive at George Washington University Hospital 1973-74.
The union sought to represent nursing assistants, technicians, clerks and service personnel in transportation and purchasing.
However the hospital refused to hold a representation election and had hospital employees who staged a demonstration arrested. Twenty-four workers were fired by the hospital and another 47 suspended.
A trial in Feb. 1974 resulted in an acquittal verdict and some of those terminated were reinstated, but the unionization drive failed due to high turnover in the classifications sought by the union.
United National Workers Organization: 1977-8
A brief mid-1970s attempt to form a progressive workers’ organization similar to the 1920s and 30s Communist Party initiated Trade Union Education League and Trade Union Unity League.
Machinists were first widely organized in the Knights of Labor, an umbrella labor organization that flourished in the 1880s.
On May 5, 1888, Thomas W. Talbot, a railroad machinist in Atlanta, Georgia, founded the Order of United Machinists and Mechanical Engineers. Talbot and 18 others had been members in the Knights of Labor.
Talbot believed that a union needed to be formed for railroad machinists that would resist wage cuts. He wanted to provide insurance against unemployment, illness, and accidents but also wanted railroad machinists to be recognized for their craft skill. Unlike the Knights of Labor, who accepted everyone, Talbot’s union accepted only white U.S. citizens, preferably native-born.
The union excluded blacks, women, and non-citizens, and had secret passwords. Despite the secrecy, the order spread beyond Georgia, thanks in part to "boomers", men who traveled the railway lines for work. These boomers established local lodges in new areas. Within one year there were 40 lodges, and by 1891, there were 189.
The union opened its doors to women in 1911 and to black workers in 1948.
In the 2000s the union has about 350,000 active members and another 150,000 retired members across the U.S. and Canada.International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 174 (Washington, D.C.) is one of the oldest Machinists’ lodges in North America formed in 1891. It is also known as the "Columbia Lodge," this lodge was comprised of members who worked in the shipyards of the District of Columbia and nearby ports.
Now headquartered in Ft. Worth, TX, Local 174 represents machinists at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Photos of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
Bakers Union Local 118: 1971-74
Members of the Bakery and Confectionary Union Local 118 that represents workers in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
Photos related to the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons Union Local 96 or 891 in the Washington, D.C. area
Patrick B. “Paddy” Whalen had a long history as a labor activist on the railroads. He was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World before becoming active in the Communist Party-aligned Martine Workers Industrial Union in New York.
He fought for and won many concessions for sailors and when he moved to Baltimore in the mid 1930s led strikes, organized relief and recruited seamen and others into the Communist Party.
He led the integration of crews and the surrounding waterfront and fought for integrated housing around the big defense plants that ringed the city.
Despite having a draft deferment as a port agent during World War II, he entered the Merchant Marine where he was killed when a Nazi torpedo sunk his ship.
Construction workers represented by the rival AFL and CIO unions during the late 1930s through the mid 1940s.
The United Construction Workers were a brief-lived (1939-46) attempt by the Congress of Industrial Organizations to organize construction workers across craft lines into an industrial union.
Building trades unions have traditionally been organized into separate crafts of skilled workers dating back to the 1800s.
While the group obtained some contracts with employers, it was never able to achieve widespread success and the effort was abandoned after World War II.
In more recent times, the Carpenters Union split with the AFL-CIO and the rest of the building trades in 2001, largely over jurisdictional awards that went against them. The Carpenters position was that they spent resources and organized the workers, but other unions gained them as members. The other building trades unions accused the Carpenters of raiding them.
Meanwhile the percentage of construction work performed under union contract has continued to decline.over the years.
Union representation elections: 1937-80
A successful union representation election means that the union is certified by the government to bargain wages, benefits and working conditions for all the workers within the bargaining unit (a designated group of workers) with the company.
Since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, the process has evolved from a simple one to one governed by complex rules that generally favor the company.
International Women’s Day: March 8th
International Women’s Day had its formal beginnings in August 1910 when an International Socialist Women’s Conference was organized to precede the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Inspired in part by the American socialists, German Socialist Luise Zietz proposed the establishment of an annual Women’s Day and was seconded by fellow socialist and later communist leader Clara Zetkin, supported by socialist activist Käte Duncker, although no date was specified at that conference.
Delegates (100 women from 17 countries) agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights including suffrage for women.
The following year on March 19, 1911, IWD was marked for the first time, by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire alone, there were 300 demonstrations.
In Vienna, women paraded on the Ringstrasse and carried banners honoring the martyrs of the Paris Commune. Women demanded that they be given the right to vote and to hold public office. They also protested against employment sex discrimination.
In 1913 Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on the last Saturday in February (by the Julian calendar then used in Russia).
In 1914 International Women’s Day was held on March 8 in Germany, possibly because that day was a Sunday, and now it is always held on March 8 in all countries. The 1914 observance of the Day in Germany was dedicated to women’s right to vote, which German women did not win until 1918.
After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted by the feminist movement in about 1967. The United Nations began celebrating the day in 1975.
Workers and management at the U.S. Post Office (later Postal Service) have repeatedly clashed through the years. While unions existed at the Post Office for years, they had no collective bargaining rights.
In 1970 a massive wildcat strike centered in New York City that spread to many areas of the country ended with the promise of the first collective bargaining with the Postmaster. Congress later formalized a collective bargaining procedure and the first two-year contract was negotiated in 1971.
Washington Teachers Union: 1967-68
The first AFT local in the city’s public schools was the Washington, D.C. Association of Attendance Officers organized in 1946 into AFT Local 867.
Local 867 was an integrated union in a segregated city, including segregated schools, and served as an early model for integration within unions.
The national AFT to changed their constitution two years later, essentially dissolving segregated teachers locals.
Under the leadership of Local 8 member and AFT Vice President Selma Borchardt, the Washington Teachers’ Union as it is known today, was formed when the two AFT locals of Washington, D.C., Local 8 and Local 27, merged in June 1953.
However, the union did not gain collective bargaining rights until the school board in December 1966 agreed to conduct a representation election.
The AFT won when they beat the NEA in Washington 3,540-2,119 in April 1967. Only 74 voted for no union. Another 266 challenge ballots were not investigated due to the margin of victory.
The vote meant that the AFT local was certified as the bargaining agent for District of Columbia teachers.
With 85% of the unit voting, the election represented a huge step forward for the AFT local, known as the Washington Teachers Union. It only had 200 members three years prior.
The union went on to negotiate a one-year agreement in December that included a definition of the work day, a 182-day school year. Other improvements included a grievance procedure with binding arbitration, a duty-free lunch and planning periods for elementary school teachers.
Pay was not an issue because the school board and the union agreed to work for passage of a teacher pay bill in Congress.
The Washington Teachers Union staged a two-week strike in 1972 that shut city schools.
The union rarely had uncontested internal elections with battles often spilling out into the news media.
While the union made some impressive gains for public school teachers, it was unable to stop the charter school movement or publicly funded private school vouchers. It has also not been able to obtain collective bargaining in charter schools.
In 2018, 48,000 students were in traditional public schools while 43,000 attended charter schools.
The union’s greatest embarrassment occurred in 2004 when prosecutors charged three union officials with embezzling millions of dollars of members’ dues for personal gain. Barbara Bullock, union president; Gwen Hemphill, union manager; and James Baxter, union treasurer were all convicted and jailed.
Walter Bierwagen was a leader of the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway and Motorcoach Employees of America Division 689 from the 1940s into the 1970s at a time when the union represented employees at the Capital Transit, D.C. Transit and later the Washington Metro system.
The union today is known as Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 and represents employees at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, D.C. Streetcar, some paratransit operations, Alexandria DASH bus service and the WMATA contracted-out Cinder Bed Road garage.
Bierwagen first gained prominence in the union when he was elected to the negotiating committee that tried to reach a resolution during the 1945 wildcat strikes seeking higher wages after the end of World War II.
In 1950 he defeated long-time union president William Simms, a staunch opponent of integration, with the help of black maintenance employees.
In 1951, he led the union’s first strike since 1917—winning gains after a three-days on the street. The 1951 strike established “bumping rights” for maintenance employees in the event of layoffs and solved the issue of favoritism.
At the time, transit service was being reduced as the automobile became affordable for many people resulting in layoffs of maintenance employees at the Capital Transit Co. White mechanics had often transferred to bus mechanic jobs while black track workers were laid-off without recourse.
Jim Crow laws in the city began to crumble in the early 1950s—first through pickets and boycotts of Jim Crow eateries and then the 1953 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the District of Columbia so-called “lost laws” from 1872 and 1873 that prohibited discrimination in public accommodations.
The following year the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation in D.C. public schools after another long battle that involved pickets, a boycott of some schools and many rallies and court cases.
After the school decision, Bierwagen reached an agreement with the company in late 1954 that black bus and streetcar operators would be hired first out of the ranks of maintenance employees, ending another long fight to end discrimination in the city by integrating the operator ranks.
The agreement was ratified by the union in early 1955 and the first black operators quickly followed.
Bierwagen probably sensed that an epic battle with the company was coming and sought to end the divisive issue that pitted the white operators against the most of the rest of the city. In doing so, he laid the basis for greater public support for the July strike that would paralyze the city for two months.
In 1949, financier Louis Wolfson bought the debt-free transit company and immediately began selling off assets and taking out loans and then paying him and two other investors huge dividends while claiming that he needed higher and higher fare increases.
When the 1955 contract expired between the union and the company, Bierwagen called a strike. Wolfson said there was no money and Bierwagen in turn said that transit workers had worth and needs regardless of the company’s financial position.
The strike lasted two months and nearly resulted in a public takeover at that time of the transit system. Instead, Congress revoked Wolfson’s franchise and ordered him to sell the company within one-year.
Bierwagen obtained wage increases and vacation, holiday and pension improvements while agreeing to binding arbitration for future contracts instead of strikes.
Bierwagen would later lead the union into a partnership with the Group Health Association, building a facility in Prince George’s County, and providing preventive care to union members that had previously been covered only by hospitalization.
He was elected to vice president of the national transit union and played a key role in legislation to protect transit worker collective bargaining rights when private companies were taken over by the public.
It was Walter Bierwagen who was primarily responsible for the collective bargaining and binding arbitration language in the compact between Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia and the federal government that created Metro.
Throughout his tenure as a union leader, he was responsible for obtaining significant wage increases, establishing the pension and health and welfare plans, expansion of seniority rights, extending the eight-hour guarantee to all employees and other benefits.
Craig Simpson grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and became active in the antiwar movement and other progressive issues while in high school. He attended the U. of MD for three years and worked for the US National Student Association at the same time producing their newsletter along with Sue Reading.
He became a bus operator for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) in the mid 1970s. He was active in Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 where he served as a shop steward, assistant business agent and secretary-treasurer of the 10,000 member union before retiring in 2001.
After retirement in 2001, he worked with the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, Progressive Maryland and ATU Local 689 on political and legislative affairs. In 2004 he received a degree in Labor Studies from the National Labor College.
He finished his career as executive director of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400, which represented 33,000 workers in food processing plants, retail grocery, retail sales, nurses, police, woodcutters, production and chemical plants and other workers in District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia and parts of Maryland, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky.
He was a contributor to the original Washington Area Spark and is the administrator of the current Washington Area Spark blog, Flickr site, You Tube and Facebook sites.
George Aloysius Meyers was the former president of the Celanese textile plant union Local 1874 in Cumberland, Md., former president of the Maryland-DC CIO, former chairman of the Maryland Communist Party and national director of the Party’s labor activities.
Important strikes at the Celanese plant took place in 1936 and 1939 that resulted in the unionization of 10,000 production workers and helped create a key union leader, George A. Meyers.
Meyers helped lead the in-plant organizing and led a number of sit-down strikes within the plant. He would go on to become president of the local union and, in 1941, president of the Maryland and District of Columbia Industrial Union Council of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Meyers joined the Communist Party during the fight to organize the union at Celanese and as president of the MD-DC CIO, led the fight to integrate basic industry—overseeing the successful efforts to integrate the Celanese and Kelly-Springfield plants in Cumberland, Glen L. Martin aircraft factory in Middle River and the Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyard in Baltimore.
Efforts throughout World War II by the CIO to desegregate jobs within the Bureau of Engraving in federal government and the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C. were waged in earnest but were ultimately less successful. The CIO also played a key role in the fight against police brutality in the District of Columbia in 1941.
After World War II, the onset of the cold war led to the expulsion of Communist Party members from most unions, including the Textile Workers.
Meyers went to jail for 3 ½ years for his membership in the Communist Party in the 1950s but went on to head the Party’s labor activities until his death in 1999.
Phillip Murray began his career as a coal miner, became involved with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and became head of its Pittsburgh region.
When mineworkers chief John L. Lewis led the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) within the AFL to organize unions in basic industry across craft lines, he tapped Murray to head up organizing steelworkers.
The CIO was expelled from the American Federation of Labor in 1936 and constituted itself as its own labor federation.
Murray won a major victory at the giant U.S. Steel in 1937 when the company recognized the union. However, the smaller (though still very large) steel companies resisted with violence and Murray suffered a temporary defeat.
It wasn’t until 1941 when favorable court rulings, strikes and National Labor Relations Board elections forced “Little Steel” to capitulate.
Murray was named head of the CIO in 1940.
After the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act was passed, Murray headed a brief CIO campaign to refuse to sign the non-communist affidavits as a means of rendering the Act meaningless.
With the defection of the United Auto Workers and several other major unions as well as the rival American Federation of Labor, the campaign failed.
Murray, who had tried to steer a “neutral” course between left and right wing union leaders, abandoned his neutral stand after the left-wing unions endorsed Henry Wallace for President in 1948 and as the burgeoning Red Scare gained traction.
Murray then led the expulsion of 10 unions from the CIO in 1950 for alleged communist-domination.
As president of the steel workers union, he led another strike in 1952 for 51 days. The run-up to the strike saw President Truman seize the mills, but return them to their owners when the courts ruled against him.
When workers went on strike, they lacked a significant strike fund to sustain the strike. As President Truman prepared to draft the strikers into the army, Murray reached an agreement that made limited gains.
He failed in his attempt to overturn the Taft-Harley Act and in the 1952 elections, Republican Dwight Eisenhower won the presidency and Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress.
Murray died shortly after the election in 1952.
Asa Phillip Randolph was a black labor leader and civil rights leader from the 1920s until the 1960s.
He was an early labor organizer of elevator operators in New York City and dockworkers in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
Randolph was elected president of the newly formed Brotherhood of Sleep Car Porters, AFL in 1925.
He later served as president of the National Negro Congress from 1936-40.
He organized the March on Washington Movement in 1941 that pressured President Franklin Roosevelt to issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination in the armed services (although it was limited) and within the defense industry. He later organized a movement where black Americans would refuse service in the military until it desegregated and ended discrimination.
In the early 1950s, Randolph organized the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, an umbrella group for civil rights organizations, that played a role in working out policy and program among the different civil rights leaders.
In 1955, Randolph became the first black vice president of the newly merged American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
Along with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he organized the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom—a mass gathering in Washington, D.C. designed to spur federal enforcement of the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated public schools.
He followed that up by being a key organizer of the 1958-59 youth marches on Washington that had the same goals.
These marches provided the organization and tactical experience for pulling together that massive 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, of which Randolph was one of the principal organizers.
Soon after, he founded the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization aimed at studying the causes of poverty and co-founded by Randolph’s mentee Bayard Rustin.
He retired from public life in 1968 and died in 1979.
Joseph Beirne was president of the National Federation of Telephone Workers in the 1940s and transformed the loose confederation into a powerful union–The Communications Workers of America.. As president of the National Federation of Telephone Workers, Beirne led organizing drives into the anti-union South and organized several companies, including giant Bell South. As the first CWA president, he aggressively sought equal pay for the union’s large constituency of women workers.
Oliver Palmer served a business manager for the Washington, D.C. Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers Union Local 471 from 1943 until his death in 1975. He had previously served two years as secretary-treasurer and four years as president.
Palmer was one of the founders of the union in 1937 and helped lead the initial organizing drives that brought the union membership up to 5,000 during the 1940s.
He led the union through two bitter strikes in 1947 and 1948 against the dominant provider of federal cafeteria services, the private Government Services Incorporated.
The 1947 strike brought significant wage improvements, vacation improvements, established sick leave and fended off company attacks on binding arbitration for grievances and the withholding of union dues from paychecks.
The 1948 strike occurred at the beginning of the second Red Scare when GSI refused to negotiate unless the union leaders of both the local and its parent union signed affidavits that they were not communists.
Palmer charged GSI with using that as a cover for union busting and staged a two-month strike that finally reached an agreement with GSI after intervention by the Labor Department. The union was nearly broken but survived to fight another day.
Palmer oversaw the union as it made wage gains, established sick and vacation pay and ultimately health and welfare and pension benefits for the union members who were largely African American women.
The union was initially an affiliate of the CIO’s United Public Workers, but when that union collapsed during the second Red Scare, Local 471 continued as an independent union until it affiliated with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union in the city after the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955.
A longtime progressive force in District of Columbia politics, Palmer joined with Mary Church Terrell to provide the organizational strength to stage the pickets and demonstrations in the early 1950s that resulted in desegregation of Washington’s Jim Crow cafeterias and restaurants.
He was also active in the District’s home rule movement and served for many years on the District’s Democratic Central Committee.
Early in his career, he joined the International Labor Defense, the National Negro Congress and the NAACP. He served as a vice president of Washington’s Central Labor Council for 20 years.
When Palmer reflected on his life he said, “My activities in the labor movement, for the benefit of humanity, I consider the crowning glory of my life. They have been rewarding and very satisfying.”
Gloria Richardson Dandridge led the Cambridge Non-Violent Action Committee CNAC on Maryland’s Eastern Shore seeking better jobs, health care, schools and desegregated public accommodations and facilities 1962-64.
Richardson attended SNCC’s 1962 Atlanta conference and returned to Cambridge with a new outlook on organizing. She became a member of SNCC’s executive board. With the help of students from Swarthmore College, they surveyed the Second Ward to ensure that the organization prioritized the needs of the community.
The Cambridge Movement directed its work towards improving living conditions for the people of the Second Ward. Meanwhile, continuing militant CNAC protests angered not only the Kennedy administration nearby in Washington, D.C., but also national civil rights leaders.
The Maryland National Guard occupied the town for two years 1963-64.
When the state of Maryland and federal negotiators, led by Robert Kennedy, proposed voting for the right of access to public accommodations in 1963–a so-called “Treaty of Cambridge“–CNAC boycotted the vote.
At a press conference, Richardson stated, “A first-class citizen does not beg for freedom. A first-class citizen does not plead to the white power-structure to give him something that the whites have no power to give or take away. Human rights are human rights, not white rights.” The civil rights movement establishment was angered at her refusal.
Richardson was invited to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to be honored as a woman leader, However, she was snubbed at the event when a seat was not provided for her on the stage.
National hostility toward her activism did not hinder Richardson’s local efforts. Protest continued.
One of Richardson’s thrusts was to organize Cambridge’s non-union packinghouse workers into unions. The successful effort ended a 30-year attempt to unionize the industry.
In May 1964, local youth began protesting for desegregated swimming pools when staunch segregationist and former Alabama governor George Wallace arrived in Cambridge to campaign for the presidential election.
During one protest, Richardson faced bayoneted guardsmen and urged protesters forward. It was ugly. Soldiers resorted to gassing demonstrators with (Cyanogen) CN2, a gas for military use. The gas made protestors sick and led to the death of an elderly man and infant from the fumes.
Two years of struggle and the passage of the national 1964 Civil Rights Act finally broke the back of segregation, though other problems continued.
Richardson married photographer Frank Dandridge and moved to New York in early 1965 where she continued her activism.
She returned to Cambridge briefly in 1967 before and after the disturbances there that led to the indictment of SNCC chair H. Rap Brown for inciting to riot. Richardson acted as an informal advisor to the 1967 civil rights activists.
Richardson’s work left a legacy for Black women to be unabashedly radical in the fight for civil rights. She believed that “all of us, in Cambridge and throughout America will have to sacrifice and risk our personal lives and future in a nonviolent battle that could turn into civil war. For now, Negroes throughout the nation owe it to themselves and to their Country to have Freedom — all of it, here and now!”
–partially excerpted from SNCC Digital Gateway
Mary Gannon led the local operators union (Washington Telephone Traffic Union) from the time it was a company union in 1935 through militant strikes in the 1940s and up until 1950–after the Communications Workers of America was formed.
She led approximately 200 strikes—most for an hour or two—during her career, Many of the strikes were sympathy strikes helping other telephone unions around the country and helping to lay the basis for a national union.
David Levison, the lead International Labor Defense attorney, was active in the Washington, D. C. area many times–including the defense of Euel Lee and the Hunger Marches of 1931-32.
Images of public employees–state, county and municipal workers from 1970 to 1990 in the state of Virginia..
Telephone Traffic Union: 1944-47
The Washington Telephone Traffic Union was born out of a company-sponsored employee association that was spun off from the Bell System from 1935 to 1937 after the Wagner Act was upheld by the Supreme Court, making such company unions illegal.
The association was composed primarily of women who worked the switchboards before direct dial service became dominant. There were about 3,000 in the Washington union at that time.
The newly independent association continued to play a subservient role to the AT&T system as it had since its roots as a company union formed in 1927.
Things changed, however, when Mary Gannon took over leadership in 1935. Gannon was one of the few (perhaps the only) women to lead a District of Columbia union during the mid-1940s. Males led even the few unions that were predominantly female.
The local branch of the Bell system—The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company—maintained Jim Crow for its operators. The 14th and U Streets facility was staffed entirely by African American operators.
However the union, while predominantly white, was integrated unlike some unions at the time that required separate units for African Americans.
From 1944 to 1950, Gannon led the union to become a militant force against the autocratic monopoly of the Bell system.
Gannon led over 200 work stoppages of the fledgling union—most for four hours at a time.
The Washington telephone operators quickly became known during this period as “Gannon’s Girls.”
In 1944, she led a one-day wartime sympathy strike that disrupted communications across the country, including cutting off the White House. It was centered on the issue of the giant “Ma Bell” importing non-union workers into a union shop in Dayton, Ohio. At least five other cities joined the walkout.
The Washington union used its key location to aid other units around the country—and helping to build the case for a national union.
Eleanor Jane Palmer, the secretary-treasurer of the local union at the time recalled later that Gannon how worked to aid telephone workers around the country:
“Whenever anybody in the country was out! I remember at one time in St. Louis the traffic girls were trying to get some air conditioning put in, and the only thing the company would offer were the tubs of ice. You’ve heard about them. In order to get some satisfaction on their grievance, they could have had a work stoppage, but they weren’t in the prime position where they were really disturbing the country or upsetting the country. So what they did was call to Washington and ask our president if she could give them some help.”
Gannon would lead the union on strike for eight days in 1946, calling for “an eight-day continuous meeting.” That strike centered on “sweatshop practices” like rules that read, “Do not change your headset from one ear to the other without calling a supervisor,” and “Don’t take an aspirin without being relieved from your position.”
The National Federation of Telephone Workers (NFTW) was a loose federation of these associations and local unions and taking on the Bell System required everybody agreeing—something that was difficult at best.
The national union worked to line up contract expiration dates for 1946 with many of the local unions working on day-to-day extensions. They cobbled together 17, including Washington, D.C., and set a strike deadline.
The Bell system caved and signed a first national agreement without a strike; although they would they later denied that it constituted a nation-wide contract.
The following year, the Bell System insisted on local negotiations and the national union led 325,000 workers out on strike.
AT&T refused to negotiate a nationwide agreement and only offered a “pattern” wage increase after workers had been on strike for three weeks. Four weeks into the strike, 17 local contracts had signed local agreements. The nationwide strike collapsed and it marked the end of the NFTW.
However, the Washington operators continued their strike until May 18, 1947, holding out for written guarantees that there would be no reprisals.
The strike, however, succeeded in making a stronger national union the issue with the Washington traffic union one of those pushing hard.
In June 1947, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) was formed as a national union, incorporating most of the locals of the NFTW, including the D.C. unit. Similarly the union later voted to affiliate with the Congress of Industrial Organizations with the support of the Washington unit.
The U.S. Congress, a so-called beacon for the “free world,” has for many years treated its African American workforce and visitors with disdain.
The Capitol building itself was partially built by African American slave labor.
Except for a brief period after the Civil War, the restaurants and pressrooms of the building were whites-only (unless you were a foreign dignitary—it wasn’t simply color of the skin, it was also specifically discrimination against the formerly enslaved).
Jim Crow was challenged in the restaurants and cafeterias on Capitol Hill in 1934 by as part of an ongoing campaign to desegregate restaurants in the city.
The sit-in tactic was used at the Capitol by left-leaning groups like the Socialist Party and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom along with liberal groups seeking desegregation.
The sit-ins had some limited success, but did not change the Jim Crow policy on the Hill.
At the same time a Howard University student working part time in the restaurant served another African American and was promptly fired.
William Hastie, a future judge, wrote an editorial for the Hilltop newspaper at Howard and Kenneth Clark, a future renowned psychologist, helped lead a demonstration of 30 students with picket signs who sought to enter the House of Representatives restaurant.
They were barred at the door by police and arrested, but charges were later dropped at the police station.
These early efforts at desegregation failed and were followed by protests by small interracial groups continued over the next 15 years.
Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas (D-Ca.) was instrumental in desegregating the House cafeteria and restaurant 1949-50 by persuading the private operator to end Jim Crow. Richard Nixon defeated Douglas in the 1950 California Senate race when Nixon famously redbaited her.
The Senate side desegregated later.
Labor relations were equally bad.
The African American workforce in the restaurants, cafeterias and snack bars was at best paid 20% below commercial rates—and congressmen and senators were notoriously low tippers.
A strike occurred in the House restaurant that served U.S. Representatives and their staff in 1942. The House was paying the workers far less than the below standard Senate.
The African American workforce went back to work after promises by elected representatives that they would look into the matter.
In 1969, a strike was called at the Senate cafeteria after management fired a worker that was trying to organize the group into an independent union seeking year-round pay (Congress recessed for a minimum of three months out of the year).
The strike also ended after a day and the unionization effort failed.
The House cafeteria voted to be represented by a union in 1987, although the Senate side remains unrepresented.
Five local unions affiliated with the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and representing 3,500 workers called a strike against Prince George’s County workers in the wake of County Executive Lawrence Hogan refusing to sign a labor contract agreed to by his own negotiators.
The bitter dispute erupted after Hogan refused to sign the tentative agreement telling aides, “A strike sometimes is good politics.” Neutral observers said that the tentative agreement “was felt to be quite favorable to the county,” according to the Washington Post.
Hogan’s public reasons changed from “unacceptable provisions” relating to minor health and economic benefits to him saying that provisions for a closed-union shop in the previous contracts and a provision for a full-time chief steward in the tentative agreement were unacceptable.
The union charged Hogan with violating the country’s labor code and the independent hearing examiner agreed with them ordering Hogan to sign the agreement.
Hogan refused and filed suit in court to overturn the hearing examiner’s opinion. A Circuit Court judge ruled against Hogan and ordered him to sign the agreement. Hogan again appealed.
At that point AFSCME called the strike August 12th in frustration with Hogan’s intransigence. The bad blood went back to the previous election when AFSCME backed Hogan’s opponent incumbent Winfield Kelly.
Jail guards, road crews, landfill operators, building inspectors, clerical employees and others quit work.
Hogan responded by saying he was prepared to “tough it out” and ruled out negotiations.
He immediately fired 121 of the county’s 126 jail guards who participated in the strike saying they had done so illegally. Jail inmates had broken out of their cells, smashed windows and burned records after they were left under care of a skeleton crew.
The union said over 80 percent of its covered members walked off the job while the County said less than 50 percent participated.
After 11 days, AFSCME called off the strike without winning a contract settlement.
The union members voted 5-1 to accept a memorandum prepared by a federal mediator that was almost all in favor of the County and to return to work.
Hogan rejected the memorandum.
Workers had mixed feelings about the strike. One said, “I stood out for two weeks for nothing as far as I’m concerned.” Another said it did “shown Hogan that he can’t just walk on us.”
The union responded by going to court, winning three different orders for Hogan to sign the original contract.
Over the months, union membership suffered as employees dropped out of the organization. During this period it was revealed that Hogan asked for 24-hour surveillance on a union leader, but that police officials had rejected his request.
Finally on May 22, 1981 Hogan signed the agreement after Circuit Court Judge Robert Mason again ordered him to do so. Hogan signed and sent the agreement to the County Council with a five-page letter urging them to reject it.
The Council passed it easily and AFSCME finally gained a contract 15 months after negotiating the agreement, an 11-day strike and seemingly endless court battles.
The fired guards later sued both the county for wrongful termination and AFSCME for telling them the strike was legal.
The guards won their suit against the County and were reinstated in 1983 after a judge found the strike was conducted legally. In 1987, the group won $4 million in back pay and damages from the County.
Hogan also had bitter clashes with the teachers’, police and firefighters’ unions during his four-year tenure.
Hogan ran for U.S. Senate in 1982 and was defeated. Incoming county executive Parris Glendening quickly ended the labor conflict in the county.
One of Hogan’s sons was elected governor of Maryland in 2016.
Railroad workers were the first to gain a legal mechanism for resolving disputes with the companies in the wake of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Pullman Strike of 1894.
Central to the economy, the railroads were central in early clashes between capital and labor.
The July 14, 1877 strike that paralyzed rail service up the East Coast from Maryland and into Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. It was caused by a long economic Depression where the railroad companies repeatedly reduced wages.
It resembled more of a general uprising than a simple strike as workers were joined by poor and working people to seize the rail facilities, sometimes destroying them. At its peak, it involved an estimated 100,000 workers.
President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered federal troops to suppress the strikes; the first time federal troops were used against workers at a private company. Along with local militias, the troops suppressed the strikers city by city.
Over 100 were killed in the uprising.
Many of the armories in towns in the affected area were built in the aftermath as a means of suppressing any further strikes or general uprisings.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was carried out by the fledgling American Railway Union led by Eugene Debs after workers at a Pullman railcar manufacturing plant in Chicago went on a wildcat strike and the company refused to negotiate.
Debs called for a strike and a nationwide boycott of Pullman cars. Upwards of 250,000 workers joined the strike that was opposed by the Railway Brotherhoods and the American Federation of Labor. The divide generally fell with unskilled and semi-skilled workers supporting the ARU while engineers, firemen and conductors opposed it.
President Grover Cleveland charged that the boycott violated the anti-trust act and mobilized 12,000 federal troops to suppress the strike. Thirty were killed and double that amount wounded.
Debs was jailed but went on to become the Socialist Party candidate for president in the early 1900s, winning nearly a million votes campaigning from his jail cell (for opposing World War I).
In the aftermath of these strikes, legislation was passed and amended several times in an attempt to ward off these general uprisings that arose from a central part of the economy. Each time the legislation failed in some respect.
In 1926, the Railway Labor Act passed and is still in place today governing railroad labor relations. It relies on mediation, voluntary arbitration and waiting periods before strikes can be called. Airlines were added to the covered employees in 1936.
In 1946, President Harry Truman moved to have federal troops seize the railroads and draft strikers into the Army, but the strike was called off before his order was implemented.
From the 1970s on, corporations engaged in a drive to increase productivity—including reducing the costs of employment like workers compensation and unemployment insurance.
This album contains images of those battles between workers and corporations—played out in the forum of elected officials.
The District of Columbia Nurses Association (DCNA) struck the Washington Hospital Center in 1979 in response to the hospital’s attempt to de-certify the one-year old union and to improve scheduling and the grievance procedure.
The 31-day strike resulted in a stronger union and made the nurses the highest paid in the area while making gains in seniority, the grievance procedure and progress toward an agency shop.
The strike was the second by nurses in the D.C. area, following by several months a strike at the now defunct Group Health Association and served as a clarion call to other nurses in the area.
The union persevered as an independent union and organized several other facilities in the Washington area before health care closures and consolidation set them back.
The union continues to represent nurses at the Hospital Center, but is now affiliated with National Nurses United.
Labor unions had flourished under the 1935 Wagner Act after it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937 with millions of workers joining unions.
However, Republicans and right-wing Democrats decried the Wagner Act as “socialist.”
In the 1946 elections when Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress, they moved quickly to restrict labor unions and passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 over President Harry Truman’s veto with the help of a large number of defecting Democrats.
The law placed sweeping restrictions on unions, including, but not limited to, the following:
1.It outlawed secondary strikes, secondary boycotts and sympathy strikes designed to pressure employers. For example, it would be illegal for a union to organize a boycott of advertisers during a newspaper strike.
2.It permitted employers to wage anti-union campaigns in their workplaces, including holding captive audience meetings. Since union organizers could generally be barred from workplace facilities, this tilted union organizing drives in favor of the companies.
3.The Act permitted states to enact so-called “Right to Work” laws that allow workers covered by union contracts to opt out of union membership or service fees. This meant that unions had to represent workers who paid nothing into the union, and further meant that unions had to devote resources to recruiting members instead of representing members. Twenty-eight states as of this writing have right-to-work laws.
4.The law also barred members of the U.S. Communist Party and other left-wing individuals from holding office in labor unions if those unions sought to utilize the National Labor Relations Board.
Unions vowed to seek repeal, but efforts were half-hearted when Democrats regained control of both houses of congress—even when they enjoyed wide margins.
After abandoning efforts to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, they focused on smaller reforms—faster union representation elections, quicker reinstatement of individuals fired for union activity and permitting union organizers on company property in non-work areas during non-work time.
In 1978, the effort at reform came within two votes of breaking a filibuster in the Senate after a reform bill had been passed overwhelmingly in the House.
A similar effort during the Clinton administration also failed.
All efforts to amend the act have failed. Unions are now at about 10% of the workforce as opposed to 35% when the Taft-Hartley Act was passed.
Sanitary Grocery Stores were a District of Columbia grocery store chain that was purchased by Safeway in 1928, but continued to operate under the Sanitary banner until 1940.
Sanitary was run as a white supremacist enterprise. African Americans were barred from front-line clerk positions that would bring them into contact with the public and warehouse and other ancillary operations were run Jim Crow with separate bathrooms and eating areas for African Americans and whites.
Efforts to break down Jim Crow were undertaken inside and outside the store’s facilities.
Teamsters Local 730, representing warehouse workers in the greater Washington, D.C. area was birthed at Sanitary’s bakery warehouse by an African American employee, John H. Cleveland in 1937.
Picketing and a boycott of Sanitary Stores by the New Negro Alliance resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1937 upholding the right to conduct such activities in an attempt to influence employment practices.
This ruling preserved those tools for civil rights activists through the years. The 1964 Civil Rights Act ultimately ended legal discrimination in employment, but many victories were won in the interim years because of the ruling at Sanitary.
Black postal clerks: 1868-1971
Barred from the Post Office before the Civil War, African Americans faced segregation on the job and within labor unions.
The formal segregation did not end until the 1960s.
The predominantly African American unions were excluded from bargaining under the Postal Reorganization of 1970. One-the National Postal Union–merged with others to form the American Postal Workers Union and gained bargaining rights in that manner.
The other–the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees (NAPFE), was excluded but continues to handle grievance and provides a benefit plan.
The firing of a government union leader at the National Recovery Administration within the Commerce Department prompted a long debate over the rights of government employees.
In this case, John L. Donovan was reinstated to his position.
Donovan was fired by Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, National Recovery Administrator, alleging “inefficiency, inattention to duty, unauthorized absence from duty and insubordination.”
Donovan, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFL, charged that the termination was in retaliation for union activity at the agency.
Labor law under the National Recovery Act was somewhat ill-defined, but Section 7(a) of the act protected union rights and prohibited retaliation. The two sides agreed to submit the case to the labor board for arbitration and agreed to abide by the ruling even though the law didn’t specifically apply to government employees.
The board found that Donovan should be reinstated.
The board said in its ruling, “It may be asserted that, in the public interest, the NRA should have a wider discretion than ordinary employers in discharging employees. On the other hand, it may also be asserted that when the NRA is engaged in compelling employers to observe strictly the provisions of Section 7-a, it should, in dealing with its own employees, carry out the purposes of that section with even more scrupulous care than might be expected of ordinary employees.”
The NRA was passed in order to stimulate industrial recovery from deflation that occurred during the Great Depression. It was later found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court and its labor provisions were replaced by the basis for current law, the Wagner Act, in 1935.
The picketing of the Commerce Department was not without controversy.
Claude Babcock, the national president of AFGE, later said that picketing of government offices by government employees “borders closely on treason.” He continued, “While there is no doubt that the use of such forceful methods was instrumental in securing Donovan’s reinstatement, in that it directed public attention to Gen. Hugh S. Johnson’s unjustifiable conduct in firing him, a continuance of picketing would have drawn heavy public criticism upon the government employees taking such action.”
The conservative nature of the AFGE led to a number of AFGE locals affiliating with the United Federal Workers, CIO formed in 1937.
The 1978 Federal Labor Relations Act is the current law governing federal employees and his patterned after the provisions of the Wagner Act, except that strikes and other concerted activities that interfere with work are prohibited. Informational picketing by employees on non-work time is permitted.
The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike of 1981 marked the end of a long period of struggle by American workers against employer demands for increased productivity that began in the late 1960s.
The defeat of the strike and the mass firings of controllers by President Ronald Reagan legitimized and encouraged private employers to embark on an all out assault on labor.
Laundry workers staged a strike at 13 dry cleaning plants in 1937 seeking union recognition and better wages and working conditions.
The organizing campaign was significant because it was led by the local Communist Party and relied in part on community organizations to help with the drive.
After employers refused to negotiate with the union, a strike was called. A number of employers attempted to remain open with the use of scabs and clashes erupted between strikers and scabs.
Police generally sided with the owners and rarely arrested scabs who attacked strikers. Community pressure on the police and employers helped to end the strike favorably.
The owners at 11 plants agreed to a "consent" election conducted by the newly empowered National Labor Relations Board and to conduct bargaining with the union if the vote was successful.
Workers prevailed at 9 of the 11 plants and contracts soon followed that raised wages from 25-50% and reduced work hours.
The campaign provided a model for organizing predominantly low-wage African American workers in the city.
United Cafeteria Workers Local 471 organized low wage restaurant workers and represented them from the 1930s until a merger with the Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union Local 25 in the early 1970s.
The union was nearly destroyed in 1948 when the U.S. government embarked on a drive to run communists and other radicals out of the unions.
The union called a strike in January 1948 after the private Government Services Inc. cafeteria operator refused to bargain citing the union’s failure to file non-communist affidavits with the government.
An eleven week strike followed that nearly broke the union, but a contract was salvaged even though the leaders had to relent on signing the affidavits.
The union joined with civil rights leader Mary Church Terrell to help lead the effort to desegregate public accommodations in the city—particularly its restaurants.
The successful effort led to the reinstatement of the District of Columbia’s so called “lost laws” from the 19th Century that prohibited discrimination.
The union affiliated with the Hotel and Restaurant Union in 1955 as Local 473 and was ultimately merged with other locals to form Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 25.
The United Federal Workers, CIO sponsored a short-lived school to improve the skills of Washington, D.C. residents in 1937.
The CIO affiliated union lasted only a little over 10 years as it was red-baited out of existence at the onset of the Cold War’s McCarthy era.
Outsized labor leader “Big” Bill Haywood in Washington, D.C. – 1915.
Haywood was a founder of the IWW and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party. He was an advocate of industrial unionism as opposed to craft unionism and advocated the overthrow of capitalism.
Violent confrontations between mine owners hired guns and union members occurred throughout the West. Haywood and other union members were charged with the murder of Idaho Gov. Frank Steunenberg, but were acquitted in the midst of nationwide publicity of the case.
Haywood also played a leading role in the Lawrence and Patterson Textile strikes of 1912-13 and opposed the U.S. entry into World War I. He was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for his war opposition and fled to the Soviet Union while the case was on appeal.
Haywood lived in the Soviet Union until his death in 1928. Half his ashes are buried in the Kremlin wall while an urn containing the rest of his ashes is buried near the Haymarket Martyrs Monument in Chicago.
Demonstrations to save the Office of Price Controls which had kept prices low and inflation in check during World War II.
After the war, a Republican Congress sought to repeal many of the New Deal and World War II programs.
Later in the decade, women in Washington, D.C. launched a successful meat boycott.
The tactic was revived in the 1960s as a spontaneous boycott of rising prices swept the nation, including in Washington, D.C.
Following World War I, the Navy enacted massive wage cuts despite an 1862 prevailing wage law that required paying a wage equal to the private sector in the area. Mass protests followed that were ultimately unsuccessful.
Jim Crow at US Engraving: 1947-50
The United Public Workers of America Local 3 (Bureau of Engraving branch) led a three-year campaign against discrimination at the agency resulting in a resounding victory when the government opened the ranks of skilled plate printers to African Americans.
Margaret Gilmore, chair of the Bureau’s branch, led a broad coalition against Jim Crow at agency that included the Federation of Civil Associations, the Cafeteria Workers Union, the DC Coordinating Committee to End Discrimination, the NAACP, the civil liberties committee of the Elks, and luminaries such as Howard University President Mordecai Johnson, long time civil rights activist Rev. William H. Jernagin and civil rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston.
The plate printer positions had traditionally been filled by the American Federation of Labor all-white printers union. The UPW, a Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO) organization railed against the fact that not a single African American was employed as a plate printer anywhere in the United States.
Charles Hamilton Houston wrote in February 1949:
“The Bureau maintains Jim Crow locker and rest rooms. Colored women can be printers’ helpers and colored men can be printers’ assistants but that is their limit regardless of education, aptitude, intelligence and experience.
“During World War II the labor demands on the Bureau were so heavy the Bureau hired hundreds and hundreds of workers (including printers, printers assistants and printers helpers) without competitive civil service examinations.
“The printers were all white; the printers assistants, in large number, colored males; and the printers helpers, predominantly colored women.
“After the War, the printers were “blanketed in” as permanent employees merely by fill out out forms showing they met the civil service requirements. They did not have to take any competitive examinations.
“But to thin out the predominantly colored printers helpers, the women were notified that before they could be made permanent they would have to take a competitive examination open not only to Bureau employees but to the women in the whole United States.
“On the other hand, colored men have never been promoted to the journeyman class either as printer, electrician or any other mechanic or tradesman. The Bureau has always conducted apprentice training programs especially for its printers.
“Before World War II colored people had never been admitted to the apprentice training programs. Then under UPW pressure the Bureau opened the plate printers apprentice training program to us [African Americans]; and, July 11, 1948 announced an examination for apprentice plate printers would be held.
“About 30 colored, including many World War II veterans, applied and qualified to take the examination For a moment it looked as if at last we [African Americans] would get our chance to start on the long road to become journeyman printers.
“Then suddenly the Bureau announced the examination was indefinitely postponed.
“This did not mean that the Bureau does not need printers. It is still recruiting white printers through the AFL white printers union which has a strangle hold on the Bureau.
“These new white printers have to be trained in the specialized Bureau work, and the colored printers assistants in many cases do most of the practical training.
“But the white printers get the money and the grade and the white AFL printers union keeps a closed shop against colored on U.S. government property.
“The UPW has now carried the fight director to the White House to see whether Executive Order 9080 establishing Fair Employment Practice policies in government service is the law, or whether the AFL white printers union is a force stronger than the Executive order as far as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is concerned.
“The next time you handle a dollar bill take a good look at it. It was printed by “white only.”
In February 1950 after three years of internal organizing and public pickets, rallies and speeches, the Bureau of Engraving opened the ranks of plate printers to African Americans.
The UPW was effectively destroyed during the second Red Scare. Its leaders first resisted signing affidavits that they were not members of the Communist Party and the Congress of Industrial Organizations later expelled the union along with nine others in February 1950. It quickly lost affiliates and dissolved in 1953.
Tom Mooney was a labor leader and Socialist Party activist in San Francisco when he was arrested, tried and convicted of the Preparedness Day bombing that occurred July 22, 1916.
Supporters charged that he was framed and the evidence and trail procedures were questionable at best.
The campaign against his death sentence became a cause celebre among radical organizations like the Workers (Communist) Party, the Industrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party as well as mainstream labor unions.
The long campaign resulted in his pardon in 1939. Mooney attempted to return to activism but weakness and illness resulting from his long imprisonment curtailed his activities. He died in 1942.
A communist-led campaign to release New Bedford textile strike labor leader John Porter from charges stemming from his absent without leave status from the U.S. Army in 1928.
John L. Lewis, the controversial leader of the United Mine Workers of America and the driving force behind the founding of the CIO that organized millions of workers into unions in the 1930s, was also provocative while he lived in Alexandria, Virginia.
After serving as statistician and then as vice-president for the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), Lewis became that union’s acting president in 1919. On November 1, 1919, he called the first major coal union strike, as 400,000 miners walked off their jobs.
It was the first of many strikes he would call. His politics were ill defined. He fought a violent battle against communists and other leftists during the 1920s, but reconciled in the 1930s when he led the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) that organized millions of previously unionized industrial workers.
Lewis in the Washington, D.C. area
He moved to Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1935, purchasing the home of Revolutionary War doctor William Brown at 212 South Fairfax Street in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1937, he bought another historic home–Col. Richard Brand Lee, a first cousin of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at 614 Oronoco Street in Alexandria. The Lee house had housed 37 members of the Lee family over time.
Lewis’ purchase of the historic homes sparked a protest where one woman refused to show her historic home in an annual tour in 1937 because Lewis was opening his Fairfax Street home to the tour. Lewis’s Oronoco Street home was picketed by students in 1943 over the mine strike during World War II.
Lewis also led the purchase and renovation of the University Club at 900 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C. in 1937 to serve as the headquarters of the UMWA. The building is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Reverses course on the CIO
But despite his leading the establishment of the CIO, he just as quickly he his union out of the CIO and back to the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
He was an isolationist who backed Republican Wendall Wilkie of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 election and refused to heed calls for a no-strike pledge during World War II—leading a nationwide 1943 strike that cause Roosevelt to seize the mines.
He broke again with the AFL in 1947, refusing to sign a loyalty oath as required by the recently passed Taft-Harley Act and as a result the UMWA went without the protections of the National Labor Relations Act.
He continued to serve as UMWA president until 1960 and died at his Alexandria, Virginia home in 1969.
The UMWA was the first major union to admit African Americans on an equal basis and won significant gains for coal miners in wages, benefits and safety.
Six hundred Post Office substitutes gathered in Washington, D.C. and marched on the White House January 24, 1934 to lobby for a minimum wage applicable to them.
Workers from Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Cleveland and New York, including approximately 100 African American workers joined the march that also rallied at the Main Post Office at North Capitol and Massachusetts Avenue NE.
Leaders of the delegation, including two African American delegates from New York, met with an aide to President Franklin Roosevelt.
The bill passed Congress, but the Post Office department—then a direct government agency–laid-off all substitute employees and reduced hours for all full time employees, citing a financial crisis.
Roosevelt then vetoed the bill saying that a return to work by the substitutes would help them more than the minimum wage bill.
Terence Vincent Powderly was an Irish-American politician and labor union leader, best known as head of the Knights of Labor in the late 1880s. A lawyer, he was elected mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania for six years. A Republican, he served as the United States Commissioner General of immigration in 1897.
The Knights of Labor was one of the largest American labor organizations of the 19th century, but Powderly was a poor administrator and could barely keep it under control. His small central office could not supervise or coordinate the many strikes and other activities sponsored by union locals. Powderly saw the Knights as an educational tool to uplift the workingman, and he downplayed strikes.
Powderly led the Knights to a membership that was upwards of 800,000 and included both African Americans and women, although many lodges in the U.S. South were segregated.
In their most famous stance against Jim Crow, Powderly agreed that an African American would take the stage to address the Knights’ 10th Convention held in Richmond, Virginia in 1886.
Powderly was introduced to the convention by Frank J. Farrell, an influential African American delegate from the Knights District Assembly No. 49 from New York.
In turn, Powderly introduced the governor of Virginia Fitzhugh Lee, a nephew of Gen. Robert E. Lee.
While such an action today would cause no stir, it outraged the white supremacists in Virginia and throughout the South.
The Knights influence was short lived, but many members were introduced to unionism through the Knights and went on to affiliate their lodges or join the growing American Federation of Labor.
Powderly lost an election in 1893 as the Knights were in decline and moved to Washington, D.C. where he resided in the Rock Creek Church Road home until his death in 1924.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 president Walter Bierwagen envisioned a network of cooperatives such as Group Health that would provide low cost medical, food and housing to workers. He also led the union to invest in the Greenbelt Consumer Co-op which ran a chain of grocery stores in the area and still operates one store in Greenbelt.
Group Health Association was established in 1937 over the fierce opposition of the American Medical Association, but flourished during the 1960s and 1970s after the transit union enrolled 9,000 members and dependents into the 26,000-member association in 1959. Many federal government employees and private employers soon followed suit.
In an era when little preventive care was offered by health plans, Group Health offered full service health insurance including hospitalization coverage. Its members ran it as a non-profit cooperative.
The union’s health and welfare fund established the first Group Health center in Maryland when they renovated a building at New Hampshire Ave. and East West Hwy and also provided the medical equipment and supplies.
The health care consolidation that took place in the 1980s and 1990s took its toll on Group Health, which could not compete against Humana, Kaiser and other entries into the Washington, D.C. market. Despite its long record of service as a low cost, high quality health care provider, the association was undercapitalized with its centers located only in the city and inner suburbs and voted to sell its assets to Humana in 1994.
Eugene Debs, the inspirational labor and socialist leader of the late 19th and early 20th centuries visited Washington, D.C. several times during his life, including making several speeches in March 1898.
However his most famous visit occurred after his Christmas Day 1921 release from the Atlanta Penitentiary after U.S. President Warren Harding commuted his sentence, along with 23 others—most of them, like Debs, opponents of World War I.
He achieved early fame with the founding of the American Railway Union and a strike against the Pullman Company and a nationwide boycott against using Pullman railcars during the strike
To keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. Thirteen strikers were killed and thousands blacklisted.
As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison. The right of the government to use the injunction was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
He later helped found the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
He ran five times for U.S. president, receiving nearly a million votes in 1912 and 1920. In the latter election, he ran for the office from a prison cell.
After his release from prison for his antiwar speech, he traveled to Washington, D.C. where met with the U.S. attorney general and President Warren Harding.
Images regarding the unionization of hotel workers and their struggle for better pay, benefits and working conditions in the Washington, D.C. area from 1930-90.
Important strikes at the Celanese textile plant in Cumberland, Maryland took place in 1936 and 1939 that resulted in the unionization of 10,000 production workers and helped create a key union leader, George A. Meyers.
Meyers helped lead the in-plant organizing and led a number of sit-down strikes within the plant. He would go on to become president of the local union and, in 1941, president of the Maryland and District of Columbia Industrial Union Council of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Meyers joined the Communist Party during the fight to organize the union at Celanese and as president of the MD-DC CIO, led the fight to integrate basic industry—overseeing the successful efforts to integrate the Celanese and Kelly-Springfield plants in Cumberland, Glen L. Martin aircraft factory in Middle River and the Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyard in Baltimore.
Efforts throughout World War II by the CIO to desegregate jobs within the Bureau of Engraving in federal government and the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C. were waged in earnest but were ultimately less successful. The CIO also played a key role in the fight against police brutality in the District of Columbia in 1941.
After World War II, the onset of the cold war led to the expulsion of Communist Party members from most unions, including the Textile Workers.
Meyers went to jail for 3 ½ years for his membership in the Communist Party in the 1950s but went on to head the Party’s labor activities until his death in 1999.
The Celanese plant at its peak employed 13,000 workers producing materials made from synthetic fiber and closed in 1983.
Images of strikes by truck drivers in the greater Washington, D.C. area from 1938-50. The teamsters hauling food often put groceries in short supply when a stike was called.
The 1955 strike pitted the union known today as Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 against the corporate raider Louis Wolfson and his partners who owned the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C..
Wolfson bought the company in 1949 and quickly paid out millions to himself and fellow investors in dividends. He then applied for fare increases, citing the unprofitability of the transit company that was suffering declines in ridership as auto use increased.
Division 689 president Walter Bierwagen skillfully employed the press and Congressional pressure on Wolfson.
Congress passed a law revoking Wolfson’s franchise, authorizing the district commissioners to negotiate a settlement with Bierwagen and requiring Wolfson to sell the company within a year. The bill also required that buses replace streetcars.
The union settled the strike gaining pay increases and improvements in pension, vacation and holidays. The union was one of the few to take on a corporate raider and win.
Wolfson would later be convicted and sent to prison for illegal stock sales and for obstructing a Security and Exchange Commission investigation unrelated to his Capital Transit tenure.
Capital Transit workers in Washington, D.C. staged a three-day strike July 1-4, 1951 around wage and seniority demands.
Financier Louis Wolfson bought the company in 1949 and Walter Bierwagen was elected president of Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway and Motorcoach Employees of America Division 689.
It would be the first of a series of fierce clashes between the two that would ultimately result in Wolfson being forced out of the streetcar business in 1955, but only after depleting the system of all its reserves.
The 1951 strike was a win for Bierwagen. Workers made wage gains, pension improvements, gained additional paid holidays, improved vacations and upgraded a number of jobs in the maintenance department.
Perhaps equally important for Bierwagen, he obtained seniority rights for those separated and later rehired in the maintenance department. He also obtained bumping rights for those whose jobs were eliminated if they could qualify for other jobs.
This was an important provision in a contracting industry where a significant minority of workers in the maintenance department was African American. They composed a majority of workers in the track department where jobs were shrinking.
Bierwagen obtained the support of African American workers who in turn pressured him to break the barrier to operator jobs, which he finally agreed to do in 1955.
Samuel Gompers led the American Federation of Labor (AFL) from its inception until his death in 1924 (with the exception of one year).
Gompers began his career in the cigar makers union as a radical seeking an end to the capitalist system and ended his career a supporter of the U.S. system.
He developed the philosophy of seeking higher wages and benefits through organizations of skilled workers–or craft unions.
He was opposed within the labor movement by those seeking more radical change and to organize broader ranks of workers. Those opposing Gompers included, at various times, The Socialist Labor Party, the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World and the Workers (Communist) Party. The Congress of Industrial Organizations would later challenge his philosophy of craft unions and organize broad industrial unions during the 1930s and 1940s.
The year-long 1926-27 communist-led Passaic strike by 15,000 woolen mill workers in New Jersey was a seminal event in the labor movement that ended in union recognition and a contract.
Support was organized around the country, including Washington, D.C.
More than 250,000 people gathered for a march on Washington September 19, 1981 sponsored by the AFL-CIO in opposition to President Ronald Reagan’s economic policies.
The labor movement had been fighting defensive battles for over a decade with a strike wave that rivaled those of the 1930s and 1945-46. In many instances, the efforts to battle big business were spurred by the rank and file union members and resisted by top union officials.
George Meany, the longtime conservative head of the AFL-CIO retired in 1979 and was succeeded by Lane Kirkland. Many mid and lower level union leaders held hope that the AFL-CIO would become a more progressive force and Kirkland responded to this pressure by agreeing to sponsor a Solidarity Day march on Washington.
Leading up to the march, 12,000 air traffic controllers staged a strike around safety demands and two days later, President Ronald Reagan fired all that didn’t return to work immediately.
The firing of the air traffic controllers spurred a reaction among unions across the country and led to an outpouring on the National Mall that rivaled the largest antiwar and civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s.
However, despite the upsurge, the labor movement adopted no real change in strategy or tactics as it continued to decline in numbers, power and influence.
Strikes by workers or players or other protests at stadiums in the greater Washington, D.C. area, including protests against the Washington Commanders former name.
Images of the Washington, D.C. Central Labor Union, known later as Central Labor Council and still later as the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO. Also meetings of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Hundreds of government clerks marched on the Capitol March 19, 1928 demanding a pay increase in what was likely the first mass demonstration by government workers.
The protest was organized by Margaret Hopkins Worrell, an employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and drew men, women, black and white workers to brush past police and jam the House where a hearing on the Welch bill was being held.
The bill ultimately passed in May and represented the first across the board increases regardless of grade or step for federal employees since 1854.
Communications workers: 1940-80
Communications Workers of America formed in 1947 out of the wreckage of the old National Federation of Telephone Workers
The NFTW engaged in a nationwide strike involving 325,000 workers in 1947 in an attempt to gain a nationwide contract.
However, the Bell System wouldn’t budget and offered only local agreements. Eventually Bell offered a substandard wage (less than Steel, Coal or Auto had received the same year) as a pattern for local units.
As local unions defected from the strike and made their own agreements with management, the strike was called off.
However the weaknesses of the NFTW led to the formation of CWA later in the year.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 represents nearly 13,000 active and retired dues-paying members, primarily working at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority as rail and bus employees, maintenance and operations and some clerical workers.
The union’s 100th birthday occurred January 19, 2016.
It was organized in early 1916 after several years of failed efforts. A one day strike in March produced recognition by the Capital Traction Co. and the Washington Railway & Electric Co, but the WRE broke the union the following year.
The union retained its foothold at Capital Traction and ultimately became the representative of nearly all transit workers in greater Washington area with public acquisition of private bus systems in 1973 by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
The union has continued to grow mainly through expansion of the Washington Metro system, but has seen increasing competition in recent years from privatized bus operations in all the jurisdictions in the D.C. area that have reduced real wages and benefits.
The union (and sometimes its members acting without approval of the union structure) have waged high profile strikes in 1916, 1917, 1945, 1951, 1955, 1968, 1974 and 1978.
DC’s transit workers had previously been represented by the Knights of Labor from the mid 1880s up to the turn of the century.
The Amalgamated established Division 161 in 1901 with the active involvement of AFL president Samuel Gompers, but the unit fell apart after its president, John McCrackin, was fired by Capital Traction and the union could not get the backing from the workers to strike.
Subsequent attempts by the Amalgamated were unsuccessful until the Amalgamated’s International secretary-Treasurer Rezin Orr led an organizing drive to establish Division 689.
D.C. area strike wave: 1945-46
A nationwide strike wave swept the nation following World War II that involved millions of workers. Wages had been largely frozen during World War II creating a pent-up demand. The unionizations drives in basic industry during the 30s and 40s had created a vibrant labor movement and the strikes called were in the main successful. However the labor movement failed to consolidate their economic gains with political ones and the backlash resulted in the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 that crippled labor unions and began their long decline.
“Let the company come to us. I speak not of compromise. I say meet our demands.”
–Walter H. Vanstavern
Nearly 4,500 workers on the Washington, D.C. Capital Transit streetcar and bus system went on a wildcat strike November 6, 1945 to demand higher wages, despite a no-strike provision in the contract between the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway Employees (the Amalgamated) Division 689 and the company.
The strike ended briefly with a truce, but a second wildcat strike took place two weeks later that ended when the U.S. government seized the company and threatened to operate the system with U.S. troops.
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones (1837-1930) was active principally as an advocate for coal miners and against child labor. This album contains images of her in the District of Columbia, Maryland or Virginia.
She came to Washington, D.C. numerous times during her career to meet with labor leaders, lobby elected officials and support labor unions. She notably supported the organization of transit workers in Washington, D.C. and nearby Northern Virginia in 1916-17.
She moved to Washington, D.C. and lived with the widow of Knights of Labor leader Terrence Powderly at 503 Rock Creek Church Road NW, Washington, D.C. in what is now the Catholic Worker Dorothy Day House.
In her later years she lived with Walter and Lillie Mae Burgess on a farm on Powder Mill Road in Adelphi Maryland where the site is identified by a historical marker.
She became active in a great upsurge of labor activism in the 1880s and assisted with the Knights of Labor. She was active in the Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Party and later the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). She was at times critical and other times supportive of communist activities. She was criticized by many on the left for her lack of support for women’s suffrage saying, “"You don’t need the vote to raise hell!"
Her politics were often ill-defined and in 1924 supported Republican candidate Calvin Coolidge for president against Socialist Party-supported Progressive candidate Robert LaFollette and conservative Democratic candidate John W. Davis of West Virginia. Davis earned her ire for his role in suppressing the United Mine Workers in West Virginia.
She was known as a fiery orator who could rally workers with phrases like, “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.,” She was called “the most dangerous woman in America” in 1902 by West Virginia district attorney Reese Blizzard in Jone’s trial for ignoring an injunction against mine workers holding meetings.
Jones died in November, 1930 in Adelphi, Md. months after celebrating her 93rd birthday (she claimed to be 100, but evidence is pretty strong that she was 93). She is buried in Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois, alongside miners who had died in the 1898 Battle of Virden.
An anti-labor, anti-union law passed in 1947 over President Harry S. Truman’s veto.
The law severely weakened labor unions and its effects continue to be felt as of this writing.
Labor unions saw some initial growth in the wake of the Act as the large scale industrial organizing that took place beginning in the mid-1930s drew to a close, but labor union membership and power soon began to drop steadily continuing into the 21st century.
The act was passed in the wake of the biggest strike wave in U.S. history 1945-46.
As GIs returned to the U.S. after World War II and sought employment, workers’ hours, and thereby their take-home pay, were cut in nearly all industries.
Pay demands were also pent up due to relatively small raises granted during the war years of 1942-45 where many unions entered no-strike pledges. The companies also began pushing elimination or weakening of seniority and other work rules designed to protect employees.
The strike wave involved workers in the auto, meatpacking, steel, coal, railroad, mining and oil industries, among others. The government responded by seizing the railroads, threatening to seize other industries and to draft strikers into the army.
Corporations responded to this rising worker militancy with a campaign to reduce union power.
The Taft-Hartley Act and its effects:
1.Outlawed secondary strikes, secondary boycotts and sympathy strikes designed to pressure employers. For example, it would be illegal for a union to organize a boycott of advertisers during a newspaper strike.
2.It permitted employers to wage anti union campaigns in their workplaces, including holding captive audience meetings. Since unions could generally be barred from workplace facilities, this tilted union organizing drives in favor of the company.
3.The Act permitted states to enact so-called “Right to Work” laws that permit workers covered by union contracts to opt out of union membership or service fees. This meant that unions had to represent workers that paid nothing into the union and further meant that unions had to devote resources to recruiting members. 28 states as of this writing now have right-to-work laws.
4.The law also barred members of the U.S. Communist Party and convicted felons from holding office in labor unions. At the time, communists led ten major unions and held major and minor offices in many others. The law effectively ended democracy in many unions as communist opponents expelled their opposition from the unions. Most of the ten communist-led unions ultimately dissolved or were greatly weakened. The overall effect was to decapitate the more militant wing of the labor movement.
There were other components, but these major restrictions effectively brought to an end labor union power in the U.S. While an uneasy labor-management peace took effect in the 1950s and 1960s, it ended when companies began a productivity drive in the late 1960s that produced a more than ten-year strike wave that ended in defeat after defeat for unions culminating with the air traffic controllers union being broken by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Despite a few starts and spurts since then, it has been a steady downhill trajectory in labor union power.
While the Taft-Harley Act is not solely responsible for this decline, it severely crippled unions in their ability to resist the employer offensives that have taken place since its passage and acted as an effective curb to union organizing.
The Midnight March of the Baltimore Brigade January 17, 1937 was a seminal event in the development of rank-and-file power on the waterfront.
The key figure that turned things around was Patrick B. “Paddy” Whalen. At perhaps 5’5” and 120 lbs., his physical appearance didn’t strike fear into the shipping companies, but his fiery leadership on the waterfront did.
Whalen was a former member of the radical Industrial Workers of the World who became a leader on the New York waterfront of the Marine Workers Industrial Union—a radical union that organized all waterfront workers.
Moving to Baltimore in the mid 1930s, Whalen and other radicals entered the mainstream International Seamen’s Union with the hopes of gaining more influence.
They organized a rank and file caucus to oppose the ISU’s conservative leadership and led East Coast seamen out on strike in support of their West Coast brothers in late 1936,
For a time, nearly all waterfront workers in the port of Baltimore joined in. However the shipping companies, the conservative American Federation of Labor and ISU leadership, and others eventually undermined support for the strike.
On their heels and near defeat, Whalen rallied the Baltimore seamen to march on Washington, D.C. to oppose anti-union legislation and demonstrate that seamen were a legitimate bargaining unit to the new National Labor Relations Board.
The march succeeded in rallying seamen to the rank and file caucus up and down the East Coast. The legislation that would have permitted blacklisting sailors was amended and the NLRB ruled in favor of maritime workers.
The strike ended a few days after the march with some wage increases, but the caucus went on to become the National Maritime Union (NMU) that ousted the conservative ISU in the vast majority of union elections held under the NLRB.
Whalen became the port agent of the new union and established fair procedures for the order sailors shipped out to sea. He ended the discrimination against sailors of color that had relegated many to the backbenches and consigned nearly all to be cooks.
Whalen was a passionate member of the Communist Party that fought vigorously to improve the lives of waterfront workers. He also led the fight to integrate the waterfront itself and fought for equal housing for black workers. Whalen organized a demonstration in front of the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. against the Nazi regime.
After the U.S. was attacked by Japan and the Nazi regime in Germany declared war on the U.S., Whalen went back to sea to help transport war supplies. He did so despite his draft exemption for his job of port agent that would have kept him out of the war.
He was killed June 2, 1942 when a Nazi U-boat fired two torpedoes into the engine room of the S.S Illinois off Bermuda.
We can thank Paddy Whalen for helping to blaze the trail for integration in the defense industry and for a 20-year period when union democracy prevailed in maritime industry. And we can thank him for being an uncompromising “tribune of the people” who fought to the death for workers.
The Works Progress Administration employed several million people during its existence from 1935 to 1943 in order to provide productive labor to relieve unemployment during the Great Depression. The Agency was terminated in 1943 after U.S. unemployment shrunk to near zero due to World War II.
In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt cut funding for the WPA resulting in several thousand layoffs.
The recently consolidated Workers Alliance – a merger of three different organizations organizing and representing unemployed workers – organized several protests of the layoffs, including a mass march August 24, 1937.
The marchers came from all over the country and camped in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. before undertaking their demonstration that took them past the Workers Progress Administration headquarters, the Chamber of Commerce, the White House and the U.S. Capitol and holding a rally at the Labor Department (now Mellon) Auditorium.
The march was not successful in its goal of winning reinstatement for workers laid-off, but did receive pledges from Administration officials that no more layoffs would be conducted.
The Workers Alliance was a product of the merger between the Depression era Communist Party’s Unemployed Councils, the Socialist Party’s Worker’s Alliance and the A. J. Muste/Trotskyist Unemployed Leagues.
The Works Progress Administration (later Works Projects Administration) built public works projects such as roads, bridges, schools, courthouses, hospitals, parks, and museums, including many that are still in use today. There were also projects for artists and writers.
“Down here on the Shore, where in the past the only time whites ever visited a jail in connection with a colored prisoner was to lynch him, a group of white strikers went to a jail and made police turn a colored striker loose.”–William N. Jones, 1937, Baltimore Afro-American newspaper.
Jones was not exaggerating. Maryland’s Eastern Shore in June 1937 was a hotbed of racial intolerance. The brutal lynching of Matthew Williams in Salisbury in 1931 and George Armstead in Princess Anne in 1933 had just occurred. The two-year legal battle of Euel Lee, also known as "Orphan Jones" involved an attempted lynching at Snow Hill and ended with the legal lynching (blacks were excluded from his jury) of Lee in 1933.
However, barbaric, racially motivated violence wasn’t the only force in play in that period in the middle of the Great Depression. New unions that ultimately became the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) were organizing workers into single industrial unions of all races and sexes–not along the craft lines of most unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), where African Americans and women were often excluded. The new unions were also winning wage gains from employers and the AFL and CIO became bitter rivals during that period.
In 1937 a single employer, The Phillips Packing Company that employed over 2,000 workers canning vegetables grown on local farms, dominated Cambridge. The CIO began organizing through the union that became the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing & Allied Workers. The effort was headed locally by Leif Dahl and at least one organizer had obtained work at the plant.
On the evening of June 23, 1937, a relatively small number of workers at the can-making factory within the massive Phillips plant struck after the company announced plans to reduce the workforce. The strike quickly spread to the rest of the workers who were engaged in packing.
That night, a crowd of 1,000 marched through the streets rallying support and overturning trucks carrying vegetables. The workers were majority African American with a substantial minority of whites.
For the first few days of the strike they convinced migratory bean pickers, who were destitute and lived in farmer or packer provided shanties, to join the strike.
On the second day of the strike (June 24), Anna Neary (the only high ranking female AFL organizer) appeared and the company president Albanus Phillips opened negotiations with her and concluded a quick agreement that included a 10% wage increase and the recognition of the AFL union. Many CIO supporters believed that the company had invited the AFL to undercut them and that the wage increase was too small. At a mass meeting, the proposal was voted down.
That night, a crowd of 1,000 predominantly white strikers and their supporters gathered at the jail to demand the release of an African American striker named James "Midnight" McKnight who had been arrested earlier in the day during a confrontation with truck drivers. McKnight was charged with disorderly conduct after a trucker was hit with a rock. The sheriff, confronted with the likelihood of more violence, released McKnight.
The victory, however, was short-lived. On the following day (June 25), John Cephas, an African-American, was killed by a truck loaded with vegetables that swerved and struck him beside a road near the plant. Cephas was an occasional worker at the plant who had come out to support the strikers. His killers were not prosecuted.
Over the next few days, the strikers tried to rally support, enlisting favorable merchants and closing the stores of those opposed to the strike.
By June 30, the strike was beginning to falter. When police arrested one of the strikers, a crowd of only 200 was mustered at the local police station and was held back by a dozen local policemen. The strikers eventually raised enough bail money to get him out. Meetings of strikers were attended by less than 300.
The AFL tried to set up a number of different unions–cannery workers, truck drivers and packing workers–further dividing workers. Neary claimed to the company that she could settle the strike without a vote by workers and would accept the previous offer of a 10% increase.
Phillips rejected Neary’s offer and violence increased. Strikers stoned trucks and guards fired on the strikers, wounding James Powell. Police arrested Powell. Strikers also clashed with police who broke up their picket line. One striker, James Roberts, suffered a three-inch gash from a police club. Several more strikers were arrested.
Phillips, through a Merchants Association, set up a company union called the Cambridge Workers Association. He quickly recognized the bogus union and "settled" the strike for the original offer of 10%. Powell, the striker who was shot, was given a quick trial and a 12-month jail sentence.
The strike began to crumble and Phillips re-opened some of the plant. Phillips filed suit against the town for damages as a result of the strike. By July 9, the strike was over.
Both the AFL and the CIO appealed to the federal government. The newly formed National Labor Relations Board twice ruled against Phillips’ bogus company union and ordered several strikers reinstated, but the cause was lost. A number of strikers were sentenced to jail by the local courts.
The company-inspired union was later rcontinued to "represent" the workers, with the CIO cannery union losing a final close vote in 1947 when the union was under attack for alleged communist influence.
The Phillips Company continued to dominate Cambridge until the mid 1950s when the company began to layoff workers. The company was sold to Consolidated Foods in 1957.
The packing industry in Cambridge was finally unionized by the Chicago-based United Packing House Workers (originally a CIO union) in the 1960s when local civil rights activists led by Gloria Richardson joined their efforts.
The city became synonymous with a more forceful advocacy of economic and civil rights by African Americans from 1963-67 and was occupied several times by the Maryland National Guard.
This set contains images related to the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C. and their campaign to hire women during World War II when streetcars and buses were idled due to a lack of white male operators.
The company refused to hire African Americans, but White women instead benefited from the continuous pressure put on the company during the war by civil rights activists.
Montgomery County, Maryland teachers went on an eight-day strike in February 1968 over salary demands.
The school system initially tried to hold classes. However, a large majority of teachers staying out of the classroom and students staged walkouts throughout the county resulting in authorities cancelling classes toward the end of the first day of the strike.
The strike was called by the long standing Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), an affiliate of the National Education Association as it faced a challenge for representation by a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
Defying court injunctions and threatened fines, the union held firm until a settlement was reached that tilted largely in favor of the MCEA demands and re-affirmed its dominance as the voice for teachers in the county.
A historic strike by 600 predominantly Black women on the Jim Crow Maryland Eastern Shore in 1938 against two dozen packinghouses that featured a communist organizer, vigilante raids, the burning of a union organizers car, the expulsion of a federal mediator from town and a blockade preventing food from reaching strikers. After the workers held strongt for six weeks, the packinghouses reached an agreement with the CIO union. A historical marker was placed in the town in 2024 commemorating the strike.
Marie Richardson Harris was a leading organizer for civil and labor rights in the District of Columbia from the late 1930s until 1950.
Her pioneering work helped to organize the predominately African American Washington red caps union and their women’s auxiliary while still a teenager. She was a leader of the early fight to integrate Capital Transit operator jobs. She was an active member of the National Negro Congress and served as the executive secretary of the local branch.
According to the Afro American newspaper, she was the first African American woman to hold national office in a major labor union. In her role as national representative of the United Federal Workers (CIO), she helped lead the union’s organizing drives and battles against discrimination inside the federal government in the District.
The price she paid for her leadership was four and a half years in federal prison, a victim of McCarthy-era persecution.
Fighting Capital Transit racism: 1941-55
In 1941, a group of predominantly young African American activists organized to take on the challenge of integrating one of the most visible examples of job discrimination in the city: The Washington, DC Capital Transit public transportation system.
The 15-year campaign went through a period of highs and lows as the company, aided at times by the union representing its workers and the federal government, stubbornly clung to its racist practices before finally succumbing in 1955.
Post busts pressmen’s union: 1975
This set contains two photos of the Washington Post pressmen’s strike in the early morning hours of October 1, 1975 and a photo of pressmen and supporters boycotting a George’s Appliance store in late 1975.
The pressmen were members of International Printing and Graphic Communications Union Local 6 and in the first two images were picketing on the Post headquarters at 1150 15th St. NW. The 3rd image is undated and the location is undetermined but it is probably Beltway Plaza in Greenbelt, MD sometime after George’s resumed advertising in the Post in December 1975.
Labor relations between the Post and its unions had been deteriorating for several years (see set “Post Printers Lockout 1973”) as the Post management began aggressively preparing for a confrontation with the pressmen’s union. From 1973-75, the Post management openly trained dozens of non-union employees on how to running printing presses and other production jobs.
The strength of the unions was further undercut by advances in technology that made new offset printing and computer typesetting possible (eliminating much of the skills of pressmen, printers and photoengravers). The Post overtly made plans to open new offset printing plants in Maryland and Virginia.
The craft unions at the newspaper were also predominantly composed of older, white males during a time when African Americans and women were pushing to break into skilled occupations.
When the strike occurred October 1, some pressmen sought to undercut the Post’s advantages by sabotaging the Post printing presses. A shop supervisor was also assaulted during first minutes of the strike. Some Newspaper Guild members (reporters and editors) who crossed the pressmen’s picket lines were also physically acosted.
The newspaper was forced to suspend publication, but published an edition October 3 using offset presses at other facilities. Helicopters were used to ferry key workers to the Post headquarters and to send copy to the outside printing plants.
Two other unions called strikes of their own and the other craft unions honored picket lines. The leadership of the Newspaper Guild (reporters and editors) issued statements in support of the strike but the violence isolated the pressmen’s union in the community.
The Newspaper Guild members defied their leadership and voted to withhold support of the strike and cross picket lines. The local AFL-CIO labor council voted to launch a boycott against the Post and stickers reading “No Grapes, No Lettuce, No Post” (also refering to the Farmworkers boycotts) were widely distributed throughout the Washington, DC area.
Many businesses initially shifted their advertising to the rival Washington Star. However, as the Post began to restore the publication to its pre-strike condition, busineses began to return to the Post. The pressmen responded by setting up picket lines outside of advertisers who returned to the Post.
The Post management also began exploiting charges of discrimination against the pressmen’s union. A quick settlement was reached with the predominantly African-American Washington Printing Specialties and Paper Products Union 449, which represented paper handlers and press room general workers.
A grand jury investigation into the violence cast a cloud over the strike. The Post hired permanent replacements—mostly African Americans and women–for the pressmen and some members of other unions began drifting back to work. On February, 17 the Mailers union (who sort and bundle the newspapers) reached an agreement with the Post and returned to work along with the printers union (those who set the type)—representing about half of the 1,400 craft union workers. Most of the other unions and their members followed shortly thereafter and the strike was essentially lost at this point.
The U.S. Attorney obtained indictments against 15 pressmen. On the one year anniversary of the strike, close to 1,000 pressmen and their supporters rallied at McPherson Square and marched to the Post building where they burned Katherine Graham in effigy. On May 20, 1977, fourteen pressmen were given sentences that ranged from fines to one year in jail.
Local 6 ceased to exist largely as a result of the strike followed by the folding of the Washington Star newspaper in 1981. In 2005 the national body, by then renamed Graphic Communications International Union, merged with the Teamsters. The Washington Post continues to publish, maintaining its headquarters at the same building on 15th Street NW.
MoCo gay teacher fired: 1972-73
Images related to Joe Acanfora’s struggle to be a public school teacher in Pennsylvania and Maryland in the early 1970s.
The printing trades were the oldest continuous unions and some of the most militant during their long history.
Technology ultimately eclipsed the need for both the number of employees and types of jobs performed.
Columbia Typographical Union 101 was the oldest labor union in the city—tracing its roots back to 1815 and was at the forefront of the local labor movement for over 100 years often hosting the meetings of both the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor. The union’s existence ended in 1986 when the International Typographical Union was merged into the Communications Workers of America.
See “Post Busts Pressmen’s Union” and “K. Graham Burned in Effigy” for 1975 Washington Post strike.
K. Graham burned in effigy: 1975
This set contains images of a march and rally by 1,000 to support the Washington Post pressmen on the one-year anniversary of their strike October 2, 1976.
The marchers met at McPherson Square and marched to the Post headquarters at 1150 15th St. NW where they burned owner Katherine Graham in effigy.
The pressmen were members of International Printing and Graphic Communications Union Local 6 and had gone on strike October 1, 1975 after failing to reach an agreement with the Post on a new contract.
The newspaper was forced to suspend publication, but published an edition October 3 using offset presses at other facilities. Helicopters were used to ferry key workers to the Post headquarters and to send copy to the outside printing plants.
A grand jury investigation into the violence cast a cloud over the strike. The Post hired permanent replacements—mostly African Americans and women–for the pressmen and some members of other unions began drifting back to work. On February, 17 the Mailers union (who sort and bundle the newspapers) reached an agreement with the Post and returned to work along with the printers union (those who set the type)—representing about half of the 1,400 craft union workers. Most of the other unions and their members followed shortly thereafter and the strike was essentially lost at this point.
The U.S. Attorney obtained indictments against 15 pressmen. On the one year anniversary of the strike, close to 1,000 pressmen and their supporters rallied at McPherson Square and marched to the Post building where they burned Katherine Graham in effigy (see set “Pressmen Set Graham Afire 1976”). On May 20, 1977, fourteen pressmen were given sentences that ranged from fines to one year in jail.
Local 6 ceased to exist largely as a result of the strike followed by the folding of the Washington Star newspaper in 1981. In 2005 the national body, by then renamed Graphic Communications International Union, merged with the Teamsters. The Washington Post continues to publish.
DC Metro wildcat strikes: 1978
Workers at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA–often called Metro) went on wildcat strikes twice in 1978.
Walkout Protests Operator Rape:
Bus operator anger over lack of security and police protection had been building for years as assaults and robberies mounted. It boiled over May 17, 1978 after the early morning rape of a 32-year old female bus operator at Ridge & Burns Streets SE by a man with a knife.
The strike began May 18 at the former Southeastern Bus Garage at One-Half Street and M Streets SE and spread throughout the day to the Bladensburg Road garage and the Northern Garage at 4615 14th Street NW. A meeting was organized at an RFK Stadium parking lot that evening where striking drivers voted to suspend the strike for two weeks on the condition that a settlement was reached on the safety issue.
The strike resulted in increased police patrols on buses, a shield installed behind the driver, an emergency "panic" button and repairs to broken radios.
Wildcat Over Cost-of-Living.
Discontent with both management and union leaders continued unabated, however. It bubbled over again at a July 18 meeting of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689. Frustrated over WMATA’s failure to pay a quarterly cost of living (COLA) increase due under a contract clause that called for all terms and conditions to remain "undisturbed" during an contract arbitration process, union members repeatedly demanded the union hold a strike vote.
Union leadership correctly pointed out that a strike would be illegal based on their experience in the 1974 strike and ultimately left the meeting. A rump meeting was then held by about 200 who called for a strike at 10 am the next morning.
Few bus operators walked off the job, but a large number of mechanics called out sick at the Bladensburg overhaul shop. The afternoon Daily News reported that dozens of mechanics had been fired. A meeting held at an RFK Stadium parking lot of rank-and-file Metro workers called for a strike to begin at midnight around two demands: Metro pay the COLA and amnesty for all strikers.
Workers heeded the strike call July 20. The vast majority of workers at all eight bus garages, including the Prince George’s garage (4421 Southern Ave SE) represented by the Teamsters, refused to work. Subway trains, which ran only from Silver Spring to Dupont Circle and from Stadium-Armory to National Airport, were also shut down.
The workers held meetings at each reporting location and elected leaders. In the absence of today’s cell phones and instant messaging, workers held regular meetings of the strike leaders and rank and file at an RFK Stadium parking lot. William T. Scoggin Jr., an operator from the (former) Arlington Garage at N. Quincy Street & Wilson Blvd. in Arlington, VA, was elected spokesperson.
Metro responded by temporarily withdrawing discipline and obtaining court injunctions against individual strikers from Judge Louis Oberdorfer. But Oberdorfer went beyond listening to the lawyers from Metro and the union and appointed two labor lawyers Charles "Chip" Yablonski and Charles Booth to advise him.
The strikers ultimately retained their own attorney to represent them before Oberdorfer.
On Sunday July 23 with the strikers holding firm, Oberdorfer ordered WMATA to post a $40,000 per week bond to insure that the money for the cost of living increase was provided for, ordered expedited arbitration of the COLA dispute, ordered the union and Metro to take increased measures to inform workers their strike was illegal and threatened to jail strikers who refused his back to work order.
A mass meeting was held that Sunday evening at RFK attracting about 400 strikers. Scoggin urged a return to work, advising that the workers had won as much as they were going to win. However, other speakers urged a continuation of the strike until amnesty was granted. In a voice vote, Scoggin was replaced as spokesperson by Eugene Ray, a bus operator from the 4-Mile Run yard located at 3501 S. Glebe Road in Arlington, VA.
On July 24, WMATA responded by re-opening the Metrorail system with supervisors and a few workers who crossed picket lines. Scoggin’s Arlington Division went back to work along with a few scattered operators at other Divisions. Management began circulating false rumors that other locations were already back to work.
Hindered by lack of communications, the strikers began to waver and by the afternoon of Tuesday, July 25, service was restored to normal as one location after another returned to work en masse.
Aftermath
US District Court Judge Thomas Flannery fined a number of individual members for contempt of court for their roles in the strike. WMATA fired 10 strikers, suspended 86 for 1-9 days without pay and reprimanded 54.
Discipline was ultimately reduced for many who filed grievances through the union, including nine strikers whose terminations were reduced to long suspensions without pay–largely because WMATA had failed to notify employees after two previous strikes that they could be terminated for walkouts. One fired striker, who did not file a grievance, was not reinstated.
An arbitration panel ruled in favor of the strikers and WMATA paid the quarterly COLA increase that initially triggered the strike. A separate arbitration on the expired overall labor agreement retained the quarterly COLA but ruled that WMATA could hire part-time bus operators with no benefits or seniority.
This set shows United Farm Worker picket lines urging a boycotts of grapes and later lettuce. The union would also conduct a secondary boycott of Safeway stores for selling scab lettuce.
The United Farm Workers (UFW) union reached a three-year contract with major grape growers in 1970 after years of struggle and a nationwide grape boycott.. They also expanded into the lettuce fields and into the Florida fruit groves and vegetable fields.
However, in 1973 when the contracts expired, major grape growers signed “sweetheart” contracts with the Teamsters union, which was then outside of the AFL-CIO, to cover workers that the UFW represented.
The UFW responded with a strikes and a nationwide boycott of lettuce and grapes that were under the "sweetheart" contracts and called for a secondary boycott of those stores that carried the products that UFW labeled as "scab."
Locally, a boycott was launched against Safeway stores which carried non-UFW grapes. Many students, community groups and progressive organizations joined with UFW organizers to staff the picket lines.
In 1974, the AFL-CIO agreed to support the boycott of non-UFW grapes and lettuce if the secondary boycott against grocery stores was removed. The UFW reluctantly agreed.
In the meantime, violence plagued the fields and several UFW pickets were killed. This led to the state of California passing labor law covering agricultural workers and providing for secret ballot elections and other worker protections.
The UFW reached an agreement with the Teamsters that UFW jurisdiction would only be those employers covered under the California law, The Teamsters were to compete in California, but have jurisdiction in Arizona and Florida.
There was speculation that Teamsters President Frank Fitzsimmons targeted the UFW to get back at Kennedy family for Robert F. Kennedy’s highly publicized investigation of the Teamsters in the late 1950s. Kennedy was also a high profile backer of the UFW before his death.
Members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 struck on May 1, 1974 against the newly created Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA or Metro as it is commonly known) when no agreement was reached on a new contract.
Metro obtained a court injunction on May 2nd and on May 3rd, union President George Davis and Secretary Treasurer Rodney Richmond were threatened with jail unless they ended the strike. Rank and file members defied leaders and continued the strike through May 5th before returning to work en masse May 6th and 7th..
The dispute centered on a cost-of-living escalator clause that led to another wilcat strike in 1978. In 1983, a compromise was reached where WMATA picked up the employee cost of pension contributions in return for the union surrendering quarterly cost-of-living increases.
The union was fined $100,000 for continuing the 1974 strike, although the fine was later reduced to $50,000.
Confrontation at Mineral Pigment: 1973
Members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 12328 struck Mineral Pigment in Beltsville, MD in 1973.
The first sequence 224-231 shows a truck attempting to leave the plant and reaction by strikers. The plant is located near U.S. Route 1 and Muirkirk Road in Beltsville, MD and is still in operation today.
The second sequence contains several group shots of the strikers in front of the plant taken Nov. 1973 after the confrontation.
On the job murder at Metro: 1974
After a heavy equipment operator became the 12th construction worker to be killed building the Metro system, 2,500 unionized construction workers staged a one-day strike November 11, 1974 and marched from the Labor Department to Metro headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The building trades unions staged the strike even though a judge had issued a restraining order. After securing promises of intervention by the Labor Department and commitments from Metro, the workers returned to the job site the next day.
The Construction Contractor’s Council pressed the courts for fines against the union and individual union leaders for staging the strike, but Chief U.S. District Court Judge George L. Hart brokered a deal where the unions would plead guilty and be fined a token amount ($100) and charges would be dropped against individual union leaders.
Some improvement was made in safety by Metro following the strike and the Labor Department intervened as well. Nonetheless, the safety culture apparently didn’t change as operations and maintenance workers continued to be killed through 2010.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) dedicated a memorial to their employees killed on the job in 2011. The workers killed building the system are not memorialized.
Racism at the Library of Congress: 1971-73
In the early 1970s, black employees at the Library of Congress were occupying the lowest paying jobs without opportunity for promotion. BELC was formed in a lunchroom conversation in July 1970.
In 1971, there were only seven African Americans out of 230 people occupying GS grades 9-18.
Protests began in earnest in 1971 when a sit-in was staged. Library management had six workers arrested and fired 13. This led to a series of rallies, Congressional Hearings and lawsuits.
BELC was the primary mover of all these and was headed by Executive Director Howard Cook (pictured on far right in photos) and President Joslyn Williams. Williams was fired from Library during this period, but went on to lead the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO as president where he serves today.
It took years of struggle, but the lawsuits were ultimately successful with the primary suit winning $8.5 million in 1995. The final disposition wasn’t done until 2002 when the Howard Cook and Tommy Shaw Foundation was established with money from covered persons who could not be located.
The judge authorized the committee to use interest generated by the foundation principal–or enhanced by foundation fundraising –to pay for the education and training of African-American employees seeking to advance their careers at the Library and to assist employees pursuing discrimination claims against the Library. The principal was to be held until persons not found could be located. Cook retired from the Library and passed in 2023.
BELC was a member of Government Empl9yees United Against Racial Discrimination (GUARD), an umbrella group in the city with upwards of two dozen affiliates at government agencies around the city, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Institutes of Health, Agriculture Department, DC fire and the Central Heating Plant, among others.
Terps at issue in hotel fight: 1974
Mass picket at Sheraton Lanham Hotel February 11, 1974. The University of Maryland refused to cancel its football team banquet at hotel after the workers went on strike.
Workers at the Sheraton Lanham Hotel went on strike January 9, 1974 to obtain a first contract as members of Hotel Worker Union Local 75. The union had won a representation election in 1973 but had been unable to negotiate a first contract.
The strike was seen as important for both workers and owners because it was the first hotel in the suburban Washington area to be organized by a union at a time when hotel facilities were rapidly expanding outside the downtown core.
The hotel hired a private security firm called Chamberlain Protective Services which workers charged engaged in an unprovoked beating of two striking workers when they attempted to pick up their checks January 11.
To support the strikers, On The Move newspaper organized the Sheraton Solidarity Group which staged mass pickets and held an International Women’s Day rally in support of the union. A number of groups cancelled their events, but others including the University of Maryland, the local Republican Party and the president of the Prince Georges County Education Association (NEA) crossed the picket lines.
The workers were victorious March 28 when a new contract was reached. However when the first contract expired two years later, the Sheraton Management refused to bargain with the union. The union launched a boycott and the AFL-CIO urged the public to stay away from the hotel. Many prominent County Democrats including County Executive Winfield Kelly, Governor Harry Hughes and state Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller crossed picket lines while others such as Paris Glendening, Steny Hoyer and Prince George’s Council President Gerard McDonough refused,
The boycott ultimately ended in defeat for the union and the hotel is now unorganized. The challenge of organizing workers in suburban hotels continues as the Crystal City Hilton and Sheraton remain under boycott for their refusal to bargain. The only suburban hotels organized in the Washington, DC area are the Gaylord at National Harbor, Sheraton Premier at Tysons, McLean Hilton at Tysons, Embassy Suites Crystal City and Doubletree Crystal City.
The Sheraton Lanham was located at the intersection of 85th Avenue and Route 450 in New Carrollton, MD. It has gone through many changes of ownership through the years and was most recently operated as a Four Points Sheraton. Hotel Workers Local 75 was merged with several other locals into Hotel & Restaurant Employees Local 25, a UNITE-HERE affiliate.
Union fight at Lanham hotel: 1974
Workers at the Sheraton Lanham Hotel went on strike January 9, 1974 to obtain a first contract as members of Hotel Worker Union Local 75. The union had won a representation election in 1973 but had been unable to negotiate a first contract.
The strike was seen as important for both workers and owners because it was the first hotel in the suburban Washington area to be organized by a union at a time when hotel facilities were rapidly expanding outside the downtown core.
The hotel hired a private security firm called Chamberlain Protective Services which workers charged engaged in an unprovoked beating of two striking workers when they attempted to pick up their checks January 11.
To support the strikers, On The Move newspaper organized the Sheraton Solidarity Group which staged mass pickets and held an International Women’s Day rally in support of the union.
A number of groups cancelled their events, but others including the University of Maryland, the local Republican Party and the president of the Prince Georges County Education Association (NEA) crossed the picket lines.
The workers were victorious March 28 when a new contract was reached. However when the first contract expired two years later, the Sheraton Management refused to bargain with the union. The union launched a boycott and the AFL-CIO urged the public to stay away from the hotel.
Many prominent County Democrats including County Executive Winfield Kelly, Governor Harry Hughes and state Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller crossed picket lines while others such as Paris Glendenning, Steny Hoyer and Prince George’s Council President Gerard McDonough refused,
The boycott ultimately ended in defeat for the union and the hotel is now unorganized. The challenge of organizing workers in suburban hotels continues as the Crystal City Hilton and Sheraton remain under boycott for their refusal to bargain. The only suburban hotels organized in the Washington, DC area are the Gaylord at National Harbor, Sheraton Premier at Tysons, McLean Hilton at Tysons, Embassy Suites Crystal City and Doubletree Crystal City.
The Sheraton Lanham was located at the intersection of 85th Avenue and Route 450 in New Carrollton, MD. It has gone through many changes of ownership through the years and was most recently operated as a Four Points Sheraton. Hotel Workers Local 75 was merged with several other locals into Hotel & Restaurant Employees Local 25, a UNITE-HERE affiliate.
Mass picket at Sheraton Lanham Hotel February 16, 1974 at local Republican Party dinner.
The signs referencing ITT refer to the former International Telephone & Telegraph company and its role supporting the Republican Party and the fascist coup in Chile in 1973.
Workers at the Sheraton went on strike January 9, 1974 to obtain a first contract as members of Hotel Worker Union Local 75. The union had won a representation election in 1973 but had been unable to negotiate a first contract.
The strike was seen as important for both workers and owners because it was the first hotel in the suburban Washington area to be organized by a union at a time when hotel facilities were rapidly expanding outside the downtown core.
The hotel hired a private security firm called Chamberlain Protective Services which workers charged engaged in an unprovoked beating of two striking workers when they attempted to pick up their checks January 11.
To support the strikers, On The Move newspaper organized the Sheraton Solidarity Group which staged mass pickets and held an International Women’s Day rally in support of the union. A number of groups cancelled their events, but others including the University of Maryland, the local Republican Party and the president of the Prince Georges County Education Association (NEA) crossed the picket lines.
The workers were victorious March 28 when a new contract was reached. However when the first contract expired two years later, the Sheraton Management refused to bargain with the union. The union launched a boycott and the AFL-CIO urged the public to stay away from the hotel. Many prominent County Democrats including County Executive Winfield Kelly, Governor Harry Hughes and state Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller crossed picket lines while others such as Paris Glendenning, Steny Hoyer and Prince George’s Council President Gerard McDonough refused,
The boycott ultimately ended in defeat for the union and the hotel is now unorganized. The challenge of organizing workers in suburban hotels continues as the Crystal City Hilton and Sheraton remain under boycott for their refusal to bargain. The only suburban hotels organized in the Washington, DC area are the Gaylord at National Harbor, Sheraton Premier at Tysons, McLean Hilton at Tysons, Embassy Suites Crystal City and Doubletree Crystal City.
The Sheraton Lanham was located at the intersection of 85th Avenue and Route 450 in New Carrollton, MD. It has gone through many changes of ownership through the years and was most recently operated as a Four Points Sheraton. Hotel Workers Local 75 was merged with several other locals into Hotel & Restaurant Employees Local 25, a UNITE-HERE affiliate.
Say no to Rhodesian chrome: 1973
This set contains one image of a picket line set up outside the Baltimore, MD docks urging longshoremen to refuse to unload Rhodesian goods sometime in 1973.
Rhodesia was formed by a white minority which declared independence from the United Kingdom (UK) in 1965, effectively ending a British plan to divest itself of the colony by installing a multi-racial democracy.
The UN called for a boycott of Rhodesia the same year. However, the U.S. during the Nixon administration (1969-74), was permitting trade with the rogue country.
Pacifists, left-wing groups, African-American rights groups and rank and file dockworkers began working together to boycott ships that carried Rhodesian goods beginning in 1972. Members of the predominantly white locals and the predominantly black local union both refused to unload the cargo.
Some excerpts from “The Dockworker,” Baltimore, Dec. 1, 1973, published by a rank and file longshoremen’s group called the Militant Action Dockworkers:
‘We’ve also heard that a bad flu virus called the Rhodesian flu is due to hit the port Dec. 9. Anybody with Rhodesian flu who comes within a mile radius of any Rhodesian goods goes berserk and can’t work for at least 24 hours.”
“Many of us have justly refused to touch these cargoes. We feel that we might as well send guns and ammunition to the racist white minority government of Rhodesia if we’re going to help them sell their goods in the U.S.”
“Now Rhodesia may seem far away, and imperialism may seem like a nasty word but as long as we all work for a boss, and that boss gets rich off our labor, we’re all in the same boat whether we’re black and work in a Rhodesian mine or unload cargo in the port of Baltimore. We’re all getting shafted by the same big international companies. Now these big corporations are organized internationally so we must be organized internationally too.”
By the end of 1973, Baltimore dockworkers had refused to unload several different loads of chrome, ferro-chrome and nickel cathodes. They were ultimately joined by dockworkers in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Louisiana and other ports in refusing to unload Rhodesian goods.
The world-wide boycott, combined with an armed insurrection in Rhodesia, eventually led to the near collapse of the white minority Rhodesian government which finally agreed to relinquish power and hold elections in 1979. A new constitution was adopted the same year.
Caucus pickets steel talks: 1977
This set contains Images of “The Steelworker” caucus picketing outside the opening of basic steel negotiations between the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) and the ten largest steel manufacturers in the U.S. Feb. 14, 1977 at the Shoreham Hotel, 2500 Calvert St. NW, Washington, DC.
The opening of the contract talks came days after the defeat of insurgent candidate Ed Sadlowski’s to retiring USWA president I. W. Abel’s handpicked candidate Lloyd McBride by a 328,000-249,000 margin.
Activists within the union, including “The Steelworker,” criticized union leadership for negotiating a “no strike” agreement in 1974 that applied even to expiring labor agreements.
While Sadlowski lost the election, local presidents rejected the agreement negotiated by McBride in 1977 by 193-99 before ultimately approving it by a narrow margin. When it came to local issue negotiations in 1977, 33 local unions voted to strike compared to two in 1974.
Basic steel industry came to a sudden collapse between 1979 and 1986, throwing tens of thousands out of work. Basic steel companies had failed to reinvest in modern production facilities throughout the 1950s and 1960s and had fallen behind German and Japanese steelmakers who dumped low-cost steel into U.S. markets.
Today the USWA is the largest industrial union in the U.S. with about 700,000 members. In recent years it has concentrated on strategic alliances to combat the effects of globalization, including alliances with unions in other countries.
Most of the images in this set are of a picket line in front of Hechts department stores urging holiday shoppers to boycott Farah pants.
The Hechts in most of the photos is probably Laurel Shopping Center in MD in December 1973.
The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) began organizing Farah factories in El Paso, TX in the early 1970s. In May 1972, Farah fired six workers active in the union organizing drive and a strike by about 2,000 employees began in response.
The ACTWU called a boycott with the support of the AFL-CIO. Students and other organizations set up local committees across the country where picket lines urging a boycott of Farah pants were set up in front of stores that sold Farah. In the Washington, DC area, picket lines were set up at both Hechts and Woodward & Lothrop which were then the dominant retailers in the area.
The owners vowed never to settle with the union but Farah reached a settlement in Feb. 1974 resulting in significant gains in benefits for the predominantly Chicano workers. At the time, Farah was the 2nd largest employer in El Paso.
However, clothing factories across the U.S. began moving operations out of the country and by the mid 1980s there was only one Farah plant in El Paso with about 500 workers. Despite the initial succcess of the Farah campaign, today less than 5% of El Paso workers are unionized.
The ACTWU went through a series of mergers that ultimately formed UNITE-HERe. A recent split of UNITE-HERE leaves the Workers United union as the successor to the ACTWU.
The Hechts location at Laurel Shopping Center was most recently occupied by a Rack Room Shoes. The shopping center was briefly famous as the site of the 1972 attempted assasination of segregationist George Wallace.
This set of photos depicts a May Day picket line (May 1, 1974) at the Trailways terminal on 12th St. NW sponsored by On The Move Newspaper and the United Farmworkers in support of Trailways bus drivers who had been on strike for two years. The drivers were members of the United Transportation Union
The 300 drivers for the Safeway Trails Company (a subsidiary of the Trailways Company that Gulf Oil had a controlling interest in) began a strike April 2, 1972.
Two months after this picket line, an administrative law judge ruled unfair labor practice charges levied by the National Labor Relations Board to be without merit.
This strike foreshadowed the bitter seven week 1983 Greyhound strike that ended in defeat for the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and a disasterous 1990 three-year strike that also ended in defeat for the ATU.
The Trailways terminal on 12th Street between NY Ave. & I St where the photos were taken has been torn down and replaced by a large office building at 1201 New York Ave. NW.
Teamsters strike Safeway: 1969-74
Teamster union Locals 246, 639 and 730 staged a number of strikes against Safeway over the years.
The bulk of the images in this album are from the 1974 strike, although also pictured are 1963 and 1969 strikes.
Warehouse employees represented by Teamsters Local 730 went on strike against Safeway November 6-10 1974 after negotiations over a new contract broke down. A new agreement by the 300 member bargaining unit was ratified by a 30-1 margin.
The Safeway distribution center was located at 1501 Cabin Branch Road in Landover, MD. Safeway has since replaced this warehouse with a newer facility in on nearby Columbia Park Road and a facility in Upper Marlboro. Teamsters Local 730 continues to represent Safeway warehouse employees.
Meatcutters strike betrayed: 1973
Striking meatcutters in Front of Giant Food at 1751 Columbia Road NW in Washington, DC.
Members of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Local 593 went on strike against Washington, D.C. area Giant Food stores October 23, 1973 after contract negotiations broke down. Their contract had expired in September.
The grocery chains retaliated by locking out union meatcutters at five other chains (Safeway, Grand Union, A&P, Acme and Pantry Pride (Food Fair).
Most rank and file members of the Retail Clerks union and the Teamsters refused to cross picket lines. The local unions of the clerks and teamsters then voted to honor the picket lines.
In a betrayal that would reverberate in the years to come, the International office of the Retail Clerks and the Teamsters refused to give permission to honor the Meatcutters picket lines despite the vote by the locals. Teamsters International President Frank Fitzsimmons stated he would not support any AFL-CIO union as long as the AFL-CIO supported the Farmworkers boycott.
In the face of this lack of support, the Meat Cutters voted 695-475 to support a contract that few would have favored before the strike.
The Meat Cutters have since merged with the Retail Clerks to form the United Food & Commericial Workers Union. The Giant Food on Columbia Road has been closed and the chain is now operated by Royal Ahold.
The Retail Clerks union is a predecessor to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union that was formed during a merger between it and the Meatcutters union.
This album contains images from the Retail Clerks union including images from the Sept. 6-13 1974 retail clerks strike in the greater Washington DC area.
Over 13,000 Members of Retail Store Employees Union Local 400 struck Giant Food, Safeway, A&P, Acme, Food Fair and Grand Union after the rank and file twice rejected a contract negotiated by their union leadership fearing it would not keep pace with inflation.
The union leadership had sought to avert the problems that had occurred the previous year when the meat cutters union staged a strike and were defeated. The leadership of Local 400 entered into joint bargaining with their sister clerks union in the Baltimore area and were joined by both the Baltimore and Washington meat cutters unions.
When a tentative agreement with the employer group was reached, the other three unions ratified the agreement, significantly weakening any attempt by the Washington local to improve upon it. As with the meat cutters strike the year before (see Meat cutters Strike Betrayed set), the Teamsters union would not honor picket lines. International Teamsters President Frank Fitzsimmons had stated that as long as the AFL-CIO was supporting the United Farm Workers boycott (see Farm Workers Safeway Boycott set), he would not support any AFL-CIO union.
With their position deteriorating, a significant number of Local 400 members began crossing picket lines and returning to work. The union called for a third vote on the same offer on September 13 and this time the members voted 3628-1772 to accept. The eight day strike had been for naught.
Other images include a strike at People’s Drug store and a strike in an attempt to organize a Discount Records and Books store.
ATU Local 689-No Service: 1974
This set contains images of a Metrobus in 1974 that shows the block number as “689” with a “Local” sign in front of it to represent Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, the union to which most Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority employees belong.
The route number sign is set “NO " and the destination sign set "Not In Service.” The original photos were staged and the shots taken in May 1974 at the Western Bus Garage at Wisconsin and Ingomar Streets NW. The garage is still in operation today.
Union staff strike NEA union: 1974
Employees of the National Education Association (NEA) stage 12 day strike against the organization in February 1974. The employees were represented by Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 2380.
The bitter dispute had striking employees carrying signs that read “Practice What You Preach” and “NEA: Racist, Chauvinist &Anti-Union.” It was largely over seniority and transfer rights.
The NEA’s explanation was that the organization had a right to lay off people for reasons of economy, transfer people to different positions without their permission and measure their productivity. “They have to trust us,” NEA deputy executive director Robert Chanin explained to the Washington Post in what seemed to many like the ultimate irony.
The photos were taken at the NEA headquarters at 16th & M Street (on the M Street side) where the organization is still located.
A number of strikes against Peoples Drug Store have taken place through the years by drivers (Teamsters Local 639), warehouse workers (Teamsters Local 730)k sign painters (Sign, Pictorial and Display Workers Union Local 1129) and pharmacists (Retail Clerks Local 400 – now United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400).
1974 Teamsters Local 730 strike:
185 members of Teamsters Local Union 730 went on strike against the Peoples Drug Store Warehouse Feb. 28, 1974.
Two workers were shot and wounded by a security guard during the strike. While the strike was sanctioned by the local union, the International Teamsters Union refused to recognize it and did not pay strike benefits. The strike lasted 39 days before a settlement was reached.
People’s was later acquired by CVS. The warehouse, near the intersection of Florida Ave and New York Ave NE, Washington DC was renovated and converted to office use in 2002.
Housekeepers and laundry workers went on strike in February 1974 at the Fairfax Hotel to gain their first contract after bargaining broke down.
In the photos, snow begins to fall heavily. During the mid-70s, strike support was commonplace and the photos show a supporter walking the picket line with strikers.
The 20 or so members of the Hotel & Restaurant and Bartenders Union ultimately succeeded and Local 25 of UNITE-HERE (the successor to original union) continues to represent employees at the hotel today. The hotel is located at the corner of 21st Street and Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC
A dispute over the use of non-union workers on federal projects nearly set off a general strike by building trades union in 1937 in Washington, D.C.
However, quick intervention by federal authorities in favor of the unions headed off the general strike and curtailed the painters strike.
A long battle raged within and outside the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) that represented East Coast dockworkers pitting union reformers against an entrenched union bureaucracy that included gangster elements in its midst from 1951-54.
The dispute had its roots in internal disputes within the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) in October 1951 over the ratification of a labor agreement.
Dissident members of the ILA contended that the contract ratification vote was rife with fraud and staged a 25-day strike on the New York waterfront.
In order to end the strike, New York Industrial Commissioner Edward Corsi named a commission to look into the vote.
A 114-page report issued in January 1952 found that the vote was valid and while there were some irregularities, they were not enough to overturn the result.
But the report went far beyond its initial mandate when it found that the union was in need of serious reform and pointed to allegation of gangster influence. The report made no explicit criticisms of the wildcat strikers.
The long struggle continued but ended in defeat for the reformers when both the state and federal government overreached on the side of the reformers and turned many of the rank and file against them.
Worker strikes and demonstrations that occurred during World War II despite “no strike” agreements by many unions and a federal government hostile toward strikes that affected defense industries.
The First Red Scare was a period in the United States from 1919-25 marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism by industrial and political figures, based on real and imagined events.
Real events included those such as the Russian Revolution of 1917 and a widespread bombing campaign by followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galliani.
After World War I, the five-day Seattle General Strike and the anarchist bombing campaign of April and June 1919 that included severely damaging the home of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer set off the initial wave of arrests and repression.
Later in the year the 1919 steel strike led by communist William Z. Foster and the 1919 Coal strike led by John L. Lewis that included local communist leaders of the United Mine Workers caused more fear.
Stoking these fears was the Boston police strike of 1919 causing industrialists and political leaders to fear that they would have no protection against insurrection. Fear of radicalism was used to explain the suppression of freedom of expression in form of display of certain flags and banners. The First Red Scare effectively ended in mid-1920, after Attorney General Palmer forecast a massive radical uprising on May Day and the day passed without incident.
Palmer launched a campaign directed at immigrants and quickly deported nearly 200, most of whom were members of the Union of Russian Workers. Legislation banning marching with red flags was passed in jurisdictions around the country and in 1920 the five socialist members of the New York Assembly were expelled for their political beliefs.
Palmer and rising Justice Department star J. Edgar Hoover continued to beat the drums of the red scare, arresting hundreds and seizing radical publications, but the wind began going out of their sails when predictions of May Day riots never occurred.
Marijuana
In 1973 and 1974 state police used at least one undercover agent on the campus of the University of Maryland that resulted in the arrest of 23 students on drug charges.
Angry students rallied against the police actions and clashed with campus police in front of the administration building in April 1974.
The students later held a smoke-in in defiance of the police attempts to suppress marijuana use.
Honor America Day was staged by supporters of President Richard M. Nixon on July 4, 1970 on the grounds of the Washington Monument and drew an estimated 50,000 people.
Most of the antiwar movement believed this event to be a pro-war rally. Honor America Day was quickly organized after students at nearly 500 campuses went on strike and four students were killed by National Guard at Kent State University and two by police at Jackson State University during antiwar protests.
The principle sponsors were Rev. Billy Graham, Nixon’s personal minister, and the entertainer Bob Hope who headed USO tours for U.S. servicemen. Kate Smith sang God Bless America at the event. Nixon sent greetings to the event
A significant group of protesters numbering several thousand showed up to demand an end to the war in Indochina and demanding legalization of marijuana. Police used tear gas to quell the protests and many in the larger crowd received their first whiff of the stinging gas.
An album of selected recordings from the event highlighted by the Kate Smith rendition memorialized one point of view. On the other hand, the demonstrators recreated the event for many years as an annual “smoke-in” demanding legalization of marijuana.
The Youth International Party (Yippies) were an anarchist youth culture group that attracted a large following in the late 1960s. They sponsored an annual marijuana smoke-in on the Mall in Washington D.C. to openly challenge laws prohibiting legal use of marijuana.
These images are of the 4th annual “smoke-in” and the last held on the Mall. This “smoke-in” took place near 14th Street NW on the Mall and a march was held that ended at the Capital.
The July 4, 1973 event was called to press for legalization of marijuna and for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
The two most prominent founders of the organization were Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Hoffman continued to press for social change until he died under questionable circumstances in 1989. Rubin abandoned his campaign for social justice and became a wealthy businessman before being killed jaywalking in 1994. Both had achieved fame as social activists for their outrageous theatrical style and as defendants in the Chicago 8/7 trial when they and others were accused of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
The annual demonstration to legalize marijuana was held July 3 and 4, 1979.
On July 3rd, a rally in Franklin Park took place adjacent to the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who watched out their windows as marijuana was smoked openly in the park. The marchers shouted “Carter gets high, why can’t I?” and heard speakers like Aaron Kay, best known for throwing pies in prominent people’s faces, and Ed Rosenthal, author of “The Marijuana Grower’s Guide.”
The next day 5,000 assembled at Lafayette Park where they clashed briefly with police who lined the area in front of the White House. Police revoked their permit for the park and forced the group back to the national Mall where demonstrators continued to openly smoke the substance.
The demonstrations were part of an annual July 4 “Smoke-in” that was held for many years to advocate the legalization of marijuana.
Miscellaneous
National alternative periodicals
Left wing and alternative viewpoint periodicals published nationally or by national organizations. Includes newsletters, newspapers on civil rights, labor, Black liberation, anti-Vietnam War, student, and a few international publications, among others.
Images of revolutionary and alternative art, dance, posters, buttons, music and other expressions of a left-wing point of view.
A random collection of radical figures. Some were active in the greater Washington, D.C. area while others directed, influenced or participated in activities.
All, however, had an effect on activists, revolutionaries, anarchists, communists, civil rights leaders, labor leaders and others in the greater Washington area.
The use of flags to make a statement often arouses deep emotions. Raising Nazi German’s flag on American Independence Day to flying the flag of the Vietnamese National Liberation Front around the Washington Monument evokes a reaction that more than 10,000 demonstrators ever could. This album contains images of some of those statements.
National Liberation & Anti-Imperialism
(For Indochina War, see Vietnam War)
World Bank/IMF Protests – 2000-02
Activists protested the World Bank’s financing of the exploitation of natural resources in the Third World for the benefit of corporations and at the expense of the general population in Third World countries. The Washington, D.C. protest occurred in 2000 and 2002.
Many U.S. overseas volunteers were radicalized by their experience. Those radicalized criticized the U.S. for utilizing aid to countries as a weapon. An organization, the Committee of Returned Volunteers, was formed in 1966 that critiqued specific U.S. policies as well as participating in public demonstrations.
The group‘s thinking evolved into an anti-imperialist perspective and concentrated its efforts on liberation of Third World countries and U.S. policy towards those countries.
Puerto Rican sedition trial: 1954-55
Following the wounding of five U.S. Representatives in the Capitol building March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who opened fire on them from a visitor gallery, the U.S. government began a series of mass arrests that resulted in two conspiracy trials 1954-55. A third trial took place in Puerto Rico.
The four participants in the shooting—Delores Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores Rodriguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero—were quickly arrested and convicted in the attack with sentences varying from 16 years to 75 years in jail.
But the federal government went further, convening three different grand juries, summoning 91 Puerto Ricans and bringing indictments against 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government by force.”
The four charged in the shootings were also among the 17 charged with conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that the defendants were “active members, leaders, officers or persons in control of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, which is charged to be an organization dedicated to bringing about the political independence of Puerto Rico from the United States by force of violence or armed revolution.”
In effect, the government was using the same strategy it was using to break up the U.S. Communist Party during that period. If you were an active member of the Nationalist Party, you were guilty even if you committed no illegal acts yourself.
The evidence against most of the defendants committing any specific illegal act was thin.
U.S. Attorney J. Edward Lumbard summed up the case saying that the Nationalist Party had supplied the pistols used in the U.S. Capitol shooting and a 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman and that each of the 13 defendants had their “moral fingerprints on the guns” used.
Lumbard further told the jury that the government did not have to prove that the defendants were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government—only that they had conspired to overthrow the authority of the United States in Puerto Rico.
The defense called five witnesses to testify that the Nationalist Party did not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government and only sought total independence for Puerto Rico.
Lynn told the jury that the government was trying “proscription of a dissenting political group because of its ideas.”
The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding all the defendants guilty.
Two weeks after the verdicts, more arrests took place and a second trial scheduled.
Ten of the 11 were found guilty. Serafin Colon Olivera, 28 of New York, was acquitted. Testimony had indicated he was a Nationalist Party member in 1949 and attended a Nationalist dance in 1953.
Those found guilty in the two trials received sentences ranging from 18 months to six years in prison. Appeals failed.
In Puerto Rico, Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos hailed the attack as “sublime heroism.” The governor revoked a previous pardon of the party leader and he was arrested after a shootout and imprisoned.
Charges were placed against 15 party members on the island, however 12 were acquitted at trial in late 1954. The three found guilty were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3-10 years.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008.
A Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, Castro also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state, while industry and business were nationalized and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
Born in Birán, Oriente as the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana.
After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953.
After a year’s imprisonment, Castro traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl Castro and Che Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista’s forces from the Sierra Maestra.
Castro led the Cuban revolutionary forces to victory in January 1959. He then traveled to the United States seeking ties and business relations between the two countries and was greeted by enthusiastic crowds on several of his unscheduled outings.
The Castro-led revolution that ousted corrupt dictator Fulgencia Batista enjoyed considerable support in the United States until the new Cuban government began nationalizing the property of U.S. corporations in August 1960.
President Dwight Eisenhower froze Cuban assets in the United States and severed diplomatic ties. A long period of hostile relations followed that included several U.S. backed invasions of Cuba, the Cuban missile crisis and the Cuban government’s export of criminals to the United States when the U.S. opened its doors to all Cuban exiles.
The Castro-led government instituted a number of reforms including medical facilities, health, housing, and education that nearly eliminated illiteracy and substantially reduced unemployment. The collapse of the sugar industry, the fall of the Soviet Union and American boycott of Cuba contributed substantially to stagnant economic progress of the tiny island nation.
The government was criticized after its victory for executing former members of the Batista regime and others after quick trials. Most observers did not fault the guilty findings, but found that the trials lacked due process and criticized the excessive use of the death penalty.
Castro stepped down as head of the Cuban government in 2008 and resigned from the Communist Party central committee in 2011.
U.S. President George Bush commented on Castro’s recovery from illness in 2008 and said,
“"One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away". Hearing about this, the atheist Castro with more than a touch of humor replied, "Now I understand why I survived Bush’s plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me."
Castro died of natural causes in 2011.
British out of Ireland: 1969-98
Images of demonstrations and protests in during the years of “The Troubles” from 1968-1998 are contained in this album.
“The Troubles,” were a period that began with predominantly Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland campaigning for civil rights in the late 1960s.
Loyalists to the British formed a paramilitary group called the Ulster Volunteer Force that declared war on the then dormant Irish Republican Army. Clashes between demonstrators for and against British rule soon erupted.
The British Army was sent in to Northern Ireland in August 1969—the country has been partitioned since the war of independence against Britain 1919-22.
By 1970, the IRA was fighting against the paramilitary groups, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army.
A long brutal war ensued with assassinations, bombings, armed clashes. The British refused to treat the IRA as political prisoners resulting in a long campaign within and outside the prisons for status that involved a series of hunger strikes and the death of several IRA imprisoned soldiers.
The fighting largely ended with the withdrawal of British troops and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, although small units have continued military actions.
Forty members of the George Washington University Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) seized Maury Hall, home of the school’s Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies, April 23, 1969.
The students demanded that the Institute be disbanded; the school sever ties Naval Logistics Research Laboratory and the Human Resources Research Office; the school disaffiliate itself from the ROTC program and end military recruiting on campus; and that GW adopt an open admissions policy for African Americans.
The demonstration, sponsored by the GW chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) charged that the Institute was not a center of learning, but an anti-communist bastion that aided the federal government in the Cold War.
Fighting broke out between some fraternity members and supporters of SDS while the occupation took place and students ended the sit-in about 3:30 am August 24th.
Minor damage to desks and file cabinets occurred as the occupiers sought evidence of the institute’s collusion and used desks to barricade themselves in.
The documents were later obtained by the alternative newspaper The Washington Free Press that in turn published some of the documents outlining the university’s role in the Cold War.
Much of the funding for the Institute came from the Ford Foundation that allegedly acted as a conduit for the Central Intelligence Agency.
University president Lloyd Elliot acted quickly to suppress the demonstrations and block student demands.
The University brought internal charges against a number of students, had police arrest several non-students and refused all of the SDS demands. No charges were brought against the fraternity members involved in assaults against SDS supporters.
Among those arrested were Cathy Wilkerson, Washington regional secretary of SDS and Christopher Webber of the Washington Free Press. Charges were later reduced to disorderly conduct and a $10 fine was issued.
During the school’s internal disciplinary process, some students opted for private hearings, but most took part in a public trial that drew hundreds of students who forced their way into the hearing.
A vigorous defense by attorney Michael Tigar resulted in the dropping of vandalism charges against the students. However, seven students were expelled, including GW SDS president Steven Nick Greer, and two others received suspensions of a year.
A second building seizure in protest of suspensions and expulsions occurred after the May 1969 verdicts, but the threat of an injunction ended it quickly.
On appeal to the University’s Hearing Committee, discipline for all nine students was reduced to a reprimand.
Activities of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the greater Washington, D.C. area 1965-69. SDS became the largest New Left group of the sixties, but imploded in 1969–breaking up into three groups. The Progressive Labor Party dominated SDS continued to function until the name was changed to the Committee Against Racism in 1973. The Revolutionary Youth Movement I became the Weather Underground that conducted a series of bombings of political targets in the U.S. The third faction, Revolutionary Youth Movement II, spawned two Maoist group–The October League that dissolved in 1982 while the second faction bolstered the existing Revolutionary Union (later Revolutionary Communist Party) that still exists as of 2025.
Opposition to the U.S. led coalition that waged war against Iraq in 1991.
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The war against fascism drew Washington, D.C. and surrounding area residents to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a volunteer army, to fight the forces of right wing leader Francisco Franco in Spain beginning in 1937and ending late in 1938.
The Spanish Civil War was in some respects a trial run for the larger conflict of World War II. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany backed Franco’s efforts to overthrow the left wing elected government of Spain backed by the Soviet Union.
Western countries imposed an arms embargo on both sides that meant the only arms flowing to the democratic government were those coming a circuitous route from the Soviet Union.
As the war began to turn against the Republicans, the International Brigades were withdrawn in late 1938.
After three brutal years of war 1936-39, the Republicans were defeated. Democracy was not restored to the country until after Franco’s death in 1975.
Before NSA was synonymous with the National Security Agency, it was widely known as the initials of the United States National Student Association.
In a five year period from 1966 to 1971, it made an astonishing shift from a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-funded anti-communist bulwark to a group that helped lead a student strike against the Vietnam War and negotiate a “People’s Peace Treaty” with their counterparts in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North) and Provisional Revolutionary Government/National Liberation Front (Viet Cong).
Images related to demonstrations and protests for the Palestinian cause.
Puerto Rican nationalists: 1950-54
In response to the anti-colonial movements that gathered steam around the world after World War II, the United States proposed a new relationship with Puerto Rico that resulted in the current commonwealth status in 1948.
The island had been a U.S. colony since 1898 when Spain ceded it after 400 years of rule following the Spanish-American war. Puerto Rican nationalists always rejected this status, arguing under international law that such a transfer was illegal and that the island was a nation.
Puerto Rican nationalists rejected the 1948 commonwealth arrangement whereby local officials would make laws subject to U.S. approval and they staged a series of armed actions aimed at achieving independence.
These included a November 1, 1950 attempt to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman as well as armed actions that were defeated in a number of cities and towns. By 1952 the revolt was largely crushed and Truman organized a plebiscite where the new status was approved by Puerto Rican voters.
Undeterred, a section of the nationalist movement organized an attack on the U.S. House of Representatives March 1, 1954 that wounded five congressmen, one seriously. The attack was intended to garner action by the United Nations on Puerto Rico’s status.
The nationalist movement gained steam again in the 1960s, but was again defeated.
Independence has been rejected in number of referendums held, including the latest in 2012 where statehood was preferred by a plurality.
While U.S government programs like Medicaid, welfare, food stamps and other direct assistance programs provide lower benefits than those in the states, opponents of independence play on fears of losing existing benefits on the economically depressed island as a reason to oppose independence.
However, the island is currently in an even deeper financial straits. It has been in recession for 10 consecutive years and its government debt equals 68% of its gross domestic product—making it impossible to repay under current terms.
Despite this, the island’s population has not turned toward independence in large numbers. However, a careful reading of the 2012 referendum shows that a majority explicitly rejected the current commonwealth status and that a majority of voters did not select statehood—either not voting for a preferred alternative at all or favoring some form of independence.
Images related to the two and a half year war of independence between the Irish Republican Army and Royal Irish Constabulary that was supplemented by the Black and Tans from 1919-1921.
Most of the the protests and demonstrations in the Washington, D.C. area were conducted by women–infiltrating the U.S. House and Senate and giving speeches before being expelled, dropping leaflets from an airplane on the British embassy, using an unauthorized float car to steal the show at an Independence Day parade, demonstrating on horseback and countless hours of picket duty throughout the city.
This album contains photos of anti-imperialist demonstrations in Washington, D.C. from 1920-1990.
Images of demonstrations in favor of liberating African countries from colonial and imperial domination and White settler regimes.
This set contains images of an undated Washington, DC demonstration by Iranian students protesting the Shah that took place in late 1973 or early 1974 and ended with a picket line near the Iranian Embassy at 3003-05 Massachusetts Avenue NW.
During the picket line a small delegation went to the Austrian Chancery located at 2343 Massachusetts Ave NW and delivered an appeal for those arrested and tortured by the Shah’s secret police.
The Shah was an Iranian monarch that had been briefly deposed in 1953 before being restored through efforts of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Protests with Iranian students and their supporters wearing masks were common place in DC at that time. The masks were to conceal the students’ identity from the Shah’s secret police called SAVAK.
The protestor’s sign that read “Defend the Twelve Iranian Artists,” refers to the arrest of twelve writers, poets and filmakers October 1, 1973 for allegedly plotting to assassinate or kidnap the Shah and his family at a Tehran film festival scheduled for November of that year
The Shah staged the trial of the 12 on national TV. There was little evidence that the twelve even knew each other, but all were aware that the prosecution was asking for the death sentence and evidence later came out that many were tortured.
As a result, seven of the twelve gave confessions and asked the Shah for forgiveness. They received light sentences. The remaining five refused to admit guilt and evidence later came out that they were further tortured. Three of the five would not admit guilt, but asked the Shah for forgiveness and received life imprisonment.
Karamatollh Daneshian and Khosrow Golesorkhi instead defended revolution against the Shah during the televised trial.
They were sentenced to death. Golesorkhi and Daneshian signed their last will as “People’s Fada” which could mean devotees of the people or could be an allusion to their sympathy for the Fadaiyan-e Khalq guerrillas, a Marxist Leninist group that was waging armed warfare against the Shah’s regime.
Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the two, or any other member of the group, had any actual connection to the guerrillas. The two were executed by firing squad February 17, 1974.
Massive demonstrations and strikes earlier in the year against the Shah had turned public opinion against the regime. The public trial and executions solidified that opposition.
Say no to Rhodesian chrome: 1973
This set contains one image of a picket line set up outside the Baltimore, MD docks urging longshoremen to refuse to unload Rhodesian goods sometime in 1973.
Rhodesia was formed by a white minority which declared independence from the United Kingdom (UK) in 1965, effectively ending a British plan to divest itself of the colony by installing a multi-racial democracy.
The UN called for a boycott of Rhodesia the same year. However, the U.S. during the Nixon administration (1969-74), was permitting trade with the rogue country.
Pacifists, left-wing groups, African-American rights groups and rank and file dockworkers began working together to boycott ships that carried Rhodesian goods beginning in 1972. Members of the predominantly white locals and the predominantly black local union both refused to unload the cargo.
Some excerpts from “The Dockworker,” Baltimore, Dec. 1, 1973, published by a rank and file longshoremen’s group called the Militant Action Dockworkers:
‘We’ve also heard that a bad flu virus called the Rhodesian flu is due to hit the port Dec. 9. Anybody with Rhodesian flu who comes within a mile radius of any Rhodesian goods goes berserk and can’t work for at least 24 hours.”
“Many of us have justly refused to touch these cargoes. We feel that we might as well send guns and ammunition to the racist white minority government of Rhodesia if we’re going to help them sell their goods in the U.S.”
“Now Rhodesia may seem far away, and imperialism may seem like a nasty word but as long as we all work for a boss, and that boss gets rich off our labor, we’re all in the same boat whether we’re black and work in a Rhodesian mine or unload cargo in the port of Baltimore. We’re all getting shafted by the same big international companies. Now these big corporations are organized internationally so we must be organized internationally too.”
By the end of 1973, Baltimore dockworkers had refused to unload several different loads of chrome, ferro-chrome and nickel cathodes. They were ultimately joined by dockworkers in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Louisiana and other ports in refusing to unload Rhodesian goods.
The world-wide boycott, combined with an armed insurrection in Rhodesia, eventually led to the near collapse of the white minority Rhodesian government which finally agreed to relinquish power and hold elections in 1979. A new constitution was adopted the same year.
These images depict a demonstration against the Greek military junta April 21 1974 in front of the White House to mark the 7th anniversary of the fascist seizure of power.
A group of right-wing military colonels staged a coup in April 1967 and ruled repressively; outlawing political parties, ending freedom of the press and jailing and torturing opponents. There were ongoing protests both inside and outside of Greece that culminated in November 1973 when students at the National Technical University of Athens (Polytechnic) staged a student strike and sit-in against the regime.
The junta responded by sending in tanks and most remaining supporters turned against the colonels. The colonels attempted to rally national support by staging a coup in Cyprus, but Turkey responded by invading and occupying the island.
With all political support for the junta gone, senior military officials withdrew their support and invited opposition political leaders to form an interim government and hold elections that ended this period of Greek fascism in November 1974.
The reference to “Z” in one of the demonstration protest signs refers to the 1969 Costa Gavras film that depicted the 1963 assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis, a populist member of the Greek parliament. The film, which was banned in Greece by the colonels, nonetheless captured anti-junta sentiment.
March through the streets of Washington DC by Iranian students against U.S. backed Shah of Iran in Washington, DC June 1974. The march was called specifically to protest the non-renewal of passports for 41 Iranian citizens by the Shah’s government.
The march ended with a picket near the Iranian Embassy at 3000 block of Massachusetts Ave. NW.
Protests with Iranian students and their supporters wearing masks was common place in DC at that time. The masks were to conceal students identity from the Shah’s secret police called SAVAK.
The Shah was an Iranian monarch that had been briefly deposed in 1953 before being restored through efforts of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Most of the demonstrators were backers of marxist oriented groups like the Organization of Iranian People’s Fedai Guerrillas, the Organization of the Iranian People s Fadaian Guerrillas or the People’s Mujahedin of Iran. Islamic groups like the Confederation of Iranian Students and the Islamic Association of Students were also represented.
Mass demonstration began in Iran in October 1977 and developed into a campaign of civil resistance that was partly secular and partly religious. Between August and December 1978 strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran for exile in mid-January 1979, and in the resulting power vacuum two weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians. The royal regime collapsed shortly after on February 11 when marxist-oriented guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting.
While not the dominant force in ousting the Shah, Khomeini rapidly consolidated power. Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979 and to approve a new theocratic constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country, in December 1979. Khomeini quickly moved to suppress other opposition groups, jailing and executing opponents. Armed and unarmed opposition continues today.
Picket line in front of the White House Oct 11, 1973 (during 4th Arab-Israeli War) protesting U.S. aid to Israel.
The 4th Arab-Israeli War began October 6, 1973 and both the Syrians and Egyptians scored initial successes with tanks. Israel lost about one-quarter of its airforce in the first week of the war and the U.S. dispatched the aircraft carrier Iwo Jima to the Mediterranean, beefing up its air and marine forces in the area.
Israeli resistance and counter-attacks ultimately staved off the Arab attack which was designed to regain the Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula which Israel had captured during the 1967 War. The U.S. began re-supply of Israel during the war.
While the war ended in victory for the Israelis, the dramatic, early successes of the Egyptians and Syrians led political upheaval in Israel.
Arab countries, while militarily defeated, were buoyed by signficiant damage done to Israeli “invincibility.”
The war led to the 1979 Camp David Accords negotiated by Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat and U.S. President Jimmy Carter where Egypt recognized Israel as a state and Israel returned Sinai to Egypt. Egypt was expelled from the Arab league and Sadat was assasinated two years later.
Many US citizens opposed the entry of Lthe U.S. into World War I, though Congress ended up voting overwhelmingly in favor of declaring war against Germany in 1917.
Native Americans
Images and documents related to the long campaign to Free Native American activist Leonard Peltier who was granted clemency by President Joseph Biden in January 2025 and released from prison after nearly 50 years in February 2025.
Clemency had been sought for Peltier’s conviction for killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975. The FBI claimed the two agents were executed, but Peltier and two others charged said they only opened fire in self defense.
Peltier’s co-defendants were acquitted in separate trials, but Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two life terms.
The Long Walk for Survival was a cross-country demonstration by Native Americans that ended in Washington, D.C. with a series of demonstrations and prayer meetings over two weeks from Nov. 1-14, 1980 to draw attention to the issues of nuclear power and forced sterilization of Native women.
The walk began on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Gay six months earlier. About 100 demonstrators made the whole trek to Washington, D.C. where they were joined by several hundred more Native Americans and supporters.
They protested the forced sterilization of 60-70,000 Native women in the previous 12 years and the dumping of nuclear waste on Indian reservations as well a more general demand for more self-determination on the reservations.
"The United States must cease killing Indian people with uranium and stop nuclear development on Indian lands…there must be an end to sterilization of Indian women in the United States…preserve a healthy and peaceful living world for our future generations…stop the human genocide, protect our Indian treaty rights, protect Indian resources, and the hunting and fishing rights," said a flyer for the walk.
"The beginning of the Long Walk was against the registration for the draft. All you read in the papers now is about the hostages in Iran. We have concerns of all things which include genocide, and more serious problems," said Perry Seely, public relations officer for the Walk.
After demonstrating in Washington, the walk went to New York said Seely. The Walk manifesto “will be presented to the United Nations in New York and then will be presented to the Russell [International War Crimes] Tribunal in Rotterdam, Netherlands," concluded Seely.
Police arrested 24 Native Americans at the Bureau of Indian Affairs after a brief clash with guards inside the building September 22, 1971 after a meeting between the American Indian Movement and BIA Deputy Commissioner John Crow was denied.
Russel Means, an AIM leader, then attempted to lead the group of Native Americans up a stairwell to Crow’s office to conduct a “citizens arrest.”
Shoving and pushing then erupted between the Native American protesters and BIA guards.
Earlier the protesters had briefly occupied two rooms demanding a meeting with Crow.
Means charged that Crow had misled the group when he sent other officials to talk to them. Means also said that Crow had violated water rights of southwestern Indians and had committed crimes against Native peoples.
Earlier, Peter MacDonald, chair of the Navajo Tribal Council and member of the Tribal Chairmen’s Association, called for Crow’s removal.
He said Crow and Wilma Victor, special deputy for Indian affairs to Interior Secretary Rogers C. B. Morton, had attempted to stop all reforms in the BIA which were aimed at giving Natives more self-determination.
BIA Commissioner Louis Bruce and Crow asked the Interior Department to drop the unlawful entry charges against the protesters. Later that evening when they were released, Bruce held a meeting with the AIM group. An Interior spokesperson characterized the meeting as “mutually supportive.”
Bruce promised to “get to the bottom” of the reason police were called to quell the demonstration and to “take appropriate action.”
Means said the group had not wanted confrontation and generally is supportive of Bruce’s policies.
The AIM demonstration took place while the mainstream National Tribal Chairmen’s Association was meeting with and lobbying various government officials.
The following year an AIM demonstration, the Trail of Broken Treaties, would again result in clashes with BIA guards. The 1972 protest resulted in a week-long occupation of the BIA building where thousands of documents were “liberated” showing government complicity with the expropriation of Native resources.
The Longest Walk (1978) was spurred by the introduction of 11 bills that would strip Native Americans of water rights and abrogated treaties.
The demonstration was organized by the American Indian Movement as a spiritual 3200-mile walk across the country from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco to Washington, D.C.
It began February aa, 1978 with a ceremony on Alcatraz Island with a sacred pipe that was carried the entire journey
The walk educated people along the way about Native issues and rallied tribes across the country to support the effort.
Several thousand marchers entered Washington, D.C. July 15, 1978 representing both Native and non-Native supporters.
Rallies were held to publicize Native issues including the 11 bills, Native political prisoners, forced re-locations, among other issues.
Prominent supporters included Marlon Brando and Muhammad Ali.
None of the 11. Bills passed Congress.
Subsequent to this walk, four other Longest Walks were held: Longest Walk II (1978), Longest Walk III (2011), Longest Walk IV (2013—starting in Washington, D.C and ending in Alcatraz) and Longest Walk V (2016).
Trail of Self Determination: 1976
The Trail of Self-Determination was conceived by the American Indian Movement (AIM) as a way to challenge federal authorities and gain publicity for their demands during the nation’s Bicentennial celebration.
The car caravan began in Washington state with the Yakima nation and wound its way across the country in June 1976, gaining participants throughout the Northwest and Plains States—including the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux of South Dakota and the Wolf Point Sioux and Blackfoot of Montana.
The Trail group was accompanied by participants from El Centro de la Raza of Seattle. Robert Maestas said the Chicanos were providing support, but also are directly concerned with their own treaties — the treaty rights in the 1948 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
The Native Americans who formed AIM were distrustful of many tribal chiefs whom they viewed as having sold out for power and money and acted as agents of repression on many of the reservations.
Clashes with federal authorities occurred throughout the 1970s, including at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Washington, D.C.
While the Trail was being organized and underway, AIM leader Russel Means was shot and wounded for the third time, allegedly by a BIA police officer and it was revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had shared intelligence on a peaceful Native American protest in Bowling Green, Ky. with the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Trail of Self-Determination adopted the 20-point demands of the earlier Trail of Broken Treaties that occupied the BIA in Washington, D.C. in 1972.
The focus, however, was on economic self-determination: expanded land use rights, revision of mineral concessions and “permanent sovereignty over natural resources.”
The group of about 150 participants arrived in Washington, D.C. on July 3,, 1976 and set up encampments at an American University soccer field in Northwest Washington and at the Piscataway Indian Center in Waldorf and promptly held a demonstration at the U.S. Capitol.
Arnold Richardson, a local leader, said “Indians have nothing to celebrate. Our land has been stolen. We are under the racist rule of the BIA and we have had 200 people murdered since Wounded Knee.
On the July 4th Bicentennial, the group, their numbers having swelled to about 300, gathered in front of the White House to a beating drum demanding a meeting with President Gerald Ford and a joint session of Congress to establish a new system of Indian self-government.
There was little press coverage of the demonstrations much less their demands until Secretary of Interior Dennis Ickes ordered their arrest when they sought a tour of the old Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building on Constitution Avenue.
Fifty-four of the group were arrested: 16 men, 16 women and 22 juveniles who refused to post the $10 collateral. The D.C. Corporation Counsel quickly dropped charges against all those arrested.
AIM spokesperson Dennis Banks said the group had been “politically attacked because they are Indians” and that the FBI had been spreading false rumors that the group intended violence.
Despite the arrests, the group met with BIA officials the next day and presented a plan for Native self-determination. The BIA officials offered platitudes, but deferred on specific demands saying that such proposals would have to be put forward through the existing tribal structure in order to be seriously considered.
At the campgrounds, participants gathered in a circle around the drums, sometimes calling out, sometimes dancing, sometimes chanting.
One participant said, “The drum is round like the continuity of life. It is a celebration of life.”
One of the favorites chants referring to Native Americans who sell out their people was:
I see an apple,
Red on the outside,
White on the inside,
Rotten to the core.
As the evenings wore on, the demonstrators would one-by-one leave the drum circle and head for the tall teepees made of pine poles and canvass—or hogans, lodges or tents—depending on where you came from
The group continued its daily White House demonstrations until late in the month when they broke camp and headed home—their demands largely lost in the press coverage of the larger U.S. Bicentennial celebration.
20-point AIMS demands:
•Restoration of treaty making (ended by Congress in 1871).
•Establishment of a treaty commission to make new treaties (with sovereign Native Nations).
•Indian leaders to address Congress.
•Review of treaty commitments and violations.
•Unratified treaties to go before the Senate.
•All Indians to be governed by treaty relations.
•Relief for Native Nations for treaty rights violations.
•Recognition of the right of Indians to interpret treaties.
•Joint Congressional Committee to be formed on reconstruction of Indian relations.
•Restoration of 110 million acres of land taken away from Native Nations by the United States.
•Restoration of terminated rights.
•Repeal of state jurisdiction on Native Nations.
•Federal protection for offenses against Indians.
•Abolishment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
•Creation of a new office of Federal Indian Relations.
•New office to remedy breakdown in the constitutionally prescribed relationships between the United States and Native Nations.
•Native Nations to be immune to commerce regulation, taxes, trade restrictions of states.
•Indian religious freedom and cultural integrity protected.
•Establishment of national Indian voting with local options; free national Indian organizations from governmental controls
•Reclaim and affirm health, housing, employment, economic development, and education for all Indian people.
Images of The Trail of Broken Treaties demonstration November 2-9, 1972 in Washington, D.C. are contained in this set.
The demonstration was intended to forge a new relationship between Native Americans and the federal government, but negotiations over a 20-point set of demands were quickly overshadowed when General Services Administration police attacked the protestors inside the Bureau of Indian Affairs building.
Native Americans quickly repelled the attack and sealed off the building, beginning a seven day occupation that ended peacefully after many tense moments.
During the occupation, the protesters gathered hundreds of incriminating documents detailing the thievery of Native American resources by corporations aided by Congress.
Images of miscellaneous protests demonstrations, rallies and/’or prayer offerings in and around the Washington, D.C. area.
Prison Rights
Alderson federal women’s prison is where nearly all women from the Washington, D.C. area were incarcerated because all charges in the District were brought under the federal jurisdiction. The prison is approximately a four-hour drive from the city, making visitation of inmates difficult.
Activists in the Washington, D.C. area organized protests, including one October 2, 1971 following the September 1971 Attica uprising and organized bus trips to visit the incarcerated women.
The prison held a number of prominent activists over the years including Lolita Lebron, Puerto Rican activist who took part in the assault on Congress in 1954; and Communist Party USA leaders Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Claudia Jones, jailed during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.
Rebellion against system: DC jail: 1972
These images are related to a rebellion that occurred at the old DC jail located at 19th Street and Independence Avenue SE on October 11, 1972.
Prisoners took eleven hostages, including Corrections Director Kenneth Hardy and demanded juveniles be housed separately from adults, decent food be provided and overcrowded conditions be addressed among other demands.
The Washington Post quoted one prisoner, “We remember what happened to George Jackson, we remember what happened to Jonathan Jackson, his brother. We remember what happened at Attica…”
Another said, “This is a revolutionary act, man. This is an act of rebellion against the system. This is an act for respect and for us to be treated like men, not like animals in a cage. This is a positive action.”
After an emergency court hearing and negotiations that involved a number of city officials, an agreement was reached to improve conditions and grant amnesty to all involved. All hostages were released and no one suffered serious injury.
Shortly thereafter the Committee for the Survival of DC Prisoners (CFS of DCP) was formed to attempt to insure that no reprisals were taken and promises of improved conditions were implemented. The group held a number of demonstrations and picket lines to bring attention to the plight of prisoners some 900 of whom were crowded into a 100 year old jail meant for half that number.
Despite the promises, the U.S. attorney indicted 14 of the prisoners involved in the uprising and obtained convictions for most. They received varying additional prison time ranging from 1-10 years.
Commissioner Hardy was replaced shortly after the uprising and testified in court that the uprising was a protest, not an escape attempt. Nevertheless, his signed promise of no reprisals was ignored.
Promises of better conditions also went unfulfilled, with the D.C. Courts ending up overseeing prisoners and at one point ordering prisoner releases in order to alleviate overcrowding. A replacement jail was built in 1976.
However, due to overcrowding, the old jail continued in use for several more years before being torn down. The replacement jail continued under court supervision for its deplorable conditions. There is now talk again of a new replacement jail.
DC Women’s Detention Center: 1973
Women inmates staged a strike over conditions in April 1973. Pictured are the Women’s Detention Center in 1972 and a scan of an article that appeared in the Washington Area Spark about the strike and a support demonstration. The photo in the the article reprint is credited to Insurgent Press.
Photos of a rally and picket lines in support of the "October 11 Brothers" and for better prison conditions on September 8, 1973.
On October 11, 1972, an uprising took place at the old D.C. jail, located at 19th St. and Independence Ave. SE. Prisoners took eleven hostages, including Corrections Director Kenneth Hardy and demanded juveniles be housed separately from adults, decent food be provided and overcrowded conditions among other demands.
The Washington Post quoted one prisoner, “We remember what happened to George Jackson, we remember what happened to Jonathan Jackson, his brother. We remember what happened at Attica…”
Another said, “This is a revolutionary act, man. This is an act of rebellion against the system. This is an act for respect and for us to be treated like men, not like animals in a cage. This is a positive action.”
After an emergency court hearing and negotiations that involved a number of city officials, an agreement was reached to improve conditions and grant amenesty to all involved. All hostages were released and no one suffered serious injury.
Shortly thereafter the Committee for the Survival of DC Prisoners (CFS of DCP) was formed to attempt to insure that no reprisals were taken and promises of improved conditions were implemented. The group held a number of demonstrations and picket lines to bring attention to the plight of prisoners some 900 of whom were crowded into a 100 year old jail meant for half that number.
Despite the promises, the U.S. attorney indicted 14 of the prisoners involved in the uprising and obtained convictions for most. They received varying additional prison time ranging from 1-10 years. Commissioner Hardy was replaced shortly after the uprising and testified in court that the uprising was a protest, not an escape attempt. Nevertheless, his signed promise of no reprisals was ignored.
Promises of better conditions also went unfulfilled, with the D.C. Courts ending up overseeing prisoners and at one point ordering prisoner releases in order to alleviate overcrowding. A replacement jail was built in 1976. However, due to overcrowding, the old jail continued in use for several more years before being torn down. The replacement jail continued under court supervision for its deplorable conditions. There is now talk again of a new replacement jail.
This image set is from a picket line on the opening day of the “October 11 Brothers” in front of the federal courthouse at John Marshall Plaza (near 3rd St. & Constitution Ave. NW) February 7, 1974
On October 11, 1972, an uprising took place at the old D.C. jail, located at 19th St. and Independence Ave. SE. Prisoners took eleven hostages, including Corrections Director Kenneth Hardy and demanded juveniles be housed separately from adults, decent food be provided and overcrowded conditions among other demands.
The Washington Post quoted one prisoner, “We remember what happened to George Jackson, we remember what happened to Jonathan Jackson, his brother. We remember what happened at Attica…”
Another said, “This is a revolutionary act, man. This is an act of rebellion against the system. This is an act for respect and for us to be treated like men, not like animals in a cage. This is a positive action.”
After an emergency court hearing and negotiations that involved a number of city officials, an agreement was reached to improve conditions and grant amenesty to all involved. All hostages were released and no one suffered serious injury.
Shortly thereafter the Committee for the Survival of DC Prisoners (CFS of DCP) was formed to attempt to insure that no reprisals were taken and promises of improved conditions were implemented. The group held a number of demonstrations and picket lines to bring attention to the plight of prisoners some 900 of whom were crowded into a 100 year old jail meant for half that number.
Despite the promises, the U.S. attorney indicted 14 of the prisoners involved in the uprising and obtained convictions for most. They received varying additional prison time ranging from 1-10 years. Commissioner Hardy was replaced shortly after the uprising and testified in court that the uprising was a protest, not an escape attempt. Nevertheless, his signed promise of no reprisals was ignored.
Promises of better conditions also went unfulfilled, with the D.C. Courts ending up overseeing prisoners and at one point ordering prisoner releases in order to alleviate overcrowding. A replacement jail was built in 1976. However, due to overcrowding, the old jail continued in use for several more years before being torn down. The replacement jail continued under court supervision for its deplorable conditions. There is now talk again of a new replacement jail.
Slave Resistance/Revolts/Military Action
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland.
Tubman escaped slavery from a plantation not far from Cambridge, Md. and went on to help as many as 300 African Americans escape slavery, served as a spy for the Union Army and became an abolitionist and spokesperson for African American rights.
Attempts to escape slavery were common–and some were successful.
A mass slave escape from plantations around Cambridge, Maryland in 1857 by 28 men, women and children during a three day storm.
The group was armed for battle to fight for their freedom, but managed to slip past the slave patrols and slave catchers to make their way to Philadelphia, Pa. and ultimately resettle in other locations.
In another great strike for freedom, six enslaved humans from Fauquier and Loudoun counties set out for Pennsylvania in 1855.
A group of slave catchers caught up to them near present day Woodbine, Maryland where an armed confrontation occurred.
Four of the six managed to escape. One was caught and the fate of the other remains unknown. The two women in the party drew their pistols along with the men.
The leader of the group, Frank Wanzer later returned to Virginia to lead another group to freedom.
In a third escape in 1858, six sought freedom by crossing Delaware Bay from Lewes to Cape May.
A battle in the bay left them wounded, but they successfully fought off their pursuers, ultimately gaining their freedom in Canada.
A fourth confrontation took place in a Maryland barn near Taneytown in 1853.
Pistol shots were exchanged and both escaping slaves and slave catchers were wounded.
Three of the enslaved men were captured and re-sold in slavery while the fourth, a badly wounded Wesley Harris, would escape his captors and make his way to freedom in Canada where he became a brakeman on the Great Western Railroad.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland in 1818. The plantation was between Hillsboro and Cordova; his birthplace was likely his grandmother’s shack east of Tappers Corner, (38.8845°N 75.958°W) and west of Tuckahoe Creek.
The exact date of his birth is unknown, and he later chose to celebrate his birthday on February 14. In his first autobiography, Douglass stated: "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it." Upon gaining freedom, he adopted the name Douglass.
In his autobiography, Douglass related how he learned to read from white children in the neighborhood, and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked.
Douglass credited The Columbian Orator, an anthology that he discovered at about age twelve, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights. The book, first published in 1797, is a classroom reader, containing essays, speeches and dialogues, to assist students in learning reading and grammar.
After several failed escape attempts, Douglass boarded a train in Baltimore disguised as a sailor and made the trip to New York City, aided by money and documents provided by his fiancé, Anna Murray who was a free black woman living in Baltimore.
There Douglass went on to become a social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his dazzling oratory[5] and incisive antislavery writings.
During the Civil War, he urged President Abraham Lincoln to utilize African American soldiers. In the 1864 election, he supported John C. Fremont against Lincoln because the President would not commit to voting rights for African Americans.
After the war, he enthusiastically supported President Ulysses S. Grant’s armed suppression of the White Leagues and Red Shirts that were paramilitary arms of the Democratic Party in the South attempting to overthrow elected governments.
In a speech delivered on November 15, 1867, Douglass said: "A man’s rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex."
Douglass re-located to Washington, D.C. to publish The New National Era, a newspaper designed to cover Reconstruction, the Republican Party and African American Washington, D.C.
Douglass briefly served in the upper house of Washington’s form of self-government before resigning and clearing the way for his son Lewis to serve.
He served briefly as President of the insolvent Freedman’s Savings Bank and was confirmed by the Senate as the city’s United States Marshal during the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes.
He worked as Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia for five years and in 1889 was appointed Minister to Haiti.
During this period these jobs helped bring in income, but Douglass stayed true to his calling of being the premier spokesperson for African Americans.
He weighed in on the lack of suffrage in the District saying, “What have the people of the District done that they should be excluded from the privileges of the ballot box? Where, when and how did they incur the penalty of taxation without representation?”
Douglass’ home Cedar Hill in Anacostia often served as a meeting place for both city residents and national social justice advocates.
Douglass died February 20, 1895 after he attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. where he received a standing ovation. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke. He was 77.
Upon hearing of his death, suffragist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the following words that were read at Douglass’s funeral by Susan B. Anthony:
“Taking up the morning Tribune, the first words that caught my eye thrilled my very soul. ‘Frederick Douglass is dead!’’ What vivid memories thick and fast flashed through my mind and held me spellbound in contemplation of the long years since first we met.”
“Trained in the severe school of slavery, I saw him first before a Boston audience, fresh from the land of bondage. He stood there like an African prince, conscious of his dignity and power, grand in his physical proportions, majestic in his wrath, as with keen wit, satire and indignation he portrayed the bitterness of slavery, the humiliation of subjection to those who in all human virtues and capacities were inferior to himself. His denunciation of our national crime, of the wild and guilty fantasy that men could hold property in man, poured like a torrent that fairly made his hearers tremble….”
This album contains images of African Americans who fought during the U.S. Civil War 1861-65 in the greater Washington, D.C area along with related images.
Mark Caesar and Bill Wheeler led a group of 75 armed slaves on a march from Charles County to Rockville, Md July 7-8, 1845.
The group was on its way to freedom in Pennsylvania when intercepted by the Montgomery Volunteers who encircled, and after a brief battle, captured many of the escapees.
The two leaders were put on trial. Wheeler was sentenced to death but escaped. Caesar had a mistrial declared on charges of insurrection, but was convicted in a second trial of aiding and abetting the escape of slaves and sentenced to 40 years in prison where he died after five years.
DC African American veterans of the GAR–Grand Army of the Republic–that were active during the Civil War.
The September 11, 1851 Christiana “Riot,” was the first major skirmish to challenge slavery following the “Compromise of 1850.”
A Maryland slave owner was killed in Lancaster Pennsylvania attempting to retrieve his enslaved men who had escaped to freedom. His son was severely wounded along with another relative.
The armed resistance at the farm of a free African American named William Parker emboldened abolitionists and outraged slave owners.
The roots of the confrontation lay in the 1850 compromise between free states and slave states in the U.S. Congress.
Political confrontation between free states and slave states was growing in the years preceding the Civil War primarily over whether slavery would be permitted in territories seized during the war with Mexico.
The 1850 compromise was enacted by a series of bills on close votes in the House and Senate and outraged both abolitionists and staunch slave owners.
Its terms included:
1. For the abolitionists, California was admitted to the U.S. as a free state, the compromise permitted the Utah and New Mexico territories to decide for themselves the issue of slavery (neither territory was suitable for a plantation economy and extremely unlikely to approve slavery) and outlawed slave trade (but not slavery) within the District of Columbia.
2. The admission of California tilted the number of free states to a 16-15 majority. However, as part of the compromise, California agreed to send one pro-slavery senator and one anti-slavery senator to keep the balance in the U.S. Senate.
3. In addition, the slave state of Texas agreed to recede some of their northern border to New Mexico and the federal government assumed Texas’ debt.
4. Slave owners were granted a provision that strengthened the existing Fugitive Slave Act. There would no longer be any trial nor any evidence presented by African Americans against their forcible return to a slave state.
A slave owner could swear out an arrest warrant that would be delivered by a U.S Marshal(s). Under the law, any white man was obligated to assist in the capture of slaves escaping to freedom.
A burgeoning business was birthed where unscrupulous slave catchers formed bands for hire and were quickly deputized. With no recourse to courts, free African Americans were kidnapped in non-slave states and enslaved in addition to the capture of those fleeing slavery.
The Christiana confrontation began when four enslaved men fled the plantation of Edward Gorsuch in Baltimore County in Maryland November 6, 1849. The men were Noah Baley, Nelson Ford, George Hammond, and Joshua Hammond.
Gorsuch sought their return May 28, 1851 when he filed paperwork with the United States District Court for Maryland, along with two other men who escaped slavery earlier in 1844.
Gorsuch then headed for Pennsylvania with his son, Dickinson; a nephew, Dr Pearce; a cousin, Joshua M. Gorsuch; and two neighbors, Nathan Nelson and Nicholas Hutchings. They were joined in Pennsyvlania by deputy U.S. Marshal Henry H. Kline and William Padgett, a local Lancaster man who had alerted Gorsuch to the location of three of the men who had escaped Gorsuch’s enslavement.
The slave catchers approached Parker’s home where Parker greeted them and refused to surrender the escapees.
A verbal confrontation arose with Gorsuch swearing to take the men and Parker adamantly refusing. Both sides brandished arms.
As the confrontation grew more heated, Parker’s wife Eliza opened up a second floor window and blew a horn, a local message to other nearby farms that immediate assistance was needed.
Someone in Gorsuch’s party opened fire on Eliza Parker, but did not hit her—due to the stone construction of the house and the deep windows. Parker said later a dozen shots were fired at her. Locals, both black and white responded to the horn and converged on Parker’s farmhouse.
The Gorsuch party and Parker’s group fired upon each other apparently without effect, but ceased fire while dialogue continued.
Kline enlisted any arriving whites that would agree into the slave catchers’ posse while African Americans armed with firearms and tools took up with Parker. A number of white Quakers arrived, including Castner Hanway who refused to aid Kline and advised him to withdraw.
Gorsuch would not withdraw and the men opened fire on each other . Men on both sides were wounded and the elder Gorsuch died of his wounds.
Quickly realizing what would happen next, the escaped slaves and Parker and his wife successfully fled to Canada.
Slave owners throughout the country were outraged that African American men had taken up arms and killed, wounded and driven off the slavers.
Thirty-seven African Americans were indicated for treason against the United States along with four white men.
The prosecution brought the first case against the white Quaker, Castner Hanway, portraying him as the leader of white resistance to the slave catchers, despite the fact the Hanway took no open role to aid Parker and the others and helped some of Gorsuch’s men escape by shielding them with his horse. No doubt the prosecutor just could not conceive that Afrian Americans could organize and effective defense and defeat and armed gang of whites. They must have been led by a white man.
The jury acquitted Hanway within 15 minutes and the prosecution dropped the charges against the rest of those indicted.
However, most of the remaining defendants still faced state charges of murder and riot. They remained in custody for another month until Deputy Marshal Henry Kline was himself indicted for lying at the defendants’ pretrial hearing.
Slavers were even more outraged that no one was punished for the killing of the elder Gorsuch and the wounding of two other members of the family. They felt that the jury had nullified the fugitive slave law by acquitting Hanway since regardless of what role Hanway played, he did not actively aid in capturing and returning the fugitive slaves.
Abolitionists were jubilant that the Fugitive Slave Law was effectively nullified.
The Christiana “riot,” the war over slavery in “Bloody Kansas” and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry were the three most significant incidents leading to the 1861 armed showdown over slavery that we call the Civil War today.
Socialism
Eugene Debs, the inspirational labor and socialist leader of the late 19th and early 20th centuries visited Washington, D.C. several times during his life, including making several speeches in March 1898.
However his most famous visit occurred after his Christmas Day 1921 release from the Atlanta Penitentiary after U.S. President Warren Harding commuted his sentence, along with 23 others—most of them, like Debs, opponents of World War I.
He achieved early fame with the founding of the American Railway Union and a strike against the Pullman Company and a nationwide boycott against using Pullman railcars during the strike
To keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. Thirteen strikers were killed and thousands blacklisted.
As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison. The right of the government to use the injunction was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
He later helped found the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
He ran five times for U.S. president, receiving nearly a million votes in 1912 and 1920. In the latter election, he ran for the office from a prison cell.
After his release from prison for his antiwar speech, he traveled to Washington, D.C. where met with the U.S. attorney general and President Warren Harding.
The People’s Party was a short-lived third party in the 1970s that put forth a platform of civil rights, minimum income, anti-U.S. intervention, women’s and gay rights. It received about 70,000 votes in the 1972 presidential election, but fewer in the 1976 election and dissolved shortly thereafter. The People’s Party formed in 2017 has no direct roots to this 1971-75 People’s Party.
Students
George Mason College activism: 1967-71
Student activism during the late 1960s and early 1970s at George Mason College in Northern Virginia. The activism primarily consisted of civil rights, anti-Vietnam War, student rights and educational reform.
Rebellion at N. Bethesda JHS: 1970
In March 1970, North Bethesda Junior High ninth grader Jeffrey Goldthorpe began circulating a “Student Bill of Rights” and distributing and/or selling pin back buttons.
He had obtained the text and buttons from the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which he had been active in since the fall of 1969.
The school (no longer open) was located at 8935 Bradmoor Drive, Bethesda, Md., in the neighborhood bounded by Fernwood Drive, Greentree Drive, I-495 and Old Georgetown Road.
On Tuesday March 24 1970, Goldthorpe was sent to school principal Ellis Glime’s office and suspended for distributing the materials without permission.
Wednesday March 25th, as school buses arrived before classes, approximately 25 students (mostly females) set up a picket line to call for Goldthorpe’s reinstatement. About 500 students gathered to watch the demonstration, and some opponents of the picketers according to the Montgomery County Sentinel “began taunting the picketers for their long hair and semi-hippy garb,” pushing and shoving them.
At least three fist fights broke out. At 8:25 a.m., as the school principal was leading Goldthorpe’s parents in for a conference, members of the county-wide Student Alliance, invited by the protesters, drove up and were surrounded by right-wing students who began rocking their cars and threatening them.
Glimes called the county police, who arrived about 8:40 a.m., but by the time they arrived, the fights had already ended and students were entering the school. Some protesting students had called for a student walkout at 2:00 p.m.—other protestors advised against it— and subsequent pressure by the administration led to the walkout being cancelled. Some stated their intention of form a Student Alliance II in order to press for student rights.
Goldthorpe was reinstated the next day and he, along with others, continued to press for student rights at school and against the Vietnam war. That spring the administration arranged dialogues with some of the protesting students, their parents, as well as students and parents together, but the school administration never altered their restrictions on political communication and activity.
A small number of activists persisted, sometimes leaving school to attend anti-war demonstrations, and calling on students to join the national student strike following the invasion of Cambodia and the killings at Kent State University.
Some of them put up a “Wanted” poster of Principal Ellis Glime at the school in the middle of the night, parodying the then-notorious posters of Weatherman and Black Panther fugitives. They also organized a “jailbreak” for the last day of school, June 18th to “tell the system to Get Fucked” and “Break this Jail,” but only a handful of students walked out of school early.
While high school activism was fairly common in this time period, organized protests at junior high schools (grades 7-9) were much less frequent.
Marc T. Miller was a student activist at Montgomery College in Rockville in the early 1970s where he founded the Freedom Party that briefly controlled student government and launched the Montgomery Spark newspaper. Miller continued his activism at the University of Maryland where he was active in the Revolutionary Student Brigade chapter on campus.
American University strike: 1970
Students at American University staged a strike against the Vietnam War beginning May 1, 1970 after President Richard Nixon announced that the U.S. would expand the war into Cambodia the night before.
Confrontations between students and police began May 4th and continued through May 11th resulting in injuries to students and police and several dozen arrests.
Police repeatedly used tear gas to quell the crowds that began when students began blocking traffic on and around Ward Circle and demonstrators responded by hurling bricks, bottles and rocks.
The police indiscriminate use of tear gas resulted in gas drifting into the residences of the elderly at the Baptist Home of the District of Columbia at 3700 Nebraska Ave. NW.
At the time, strikes and demonstrations were occurring locally at George Washington University, Georgetown University, the University of Maryland and Catholic University.
During the confrontation at American University, one police officer pulled out his handgun and pointed it at student occupants of an automobile in a university parking lot on Nebraska Ave. The officer was later transferred to other duties.
During the May 11th confrontation, police cleared the traffic circle but students retreated to the campus and built barricades on Nebraska Avenue with tree limbs and highway barricades.
Over the course of the demonstrations, dozens of students were treated at Sibley Hospital for gas inhalation. One was hit by a tear gas cannister that he said was fired at point blank range.
The student strikes across the country involved upwards of 500 campuses and accompanying confrontations probably resulted in the most widespread direct action of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Freedom House was a short-lived safe spot for predominantly white suburban teens, including runaways at 4927 Cordell Avenue in Bethesda, Md for a six-month period in 1968-69.
It was run by Compeers, a social action group made up of former Peace Corps and VISTA volunteers and headed by activist J. Brinton Dillingham, then 25 years old.
Initially, the Montgomery County Student Alliance with chapters in 18 high schools and over 1,000 members set up its headquarters at Freedom House.
But Freedom House quickly ran afoul of police who waged an ongoing campaign of harassment against the young people who gathered there.
The house was set up in late December 1968 and by April there was a flyer calling on the Montgomery County Council to halt the “growing pattern of police harassment.”
The flyer urged repeal of the county’s anti-loitering law and an end to “the criminal conspiracy between the pigs and the schools.”
The flyer charged that “the cops intimidate and bribe students into informing on fellow students;” urged the abolition of the County’s juvenile courts “as they now stand;” and “abolition of training schools which serve to reinforce the dehumanization fostered by the pigs and the courts.”
When a group of about 30 young people went to the County Council meeting, paintings, ash trays and other objects were removed from the hearing chamber and hallways. The building was sealed off by police, and detectives photographed those who came to the meeting.
Lee Hellmann, a student at John F. Kennedy High School later said, “We came to talk to the Council, not to see what kind of riot equipment the police have. We presume they have all the equipment they need.”
When the young people came to another hearing in May Edward Shaner of the right-wing Montgomery County Citizens League photographed them instead of the police taking pictures.
At that hearing, the young people presented testimony on numerous arrests and searches.
Stewart Klepper, a student at Walt Whitman High School told how six county police officers searched Freedom House in February without a warrant.
“When we later objected to this, I was told that if I ever trespassed on neighborhood properties I would be shot. The police also told us that if they ever brought a warrant to Freedom House they would kick the door in.”
Kevin Bronfin, 18, of Bethesda told the Washington Post that he had not been arrested, “but I’ve been spot-checked—they stop you in your car and ask to see your license and everything—four times since last Friday. Maybe it’d be my hair or they recognize my car from Freedom House. I don’t know why they stop me, but I haven’t been speeding; I haven’t gotten any tickets.”
Police claimed they were invited in to Freedom House on the occasions that they entered and that they were simply enforcing the laws.
On one occasion, this was true. Dillingham invited several ministers and the police to search Freedom House for drugs fearing that they had been planted there in order to close the place down. No drugs were found.
A motion was later made on the Council to investigate police harassment, but was defeated 5-3 on a party line vote with Republicans in the majority.
While this was going on Dillingham was arrested for obscenity (see ) and sentenced to six months in jail for selling a copy of the Washington Free Press that contained a cartoon of Montgomery County judge James Pugh masturbating at the bench with instruments of torture hanging from the dais.
By June nearly daily confrontations with police occurred with numerous arrests of young people. Dillingham, free on $5,000 bond, was arrested on three different occasions and charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, creating a public nuisance and making excessive noise and failure to move.
If anything, the petty harassment of Dillingham raised his status among young people.
“Bruce Lovelett, 17, told the Post that Dillingham “doesn’t run away from things when they look like they’ll get bad.”
“Yeah, he’s kind of hero, but he’s not really a leader. He doesn’t push anybody, but he’s there. A lot of people will stick by kids when it’ll look good politically or something, but not like him,” Jean Meyer said.”
Police urged the landlord to evict Compeers and a Montgomery County People’s Court judge ruled that they must vacate, despite the fact that evictions were handled by a different court.
By the end of June Freedom House died after a little less than six months of existence.
Most charges against the young people were dropped or they were given probation before verdict.
Dillingham’s obscenity charge was later overturned on appeal and in the process gutted Maryland’s McCarthy-era “Ober Law” on subversion.
What was Freedom House’s legacy?
Norman Solomon, the head of the Montgomery County Student Alliance, later wrote:
“Freedom House was a shack…but draped in dignity–blankets over the windows, a record player cajoled form the trunk of a [U.S.] Senator’s daughter, humble pictures on the wall: Ho Chi Minh, Eldridge Cleaver, Welcome here, Jefferson Airplane.”
Another young person, Vaille Walders, described Freedom House during its existence to the Washington Post, “A lot of people are unhappy at home and Freedom House is a nice place to go to get away, spend the night maybe. It’s not really running away—more like getting out of the home scene for a while.”
Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson was a former regional secretary of the Students for Democratic Society in Washington, D.C. who oversaw the development of chapters through the region.
Wilkerson was first active in the greater Washington, D.C. area when she was a student at Swarthmore and became active in the civil rights movement in Cambridge, Maryland. Radicalized by the Cambridge experience, she became more involved with the Students for a Democratic Society.
She became editor of New Left Notes and in 1968 moved to Washington, D.C. working out of a rented office at 3 Thomas Circle NW, a building that housed a number of other radical organizations.
While in Washington, she was arrested during the takeover of the Sino-Soviet Institute at George Washington University and was a regular fixture at SDS meetings throughout the area, including those at the University of Maryland.
When SDS broke up into different factions in 1969, Wilkerson went with the Weatherman (later Weather Underground) group. She was indicted for the group’s activities during the 1969 Days of Rage in Chicago and went underground shortly after.
She has been alleged to have participated in a number of protest bombings of federal and corporate buildings during the group’s decade-long existence, including the bombing at the U.S. Capitol, Pentagon and State Department.
Three people were killed at her father’s townhouse in an explosion in 1970 who were all members of the Weather Underground. They apparently died when a bomb they were preparing exploded prematurely. Wilkerson was reported to survived the explosion and fled the townhouse.
They were the only deaths in the group’s long bombing campaign.
Wilkerson received a three-year prison sentence of which she served 11 months. In 2007
Wilkerson’s memoir of her Weather Underground days entitled, “Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman” was published.
In 1973 and 1974 state police used at least one undercover agent on the campus of the University of Maryland that resulted in the arrest of 23 students on drug charges.
Angry students rallied against the police actions and clashed with campus police in front of the administration building in April 1974.
The students later held a smoke-in in defiance of the police attempts to suppress marijuana use.
Catholic University students in Washington, D.C. staged a strike in April 1967 in support of fired non-tenured faculty member Fr. Charles E. Curran.
Curran was an outspoken proponent of liberalization within the Catholic Church, including the use of birth control.
An estimated 95% of the students joined the strike and the faculty voted to support the strike also. The school backed down after two weeks, rescinded its decision and made Curran a tenured faculty member instead.
However, in a similar dispute, he was later forced to leave after being barred from teaching theology at Catholic University in 1986.
The American Youth Congress was an organization that focused on issues affecting young people and by 1939 had over 4.5 million members across the country.
Among the issues taken up by the AYC were draft opposition, jobs and training for youth and equality among different races and nationalities. It opposed mandatory ROTC training on campuses and lobbied for more funding for education.
However, the group was accused by U.S. Rep. Martin Dies, chair of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as having communist leadership in 1939 and support for the organization began to decline.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attempted to bolster the group in 1940 by inviting some of the group to a picnic on the White House lawn where they were addressed by President Franklin Roosevelt.
But the AYC continued to decline and the group disbanded in 1941.
Maurice Posada was the object of a petition drive by American University students in Washington, D.C. in 1940 opposed to his deportation to Columbia.
The students also threatened to picket the U.S. Justice Department if the immigration order were to be carried out.
Posada lived in London with his family for 12 years and left the U.K. for the United States en route to Columbia accompanied by his mother.
He was admitted at New York on a 60-day visitor’s visa, however Posada changed his mind and decided to attend college in the U.S. rather than South America. Applying for an extension of his visa, he enrolled at American University.
Posada’s extension was denied by immigration authorities who told him he must leave the country and re-apply.
More than 250 American University students met at Hurst Hall on the campus to protest the order.
As one student noted according to an article in the Washington Post, “This is a fine situation…[fascist] Italy and Germany welcome South American students with open arms, but we kick them out.”
As a result of the protests and resulting publicity, immigration authorities changed Posada’s visa to student status until July 1, 1941–after the school year ends–and changed his mother’s visa to the same date.
Before NSA was synonymous with the National Security Agency, it was widely known as the initials of the United States National Student Association.
In a five year period from 1966 to 1971, it made an astonishing shift from a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-funded anti-communist bulwark to a group that helped lead a student strike against the Vietnam War and negotiate a “People’s Peace Treaty” with their counterparts in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North) and Provisional Revolutionary Government/National Liberation Front (Viet Cong).
Activities of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the greater Washington, D.C. area 1965-69. SDS was the largest New Left group to arise in the 1960s with upwards of 100,000 members nationwide at its peak. It began as a left-liberal grouping, but by 1967 had become increasingly radicalized. The group split into three factions at their August 1969 convention–The Progressive Labor Party dominated SDS, the Weather Underground and Revolutionary Youth Movement II, a Maoist aligned group, most of whom joined the Revolutionary Union (later Revolutionary Communist Party) or the October League.
Protests against compulsory Reserve Officer Training Corps service on college campus were widespread for many years.
The requirement was originally part of the 1862 Morrill Act that established land grant colleges
Over the years, the requirement was challenged and the courts imposed limitations. Eventually the federal requirement was lifted and many colleges and universities across the country during the 1960s and early 1970s dropped the requirement. Some ended the program altogether.
Forty members of the George Washington University Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) seized Maury Hall, home of the school’s Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies, April 23, 1969.
The students demanded that the Institute be disbanded; the school sever ties Naval Logistics Research Laboratory and the Human Resources Research Office; the school disaffiliate itself from the ROTC program and end military recruiting on campus; and that GW adopt an open admissions policy for African Americans.
The demonstration, sponsored by the GW chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) charged that the Institute was not a center of learning, but an anti-communist bastion that aided the federal government in the Cold War.
Fighting broke out between some fraternity members and supporters of SDS while the occupation took place and students ended the sit-in about 3:30 am August 24th.
Minor damage to desks and file cabinets occurred as the occupiers sought evidence of the institute’s collusion and used desks to barricade themselves in.
The documents were later obtained by the alternative newspaper The Washington Free Press that in turn published some of the documents outlining the university’s role in the Cold War.
Much of the funding for the Institute came from the Ford Foundation that allegedly acted as a conduit for the Central Intelligence Agency.
University president Lloyd Elliot acted quickly to suppress the demonstrations and block student demands.
The University brought internal charges against a number of students, had police arrest several non-students and refused all of the SDS demands. No charges were brought against the fraternity members involved in assaults against SDS supporters.
Among those arrested were Cathy Wilkerson, Washington regional secretary of SDS and Christopher Webber of the Washington Free Press. Charges were later reduced to disorderly conduct and a $10 fine was issued.
During the school’s internal disciplinary process, some students opted for private hearings, but most took part in a public trial that drew hundreds of students who forced their way into the hearing.
A vigorous defense by attorney Michael Tigar resulted in the dropping of vandalism charges against the students. However, seven students were expelled, including GW SDS president Steven Nick Greer, and two others received suspensions of a year.
A second building seizure in protest of suspensions and expulsions occurred after the May 1969 verdicts, but the threat of an injunction ended it quickly.
On appeal to the University’s Hearing Committee, discipline for all nine students was reduced to a reprimand.
On March 27, 1968 students at the predominantly black Bowie State College began a boycott of classes protesting an inferior physical plant, poor food and the denial of tenure to a popular professor.
Four days after the boycott that was nearly 100% effective began, 200 students seized buildings on the campus and Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew called out the state police riot unit.
Although Agnew refused to negotiate, a confrontation was avoided when school officials promised that demands would be dealt with and students would meet with the state Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on school funding issues.
Agnew had blamed outsiders for the campus unrest, saying, “The activities of publicity seeking outsiders can only injure the cause of higher education in Maryland.”
The dispute escalated April 4th when nearly 250 students traveled to Annapolis and staged a “study-in” in the halls of the state house when Agnew refused to meet with them.
Agnew ordered their arrest and 227—more than a third of the 600 enrollees–were jailed along with a local civil rights leader. The governor then closed the campus saying he would not yield “to unlawful and illegal tactics.”
Agnew said his use of the phrases “outside influences” and “outside agitators” referred to NAACP mid-Atlantic youth director Kenneth R. Brown and students from Howard University who spoke on campus.
Agnew continued, “I guess I don’t get along with many Mr. Browns,” referring to his public disparagement of H. Rap Brown.
Agnew later approved accelerated spending of $500,000 for capital projects at the school and ordered the school reopened on April 16th.
The school, however, continued to struggle with unequal funding compared to the state’s historically white universities in College Park and Baltimore. The phrase “separate and unequal” has been used for many years to describe Maryland’s historically black state colleges.
Charges were later dropped against the 227 students and their records expunged. However, Brown’s arrest remained on his record.
UMD Black Student Union: 1968-75
University of Maryland African American students formed the Black Student Union in 1968 after a high profile protest during the convocation presided over by university president Wilson Elkins.
The chapter was formed out of an existing Congress of Racial Equality chapter that had been active in protesting the vestiges of Jim Crow in surrounding communities.
The BSU waged many struggles to end discrimination against African American students and continues to do so today.
Protests roiled the Howard University in Washington, D.C. from 1967-69 as the wave of student activism combined with black nationalism swept across the campus.
The protests included an effective student strike and building occupation in 1968 demanding that school president James Nabritt be fired.
The core issue of student and university involvement in black civil rights and liberation had been at the heart of disputes throughout the years as students sought a broader impact on society while the university administration focused on producing black professionals to the exclusion of all other endeavors.
The students won their demand for a student-run disciplinary board and a promise of no discipline against the occupiers.
It was agreed that representatives of the trustees, the faculty and students would meet to “resolve grievances and deal with relevant, contemporary issues.”
Nabrit wasn’t fired, but was scheduled to retire in July and faced mandatory retirement in September, because of age, in any event.
Confrontational protest on the campus began in March 1967 when Selective Service Director Gen. Lewis B. Hershey was booed off the stage at Crampton Auditorium by students shouting, “America is the black man’s battleground.”
In April the administration moved to discipline the students and some of the faculty who expressed support for the students and students in turn staged a boycott of classes that was 75% effective according to press accounts.
Nevertheless, the administration expelled 15 students and five faculty members who had been involved in various student protests.
When classes resumed in September, about 120 students and faculty walked out of a speech by Nabrit at the opening ceremony of the school.
In November, students staged a sit-in at Nabrit’s office demanding an end to compulsory service in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Howard acceded to this demand and made the program voluntary.
Three faculty members supportive of students were dropped from the rolls.
At the school’s centennial Charter Day ceremony on March 1st, several dozen students disrupted the event, seizing the stage. As the administration moved to discipline the Charter Day demonstrations, the takeover of the administration building began.
In 1969, students boycotted the medical and law schools of the university. The protests triggered the resignation of Patricia Roberts Harris as dean.
The generational clash between students and the administration and many of the conservative faculty was an old one, but this time the students won many of their demands.
The older leadership of the school represented the previous generation of the civil rights movement. Nabrit was a counsel to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated schools. Clark was a ground-breaking sociologist whose work, along with his wife Mamie Phipps, had proven the debilitating effects of segregation on black children. The school’s attorney, George E. C. Hayes was a prominent civil rights attorney.
However, Nabrit’s generation was overly concerned about decorum and respectability. They also largely believed in a strategy that meant producing a large black professional class and often relied on a legal approach to social problems.
The newer generation grew up with direct action as their model. Howard students had provided many of the ground troops for the civil rights movement and Howard alumni Stokely Carmichael, later Kwame Ture, became a leading black nationalist.
Entering 1970, the University of Maryland had been largely bypassed by the activism of the 1960s. There had been an active Students for a Democratic Society chapter on campus, but no mass demonstrations had been held.
The intensity of activity began to pick up the previous fall when a protest against a university prohibition on housing Vietnam War protesters resulted in four arrests. In mid-March 1970, 100 had picketed a nearby draft board.
The first large-scale protest occurred when two professors, Peter Goldstone and Richard Roeloff, were denied a renewal of their contracts. Several hundred students seized Skinner Hall March 23 for 13 hours before police were called to arrest the demonstrators. Eight-seven were arrested in the early morning hours of March 24.
The Skinner protest continued for several more weeks with brief building seizures and protests against administrative actions and criminal prosecutions.
On May 1, the campus erupted into a series of massive antiwar demonstrations sparked by President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the shooting deaths of four students by the National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4 and two students killed by state police during demonstrations at Jackson State University in Mississippi on May 14.
The National Guard twice suppressed the Maryland demonstrations. Three weeks of mass demonstrations resulted in dozens of arrests, injuries to students, police and National Guardsmen and campus bans against individuals.
In the course of the demonstrations, the Air Force ROTC offices were ransacked, windows broken in more than a few buildings, U.S. Route 1 blockaded numerous times by students and tear gas fired by police into several dormitories and fraternities. A graduate assistant was shot and wounded with buckshot believed to have been fired by Prince George’s County police or deputy sheriffs.
The Administration Building was ransacked and narrowly escaped being burned to the ground. An antiwar professor, Edgar Beall, and several students entered the burning building and put the fire out. Beall, however, did not earn the school’s gratitude as the University fired him in 1978 and the case became a national cause for the American Association of University Professors that was eventually settled out of court.
The National Guard occupation continued until classes were completed, with Guardsmen posted in some classrooms of those taking final exams.
Cutbacks and layoffs must stop at the U. of MD: 1973
Campus workers organized Local 1072 of the American Federation of State County & Municipal Workers (AFSCME) under the leadership of Gladys Jefferson (not shown) long before obtaining collective bargaining rights.
This photo set shows an early picket line by AFSCME members and student supporters in front of the Administration Building at the University of Maryland College Park protesting a decision to layoff campus workers. The action took place in September 1973.
Local 1072 still exists today and after a long struggle obtained collective bargaining rights and the right to "fair share" where non-union members pay a fee for union services rendered. AFSCME 1072 is part of the statewide AFSCME MD.
Images of antiwar protests at the University of Maryland in May 1971 are contained in this set. Mass protests against the war broke out for the second consecutive year that brought National Guard troops to the campus that essentially imposed martial law.
The spring of 1971 brought a renewed offensive by those opposed to the Vietnam War. Groups of activists led by “Yippies” sought to conduct non-violent civil disobedience by blocking key roads into and out of the federal center of Washington, D.C. beginning on May 1.
In the middle of the Mayday Tribe events was a rally called on the UMD campus May 5 by the ad hoc Spring Action Coalition composed of various student groups. It was attended by over 3,000 students who during the course of the day briefly occupied the Administration building and blockaded US Route 1.
The demonstration had been called to end the ROTC program on campus, ratify the People’s Peace Treaty negotiated between Vietnamese students and US students the previous winter and to end to defense research on campus. Amnesty and an end to police surveillance were added to the demands later.
State police confronted the demonstrators on Route 1 and a pitched battle ensued. The Governor called in the National Guard for the second straight year. Cat and mouse battles with the Guard continued into the night.
Over the next several weeks, students defied Guard regulations that banned gatherings of more than 100 and held numerous demonstrations across the campus, briefly seizing several buildings and attempting to seize others before being ejected by the Guard.
Police and university officials targeted those they thought were leaders, arresting them and/or banning them from campus.
When Chancellor Charles Bishop attempted a speech on the steps of the Administration Building May 12, he was interrupted repeatedly with chants of “ROTC must go.” Several eggs were also thrown at Bishop.
The students achieved a temporary victory May 19 when the University Senate voted 83-56 to reduce ROTC from a credit activity to a non-credit, extra curricula activity. The decision, however, was reversed a week later on a 52-31 vote after the Air Force objected saying it violated their policy.
The People’s Peace Treaty’s terms were similar in some ways to those ultimately adopted by the four-party Paris Peace talks ending US ground troop involvement in the Vietnam War in January 1973.
U of MD antiwar protests: 1972
President Nixon’s expanded bombing and mining harbors in Vietnam renewed the University of Maryland student antiwar movement that rallied April 17, 1972 and specifically demanded an end to the school’s ROTC program.
The group of 500 later marched through the campus with some students breaking windows at the ROTC offices and throwing rocks at University President Wilson Elkins residence.
The rally had been set to follow a table tennis exhibition between the U.S and the People’s Republic of China at Cole Field House that was one of the first events that ultimately led to normalization of relations between the two countries. Many of those at the rally had attended the exhibition.
The following day, a noontime rally drew over 1,000 who marched to the ROTC building where windows were again broken. After about an hour, students occupied US Route 1 for the third consecutive year. Confrontations with state police soon followed where police used gas and clubs to disperse demonstrators who responded with rocks and bottles.
On April 19, demonstrators again blocked US Route 1 and someone attempted to set fire to the Armory which housed the ROTC building. Fighting again broke out between state police and demonstrators. Governor Mandel called in the National Guard for the third year in a row the following day.
On April 20, the largest crowd of the year estimated at 2,500 staged a candlelight march through the campus that ended in front of the Administration Building. They were met by the Guard who ordered them to disperse for violating a 9:00 pm curfew. About 200 students were arrested—most of them staging a peaceful sit-in protesting the curfew and the Vietnam War.
Smaller daytime rallies were held and the Guard was withdrawn from the campus April 26.
On May 4, nearly 1,000 staged an evening march through campus commemorating the deaths of four students at Kent State University the previous year. Once again, some broke windows at the ROTC headquarters and someone lit the curtains afire with a burning American flag.
Shortly after, a number of the protestors again blocked U.S. Route 1. State police again moved in with clubs and gas and were met with rocks by the some of the protestors. This time, however, state police had planted plainclothes officers in the crowd who quickly grabbed and arrested many of the rock throwers.
The National Guard, which had been stationed nearby, returned to campus and enforced another curfew. This marked the end of mass anti-war protests on the campus, although smaller actions continued to be held.
In mid-May, students from U MD confronted the racist presidential candidate George Wallace at Capital Plaza mall in Landover, MD and at Wheaton Plaza in Silver Spring Maryland on May 15 where some threw tomatoes and pennies at the presidential candidate. Wallace was shot and paralyzed later that day by Arthur Bremer at the Laurel Shopping Center in Laurel, MD.
A group of Maryland students also joined protests at the Republican Convention in Miami Beach in August. One of the last anti-Vietnam War events of the year was a march from the campus to the Hyattsville, MD offices of the Republican Party by about 150 students on October 24, 1972.
Terps at issue in hotel fight: 1974
Mass picket at Sheraton Lanham Hotel February 11, 1974. The University of Maryland refused to cancel its football team banquet at hotel after the workers went on strike.
Workers at the Sheraton Lanham Hotel went on strike January 9, 1974 to obtain a first contract as members of Hotel Worker Union Local 75. The union had won a representation election in 1973 but had been unable to negotiate a first contract.
The strike was seen as important for both workers and owners because it was the first hotel in the suburban Washington area to be organized by a union at a time when hotel facilities were rapidly expanding outside the downtown core.
The hotel hired a private security firm called Chamberlain Protective Services which workers charged engaged in an unprovoked beating of two striking workers when they attempted to pick up their checks January 11.
To support the strikers, On The Move newspaper organized the Sheraton Solidarity Group which staged mass pickets and held an International Women’s Day rally in support of the union. A number of groups cancelled their events, but others including the University of Maryland, the local Republican Party and the president of the Prince Georges County Education Association (NEA) crossed the picket lines.
The workers were victorious March 28 when a new contract was reached. However when the first contract expired two years later, the Sheraton Management refused to bargain with the union. The union launched a boycott and the AFL-CIO urged the public to stay away from the hotel. Many prominent County Democrats including County Executive Winfield Kelly, Governor Harry Hughes and state Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller crossed picket lines while others such as Paris Glendening, Steny Hoyer and Prince George’s Council President Gerard McDonough refused,
The boycott ultimately ended in defeat for the union and the hotel is now unorganized. The challenge of organizing workers in suburban hotels continues as the Crystal City Hilton and Sheraton remain under boycott for their refusal to bargain. The only suburban hotels organized in the Washington, DC area are the Gaylord at National Harbor, Sheraton Premier at Tysons, McLean Hilton at Tysons, Embassy Suites Crystal City and Doubletree Crystal City.
The Sheraton Lanham was located at the intersection of 85th Avenue and Route 450 in New Carrollton, MD. It has gone through many changes of ownership through the years and was most recently operated as a Four Points Sheraton. Hotel Workers Local 75 was merged with several other locals into Hotel & Restaurant Employees Local 25, a UNITE-HERE affiliate.
Montgomery County, Maryland teachers went on an eight-day strike in February 1968 over salary demands.
The school system initially tried to hold classes. However, a large majority of teachers staying out of the classroom and students staged walkouts throughout the county resulting in authorities cancelling classes toward the end of the first day of the strike.
The strike was called by the long standing Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), an affiliate of the National Education Association as it faced a challenge for representation by a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
Defying court injunctions and threatened fines, the union held firm until a settlement was reached that tilted largely in favor of the MCEA demands and re-affirmed its dominance as the voice for teachers in the county.
Rennie Davis at Montgomery College: 1973
Rennie Davis spoke on the struggle against capitalism at a Montgomery County Freedom Party forum at Montgomery College Rockville Md. campus early in 1973.
The Freedom Party was an organization of left-leaning students at Montgomery College that was formed in the fall of 1971 and began publishing the Montgomery Spark newspaper. The group expanded to a Montgomery County-based group in 1972, but continued to focus primarily on the campus.
The group sponsored a demonstration against the Vietnam War, marching from the school’s Rockville campus to a recruiting center in downtown Rockville. The group also joined numerous antiwar, women’s rights, gay rights demonstrations during the two year period of its existence. The newspaper was expanded to a Washington-area newspaper in early 1973, but published its last issue in October 1973.
Davis had generally been a moderate antiwar leader. But, at other times such as the 1969 Nixon Inauguration or during 1971 Mayday demonstrations that attempted to shut down the government, Davis played a more militant role.
Shortly after his talk at Montgomery College in 1973, Davis became a follower of “the 15-year old perfect master –Guru Maharaj Ji.” Davis’s conversion was viewed as a betrayal by those who struggled against the Vietnam War.
The Washington Area Spark wrote at the time, “Rennie Davis is probably not simply flipped out, as some believe (although it is possible). More likely, after years of frustrations, set-backs and several jailings, Rennie began looking for an easy way to deal with capitalist reality—something all disaffected people are looking for.”
“Unfortunately, the path to liberation lies not in dropping out or walking around with blank look in your eyes babbling about love, but through struggle against oppressive classes—this is how the most powerful unity and love is attained.”
Transit in the D.C. Area
Hattie Sheehan was one of the first women to operate buses in the District of Columbia in 1943 when the company hired several dozen women to offset a white male labor shortage caused by World War II.
The company hired the white women for both streetcars and buses, but refused to hire black men or women, prompting a series of protests and demonstrations that lasted until the company desegregated its operator ranks in 1955.
The first black female bus operator knowingly hired was Sarah Owens in 1968. At least one black female, Sarah Grayson, was hired in 1943, but was fired when it was discovered she was black.
Frances Lewis was one of the first women to operate streetcars in the District of Columbia in 1943 when the company hired several dozen women to offset a white male labor shortage caused by World War II.
The company hired the white women for both streetcars and buses, but refused to hire black men or women, prompting a series of protests and demonstrations that lasted until the company desegregated its operator ranks in 1955.
The first black female bus operator knowingly hired was Sarah Owens in 1968. At least one black female, Sarah Grayson, was hired in 1943, but was fired when it was discovered she was black.
Oscar Roy Chalk (June 7, 1907 – December 1, 1995) was a New York entrepreneur who owned real estate, airlines, bus companies, newspapers and a rail line that hauled bananas in Central America. His diverse holdings included DC Transit, Trans Caribbean Airways, the Houdon bust of Thomas Jefferson now at Monticello, the Chalk Emerald, and the New York Spanish-language newspapers El Diario de Nueva York and La Prensa, merging them into El Diario La Prensa.
Chalk was born in London, England and emigrated to the United States at age three. He grew up in the Bronx, where his neighbors included Ira and George Gershwin and Lou Gehrig.
He graduated from New York University and its law school. He learned the real estate business and bought several apartment buildings.
He started Trans Caribbean Airways in 1945 for $60,000, with two DC-4s. It was through the airline that in the mid-1960s he eventually purchased the 800-mile rail line, International Railways of Central America, that transported bananas in Central America.
He later purchased a banana plantation, which he owned for a time. Chalk sold his airline to American Airlines on March 3, 1971, in exchange for stock and became the single largest shareholder.
He purchased the Washington, D.C. transit system on August 15, 1956, for $13.5 million, renaming it DC Transit, and in 1959 attempted to purchase New York City’s transit system, but city officials rejected the offer after weeks of serious consideration.
Chalk owned the Georgetown Car Barn in Washington, D.C., adjacent to the famous steps where the part of "The Exorcist" was filmed. The building was a streetcar shop erected in 1895 that supported the Capital Transit Company system, which circulated through the District of Columbia.
By Public Law 389, enacted by the United States Congress, Chalk was directed to replace all streetcar operations with buses, which was completed on January 28, 1962.
He repeatedly clashed with community activists, who sought to halt his repeated attempts to raise fares and cut service, leading to the political solution of a takeover of private bus companies in the Washington, D.C. Area.
On January 14, 1973 WMATA condemned DC Transit and its sister company, the Washington, Virginia and Maryland Coach Company and acquired their assets for $38.2 million.
He retained ownership of the Georgetown Car Barn, however, which had been converted into office space between 1957 and 1960. Chalk owned the building until 1992 when the Minneapolis-based Lutheran Brotherhood took possession of the property in a foreclosure. Developer Douglas Jemal bought it in May 1997.
Chalk owned El Diario-La Prensa until the New York-based Spanish daily was sold to the Gannett Company in 1981.
Chalk helped the newly formed Russia draft its first constitution after splitting from the USSR. Chalk’s work consisted in analyzing early drafts of the United States constitution and noting the changes from draft to draft for the newly formed Russian republic constitution committee.
Chalk was a founder of the American-Korean Foundation and as a result the South Korean Government gave him its National Medal of Honor.
The 1789 plaster bust of Thomas Jefferson by Jean-Antoine Houdon now displayed at Monticello was owned for many years by Chalk. That image appeared on the U.S. nickel beginning in 1938. The bust set a world auction record for a pre-20th-century sculpture when it was sold by Christie’s in New York on May 29, 1987.
Recently, Chalk was discovered to have owned for more than 41 years a 1785 painting by the artist Nicolas Benjamin Delapierre that may be the earliest known portrait of Thomas Jefferson.
In 1970, Chalk donated several former DC Transit streetcars to the National Capital Trolley Museum in Colesville, Maryland.
Chalk donated the famous 37.82-carat "Chalk Emerald" ring to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in 1972. It is prominently displayed next to the "Hope Diamond" in the museum’s Washington Mall building.
Chalk was chairman of the United Nations finance committee for several years and was a prominent fund raiser for the Democratic Party in the 1960s. He also helped raise money for the United Negro College Fund and served on the Georgetown University Board of Regents.
He died from cancer in a New York hospital at the age of 88.
–largely excerpted from Wikipedia
Walter Bierwagen was a leader of the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway and Motorcoach Employees of America Division 689 from the 1940s into the 1970s at a time when the union represented employees at the Capital Transit, D.C. Transit and later the Washington Metro system.
The union today is known as Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 and represents employees at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, D.C. Streetcar, some paratransit operations, Alexandria DASH bus service and the WMATA contracted-out Cinder Bed Road garage.
Bierwagen first gained prominence in the union when he was elected to the negotiating committee that tried to reach a resolution during the 1945 wildcat strikes seeking higher wages after the end of World War II.
In 1950 he defeated long-time union president William Simms, a staunch opponent of integration, with the help of black maintenance employees.
In 1951, he led the union’s first strike since 1917—winning gains after a three-days on the street. The 1951 strike established “bumping rights” for maintenance employees in the event of layoffs and solved the issue of favoritism.
At the time, transit service was being reduced as the automobile became affordable for many people resulting in layoffs of maintenance employees at the Capital Transit Co. White mechanics had often transferred to bus mechanic jobs while black track workers were laid-off without recourse.
Jim Crow laws in the city began to crumble in the early 1950s—first through pickets and boycotts of Jim Crow eateries and then the 1953 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the District of Columbia so-called “lost laws” from 1872 and 1873 that prohibited discrimination in public accommodations.
The following year the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation in D.C. public schools after another long battle that involved pickets, a boycott of some schools and many rallies and court cases.
After the school decision, Bierwagen reached an agreement with the company in late 1954 that black bus and streetcar operators would be hired first out of the ranks of maintenance employees, ending another long fight to end discrimination in the city by integrating the operator ranks.
The agreement was ratified by the union in early 1955 and the first black operators quickly followed.
Bierwagen probably sensed that an epic battle with the company was coming and sought to end the divisive issue that pitted the white operators against the most of the rest of the city. In doing so, he laid the basis for greater public support for the July strike that would paralyze the city for two months.
In 1949, financier Louis Wolfson bought the debt-free transit company and immediately began selling off assets and taking out loans and then paying him and two other investors huge dividends while claiming that he needed higher and higher fare increases.
When the 1955 contract expired between the union and the company, Bierwagen called a strike. Wolfson said there was no money and Bierwagen in turn said that transit workers had worth and needs regardless of the company’s financial position.
The strike lasted two months and nearly resulted in a public takeover at that time of the transit system. Instead, Congress revoked Wolfson’s franchise and ordered him to sell the company within one-year.
Bierwagen obtained wage increases and vacation, holiday and pension improvements while agreeing to binding arbitration for future contracts instead of strikes.
Bierwagen would later lead the union into a partnership with the Group Health Association, building a facility in Prince George’s County, and providing preventive care to union members that had previously been covered only by hospitalization.
He was elected to vice president of the national transit union and played a key role in legislation to protect transit worker collective bargaining rights when private companies were taken over by the public.
It was Walter Bierwagen who was primarily responsible for the collective bargaining and binding arbitration language in the compact between Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia and the federal government that created Metro.
Throughout his tenure as a union leader, he was responsible for obtaining significant wage increases, establishing the pension and health and welfare plans, expansion of seniority rights, extending the eight-hour guarantee to all employees and other benefits.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 president Walter Bierwagen envisioned a network of cooperatives such as Group Health that would provide low cost medical, food and housing to workers. He also led the union to invest in the Greenbelt Consumer Co-op which ran a chain of grocery stores in the area and still operates one store in Greenbelt.
Group Health Association was established in 1937 over the fierce opposition of the American Medical Association, but flourished during the 1960s and 1970s after the transit union enrolled 9,000 members and dependents into the 26,000-member association in 1959. Many federal government employees and private employers soon followed suit.
In an era when little preventive care was offered by health plans, Group Health offered full service health insurance including hospitalization coverage. Its members ran it as a non-profit cooperative.
The union’s health and welfare fund established the first Group Health center in Maryland when they renovated a building at New Hampshire Ave. and East West Hwy and also provided the medical equipment and supplies.
The health care consolidation that took place in the 1980s and 1990s took its toll on Group Health, which could not compete against Humana, Kaiser and other entries into the Washington, D.C. market. Despite its long record of service as a low cost, high quality health care provider, the association was undercapitalized with its centers located only in the city and inner suburbs and voted to sell its assets to Humana in 1994.
The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized a bus boycott centered in the Benning Road corridor that was upwards of 90 percent effective in January 1966.
The proposed five-cent fare increase was voted down by the transit commission two days later.
A bus boycott was organized by the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis after a bus fare increase from 27 cents to 30 cents was approved in 1968.
Alternative transportation was organized along the Benning Road corridor where the boycott was centered.
The boycott did not achieve its initial goals, but furthered the issue of a public takeover of the privately owned bus company.
When the Washington Transit Commission approved a fare hike request by D.C. Transit owner O. Roy Chalk in 1970 to raise the bus fares from 32 cents to 40 cents—a 25% increase—it set off a firestorm of protest.
Prominent activists were arrested for refusing to pay the fare, marches and rallies were held.
Alternative transportation was arranged and a boycott was launched.
Protest leaders demanded the fare be lowered to 25 cents to accommodate the District of Columbia’s poor and working class residents and a civil disobedience campaign was launched where patrons paid only 25 cents on the buses.
At the time, streetcar service had ended and the Metro system had not been built, so public transportation was entirely by bus.
However, without self-government in the District, options for overturning the fare increase were limited. Both the courts and Congress refused to act.
Ultimately the campaign failed in its immediate goals, but led to the takeover of four private bus companies in the area by Metro. Metro was originally intended only to build and operate the rail system.
A limited form of Home Rule for the city was obtained in 1973.
In the early morning hours of May 17, 1968 four teens boarded a G-2 bus at 20th and P Streets NW. Moments later bus operator John Earl Talley lay mortally wounded after he was shot twice in the head.
The killing rocked the city as DC Transit workers began unauthorized strikes ultimately refusing to carry change at night protesting a epidemic of robberies and Talley’s death.
At the time, bus operators carried change for bills and many were holding hundreds of dollars at any given time during their routes.
The protests, along with a similar killing of a bus operator in Baltimore, resulted in an agreement to implement the first exact fare system in the country that was quickly followed by major transit systems throughout the United States.
Talley, known to carry an unauthorized gun to protect himself, evidently pulled his weapon as the young men tried to rob him. Talley’s gun was found unfired beside his dying body.
The four youths were quickly arrested. All ended up pleading guilty to robbery in return for dropping the murder charge. Three received probation while the 17-year-old charged with the actual shooting was held until his 18th birthday.
Bus operators at the Bladensburg garage where Talley worked staged a two-hour wildcat in the early morning hours of May 17th that was ended when Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 officials called for a union meeting.
A number of union meetings followed with a strike motion defeated by a narrow vote at a May 23rd meeting. However the union members voted to refuse to work at night for 10 days and the pay the operators who didn’t work their regular salaries in an attempt to settle the issue before calling a full-fledged strike.
The action prompted city officials, religious leaders, the D.C. Transit Company and the union to reach an agreement June 3, 1968 to require exact change with paper script being issued in place of change. Bus token sales outlets were increased dramatically and the plan that company officials said would never work took hold with an accepting public.
This set contains images related to the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C. and their campaign to hire women during World War II when streetcars and buses were idled due to a lack of white male operators.
The company refused to hire African Americans, but women benefited from the continuous pressure put on the company during the war by civil rights activists.
Members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 struck on May 1, 1974 against the newly created Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA or Metro as it is commonly known) when no agreement was reached on a new contract.
Metro obtained a court injunction on May 2nd and on May 3rd, union President George Davis and Secretary Treasurer Rodney Richmond were threatened with jail unless they ended the strike. Rank and file members defied leaders and continued the strike through May 5th before returning to work en masse May 6th and 7th..
The dispute centered on a cost-of-living escalator clause that led to another wilcat strike in 1978. In 1983, a compromise was reached where WMATA picked up the employee cost of pension contributions in return for the union surrendering quarterly cost-of-living increases.
The union was fined $100,000 for continuing the 1974 strike, although the fine was later reduced to $50,000.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 represents nearly 13,000 active and retired dues-paying members, primarily working at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority as rail and bus employees, maintenance and operations and some clerical workers.
The union’s 100th birthday occurred January 19, 2016.
It was organized in early 1916 after several years of failed efforts. A one day strike in March produced recognition by the Capital Traction Co. and the Washington Railway & Electric Co, but the WRE broke the union the following year.
The union retained its foothold at Capital Traction and ultimately became the representative of nearly all transit workers in greater Washington area with public acquisition of private bus systems in 1973 by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
The union has continued to grow mainly through expansion of the Washington Metro system, but has seen increasing competition in recent years from privatized bus operations in all the jurisdictions in the D.C. area that have reduced real wages and benefits.
The union (and sometimes its members acting without approval of the union structure) have waged high profile strikes in 1916, 1917, 1945, 1951, 1955, 1968, 1974 and 1978.
DC’s transit workers had previously been represented by the Knights of Labor from the mid 1880s up to the turn of the century.
The Amalgamated established Division 161 in 1901 with the active involvement of AFL president Samuel Gompers, but the unit fell apart after its president, John McCrackin, was fired by Capital Traction and the union could not get the backing from the workers to strike.
Subsequent attempts by the Amalgamated were unsuccessful until the Amalgamated’s International secretary-Treasurer Rezin Orr led an organizing drive to establish Division 689.
On the job murder at Metro: 1974
After a heavy equipment operator became the 12th construction worker to be killed building the Metro system, 2,500 unionized construction workers staged a one-day strike November 11, 1974 and marched from the Labor Department to Metro headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The building trades unions staged the strike even though a judge had issued a restraining order. After securing promises of intervention by the Labor Department and commitments from Metro, the workers returned to the job site the next day.
The Construction Contractor’s Council pressed the courts for fines against the union and individual union leaders for staging the strike, but Chief U.S. District Court Judge George L. Hart brokered a deal where the unions would plead guilty and be fined a token amount ($100) and charges would be dropped against individual union leaders.
Some improvement was made in safety by Metro following the strike and the Labor Department intervened as well. Nonetheless, the safety culture apparently didn’t change as operations and maintenance workers continued to be killed through 2010.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) dedicated a memorial to their employees killed on the job in 2011. The workers killed building the system are not memorialized.
ATU Local 689: No Service 1974
This set contains images of a Metrobus in 1974 that shows the block number as “689” with a “Local” sign in front of it to represent Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, the union to which most Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority employees belong.
The route number sign is set “NO” and the destination sign set “Not In Service.” The original photos were staged and the shots taken in May 1974 at the Western Bus Garage at Wisconsin and Ingomar Streets NW. The garage is still in operation today.
Fighting Capital Transit racism: 1941-55
In 1941, a group of predominantly young African American activists organized to take on the challenge of integrating one of the most visible examples of job discrimination in the city: The Washington, DC Capital Transit public transportation system.
The 15-year campaign went through a period of highs and lows as the company, aided at times by the union representing its workers and the federal government, stubbornly clung to its racist practices before finally succumbing in 1955.
The campaign featured a 1943 mass march through Washington, D.C. demanding Black operators, street corner pickets, mass meetings, the company hiring White women and refusing to hire Black people, the Fair Employment Practices Commission refusing to enforce their own order to desegregate the operator ranks prompting Charles Hamilton Houston to resign from the FEPC, and a union president who agreed to end desegregation to bolster public support for an upcoming labor contract battle with the company.
The 1955 strike pitted the union known today as Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 against the corporate raider Louis Wolfson and his partners who owned the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C..
Wolfson bought the company in 1949 and quickly paid out millions to himself and fellow investors in dividends. He then applied for fare increases, citing the unprofitability of the transit company that was suffering declines in ridership as auto use increased.
Division 689 president Walter Bierwagen skillfully employed the press and Congressional pressure on Wolfson.
Congress passed a law revoking Wolfson’s franchise, authorizing the district commissioners to negotiate a settlement with Bierwagen and requiring Wolfson to sell the company within a year. The bill also required that buses replace streetcars.
The union settled the strike gaining pay increases and improvements in pension, vacation and holidays. The union was one of the few to take on a corporate raider and win.
Wolfson would later be convicted and sent to prison for illegal stock sales and for obstructing a Security and Exchange Commission investigation unrelated to his Capital Transit tenure.
Capital Transit workers in Washington, D.C. staged a three-day strike July 1-4, 1951 around wage and seniority demands.
Financier Louis Wolfson bought the company in 1949 and Walter Bierwagen was elected president of Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway and Motorcoach Employees of America Division 689.
It would be the first of a series of fierce clashes between the two that would ultimately result in Wolfson being forced out of the streetcar business in 1955, but only after depleting the system of all its reserves.
The 1951 strike was a win for Bierwagen. Workers made wage gains, pension improvements, gained additional paid holidays, improved vacations and upgraded a number of jobs in the maintenance department.
Perhaps equally important for Bierwagen, he obtained seniority rights for those separated and later rehired in the maintenance department. He also obtained bumping rights for those whose jobs were eliminated if they could qualify for other jobs.
This was an important provision in a contracting industry where a significant minority of workers in the maintenance department was African American. They composed a majority of workers in the track department where jobs were shrinking.
Bierwagen obtained the support of African American workers who in turn pressured him to break the barrier to operator jobs, which he finally agreed to do in 1955.
“Let the company come to us. I speak not of compromise. I say meet our demands.”
–Walter H. Vanstavern
Nearly 4,500 workers on the Washington, D.C. Capital Transit streetcar and bus system went on a wildcat strike November 6, 1945 to demand higher wages, despite a no-strike provision in the contract between the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway Employees (the Amalgamated) Division 689 and the company.
The strike ended briefly with a truce, but a second wildcat strike took place two weeks later that ended when the U.S. government seized the company and threatened to operate the system with U.S. troops.
DC Metro wildcat strikes: 1978
Workers at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA–often called Metro) went on wildcat strikes twice in 1978.
Walkout Protests Operator Rape:
Bus operator anger over lack of security and police protection had been building for years as assaults and robberies mounted. It boiled over May 17, 1978 after the early morning rape of a 32-year old female bus operator at Ridge & Burns Streets SE by a man with a knife.
The strike began May 18 at the former Southeastern Bus Garage at One-Half Street and M Streets SE and spread throughout the day to the Bladensburg Road garage and the Northern Garage at 4615 14th Street NW. A meeting was organized at an RFK Stadium parking lot that evening where striking drivers voted to suspend the strike for two weeks on the condition that a settlement was reached on the safety issue.
The strike resulted in increased police patrols on buses, a shield installed behind the driver, an emergency "panic" button and repairs to broken radios.
Wildcat Over Cost-of-Living.
Discontent with both management and union leaders continued unabated, however. It bubbled over again at a July 18 meeting of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689. Frustrated over WMATA’s failure to pay a quarterly cost of living (COLA) increase due under a contract clause that called for all terms and conditions to remain "undisturbed" during an contract arbitration process, union members repeatedly demanded the union hold a strike vote.
Union leadership correctly pointed out that a strike would be illegal based on their experience in the 1974 strike and ultimately left the meeting. A rump meeting was then held by about 200 who called for a strike at 10 am the next morning.
Few bus operators walked off the job, but a large number of mechanics called out sick at the Bladensburg overhaul shop. The afternoon Daily News reported that dozens of mechanics had been fired. A meeting held at an RFK Stadium parking lot of rank-and-file Metro workers called for a strike to begin at midnight around two demands: Metro pay the COLA and amnesty for all strikers.
Workers heeded the strike call July 20. The vast majority of workers at all eight bus garages, including the Prince George’s garage (4421 Southern Ave SE) represented by the Teamsters, refused to work. Subway trains, which ran only from Silver Spring to Dupont Circle and from Stadium-Armory to National Airport, were also shut down.
The workers held meetings at each reporting location and elected leaders. In the absence of today’s cell phones and instant messaging, workers held regular meetings of the strike leaders and rank and file at an RFK Stadium parking lot. William T. Scoggin Jr., an operator from the (former) Arlington Garage at N. Quincy Street & Wilson Blvd. in Arlington, VA, was elected spokesperson.
Metro responded by temporarily withdrawing discipline and obtaining court injunctions against individual strikers from Judge Louis Oberdorfer. But Oberdorfer went beyond listening to the lawyers from Metro and the union and appointed two labor lawyers Charles "Chip" Yablonski and Charles Booth to advise him.
The strikers ultimately retained their own attorney to represent them before Oberdorfer.
On Sunday July 23 with the strikers holding firm, Oberdorfer ordered WMATA to post a $40,000 per week bond to insure that the money for the cost of living increase was provided for, ordered expedited arbitration of the COLA dispute, ordered the union and Metro to take increased measures to inform workers their strike was illegal and threatened to jail strikers who refused his back to work order.
A mass meeting was held that Sunday evening at RFK attracting about 400 strikers. Scoggin urged a return to work, advising that the workers had won as much as they were going to win. However, other speakers urged a continuation of the strike until amnesty was granted. In a voice vote, Scoggin was replaced as spokesperson by Eugene Ray, a bus operator from the 4-Mile Run yard located at 3501 S. Glebe Road in Arlington, VA.
On July 24, WMATA responded by re-opening the Metrorail system with supervisors and a few workers who crossed picket lines. Scoggin’s Arlington Division went back to work along with a few scattered operators at other Divisions. Management began circulating false rumors that other locations were already back to work.
Hindered by lack of communications, the strikers began to waver and by the afternoon of Tuesday, July 25, service was restored to normal as one location after another returned to work en masse.
Aftermath
US District Court Judge Thomas Flannery fined a number of individual members for contempt of court for their roles in the strike. WMATA fired 10 strikers, suspended 86 for 1-9 days without pay and reprimanded 54.
Discipline was ultimately reduced for many who filed grievances through the union, including nine strikers whose terminations were reduced to long suspensions without pay–largely because WMATA had failed to notify employees after two previous strikes that they could be terminated for walkouts. One fired striker, who did not file a grievance, was not reinstated.
An arbitration panel ruled in favor of the strikers and WMATA paid the quarterly COLA increase that initially triggered the strike. A separate arbitration on the expired overall labor agreement retained the quarterly COLA but ruled that WMATA could hire part-time bus operators with no benefits or seniority.
U.S. National Domestic Politics & Issues
Tractors organized by the American Agriculture Movement (AAM) in response to low crop prices, high farm debt and widespread foreclosures arrived in Washington, D.C. December 10, 1977 for a series of demonstrations on the eve of a nationwide farmers’ strike.
About 500 farm vehicles and trucks converged on the city in two columns involving about 1,000 farmers and supporters. The slow moving vehicles snarled traffic
The farmers’ principle demand was 100% parity—a guarantee by the federal government that prices would insure that farmers turned a reasonable profit.
The movement mushroomed quickly in 1978 from a group of farmers in Colorado to demonstrations in most state capitals by the end of the year.
Most elected officials expressed sympathy but offered little in the way of help. President Jimmy Carter’s administration briefly halted foreclosures of federal loans, but quickly resumed them.
The nationwide strike largely fizzled, but protests utilizing tractors continued around the country.
Over 2,000 farmers returned to District of Columbia in January 1978, clashing with police in Fairfax County and marching through downtown Washington streets.
The largest protest in Washington took place beginning February 5, 1979 when dozens of vehicles drove around the Beltway and through downtown streets bringing traffic to a halt.
Angry farmers broke through barriers, threw a thresher over the White House fence and flattened a number of police motor scooters.
Police eventually confined the tractors to the National Mall where the heavy vehicles damaged the grounds.
The farmers were able to turn around the negative publicity when a major snowstorm hit the city on President’s Day. The tractors were the only vehicles that could get through the snow that was as high as two feet, delivering critical supplies and personnel and clearing roads.
Subsequent farmer protests were held in 1980 and 1985.
The high profile tractor-cades drew widespread publicity, but did not change farm policy Washington, D.C.
The number of farms totaled about 6 million in 1935 of about 150 acres compared to about two million farms today (2016) averaging about 450 acres each. These figures are somewhat misleading because the top 10 percent of farms account for 70 percent of the cropland. The top 2.2% take up about one-third.
The number of small farms has been relatively stable since the 1970s (even increasing slightly), but the number of mid-size farms has drastically as agribusiness has taken hold. The statistics are similar to the increasing concentration of wealth among the general population.
After President Ronald Reagan proposed benefit cuts to social security in 1981, demonstrations against any reductions were held across the United States.
Opponents staved off significant cuts in 1981—although the minimum benefit for future retirees was eliminated. However, in 1983, social security benefits began to be taxed and the normal retirement age was increased from 65 to 67. Excess social security funds collected in any given year (beyond benefits paid out) were also permitted to be used for other purposes.
Dennis Hayes, national coordinator of Environmental Action, organized the first Earth Day actions at the urging of U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson that garnered participants in 2,000 colleges and universities and another estimated 10,000 primary and secondary schools.
It was the first and perhaps largest demonstration of concern over the impact of human activities on the natural environment up until that point in time..
Hayes later founded the Earth Day Network and served as international chair for Earth Day’s anniversaries in 1990 and 200. He led the expansion of Earth Day to more than 180 nations.
Demonstrations to save the Office of Price Controls which had kept prices low and inflation in check during World War II.
After the war, a Republican Congress sought to repeal many of the New Deal and World War II programs.
Later in the decade, women in Washington, D.C. launched a successful meat boycott.
The tactic was revived in the 1960s as a spontaneous boycott of rising prices swept the nation, including in Washington, D.C.
The Townsend movement was a campaign to establish a simplified national pension system funded by a sales tax and paying a flat benefit for life. Eligibility was for those not working over 60 years of age and the plan required that all payments be spent in the month they were issued.
Townsend’s plan failed to pass Congress when economists testified that the two percent sales tax would not fund the $200 benefit per month promised. The movement that began in the mid 1930s lasted through the mid 1950s and was enormously popular with workers and farmers.
Protests and demonstrations surrounding the 200th birthday of the United States of America. Left-wing groups criticized the government for representing the wealthiest interests to the detriment of working people. The Revolutionary Communist Party’s slogan was “We’ve carried the rich for 200 years, let’s get them off our backs.”
President Richard Nixon had been the target of demonstrations since his first election in 1968 over the Vietnam War and other foreign policy, civil rights, labor and poverty issues.
While he was overwhelmingly re-elected in 1972, the revelations that his administration spied on opposition groups, including the Democratic Party eroded his support. When evidence began emerging that he was personally responsible for covering up the spying, his support evaporated.
An “impeach Nixon” demonstration was held April 27, 1974 in Washington, DC that drew about 10,000 participants.
Most of the photos in this set are of an "Anti-Imperialist" contingent that numbered about 3,000.
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The anti-imperialist contingent was mainly organized by the Revolutionary Union (RU). The RU popularized the "battle cry" of "Throw the Bum Out." Several groups that exist today trace their roots to the RU, including the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and the two Freedom Road Socialist Organizations (FRSO).
After the main rally, this contingent marched to the Justice Department and held a rally where a brief confrontation with police ensued.
Nixon resigned August 9, 1974.
This set contains a single photo of a “wanted poster” for William Colby after he was nominated for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief in 1973.
The posters were plastered throughout Washington, DC. Colby was targeted for his part in murdering civilian Vietnamese while head of the “Phoenix Program.”
Between 1968 and 1972, Phoenix "neutralized" 81,740 people suspected of National Liberation Front (NLF—the indiginous opposition to the South Vietnamese government) membership, of whom 26,369 were killed.
Heavy-handed operations—such as random cordons and searches, large-scale and lengthy detentions of innocent civilians, and excessive use of firepower—had a negative effect on the civilian population
There was eventually a series of Congressional hearings. One former participant in the program, K. Barton Osborne, described the Phoenix Program as a "sterile depersonalized murder program."
Lieutenant Vincent Okamoto, intelligence-liaison officer for the Phoenix Program for two months in 1968 and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross described the program as follows:
“The problem was, how do you find the people on the blacklist? It’s not like you had their address and telephone number. The normal procedure would be to go into a village and just grab someone and say, ‘Where’s Nguyen so-and-so?’
“Half the time the people were so afraid they would not say anything. Then a Phoenix team would take the informant, put a sandbag over his head, poke out two holes so he could see, put commo wire around his neck like a long leash, and walk him through the village and say, ‘When we go by Nguyen’s house scratch your head.’
“Then that night Phoenix would come back, knock on the door, and say, ‘April Fool, Motherfucker!’ Whoever answered the door would get wasted. As far as they were concerned whoever answered was a Communist, including family members. Sometimes they’d come back to camp with ears to prove that they killed people.”
It was reported that rival Vietnamese would often report their enemies as "VC" [Viet Cong—a slang name for the NLF] in order to get U.S. troops to kill them.
Colby led the program from 1968-72. He served as Executive Director of the CIA from September 1973-January 1976. Colby was found dead in water May 6, 1996. He had been reported missing April 27, 1996 after having gone canoing near his home in Rock Point, MD. His death was ruled accidental.
Madalyn Murray O’Hair was a lifelong atheist who repeatedly took on state sanctions of religion throughout her life.
Murray (who later married and took the name O’Hair) told the story that her son William came home from a Baltimore. Md. school one day in 1960 saying he was forced to participate in religious activities and challenging O’Hair to live up to and fight for her beliefs.
“When your 14-year old son asks you if you plan to stand up for your religious convictions—well I have to have the respect of my son.”
Murray’s ultimately successful suit caused Life magazine to call her, “The most hated woman in America.”
Neighborhood children were forbidden to play with William or Garth, bricks were thrown through her windows and the word “communist” was painted all over her back fence.
Murray responded by purchasing two dogs and naming them Marx and Engels. “I’m a troublemaker at heart and I don’t give a damn what people say,” Murray was quoted as saying.
Her suit was combined with a similar Pennsylvania case and the Court found that they constituted religious exercises and were therefore unconstitutional under the establishment clause.
The court dismissed as unconvincing the argument that the exercises and the laws requiring them served the secular purpose of “nonreligious moral inspiration.”
Nor was it pertinent that students could be excused from the exercises upon the request of a parent, “for that fact furnishes no defense to a claim of unconstitutionality under the Establishment Clause,” the Supreme Court had held.
Finally, the court denied that its finding amounted to an establishment of a “religion of secularism” or that by failing to uphold the exercises it was interfering in the free-exercise rights of religious students and their parents.
“While the Free Exercise Clause clearly prohibits the use of state action to deny the rights of free exercise to anyone,” the court declared, “it has never meant that a majority could use the machinery of the State to practice its beliefs.”
William later became a Christian and ultimately a Baptist minister and was disowned by Murray.
Murray filed many more suits on similar grounds throughout her life.
She continued to promote atheism for the rest of her life until she and her son Gath and granddaughter Robin were murdered in 1995.
Unemployed
In response to a keeping economic crisis, several jobs marches were held in Washington, D.C. during a period of high inflation and relatively high unemployment–particularly among Black youth.
In 1978, a number of civic, civil rights, religious and labor organizations and individuals sponsored a youth march for jobs that drew upwards of 10,000 predominantly Black youth to Washington, D.C.
In 1980, Rev. Jesse Jackson organized a march on Washington for jobs targeting President Jimmy Carter.
Carter would go on to lose the election in Nov. 1980 to Ronald Reagan who would make much deeper cuts in social programs and promote policies even less friendly to African Americans..
Urbain Ledoux was a social justice advocate for the unemployed who was primarily active in New York City after World War I up until his death in 1941.
Calling himself “Mr. Zero” because he said he didn’t want any fame for himself, he made two major journeys into Washington, D.C.—in 1921 around the unemployment conference called by President Warren Harding and during the veterans Bonus March of 1932.
Ledoux was religiously motivated and joined the Bahá’í Faith that holds there is one God that all religions honor. Acceptance of diversity is emphasized along with service to humanity. The latter captured Ledoux’s desire to help the destitute.
The economic depression of 1920-21 threw tens of thousands out of work and there were calls from a number of quarters to do more than charity.
Ledoux organized a bread line called “The Stepping Stone” in New York City and gained widespread publicity. He followed this up with public “auctions” of unemployed in New York and Boston where bidders would offer terms of work to the jobless.
Following the widespread publicity of those efforts, he headed to Washington, D.C. in September of 1921, threatening encampments of the unemployed on the steps of the White House and Congress.
He quickly gained an audience with Harding and attempted to be admitted as a delegate representing the jobless to the President’s Conference on Unemployment. Ledoux failed to get delegate credentials to the conference, but was admitted as an official observer and given the opportunity to present testimony.
He set up a D.C. Stepping Stone hotel for the unemployed at 235 Pennsylvania Avenue NW where employers could seek employees by calling a telephone number.
He attempted to hold a “public auction of the unemployed October 17, 1921 at the small park at 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, a long-standing gathering spot for protesters and soapbox speakers.
Several dozen unemployed, along with perhaps a thousand spectators and two dozen or more police and as many reporters, gathered at the triangular park. The police declared Ledoux’s permit invalid and prevented him from speaking or holding an auction, but Ledoux’s unemployed rallied in front of the Stepping Stone several blocks away.
Ledoux told reporters, “I have found Washington a city of limousines and kid gloves but I will arouse them even if I have to conduct an auction of these men.”
Ledoux finally held his auction October 22nd when he auctioned off the 100 beds at the Stepping Stone hotel. The beds were sold, “with the provision that with each one went one of the unemployed, who was to be given a job at not less than $18 a week,” according to the Washington Post.
Most of the men received jobs at a lumber camp near Great Falls.
Ledoux and the jobless continued to picket at the unemployed conference, the District Building (Wilson Building), the Capitol and the White House and seized another opportunity when a international conference on limited naval armaments convened at Daughters of the American Revolution Memorial Continental Hall on 17th Street NW.
Ledoux renewed his call that companies that profited from World War I donate one-half of those profits toward jobs programs for the unemployed.
On December 16th, he was arrested at the arms Conference and brought into court. When the prosecutor asked Ledoux what he hoped to accomplish with his “one ring circus.” Ledoux responded that he carried a white umbrella, a lighted lantern and a Bible during his daily demonstrations because he was like Diogenes of the ancient world searching for an honest man. The court released Ledoux.
The following day, Ledoux showed up at the 3rd District Police Precinct and tried to swear out a warrant for the arrest of the arms conference participants for “trafficking in stolen goods.”
Ledoux cited, “Manchuria and Port Arthur, originally stolen from China by the Czar’s government of Russia, now held by Japan; Indochina, formerly held by its people and China, now held by France; Indian and a vast amount of property within and without its boundaries now in the possession of Great Britain; Mesopotamia, formerly the property of Turkey now held by Great Britain; Syria, formerly the property of Turkey, now held by France; the Philippine Islands, formerly held by Spain, then by its people, now held the United States.”
The police quickly refused Ledoux’s request, but once again he gained widespread publicity for his cause.
On December 27th, he called upon the great socialist leader Eugene Debs at his hotel. Debs had recently been released from prison for publicly opposing U.S. entry into World War I.
Debs, a labor leader and socialist, ran for president while imprisoned and received nearly a million votes.
Ledoux came to Debs hotel with his lighted lantern, a copy of the Sermon on the Mount and his white umbrella. Ledoux hailed Debs as “an honest man” and presented the sermon and the lantern to Debs.
He told Debs he had like Diogenes carried the lantern but, “since I have met you I have no further use for it.”
Ledoux went on to give a speech in which he likened the socialist leader to the force that moved mountains.
Debs accepted the lantern, but declared himself unworthy of it.
Before leaving Washington, he attended President Harding’s open house at the White House on New Year’s Day 1922. Harding gave him a “cheery greeting” according to the Washington Post, but made no commitments toward Ledoux’s causes.
Ledoux threatened to return to Washington in 1925 with an army of unemployed like Coxey’s 1894 march. But the effort never gained any real steam.
He returned to Washington for demonstrations with the Bonus Army of 1932, getting himself arrested along with two others in the more militant faction of veterans for attempting to lead an unauthorized march on the White House July 16th.
At his trial for parading without a permit, Ledoux said he would spend the 40 days in jail because he couldn’t pay the $40 fine. However, a war widow who was in the courtroom paid the fine and Ledoux was released.
The unauthorized march led President Herbert Hoover to make the decision to clear the Bonus Expeditionary Force camps—an ending in infamy for Hoover.
Ledoux continued his work among the jobless—mainly in Brooklyn’s Bowery and died in New York after a long illness in 1941.
Ledoux’s attempts at organizing the unemployed served as models for the Communist Party’s Unemployed Councils and the Socialists’ Unemployed Leagues of the 1930s and for later groups like the Black Panther free breakfast programs of the 1960s. Mr. Zero’s publicity antics also paved the way for the Yippie stunts of the 1960s.
The Washington, D.C. Hunger marches of 1931-32 gained nearly as much publicity at the time as the more enduring Bonus Army marchers of 1932-34.
With one-third of the nation unemployed, the call for a march demanding relief and jobs struck a chord throughout the nation.
Organized and led by the Unemployed Councils that were heavily influenced by the Communist Party, the marches were the subject of a fear campaign by officials who warned of a revolution. This only made the public more curious and thousands gathered along the arrival route to watch the Hunger March on December 6, 1931.
The main chant form the marchers was “We want unemployment insurance” but others included singing “The Internationale,” and “John Brown’s Body, changing “Long live the Soviet government,” “Long live the solidarity of the Negro and the white workers. Down with Jim Crow and lynching,” “Down with charity! We want security.”
Buoyed by the arrival of several thousand others, close to 5,000 persons made their way past the White House to the Washington Auditorium where they joined in singing “The Internationale” and stood for a minute in silence to “martyred” comrades.
Concerned about communist influence and taken aback by the lack of sympathy for the unemployed demonstrated by government leaders, Father James Cox organized a caravan of 25,000 unemployed from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to march on Washington in January 1932.
It was the largest demonstration to date in Washington. Cox hoped the action would stir Congress to start a public works program and to increase the inheritance tax to 70%.
Even Pennsylvania’s Republican governor Gifford Pinchot backed Cox’s march. Pinchot hoped Cox would back his own hopes to wrest away the Republican nomination for president away from Hoover. Cox had other plans.
Herbert Hoover was sufficiently embarrassed by the march that a full-scale investigation was launched against Cox. The Republican National Committee wanted to know how Cox was able to purchase enough gasoline to get the marchers to Washington, suggesting the Vatican, or Democratic supporters of Al Smith funded the operation.
It turned out that Andrew Mellon had quietly ordered his Gulf Oil gas stations to dispense free gas to the marchers. This proved to be the pretext for Hoover to remove Mellon from his post as Secretary of the Treasury.
It also provided fodder for communists and other leftists to blast Cox for being funded by the wealthy and ultimately undermined his support among the downtrodden.
The second Hunger March organized by the Unemployed Councils began in early December 1932.
Despite the problems on the way in and the massive police presence in the nation’s capital, the march by 3,000 and observed by upwards of 100,000 proceeded peacefully on December 6th.
Permission had been granted to march near the Capitol and this time a delegation led by leader Herbert Benjamin met with Vice President Curtis and Speaker of the House John Garner.
A number of prominent elected officials and other such as Lady Astor visited the Hunger March camp off of New York Avenue NE near the railroad tracks.
The hunger marches did not lead immediately to unemployment insurance, but helped to galvanize public opinion in favor of a relief system.
Wisconsin acted in 1932, followed by California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Utah and Washington before the federal act passed in 1935.
After World War I, the American Legion organized a petition campaign garnering over one million signatures that was delivered to Congress in 1922. While that bill failed the issue did not evaporate and instead continued to gather steam.
In 1924 Congress authorized a payment to World War I veterans that varied according to their length of service and the amount of time they served overseas. However, there was a catch—the bonus was not to be paid until 1945 to the servicemen or their family if they pre-deceased the payment date.
When the Great Depression began in 1929, veterans hungry for any type of cash began to clamor for payment. The American Legion again organized a campaign and in 1931 brought hundreds of veterans to Capitol Hill.
The Legion compromised however, agreeing to support a bill that provided for loans against the promised 1945 payment.
However, many veterans believed they were sold out and what became the Bonus Expeditionary Army (BEF or commonly known as the Bonus Army) was launched in 1932 demanding immediate payment of the promised bonus.
As many as 17,000 veterans, swelled by family and supporters to as many as 45,000, set up camp on open ground and empty buildings throughout Washington, D.C.
Congress failed to pass an early payment of the bonus and President Hoover ordered the camps cleared. Gen. Douglas MacArthur led the troops who advanced with cavalry, fix bayonets and tear gas.
Dozens were injured and two veterans were killed during the evictions.
Smaller marches were held again in 1933 and 1934. An expedited bonus payment bill was finally enacted by Congress in 1936—overriding President Franklin Roosevelt’s veto.
Coxey’s Army of the unemployed, who marched on Washington in the Spring of 1894, marked the first well publicized protest demonstration in the nation’s capital.
Spurred by the deprivation caused by the panic of 1893 (the country’s worst depression up to that point in time), Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey organized the march to demand a public works program that would provide jobs and built the country’s infrastructure to stimulate economic growth.
When the protesters finally reached the U.S. Capitol on May 1, 1894, the demonstration was broken up by police using clubs and horses. Coxey and several other leaders were jailed.
However, the vast publicity would spur many others to march on Washington again, including Coxey who staged a second march in 1914.
The recession of 1948-49 sparked renewed soup kitchen lines and protests by the unemployed–particularly veterans who called for continued unemployment benefits, housing and jobs.
The American Youth Congress was an organization that focused on issues affecting young people and by 1939 had over 4.5 million members across the country.
Among the issues taken up by the AYC were draft opposition, jobs and training for youth and equality among different races and nationalities. It opposed mandatory ROTC training on campuses and lobbied for more funding for education.
However, the group was accused by U.S. Rep. Martin Dies, chair of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as having communist leadership in 1939 and support for the organization began to decline.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attempted to bolster the group in 1940 by inviting some of the group to a picnic on the White House lawn where they were addressed by President Franklin Roosevelt.
But the AYC continued to decline and the group disbanded in 1941.
The Communist Party organized demonstrations of March 6, 1930 were the first nationwide protest response to the Great Depression that had begun the previous fall. The economic collapse ultimately put one in three out of work in the U.S.
Protests were held in Detroit, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, Milwaukee, Seattle, Las Angeles and San Francisco among other cities. Demonstrations were also held on the same day in cities around the world.
The DC Communist Party and allied groups had begun preparations in the city for several weeks and police responded by arresting 10 people on April 30 for holding soapbox style speeches on the street corners near the Communist Party headquarters at 7th & P Streets NW. Similar meetings and police harassment took place at the Women’s Christian Temperance Union statue at 7th Street and Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
They held a rally the night before at their headquarters where speeches were given and signs were made for the next day’s demonstration. The main themes were demands for good jobs, against police brutality, Jim Crow schools in the District and lynching.
Among the organizers were William “Bert” Lawrence, local party chair, Solomon Harper, International Labor Defense and Edith Briscoe of the Young Communist League.
Public demonstrations of this type were fairly infrequent at that time and public protests involving blacks and whites even more infrequent.
The picket in front of the White House was held with blacks and whites locking arms while picketing. Press reports estimated that several thousand nearby office workers came out to watch. When Lawrence stopped and began to speak to the crowd, someone in street clothes attacked him. Police then attacked the picketers and bystanders with tear gas and black jacks. Some fought back against the police.
Press reports indicate that 13 were arrested with an unknown number of injured, but only one that required hospital treatment.
The demonstrations made front-page news and were the lead stories in the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun and helped put the Communist Party at the forefront of the fight against unemployment and racial discrimination in the District for the next decade.
The Works Progress Administration employed several million people during its existence from 1935 to 1943 in order to provide productive labor to relieve unemployment during the Great Depression. The Agency was terminated in 1943 after U.S. unemployment shrunk to near zero due to World War II.
In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt cut funding for the WPA resulting in several thousand layoffs.
The recently consolidated Workers Alliance – a merger of three different organizations organizing and representing unemployed workers – organized several protests of the layoffs, including a mass march August 24, 1937.
The marchers came from all over the country and camped in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. before undertaking their demonstration that took them past the Workers Progress Administration headquarters, the Chamber of Commerce, the White House and the U.S. Capitol and holding a rally at the Labor Department (now Mellon) Auditorium.
The march was not successful in its goal of winning reinstatement for workers laid-off, but did receive pledges from Administration officials that no more layoffs would be conducted.
The Workers Alliance was a product of the merger between the Depression era Communist Party’s Unemployed Councils, the Socialist Party’s Worker’s Alliance and the A. J. Muste/Trotskyist Unemployed Leagues.
The Works Progress Administration (later Works Projects Administration) built public works projects such as roads, bridges, schools, courthouses, hospitals, parks, and museums, including many that are still in use today. There were also projects for artists and writers.
The Unemployed Leagues were mainly organized by the Socialist Party and headed by Davis Lasser and later merged with the Communist Party supported Unemployed Councils to form the Workers Alliance.
One of the images in this set shows a picket line organized by the National Unemployment League pauses for a photo in front of the White House on April 1, 1935.
This Ohio-based unemployed group was headed by Anthony Ramuglia of the American Workers Party (AWP).
The AWP was merger of a group headed by pacifist A. J. Muste and James P. Cannon’s Trotskyist Communist League of America.
The Workers Alliance was formed as a national organization of the unemployed by a merger of the Socialist Party led unemployed leagues the A. J. Muste/Trotskyist American Workers Party led unemployed leagues and the Communist Party led unemployed councils.
End Unemployment Day marked the last nationwide protest organized by the Workers Alliance, although local organizations continued to organize.
David Lasser, the Socialist president of the organization, resigned in June 1940 and the national organization fell apart after that.
Cutbacks and layoffs must stop at the U of MD: 1973
Campus workers organized Local 1072 of the American Federation of State County & Municipal Workers (AFSCME) under the leadership of Gladys Jefferson (not shown) long before obtaining collective bargaining rights.
This photo set shows an early picket line by AFSCME members and student supporters in front of the Administration Building at the University of Maryland College Park protesting a decision to layoff campus workers. The action took place in September 1973.
Local 1072 still exists today and after a long struggle obtained collective bargaining rights and the right to "fair share" where non-union members pay a fee for union services rendered. AFSCME 1072 is part of the statewide AFSCME MD.
No cuts in jobless benefits: 1975-77
This set contains images of a march by 1,000 unemployed from All Souls Church at 16th & Harvard Sts. NW, down 18th St to the White House on March 5, 1977 to demand “no cuts in unemployment benefits.”
[Additonal images from 1970s unemployment protests have been added]
Jimmy Carter had just taken office as President and the unemployment rate was hovering around 9%. Carter proposed to cut 13 weeks of unemployment benefits and make another 13 weeks conditional those out of work accepting any job—including minimum wage jobs.
Marchers carried a letter to Carter that said in part, “Why do you represent the interests of the moneyed class while claiming to speak on our behalf?” The demonstration was organized by the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee (UWOC) which had chapters in 33 cities at the time.
UWOC was organized by the Revolutionary Communist Party, a group was formed as the protest movement of the 1960s and early 1970s began to ebb.
Veterans
Communist Veterans Encampment: 1947
The Communist Party, U.S.A. held a Communist Veterans Encampment May 8-9, 1947 in Washington, D.C. where they lobbied government agencies and Congress on a variety of issues and held a rally at Turner’s Arena at 14th & W Streets NW.
Leaders of the veterans’ encampment included Robert Thompson, a vet and chair of the NY state committee of the Communist Party; James Jackson of Richmond, VA and education director of the Michigan district of the Communist Party; and John Bates of New York City, head of the veterans’ department of the Communist Party.
Thompson told the delegates that communists are “angered at the government’s failure to provide jobs and security for all veterans.”
Most of the attendees were World War II veterans.
It doesn’t appear that the Communist Party organized a second veterans’ encampment.
The Communist Party also organized the more famous United Negro and Allied Veterans of America (1947-56) that challenged racial discrimination both within the military, within the application of the GI bill and within society at large. Jackie Robinson, the first Major League Black baseball player, was briefly a leading member until anti-communists in the House and Senate denounced him and he quickly quit the organization.
After World War I, the American Legion organized a petition campaign garnering over one million signatures that was delivered to Congress in 1922. While that bill failed the issue did not evaporate and instead continued to gather steam.
In 1924 Congress authorized a payment to World War I veterans that varied according to their length of service and the amount of time they served overseas. However, there was a catch—the bonus was not to be paid until 1945 to the servicemen or their family if they pre-deceased the payment date.
When the Great Depression began in 1929, veterans hungry for any type of cash began to clamor for payment. The American Legion again organized a campaign and in 1931 brought hundreds of veterans to Capitol Hill.
The Legion compromised however, agreeing to support a bill that provided for loans against the promised 1945 payment.
However, many veterans believed they were sold out and what became the Bonus Expeditionary Army (BEF or commonly known as the Bonus Army) was launched in 1932 demanding immediate payment of the promised bonus.
As many as 17,000 veterans, swelled by family and supporters to as many as 45,000, set up camp on open ground and empty buildings throughout Washington, D.C.
Congress failed to pass an early payment of the bonus and President Hoover ordered the camps cleared. Gen. Douglas MacArthur led the troops who advanced with cavalry, fix bayonets and tear gas.
Dozens were injured and two veterans were killed during the evictions.
Smaller marches were held again in 1933 and 1934. An expedited bonus payment bill was finally enacted by Congress in 1936—overriding President Franklin Roosevelt’s veto.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) conducted perhaps their most famous set of demonstrations April 19-23, 1971 in Washington, D.C. calling it Operation Dewey Canyon III.
From Wikipedia:
This peaceful anti-war protest organized by VVAW was named after two short military invasions of Laos by US and South Vietnamese forces. Dubbed "Operation Dewey Canyon III," it took place in Washington, D.C, April 19-23, 1971. Participants said it was "a limited incursion into the country of Congress." This week of protest events gained much greater media publicity and Vietnam veterans participation than earlier events.
Led by Gold Star Mothers (mothers of soldiers killed in war), more than 1,100 veterans marched across the Lincoln Memorial Bridge to the Arlington Cemetery gate, just beneath the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Reverend Jackson H. Day, who had a few days earlier resigned his military chaplainship, conducted a memorial service for their fellows. He said:
“Maybe there are some others here like me–who wanted desperately to believe that what we were doing was acceptable, who hung on the words of ‘revolutionary development’ and ‘winning the hearts and minds of the people.’ We had been told that on the balance the war was a good thing and we tried to make it a good thing; all of us can tell of somebody who helped out an orphanage, or of men like one sergeant who adopted a crippled Vietnamese child; and even at My Lai the grief of one of the survivors was mixed with bewilderment as he told a reporter, ‘I just don’t understand it … always before, the Americans brought medicine and candy.’ I believe there is something in all of us that would wave a flag for the dream of an America that brings medicine and candy, but we are gathered here today, waving no flags, in the ruins of that dream. Some of you saw right away the evil of what was going on; others of us one by one, adding and re-adding the balance sheet of what was happening and what could possibly be accomplished finally saw that no goal could be so laudable, or defense so necessary, as to justify what we have visited upon the people of Indochina.”
The gate to the cemetery had been closed and locked upon word of their impending arrival; the Gold Star mothers placed the wreaths outside the gate and departed. The march re-formed and continued to the Capitol, with Congressman Pete McCloskey joining the procession en route. McCloskey and fellow Representatives Bella Abzug, Don Edwards, Shirley Chisholm, Edmund Muskie and Ogden Reid addressed the large crowd and expressed support.
VVAW members defied a Justice Department-ordered injunction against camping on the Mall and set up an installation. Later that day, the District Court of Appeals lifted the injunction. Some members visited their Congressmen to lobby against the U.S. participation in the war. The VVAW presented Congress with a 16-point suggested resolution for ending the war.
On Tuesday, April 20, 200 veterans listened to hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on proposals to end the war. Other veterans, still angry at the insult to the Gold Star Mothers when they were refused entry to Arlington National Cemetery the previous day, marched back to the front gate.
After initial refusal of entry, the veterans were finally allowed in. Veterans performed guerrilla theater on the Capitol steps, re-enacting combat scenes and search and destroy missions from Vietnam. Later that evening, Democratic Senators Claiborne Pell and Philip Hart held a fund-raising party for the veterans.
During the party it was announced that Chief Justice Warren Burger of the United States Supreme Court had reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstated the injunction. The veterans were given until 4:30 the following afternoon to break camp and leave the National Mall. This was the fastest reversal of an Appeals Court decision in the Supreme Court’s history.
On Wednesday, April 21, more than 50 veterans marched to The Pentagon, attempting to surrender as war criminals. A Pentagon spokesman took their names and turned them away. Veterans continued to meet with and lobby their congressional representatives. Senator Ted Kennedy spent the day speaking with the veterans.
The guerrilla theater re-enactments were moved to the steps of the Justice Department. Many veterans were prepared to be arrested for camping on the National Mall, but none were, as park police defied orders to make arrests. Headlines the following day read, "VETS OVERRULE SUPREME COURT."
On Thursday, April 22, a large group of veterans demonstrated on the steps of the Supreme Court, saying that the Supreme Court should have ruled on the constitutionality of the war. The veterans sang "God Bless America" and 110 were arrested for disturbing the peace, and were later released. John Kerry, as VVAW spokesman, testified against the war for 2 hours in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before a packed room.
The veterans lobbied all day on Capitol. A Washington District Court judge dissolved his injunction order, rebuking the Justice Department lawyers for requesting the court order and then not enforcing it. Veterans staged a candlelight march around the White House, while carrying a huge American flag upside down in the historic international signal of distress.
On Friday, April 23, more than 800 veterans individually tossed their medals, ribbons, discharge papers, and other war mementos on the steps of the Capitol, rejecting the Vietnam war and the significance of those awards. Several hearings in Congress were held that week regarding atrocities committed in Vietnam and the media’s inaccurate coverage of the war. There were also hearings on proposals to end the United States’ participation in the war.
The vets planted a tree on the mall as part of a ceremony symbolizing the veterans’ wish to preserve life and the environment.
DC African American veterans of the GAR–Grand Army of the Republic–that were active during the Civil War.
The recession of 1948-49 sparked renewed soup kitchen lines and protests by the unemployed–particularly veterans who called for continued unemployment benefits, housing and jobs.
Vets march on the White House: 1974
March on White House by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) demanding:
*UNIVERSAL UNCONDITIONAL AMNESTY
*DECENT BENEFITS FOR ALL VETS
*IMPLEMENT THE AGREEMENTS–
END ALL AID TO THIEU AND LON NOL
*SINGLE TYPE DISCHARGE FOR ALL VETS
*KICK NIXON OUT
The march began at the VVAW encampment on the Mall and ended at the Ellipse on the south side of the White House.
This demonstration was part of four days of demonstrations by VVAW. They used an encampment in Washington DC on the Mall between 3rd and 4th Streets NW as a base to stage marches to various targets in Washington, DC.
VVAW engaged thousands of Vietnam era veterans in protest against the war at many different events, including a march from Morristown NJ to Valley Forge in 1970, a 1971 "Winter Soldier Investigation" into war crimes, a April 1971 demonstration in Washington, DC where 800 veterans threw back their ribbons and medals to protest the war and a Dec. 1971 takeover of the Statue of Liberty.
By 1974, a debate had developed within the organization over its post-Vietnam focus. A group of veterans and supporters backed by the Revolutionary Union (later Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)) argued for turning the focus to decent veterans benefits while another tendency backed by different left-wing groups argued for making anti-U.S. invention primary.
This July 1974 protest marked the last large scale demonstration led by VVAW. Soon after, a bitter fight developed between the two factions that led to two separate organizations: the RCP backed VVAW Anti-Imperialist and the VVAW. Both still exist today, although they are greatly diminished both in numbers and influence from the 1970-74 group.
March led by the American Servicemen’s Union (ASU) demanding a $2,500 bonus starting at Mt. Vernon Square, marching past the Veterans Administration and onto Lafayette Park in front of the White House May 19, 1973.
The demonstrators opposed planned Nixon administration cuts in veteran’s disability benefits and called for a $2,500 bonus to Vietnam era vets.
The ASU was founded by U.S. Army private Andy Stapp in 1967 with members from different bases and different branches of the service.
The ASU demands ranged from ending discrimination to extending Constitutional rights to soldiers to election of officers. The union also demanded collective bargaining with the brass.
Stapp faced court-martial for refusing to turn over anti-war leaflets and was later acquitted at another court martial after protests by antiwar groups led to unwanted publicity by the military. Soldiers in Stapp’s units were transferred to other units, but this only spread Stapp’s message.
Eventually the Army drummed him out with an undesirable discharge.
Stapp continued to organize the ASU and several thousand GIs became members. Chapters were established at most U.S. bases. The newspaper “The Bond” was mailed to 20,000 at its peak and reached many more through hand to hand contact.
The group faded after the Vietnam War and the draft ended, but Stapp continues to be active in anti-war and progressive causes today. Stapp was quoted in Workers World newspaper in 2002, “While we didn’t win union recognition, we were a factor in ending the war.”
VA target of vets picket: 1974
March and rally by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) demanding "decent benefits for all veterans"who served during the Vietnam era in front of the Veterans Administration in Washington DC (Vermont Ave & I Street NW) on the afternoon of July 2, 1974.
This demonstration was part of four days of demonstrations by VVAW. They used an encampment in Washington DC on the Mall between 3rd and 4th Streets NW as a base to stage marches to various targets in Washington, DC.
VVAW engaged thousands of Vietnam era veterans in protest against the war at many different events, including a march from Morristown NJ to Valley Forge in 1970, a 1971 "Winter Soldier Investigation" into war crimes, a April 1971 demonstration in Washington, DC where 800 veterans threw back their ribbons and medals to protest the war and a Dec. 1971 takeover of the Statue of Liberty.
By 1974, a debate had developed within the organization over its post-Vietnam focus. A group of veterans and supporters backed by the Revolutionary Union (later Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)) argued for turning the focus to decent veterans benefits while another tendency backed by different left-wing groups argued for making anti-U.S. invention primary.
This July 1974 protest marked the last large scale demonstration led by VVAW. Soon after, a bitter fight developed between the two factions that led to two separate organizations: the RCP backed VVAW Anti-Imperialist and the VVAW. Both still exist today, although they are greatly diminished both in numbers and influence from the 1970-74 group.
Limited progress was made on extending benefits to all vets when President Jimmy Carter instituted a program for veterans to apply for "automatic" discharge upgrade. At the same time Carter and also issued amensty to draft violators. In an immediate setback, Congress passed a law restricting veterans benefits to those who received the "automatic" upgrades the same year. Carter signed the restrictive bill into law.
U.S. use of the herbicide "Agent Orange" in Vietnam led many vets and Vietnamese people to develop cancers and other diseases. The U.S. initially denied any ill effects, but Congress passed a "presumptive" bill making it easier for veterans to make agent orange claims in 1991.
By 1993, the U.S. had processed less than 500 claims out of 40,000 veterans. A prominent VVAW leader in the 1970s, John Kniffin, died of complications from agent orange exposure in 2002.
Demonstration by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) demanding "universal, unconditional amenesty" for veterans who served during the Vietnam era in front of the Court of Military Appeals in Washington DC (450 E Street NW) on the morning July 2, 1974.
This demonstration was part of four days of demonstrations by VVAW. They used an encampment in Washington DC on the Mall between 3rd and 4th Streets NW as a base to stage marches to various targets in Washington, D.C.
VVAW engaged thousands of Vietnam era veterans in protest against the war at many different events, including a march from Morristown NJ to Valley Forge in 1970, a 1971 "Winter Soldier Investigation" into war crimes, a April 1971 demonstration in Washington, DC where 800 veterans threw back their ribbons and medals to protest the war and a Dec. 1971 takeover of the Statue of Liberty.
By 1974, a debate had developed within the organization over its post-Vietnam focus. A group of veterans and supporters backed by the Revolutionary Union (later Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)) argued for turning the focus to decent veterans benefits while another group backed by different left-wing groups argued for making anti-U.S. invention primary. This July 1974 protest marked the last large scale demonstration led by the group. Soon after, two bitter factions developed leading to two separate organizations: the RCP backed VVAW Anti-Imperialist and the VVAW. Both still exist today, although they are greatly diminished from the 1970-74 group.
President Carter instituted a program for veterans to apply for "automatic" discharge upgrade and also issued amensty to draft violators in 1977. The same year, Congress passed a law restricting veterans benefits to those who received the upgrades. Carter signed the bill into law.
Demanding justice at Justice: 1974
March and rally by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) demanding “universal, unconditional amnesty” for veterans who served during the Vietnam era in front of the Justice Department in Washington DC (10th St. & Pennsylvania Ave. NW) on July 3, 1974.
The group also staged a march on the U.S. Capitol the same day where police briefly attacked the demonstrators resulting in ten injuries and five arrests.
The demonstrations were part of four days of demonstrations by VVAW. They used an encampment in Washington DC on the Mall between 3rd and 4th Streets NW as a base to stage marches to various targets in Washington, D.C.
VVAW engaged thousands of Vietnam era veterans in protest against the war at many different events, including a march from Morristown NJ to Valley Forge in 1970, a 1971 "Winter Soldier Investigation" into war crimes, a April 1971 demonstration in Washington, DC where 800 veterans threw back their ribbons and medals to protest the war and a Dec. 1971 takeover of the Statue of Liberty.
By 1974, a debate had developed within the organization over its post-Vietnam focus. A group of veterans and supporters backed by the Revolutionary Union (later Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)) argued for turning the focus to decent veterans benefits while another group backed by different left-wing groups argued for making anti-U.S. invention primary. This July 1974 protest marked the last large scale demonstration led by the group. Soon after, two bitter factions developed leading to two separate organizations: the RCP backed VVAW Anti-Imperialist and the VVAW. Both still exist today, although they are greatly diminished from the 1970-74 group.
President Carter instituted a program for veterans to apply for “automatic” discharge upgrade and also issued amensty to draft violators in 1977. The same year, Congress passed a law restricting veterans benefits to those who received the upgrades. Carter signed the bill into law.
Vietnam War
DC war tax resistance: 1969-72
The Washington War Tax Resistance was founded circa 1969 and was part of a national campaign to defund the war in Indochina.
The newsletter publicized ways to avoid the telephone tax surcharge, ways to file income tax returns without the Vietnam War surcharge, bank penalties for IRS seizures, penalties imposed for refusing the tax as well as information on demonstrations and protests over the taxes.
The primary target was a telephone tax enacted at a rate of 10% in 1966. Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, explained during the floor debate that “it is Vietnam, and only the Vietnam operation, which makes this bill necessary.”
The tax was extended in 1968 for two more years. In late 1970 another two-year extension was approved, but with the proviso that it be reduced by 1% each year thereafter and repealed entirely on January 1, 1982.
A secondary target was an income tax surcharge proposed by President Lyndon Johnson to continue funding the war in Vietnam.
On 28 June 1968, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed a law that added a 7.5% surcharge to most income tax bills that tax year, and 10% for 1969. Johnson sold the tax as a necessary measure for the Vietnam War effort — “to give our fighting men the help they need in this hour of trial.”
The national war tax resistance led to the creation of some 170 tax refusal groups across the country by 1972—the peak of the Vietnam War era tax refusal movement.
The movement ultimately failed to achieve its goal of de-funding the war, but in 1970 the U.S. government reported 28,700 Americans refusing to the pay the phone tax surcharge and another 1,648 income tax surcharge refusals.
However, the war tax refusal movement provided a gateway for other antiwar activism and served as a personal witness statement against the war in Vietnam.
As the war in Vietnam drew to a close, so too did the movement against the war tax and most local chapters and the national movement shuttered their doors in 1973.
Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician and prominent antiwar leader.
His book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-selling volumes in history.
The book’s premise to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do."
Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand children’s needs and family dynamics. His ideas about childcare influenced several generations of parents to be more flexible and affectionate with their children, and to treat them as individuals. However, his theories were also widely criticized by colleagues for relying too heavily on anecdotal evidence rather than serious academic research.
His activism began In 1962 when Spock joined The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, otherwise known as SANE. Spock was politically outspoken and active in the movement to end the Vietnam War.
In 1968, he and four others (including William Sloane Coffin, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, and Michael Ferber) were singled out for prosecution by then Attorney General Ramsey Clark on charges of conspiracy to counsel, aid, and abet resistance to the draft.
Spock and three of his alleged co-conspirators were convicted, although the five had never been in the same room together. His two-year prison sentence was never served; the case was appealed and in 1969 a federal court set aside his conviction.
In 1968, Spock signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War, and he later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated tax resistance as a form of anti-war protest.
He was also arrested for his involvement in anti-war protests resulting from his signing of the anti-war manifesto "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority" circulated by members of the radical intellectual collective RESIST. The individuals arrested during this incident came to be known as the Boston Five.
In 1968, the American Humanist Association named Spock Humanist of the Year.[33]
In 1970, Dr. Benjamin Spock was active in The New Party serving as Honorary co-chairman with Gore Vidal.
In the 1972 United States presidential election, Spock was the People’s Party candidate with a platform that called for free medical care; the repeal of "victimless crime" laws, including the legalization of abortion, homosexuality, and cannabis; a guaranteed minimum income for families; and for an end to American military interventionism and the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from foreign countries.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Spock demonstrated and gave lectures against nuclear weapons and cuts in social welfare programs.
In 1976, Spock married Mary Morgan. They built a home in Arkansas, on Beaver Lake, where Spock would row daily. She was arrested with him many times for civil disobedience. Once they were arrested in Washington, D.C. for praying on the White House lawn, along with other demonstrators.
When arrested, Morgan was strip searched; Spock was not. She sued the jail and the mayor of Washington, D.C. for sex discrimination. The American Civil Liberties Union took the case, and won.
Spock died at home in 1998.
Rennie Davis was a community organizer and antiwar leader during the 1960s who was one of the Chicago 8—charged with conspiracy to riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
As the antiwar movement began to die down in 1972, he turned to become a follower of the Guru Maharaj Ji and today is a venture capitalist.
Abbie Hoffman began his radical career in high school when he wrote a paper favoring atheism and his teacher in turn ripped up the paper. Hoffman attacked the teacher and was expelled.
Hoffman was active in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s and with early anti-Vietnam War efforts.
He gained attention when went with a group of supporters to the New York Stock Exchange and threw a mixture of real and fake dollar bills down to the traders below. Many booed while others scrambled to try to grab the money. Hoffman claimed that the protest was designed to expose what the traders were already doing: grabbing money.
At the massive march on the Pentagon in October 1967, Hoffman and Alan Ginsberg led a group to try to “levitate” the Pentagon.
Hoffman and his often cohort Jerry Rubin helped hone the tactic of using stunts to garner publicity for his causes.
He was one of the Chicago 8 defendants charged with crossing state lines to incite to riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Convictions of the defendants, including contempt of court charges, were ultimately voided on appeal.
As the antiwar movement began to subside in the early 1970s as the Vietnam War wound down, Hoffman wa2er47892er4789s charged with distribution of cocaine and went underground.
After resurfacing, he was arrested with 14 others at the University of Amhert in Massachusetts protesting CIA recruiters and continued his left wing activism until his death in 1980.
In 1987 Hoffman summed up his views:
“You are talking to a leftist. I believe in the redistribution of wealth and power in the world. I believe in universal hospital care for everyone. I believe that we should not have a single homeless person in the richest country in the world. And I believe that we should not have a CIA that goes around overwhelming governments and assassinating political leaders, working for tight oligarchies around the world to protect the tight oligarchy here at home.”
Dagmar Wilson founded Women’s Strike for Peace in 1961 at the height of the Cold War calling for end to atmospheric nuclear testing and an end to nuclear weapons.
Wilson’s organized women in 60 cities who turned out over 50,000 people nationwide in their first action in 1961.
The protest struck a chord in the throughout the U.S.
President Kennedy responded to that demonstration by saying, “I saw the ladies myself. I recognized why they were here. There were a great number of them. It was in the rain. I understood what they were attempting to say and, therefore, I considered that their message was received.”
Two years later a partial test ban treaty was signed by the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain—three of the four nuclear powers at that time. France has never signed the treaty. The treaty banned atmospheric testing but permitted underground testing.
Wilson’s group organized many subsequent demonstrations.
In December 1962 the House Committee on Un American Activities attempted to discredit the group, but Wilson was time-enough for them.
Of the 11 witnesses called, nine invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify. The final witness, Dagmar Wilson, founder of the group, gave full testimony in front of 500 supporters in the committee hearing room.
When asked if she would purge communists from the organization, she responded “certainly not” and asked if she would make the movement equally open to Nazis and Fascists, she replied, “If only we could get them on our side.”
During the hearing, committee counsel Alfred Nittle asked Wilson if she had orchestrated simultaneous demonstrations in 58 American cities on Nov. 1, 1961. Wilson responded that the spontaneity of the feminine peace movement was “hard to explain to the masculine mind.”
As each of the previous women called to testify refused to answer committee questions, each woman was applauded by the partisan audience. Wilson said at the end of the hearing that, “Solid support of the women for those who took the Fifth [Amendment] is an indication that we are simply not concerned with personal points of view.”
Following the hearing, the women marched to the White House where they picketed with signs reading, “End the Arms Race, Not the Human Race” and “Peace is American.”
Wilson and Women’s Strike for Peace were equally active during the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Upon Wilson’s death in 2011, the New York Times wrote:
“Ms. Wilson, an artist and illustrator of children’s books, had never been an activist but had long been worried about nuclear fallout. Women, she decided, should strike — take time from their jobs and homemaking for the cause of peace.”
“’I decided that there are some things the individual citizen can do,” she told The New York Times in 1962. ‘At least we can make some noise and see. If we are going to have to go under, I don’t want to have to go under without a shout.’”
Jerry Rubin was a prominent Yippie activist of the 1960s
Rubin gained increased fame when he was indicated as one of the Chicago 7/8 charged with conspiracy to riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
When called before a HUAC hearing that once ruined careers in the 1950s, Rubin and other activists in the 1960s were openly contemptuous of the hearings and often looked upon a subpoena to appear before the committee as a badge of honor.
Rubin was an early opponent of the Vietnam War, running for mayor of Berkeley on an antiwar platform and helping organize the influential Vietnam Day Committee that attempted to stop troop trains.
Later helping to organize the antiwar 1967 March on the Pentagon and 1968 demonstrations at the Democratic Convention, Rubin was indicted as one of the Chicago 8 defendants whose trial transfixed the country. Later their convictions for conspiracy and contempt were overturned.
Perhaps most famously, as a prominent “Yippie,” he helped hone the tactic of using stunts to garner publicity for his causes.
As the antiwar movement began to subside in the early 1970s as the Vietnam War wound down, Rubin abandoned his activism and turned toward making money.
His ventures rendered him a multi-millionaire before died after being hit by a car in Los Angeles in 1994.
Federal Employees for Peace in Vietnam was a small, short-lived group organized opposition to the Vietnam War among Washington, D.C. government workers 1969-72.
The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in some political activities and usually this means partisan activities. However, there was fear among many government workers that they would be fired or prosecuted if they openly opposed the war.
During the second Red Scare two decades before, radicals and communists were driven out of government employment and that legacy further caused many federal employees to fear for their jobs if they engaged in open demonstrations.
Nonetheless, the group organized openly and played a small, but significant part in the opposition to the war in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
The 1971 march organized by Progressive Labor Party was one of the high points for the group in that era as it mobilized over 3,000 supporters to demonstrate in the nation’s capital.
The Progressive Labor Party was formed by a group of Communist Party members who split from the group in 1962 over “revisionism” in the Party. The group initially supported the People’s Republic of China against the Soviet Union.
The group achieved early prominence with its defense of Cuba and allegations that it was responsible for the Harlem riots of 1964. One of its leading African American members, Bill Epton, was charged with inciting to riot and jailed. His speech to the court remains a poignant indictment of the United States.
It broke with the Chinese in 1971 proclaiming that, “all nationalism is reactionary.” The group was critical of the North Vietnamese leadership in the later stages of the Vietnam War and opposed the Black Panther Party.
It played a significant part in the break-up of Students for A Democratic Society (SDS), the large, mass student group of the 1960s, when it registered the majority of delegates at the 1969 SDS convention. Two other factions emerged from the convention—one becoming the Weather Underground and the other becoming the Maoist groups Revolutionary Union and October League.
PLP emerged with its “Worker-Student Alliance” faction in control of SDS and continued the organization for several years until changing the name International Committee Against Racism.
Locally in Washington, D.C. the group achieved some prominence when long-time PLP member Mike Golash was elected president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 in a re-run election in 2004, serving the remainder of the term and being re-elected to a full term before being defeated..
In contemporary times the group urges a “fight for communism now,” eschewing the orthodox Marxist belief in the need for socialism as a transitory step toward communism.
An Election Day protest in Washington, D.C. against the lack of choice and substance of the three major candidates running for president in 1968.
The demonstration was sponsored by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the Students for a Democratic Society.
It came after hopes for peace were raised by the candidacy of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy for the Democratic nomination earlier in the year followed by the clashes at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
About 1,000 gathered in Washington November 5, 1968 to protest the election. There were a number of arrests—first at Lafayette Park when police cleared the area despite demonstrators holding a permit and later at George Washington University.
The relatively small demonstrations across the country resulted in a re-thinking of antiwar strategy that increasingly moved from protest to confrontation.
Protests by Vietnamese students and other expatriates in the U.S.continued throughout the period of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Vietnamese students protest the partition of their country just prior to the signing of the Geneva Accords in 1954.
During the Buddhist movement of the 1960s, more demonstrations were held int he U.S.
It would take 22 years before the country was reunified, including 20 years of American involvement that resulted in over 50,000 US dead.
In the end the forces of North Vietnazmand the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam defeated the U.S. backed South Vietnamese government in 1976 and reunified the country.
Activities of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the greater Washington, D.C. area 1965-69. SDS was the largest organization to arise out of the New Left of the 1960s. It first gained traction in the early-mid 60s with the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movement.
It imploded at a 1969 convention where it split into three factions: the Progressive Labor Party’s Worker-Student Alliance faction that gained control of the name SDS, the Revolutionary Youth Movement I that became the Weather Underground and the Revolutionary Youth Movement II that provided many of the cadre for the Maoist organizations October League and Revolutionary Union (later Revolutionary Communist Party).
Anti-Vietnam War activities in the greater Washington, D.C. area in 1967, including a Spring Mobilization rally and march and the October March on the Pentagon.
Antiwar demonstrations in Washington, D.C. in 1971 other than Dewey Canyon III, the April 24th March and each day of the Mayday demonstrations, all of which have their own albums.
Some of the activities in the album include a Women’s Strike for Peace rally, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference/People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice civil disobedience in April and the Evict Nixon demonstration in the fall.
With barely a week to plan, 100,000 protesters converged on Washington, D.C. May 9, 1970 to protest President Richard M. Nixon’s announcement of the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia.
The protest occurred after four students were shot to death at Kent State University May 4, 1970 and students at nearly 500 campuses staged a strike against the war.
Some of the other 1970 protests against the Indochina War include Women’s Strike for Peace demonstration, anti-draft protests, an anti-war tax demonstration and an occupation of the Peace Corps office.
Before NSA was synonymous with the National Security Agency, it was widely known as the initials of the United States National Student Association.
In a five year period from 1966 to 1971, it made an astonishing shift from a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-funded anti-communist bulwark to a group that helped lead a student strike against the Vietnam War and negotiate a “People’s Peace Treaty” with their counterparts in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North) and Provisional Revolutionary Government/National Liberation Front (Viet Cong).
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) conducted perhaps their most famous set of demonstrations April 19-23, 1971 in Washington, D.C. calling it Operation Dewey Canyon III.
From Wikipedia:
This peaceful anti-war protest organized by VVAW was named after two short military invasions of Laos by US and South Vietnamese forces. Dubbed "Operation Dewey Canyon III," it took place in Washington, D.C, April 19-23, 1971. Participants said it was "a limited incursion into the country of Congress." This week of protest events gained much greater media publicity and Vietnam veterans participation than earlier events.
Led by Gold Star Mothers (mothers of soldiers killed in war), more than 1,100 veterans marched across the Lincoln Memorial Bridge to the Arlington Cemetery gate, just beneath the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Reverend Jackson H. Day, who had a few days earlier resigned his military chaplainship, conducted a memorial service for their fellows. He said:
“Maybe there are some others here like me–who wanted desperately to believe that what we were doing was acceptable, who hung on the words of ‘revolutionary development’ and ‘winning the hearts and minds of the people.’ We had been told that on the balance the war was a good thing and we tried to make it a good thing; all of us can tell of somebody who helped out an orphanage, or of men like one sergeant who adopted a crippled Vietnamese child; and even at My Lai the grief of one of the survivors was mixed with bewilderment as he told a reporter, ‘I just don’t understand it … always before, the Americans brought medicine and candy.’ I believe there is something in all of us that would wave a flag for the dream of an America that brings medicine and candy, but we are gathered here today, waving no flags, in the ruins of that dream. Some of you saw right away the evil of what was going on; others of us one by one, adding and re-adding the balance sheet of what was happening and what could possibly be accomplished finally saw that no goal could be so laudable, or defense so necessary, as to justify what we have visited upon the people of Indochina.”
The gate to the cemetery had been closed and locked upon word of their impending arrival; the Gold Star mothers placed the wreaths outside the gate and departed. The march re-formed and continued to the Capitol, with Congressman Pete McCloskey joining the procession en route. McCloskey and fellow Representatives Bella Abzug, Don Edwards, Shirley Chisholm, Edmund Muskie and Ogden Reid addressed the large crowd and expressed support.
VVAW members defied a Justice Department-ordered injunction against camping on the Mall and set up an installation. Later that day, the District Court of Appeals lifted the injunction. Some members visited their Congressmen to lobby against the U.S. participation in the war. The VVAW presented Congress with a 16-point suggested resolution for ending the war.
On Tuesday, April 20, 200 veterans listened to hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on proposals to end the war. Other veterans, still angry at the insult to the Gold Star Mothers when they were refused entry to Arlington National Cemetery the previous day, marched back to the front gate.
After initial refusal of entry, the veterans were finally allowed in. Veterans performed guerrilla theater on the Capitol steps, re-enacting combat scenes and search and destroy missions from Vietnam. Later that evening, Democratic Senators Claiborne Pell and Philip Hart held a fund-raising party for the veterans.
During the party it was announced that Chief Justice Warren Burger of the United States Supreme Court had reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstated the injunction. The veterans were given until 4:30 the following afternoon to break camp and leave the National Mall. This was the fastest reversal of an Appeals Court decision in the Supreme Court’s history.
On Wednesday, April 21, more than 50 veterans marched to The Pentagon, attempting to surrender as war criminals. A Pentagon spokesman took their names and turned them away. Veterans continued to meet with and lobby their congressional representatives. Senator Ted Kennedy spent the day speaking with the veterans.
The guerrilla theater re-enactments were moved to the steps of the Justice Department. Many veterans were prepared to be arrested for camping on the National Mall, but none were, as park police defied orders to make arrests. Headlines the following day read, "VETS OVERRULE SUPREME COURT."
On Thursday, April 22, a large group of veterans demonstrated on the steps of the Supreme Court, saying that the Supreme Court should have ruled on the constitutionality of the war. The veterans sang "God Bless America" and 110 were arrested for disturbing the peace, and were later released. John Kerry, as VVAW spokesman, testified against the war for 2 hours in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before a packed room.
The veterans lobbied all day on Capitol. A Washington District Court judge dissolved his injunction order, rebuking the Justice Department lawyers for requesting the court order and then not enforcing it. Veterans staged a candlelight march around the White House, while carrying a huge American flag upside down in the historic international signal of distress.
On Friday, April 23, more than 800 veterans individually tossed their medals, ribbons, discharge papers, and other war mementos on the steps of the Capitol, rejecting the Vietnam war and the significance of those awards. Several hearings in Congress were held that week regarding atrocities committed in Vietnam and the media’s inaccurate coverage of the war. There were also hearings on proposals to end the United States’ participation in the war.
The vets planted a tree on the mall as part of a ceremony symbolizing the veterans’ wish to preserve life and the environment.
Chicago 8/7 conspiracy: 1968-70
The Chicago 8 (later 7) were prominent antiwar leaders charged with conspiracy to riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
Conspiracy trials were used across the country in an attempt to dampen antiwar demonstrations and keep leaders tied up in lengthy, expensive court battles.
All of the defendants in this trial were eventually cleared, but the government succeeded in causing considerable time and resources on the trials and subsequent appeals.
The trial of the Chicago 8/7 was the most prominent of these trials during the anti-Vietnam War and black liberation movement era of the 1960s-70s.
The Weather Underground Organization (originally Weathermen) was a Vietnam War era organization that waged a series of bombings against corporate and government targets in the early 1970s.
In Washington, D.C. the targets included the May 1, 1971 (International Workers Day) attack on the Capitol building where a bomb was placed in a restroom in protest of the U.S. invasion of Laos.
On May 19, 1972 a bomb went off in the Pentagon in celebration of deceased Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh.
On January 29, 1975, the Weather Underground claimed responsibility for a bomb at the U.S. State Department in protest of the country continued support for regimes in South Vietnam and Cambodia.
The group had its origins in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the group was founded following the breakup of SDS in 1969. The former Washington, D.C. regional SDS secretary Cathy Wilkerson was a prominent member of the group.
It could be characterized as an anarchist movement that took militant action to oppose attempts to suppress the black liberation movement in the U.S. and Third World liberation movements. The bombings were not intended to kill and warnings were given before the bombs went off. Three members of the group were killed in a New York townhouse while assembling bombs in 1970.
The group had small, but significant support, that enabled many of its members to be undetected by the FBI and police departments.
As support for the group dwindled in the mid 1970s, the group disbanded, although some of its members went on to help form other groups that continued bombings and bank robberies. Other members of the group turned themselves into police in return for reduced jail time on outstanding charges.
Anti-Vietnam War protests in the 1968 in the greater Washington, D.C. area that included support for Eartha Kitt’s speaking out agains the war inside the White House, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King leading a march to Arlington Cemetery and protests against the 1968 presidential election.
Anti-Vietnam War demonstrations that took place in 1966 in and around the city of Washington, DC. At this point, most protests were sponsored by pacifist or religious groups and called for negotiations. The large scale antiwar coalitions would not be born until the spring of 1967.
The hit and stay movement primarily involved non violent destruction of government or corporate offices that contributed to the war effort in Vietnam.
Activists, mainly led by left leaning Catholic priests, would enter buildings and destroy records, sometimes symbolically pouring human blood on the equipment, files and furniture.
After performing these acts, the participants would remain on site and await arrest. They would then attempt to use their trials to bring attention to injustices.
Phillip and Daniel Berrigan were the informal leading activists of this movement, but it spread across the country.
Largest Anti-Viet War protest: 1971
The largest protest against the Vietnam War in a single location took place April 24, 1971 in Washington, DC where upwards of half a million took part. Another 150,000 marched in San Francisco, CA.
The largest demonstration against the Vietnam War took place during the October 15, 1969 Moratorium when upwards of two million people in over 200 cities across the U.S. took part in some form of protest.
The Moratorium was organized by liberal Democratic Party activists as a soft approach to a nationwide strike against the war.
In the greater Washington, D.C. area, events were held at campuses and churches across the area during the day. In the evening a crowd estimated at 15-20,000 people led by Coretta Scott King carried candles from the Washington Monument to the White House.
Following the October Moratorium, President Richard M. Nixon gave a speech that called for U.S. troops to continue fighting while eventually training South Vietnamese troops (Vietnamization) to fight against the forces of the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He also called on America’s “Silent Majority” to back him.
The antiwar movement responded with the largest demonstration to date in November. While the massive outpouring was mostly peaceful, sustained fighting broke out during an attempted march by 10,000 people on the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnamese) embassy near Dupont Circle during the evening of November 14.
Police eventually suppressed the demonstration through the use of tear gas, mace and un-holstered weapons but not before thousands of residents in the area were saturated with gas.
Fighting broke out again on November 15 when a large contingent broke away from the main demonstration to march on the U.S. Justice Department at 9th & Constitution Ave. NW. Once again sustained fighting between police and protesters broke out before police were able to suppress and scatter the breakaway march.
The Moratorium demonstrations signaled that the antiwar movement was gaining strength and would not dissipate. The war and large-scale demonstrations continued through Nixon’s second Inauguration in January 1973 before the Paris Peace Accords were signed shortly afterward. Nixon’s Vietnamization policy failed in 1976 when the forces of the DRV and NLF overran South Vietnam.
Resistance to compulsory military service began gathering momentum after the end of World War II and culminated during the Vietnam War–leading to the establishment of an all-volunteer U.S. military in July 1973.
Protests roiled the Howard University in Washington, D.C. from 1967-69 as the wave of student activism combined with black nationalism swept across the campus.
The protests included an effective student strike and building occupation in 1968 demanding that school president James Nabritt be fired.
The core issue of student and university involvement in black civil rights and liberation had been at the heart of disputes throughout the years as students sought a broader impact on society while the university administration focused on producing black professionals to the exclusion of all other endeavors.
The students won their demand for a student-run disciplinary board and a promise of no discipline against the occupiers.
It was agreed that representatives of the trustees, the faculty and students would meet to “resolve grievances and deal with relevant, contemporary issues.”
Nabrit wasn’t fired, but was scheduled to retire in July and faced mandatory retirement in September, because of age, in any event.
Confrontational protest on the campus began in March 1967 when Selective Service Director Gen. Lewis B. Hershey was booed off the stage at Crampton Auditorium by students shouting, “America is the black man’s battleground.”
In April the administration moved to discipline the students and some of the faculty who expressed support for the students and students in turn staged a boycott of classes that was 75% effective according to press accounts.
Nevertheless, the administration expelled 15 students and five faculty members who had been involved in various student protests.
When classes resumed in September, about 120 students and faculty walked out of a speech by Nabrit at the opening ceremony of the school.
In November, students staged a sit-in at Nabrit’s office demanding an end to compulsory service in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Howard acceded to this demand and made the program voluntary.
Three faculty members supportive of students were dropped from the rolls.
At the school’s centennial Charter Day ceremony on March 1st, several dozen students disrupted the event, seizing the stage. As the administration moved to discipline the Charter Day demonstrations, the takeover of the administration building began.
In 1969, students boycotted the medical and law schools of the university. The protests triggered the resignation of Patricia Roberts Harris as dean.
The generational clash between students and the administration and many of the conservative faculty was an old one, but this time the students won many of their demands.
The older leadership of the school represented the previous generation of the civil rights movement. Nabrit was a counsel to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated schools. Clark was a ground-breaking sociologist whose work, along with his wife Mamie Phipps, had proven the debilitating effects of segregation on black children. The school’s attorney, George E. C. Hayes was a prominent civil rights attorney.
However, Nabrit’s generation was overly concerned about decorum and respectability. They also largely believed in a strategy that meant producing a large black professional class and often relied on a legal approach to social problems.
The newer generation grew up with direct action as their model. Howard students had provided many of the ground troops for the civil rights movement and Howard alumni Stokely Carmichael, later Kwame Ture, became a leading black nationalist.
The second largest anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Washington, D.C. took place November 15, 1969 when a crowd estimated at up to half-million people paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
This demonstration was a follow-up to the Moratorium held October 15, 1969 that involved an estimated two million who staged a nationwide strike and local demonstrations against the war.
Following the October Moratorium, President Richard M. Nixon gave a speech that called for U.S. troops to continue fighting while eventually training South Vietnamese troops (Vietnamization) to fight against the forces of the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He also called on America’s “Silent Majority” to back him.
The antiwar movement responded with the largest demonstration to date in November. While the massive outpouring was mostly peaceful, sustained fighting broke out during an attempted march by 10,000 people on the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnamese) embassy near Dupont Circle during the evening of November 14.
Police eventually suppressed the demonstration through the use of tear gas, mace and un-holstered weapons but not before thousands of residents in the area were saturated with gas.
Fighting broke out again on November 15 when a large contingent broke away from the main demonstration to march on the U.S. Justice Department at 9th & Constitution Ave. NW. Once again sustained fighting between police and protesters broke out before police were able to suppress and scatter the breakaway march.
The Moratorium demonstrations signaled that the antiwar movement was gaining strength and would not dissipate. The war and large-scale demonstrations continued through Nixon’s second Inauguration in January 1973 before the Paris Peace Accords were signed shortly afterward. Nixon’s Vietnamization policy failed in 1976 when the forces of the DRV and NLF overran South Vietnam.
May 5, 1971 marked the third day of mass civil disobedience against the war in Indochina in Washington, D.C.
Demonstrators’ ranks were depleted by the record arrests of the previous two days and at the encampment at West Potomac Park on May 2.
Meeting on the national mall, the less than 1,500 protesters voted to split into two groups. A larger group would lobby elected officials or picket peacefully on the sidewalk while a smaller group would conduct civil disobedience.
Police shepherded both groups onto the Capitol grounds. While speakers like U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug and Rep. Ronald Dellums spoke to the crowd, police surrounded the group.
Both Capitol and District of Columbia police arrested nearly everyone on the steps and lawn totaling about 1,200.
This brought the total of the Mayday protesters arrested to over 12,000. All but a handful of charges were ultimately dismissed and a number of lawsuits ensued over illegal arrests.
The demonstrators at the U.S. Capitol on May 5 ultimately received about $10,000 each from the Capitol police and the District government as compensation for the illegal arrests.
Honor America Day was staged by supporters of President Richard M. Nixon on July 4, 1970 on the grounds of the Washington Monument and drew an estimated 50,000 people.
Most of the antiwar movement believed this event to be a pro-war rally. Honor America Day was quickly organized after students at nearly 500 campuses went on strike and four students were killed by National Guard at Kent State University and two by police at Jackson State University during antiwar protests.
The principle sponsors were Rev. Billy Graham, Nixon’s personal minister, and the entertainer Bob Hope who headed USO tours for U.S. servicemen. Kate Smith sang God Bless America at the event. Nixon sent greetings to the event
A significant group of protesters numbering several thousand showed up to demand an end to the war in Indochina and demanding legalization of marijuana. Police used tear gas to quell the protests and many in the larger crowd received their first whiff of the stinging gas.
An album of selected recordings from the event highlighted by the Kate Smith rendition memorialized one point of view. On the other hand, the demonstrators recreated the event for many years as an annual “smoke-in” demanding legalization of marijuana.
Although several small demonstrations against U.S. military involvement in Vietnam occurred in 1964, mass demonstrations and resistance began in earnest in 1965.
The first mass action in Washington, D.C. occurred April 17, 1965 when the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) sponsored a march. Over 25,000 attended, far exceeding anyone’s expectations.
Demonstrations, non-violent resistance and violent opposition grew in the subsequent years. By 1970 overwhelming majorities opposed the war in Indochina and the U.S. ultimately entered into a peace treaty with the Vietnamese in 1973. The country was freed of foreign domination in 1976 when the military forces of North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam defeated the U.S.-backed Saigon government.
Mass arrests occurred on the second day of protests organized by the Mayday Tribe on May 4, 1971.
Another 3,000 were arrested outside the U.S. Justice department where they were demanding freedom for political prisoners. This followed the arrest of 7,000 the previous day.
For about 5 hours on Monday, May 3, 1971 demonstrators used non-violent civil disobedience attempting to shut down the U.S. government in protest of the Vietnam War by blocking intersections and bridges throughout Washington, D.C. until the police and federal troops suppressed them.
Early attempts at human blockades at key intersections were broken up by overwhelming force. A total of over 18,000 police and troops were called upon to combat the protests.
President Nixon feared the international consequences of the nation’s capital being paralyzed by antiwar protestors and his administration worked closely with local police, revoking permits and suspending normal arrest procedures.
Ten Targets
Most of the ten targeted bridges and intersections were cleared quickly and protesters turned to hit and run tactics—blocking an intersection and then retreating when police or troops arrived.
The most effective blockades occurred around the 14th Street Bridge, Georgetown and the area south of Dupont Circle.
Marches by protestors on the 14th Street Bridge were twice repelled by police, but demonstrators changed tactics and began blocking access roads and nearby intersections. Unable to respond effectively, authorities called in the 82nd Airborne Division which ferried troops by helicopter to the nearby Washington Monument grounds.
In Georgetown, protestors left abandoned autos to blockade streets after failing to gain access to Key Bridge. The roving bands of demonstrators thwarted police until large scale employment of tear gas and mass arrests ended most of the action in this area sometime after 10 am.
Troops ringed Dupont Circle and used it as a temporary holding area for those arrested. Nevertheless, large groups of demonstrators succeeded in blocking downtown streets with their bodies, trash bins, abandoned autos and other available material.
Civil Liberties Suspended
Frustrated by the slow progress in clearing demonstrators, police suspended civil liberties sometime around 5:30 a.m. and locked up anyone who vaguely resembled a protestor.
In the area south of Dupont Circle, police blocked off both ends of a street and arrested anyone they thought looked like a protester or anyone who questioned them.
Among those rounded up were cab drivers, school children on their way to school, office workers, reporters and students in addition to those conducting the demonstrations.
Demonstrators and bystanders were taken to makeshift detention facilities at a practice field for the NFL Washington football team, a recreation yard at the D.C. jail and the old Uline Arena. On the unusually cold day, those arrested were housed for hours without running water, bathroom facilities, adequate shelter or food.
Background
The protests were organized by the Mayday Tribe was a loose-knit group composed of individuals, collectives and affinity groups across the country. After six years of demonstrations against the Indochina War, these frustrated antiwar activists turned to their bold and audacious plan to shut down the government.
A mass demonstration drawing over 200,000 against the war took place April 24. A weeklong set of protests in the city by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the People’s Coalition for Peace & Justice and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference resulted in over 1,200 arrests.
Protestors secured a permit for a gathering at West Potomac Park that included a rock concert featuring the Beach Boys, among others, on May 1. Sleeping was prohibited under the permit, although the protestors could occupy the space continuously.
Many of the more than 50,000 people set up tents awaiting Monday’s civil disobedience–most relaxed, listening to music, resting or smoking marijuana.
Authorities throughout the area were shocked at the number of people who showed up on Saturday. U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell’s office requested the permit be revoked. President Nixon ordered U.S. troops mobilized as back up to local police.
While local police cleared the camp in the early morning hours Sunday, May 2, thousands of protestors still showed up to block traffic Monday, May 3.
On May 4th and 5th, police employed mass arrests outside the Justice Department and at the U.S. Capitol.
In all, more than 12,000 people were arrested in the largest mass arrest in U.S. history. The total surpassed the previous record of over 7,000 arrested during the disturbances in Washington, D.C. after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Charges were later dropped against nearly everyone involved and thousands later received compensation from the government for their arrest.
U.S. troops continued to be withdrawn from Southeast Asia and nearly all the U.S. combat forces were removed following the Paris Peace Treaty in 1973. Armed forces of the Democratic Republic of [North] Vietnam and the National Liberation Front defeated the Republic of [South] Vietnam in 1975 leading to unification of the country.
In the end, the Mayday protests disrupted but did not stop government operations. However, the world-wide television coverage of the military on the streets of Washington and the mass arrests increased pressure on the government to end the war. The protest and countless other actions against the Indochina Wars helped to change Americans views toward U.S. military intervention against national liberation movements. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long before the U.S. would embark on new misadventures.
When 50,000 people arrived in Washington, D.C. for Mayday Tribe protests on Saturday, May 1, 1971, the U.S. Justice Department ordered D.C. officials to disperse the crowd and break up a permitted encampment at West Potomac Park.
Demonstrations organized by the Mayday Tribe were planned for Monday, May 3. The group planned to use non-violent civil disobedience to shut down the U.S. government by blocking intersections and bridges
Police swept the park early Sunday morning leaving demonstrators with no place to stay or sleep prior to planned protests scheduled for Monday morning.
Military forces were also boosted, including elements of the 82nd Airborne Division. A total of over 18,000 police and troops were called upon to combat the protests planned for Monday, May 3.
President Nixon feared the international consequences of the nation’s capital being paralyzed by antiwar protestors.
Following six years of opposition to the Vietnam War, including mass demonstrations, campus strikes and civil disobedience, a section of the antiwar movement decided to take a symbolic action of attempting to shut down the government through by non-violent blockading of traffic at key bridges and intersections in Washington, D.C.
The Mayday Tribe was a loose-knit group composed of individuals, collectives and affinity groups across the country.
Despite the attempt to preempt the civil disobedience, thousands of demonstrators stalled traffic the following day and about 7,000 were arrested. In the following days another 4,000 or so would be arrested. The five day total numbered about 12,500–the largest mass arrest in any five day period in the U.S.
Following six years of opposition to the Vietnam War, including mass demonstrations, campus strikes and civil disobedience, a section of the antiwar movement decided to take a symbolic action of attempting to shut down the government through by non-violent blockading of traffic at key bridges and intersections in Washington, D.C.
The Mayday Tribe, a loose-knit group of individuals, collectives and affinity groups across the country, organized the protests.
The civil disobedience was to begin Monday, May 3, 1971. A mass demonstration drawing over 200,000 against the war took place April 24. A weeklong set of protests in the city by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the People’s Coalition for Peace & Justice and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference resulted in over 1,200 arrests.
Protestors secured a permit for a gathering at West Potomac Park that included a rock concert featuring the Beach Boys, among others, on May 1. Sleeping was prohibited under the permit, although the protestors could occupy the space continuously.
More than 50,000 people came to the park, many setting up tents awaiting Monday’s civil disobedience. Many relaxed, listening to music, resting or smoking marijuana.
Authorities throughout the area were shocked at the number of people who showed up on Saturday. U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell’s office requested the permit be revoked. President Nixon ordered U.S. troops mobilized as back up to local police.
Local police cleared the camp in the early morning hours Sunday, May 2, but thousands of protestors showed up to block traffic Monday, May 3.
With over 18,000 police and army troops, including the 82nd Airborne, the protestors adapted their tactics and staged “hit and run” efforts to block intersections. Frustrated by the slow progress in clearing demonstrators, police suspended civil liberties and locked up anyone who vaguely resembled a protestor.
Demonstrators and bystanders were taken to makeshift detention facilities at a practice field for the NFL Washington football team, a recreation yard at the D.C. jail and the old Uline Arena. On the unusually cold day, protestors were housed for hours without running water, bathroom facilities, adequate shelter or food.
On May 4th and 5th, police staged mass arrests outside the Justice Department and at the U.S. Capitol.
In all, more than 12,000 people were arrested in the largest mass arrest in U.S. history. The total surpassed the previous record of over 7,000 arrested during the disturbances in Washington, D.C. after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Charges were later dropped against nearly everyone involved and thousands later received compensation from the government for their arrest.
U.S. troops continued to be withdrawn from Vietnam and nearly all the U.S. combat forces were removed following the Paris Peace Treaty in 1973. Armed forces of the Democratic Republic of [North] Vietnam and the National Liberation Front defeated the Republic of [South] Vietnam in 1975 leading to unification of the country.
In the end, the Mayday protests disrupted but did not stop government operations. However, the protest and countless other actions against the Indochina Wars helped to change Americans views toward U.S. military intervention against national liberation movements. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long before the U.S. would embark on new misadventures.
The march on the Pentagon on October 21, 1967 marked the largest outpouring of antiwar sentiment with a focus on Washington, D.C. prior to the shift toward gradual withdrawal in 1968.
Demonstrators represented a broad cross section of antiwar sentiment. Poet Allen Ginsburg led a contingent that hoped to “levitate the Pentagon.” Liberal opponents of President Lyndon B. Johnson hoped to spark an opponent to the incumbent in the 1968 Democratic Primary.
Militant members of the Progressive Labor Party led several hundred marchers to storm the doors of the Pentagon, breaching the defenses briefly before being repelled.
Adherents of non-violence led a sit-in on the Pentagon plaza where they were clubbed by U.S. marshals and arrested. Young protestors expressed their sentiments toward the war by holding a “piss-in” on the Pentagon that was immortalized in a Root Boy Slim son “I Used to be a Radical.”
Over 100,000 rallied at the Lincoln Memorial and then marched across Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon.
President Lyndon B. Johnson had greatly escalated U.S. armed forces in Vietnam from 16,000 troops at the beginning of his presidency to a peak of around 540,000 in late 1967.
The Tet offensive by Vietnamese national forces months later along with rising U.S. antiwar sentiment led to Johnson’s withdrawal from the presidential election of 1968 and the gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from southeast Asia over the next six years.
The protests at the Republican National Convention in Miami, Fl., August 21-23, 1972 marked a fierce battle between President Richard Nixon and the movement that demanded an end to the war in Indochina.
Nixon struck first when eight leaders of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) were indicted on charges of conspiracy to disrupt the Convention with automatic weapons, explosives, incendiary devices, as well as slingshots and crossbows.
The government also leaked out information that they were planning to raise drawbridges to trap protesters in Miami Beach and then shoot at them. In spite of these attempts to suppress demonstrations, the protests went forward.
While the 5,000 that participated were relatively small in number, the clashes between police and demonstrators were prolonged and intense, occurring over several days and nights. The demonstrations sent the message that disruptions would not cease as long as the war went on.
Large scale anti Vietnam War protests would come to an end in the early 1973 after 100,000 protested at Nixon’s second Inauguration. Shortly afterwards, the Paris Peace Accords were signed that signaled an end to the U.S. combat role in Vietnam.
In April 1975, combined forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front ousted the regime in South Vietnam.
Rennie Davis at Montgomery College: 1973
Rennie Davis spoke on the struggle against capitalism at a Montgomery County Freedom Party forum at Montgomery College Rockville Md. campus early in 1973.
The Freedom Party was an organization of left-leaning students at Montgomery College that was formed in the fall of 1971 and began publishing the Montgomery Spark newspaper. The group expanded to a Montgomery County-based group in 1972, but continued to focus primarily on the campus.
The group sponsored a demonstration against the Vietnam War, marching from the school’s Rockville campus to a recruiting center in downtown Rockville. The group also joined numerous antiwar, women’s rights, gay rights demonstrations during the two year period of its existence. The newspaper was expanded to a Washington-area newspaper in early 1973, but published its last issue in October 1973.
Davis had generally been a moderate antiwar leader. But, at other times such as the 1969 Nixon Inauguration or during 1971 Mayday demonstrations that attempted to shut down the government, Davis played a more militant role.
Shortly after his talk at Montgomery College in 1973, Davis became a follower of “the 15-year old perfect master –Guru Maharaj Ji.” Davis’s conversion was viewed as a betrayal by those who struggled against the Vietnam War.
The Washington Area Spark wrote at the time, “Rennie Davis is probably not simply flipped out, as some believe (although it is possible). More likely, after years of frustrations, set-backs and several jailings, Rennie began looking for an easy way to deal with capitalist reality—something all disaffected people are looking for.”
“Unfortunately, the path to liberation lies not in dropping out or walking around with blank look in your eyes babbling about love, but through struggle against oppressive classes—this is how the most powerful unity and love is attained.”
Entering 1970, the University of Maryland had been largely bypassed by the activism of the 1960s. There had been an active Students for a Democratic Society chapter on campus, but no mass demonstrations had been held.
The intensity of activity began to pick up the previous fall when a protest against a university prohibition on housing Vietnam War protesters resulted in four arrests. In mid-March 1970, 100 had picketed a nearby draft board.
The first large-scale protest occurred when two professors, Peter Goldstone and Richard Roeloff, were denied a renewal of their contracts. Several hundred students seized Skinner Hall March 23 for 13 hours before police were called to arrest the demonstrators. Eight-seven were arrested in the early morning hours of March 24.
The Skinner protest continued for several more weeks with brief building seizures and protests against administrative actions and criminal prosecutions.
On May 1, the campus erupted into a series of massive antiwar demonstrations sparked by President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the shooting deaths of four students by the National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4 and two students killed by state police during demonstrations at Jackson State University in Mississippi on May 14.
The National Guard twice suppressed the Maryland demonstrations. Three weeks of mass demonstrations resulted in dozens of arrests, injuries to students, police and National Guardsmen and campus bans against individuals.
In the course of the demonstrations, the Air Force ROTC offices were ransacked, windows broken in more than a few buildings, U.S. Route 1 blockaded numerous times by students and tear gas fired by police into several dormitories and fraternities. A graduate assistant was shot and wounded with buckshot believed to have been fired by Prince George’s County police or deputy sheriffs.
The Administration Building was ransacked and narrowly escaped being burned to the ground. An antiwar professor, Edgar Beall, and several students entered the burning building and put the fire out. Beall, however, did not earn the school’s gratitude as the University fired him in 1978 and the case became a national cause for the American Association of University Professors that was eventually settled out of court.
The National Guard occupation continued until classes were completed, with Guardsmen posted in some classrooms of those taking final exams.
This set contains photos related to demonstrations before and during the 1969 presidential inauguration of Richard Nixon.
The protestors billed it as a counter-inaugural and held their own ball in a large tent near the Washington Monument grounds. On the day before the official inaugural parade, they stated a march in the opposite direction starting near the White House and ending near the Capitol.
On the day of the official Inauguration, anti-Nixon protestors lined the parade route at three locations, some of whom tossed rocks, beer cans and vegetables as the Nixon motorcade passed.
Clashes with police also occurred at the Agnew reception at the Smithsonian on January 19 and following the parade January 20.
The demonstration served to revive a flagging anti-Vietnam War movement.
Thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters line President Richard Nixon’s Inaugural parade route January 20, 1973 between 14th and 15th Streets NW on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Later that day protesters waved signs, shouted antiwar slogans and tossed objects at his passing limousine as they had four years previously.
Earlier in the day, over 100,000 antiwar demonstrators gathered at the Lincoln Memorial before President Richard Nixon’s second Inauguration protesting renewed U.S. bombing in Vietnam.
The 1973 protests at Nixon’s inauguration followed the resumption of massive bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in December 1972. This demonstration was the last large scale protest of the Vietnam war.
Images of antiwar protests at the University of Maryland in May 1971 are contained in this set. Mass protests against the war broke out for the second consecutive year that brought National Guard troops to the campus that essentially imposed martial law.
The spring of 1971 brought a renewed offensive by those opposed to the Vietnam War. Groups of activists led by “Yippies” sought to conduct non-violent civil disobedience by blocking key roads into and out of the federal center of Washington, D.C. beginning on May 1.
In the middle of the Mayday Tribe events was a rally called on the UMD campus May 5 by the ad hoc Spring Action Coalition composed of various student groups. It was attended by over 3,000 students who during the course of the day briefly occupied the Administration building and blockaded US Route 1.
The demonstration had been called to end the ROTC program on campus, ratify the People’s Peace Treaty negotiated between Vietnamese students and US students the previous winter and to end to defense research on campus. Amnesty and an end to police surveillance were added to the demands later.
State police confronted the demonstrators on Route 1 and a pitched battle ensued. The Governor called in the National Guard for the second straight year. Cat and mouse battles with the Guard continued into the night.
Over the next several weeks, students defied Guard regulations that banned gatherings of more than 100 and held numerous demonstrations across the campus, briefly seizing several buildings and attempting to seize others before being ejected by the Guard.
Police and university officials targeted those they thought were leaders, arresting them and/or banning them from campus.
When Chancellor Charles Bishop attempted a speech on the steps of the Administration Building May 12, he was interrupted repeatedly with chants of “ROTC must go.” Several eggs were also thrown at Bishop.
The students achieved a temporary victory May 19 when the University Senate voted 83-56 to reduce ROTC from a credit activity to a non-credit, extra curricula activity. The decision, however, was reversed a week later on a 52-31 vote after the Air Force objected saying it violated their policy.
The People’s Peace Treaty’s terms were similar in some ways to those ultimately adopted by the four-party Paris Peace talks ending US ground troop involvement in the Vietnam War in January 1973.
Images of anti-Vietnam War activities in the greater Washington, D.C. area in 1972.
One image shows a group of women being evicted from the U.S. Capitol after staging an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in the U.S House of Representatives January 18, 1972.
Another image shows a protest by families of POWs protesting the war at President Richard Nixon’s State of the Union Address January 20, 1972.
Another image shows. DC Statehood Chair Charles Cassell speaks to anti-Vietnam War rally at Lafayette Park November 18, 1972.
Note man selling copies of the "United Irishman," the publication of the "Official" Irish Republican Army.
A number of images show a protest May 21, 1972 triggered by the U.S. mining of harbors in North Vietnam. Upwards of 15,000 people participated in the "emergency" demonstration.
A confrontation occurred that resulted in a pitched battle between protesters and police at the foot of the U.S. Capitol.
U of MD antiwar protests: 1972
President Nixon’s expanded bombing and mining harbors in Vietnam renewed the University of Maryland student antiwar movement that rallied April 17, 1972 and specifically demanded an end to the school’s ROTC program.
The group of 500 later marched through the campus with some students breaking windows at the ROTC offices and throwing rocks at University President Wilson Elkins residence.
The rally had been set to follow a table tennis exhibition between the U.S and the People’s Republic of China at Cole Field House that was one of the first events that ultimately led to normalization of relations between the two countries. Many of those at the rally had attended the exhibition.
The following day, a noontime rally drew over 1,000 who marched to the ROTC building where windows were again broken. After about an hour, students occupied US Route 1 for the third consecutive year. Confrontations with state police soon followed where police used gas and clubs to disperse demonstrators who responded with rocks and bottles.
On April 19, demonstrators again blocked US Route 1 and someone attempted to set fire to the Armory which housed the ROTC building. Fighting again broke out between state police and demonstrators. Governor Mandel called in the National Guard for the third year in a row the following day.
On April 20, the largest crowd of the year estimated at 2,500 staged a candlelight march through the campus that ended in front of the Administration Building. They were met by the Guard who ordered them to disperse for violating a 9:00 pm curfew. About 200 students were arrested–most of them staging a peaceful sit-in protesting the curfew and the Vietnam War.
Smaller daytime rallies were held and the Guard was withdrawn from the campus April 26.
On May 4, nearly 1,000 staged an evening march through campus commemorating the deaths of four students at Kent State University the previous year. Once again, some broke windows at the ROTC headquarters and someone lit the curtains afire with a burning American flag.
Shortly after, a number of the protestors again blocked U.S. Route 1. State police again moved in with clubs and gas and were met with rocks by the some of the protestors. This time, however, state police had planted plainclothes officers in the crowd who quickly grabbed and arrested many of the rock throwers.
The National Guard, which had been stationed nearby, returned to campus and enforced another curfew. This marked the end of mass anti-war protests on the campus, although smaller actions continued to be held.
In mid-May, students from U MD confronted the racist presidential candidate George Wallace at Capital Plaza mall in Landover, MD and at Wheaton Plaza in Silver Spring Maryland on May 15 where some threw tomatoes and pennies at the presidential candidate. Wallace was shot and paralyzed later that day by Arthur Bremer at the Laurel Shopping Center in Laurel, MD.
A group of Maryland students also joined protests at the Republican Convention in Miami Beach in August. One of the last anti-Vietnam War events of the year was a march from the campus to the Hyattsville, MD offices of the Republican Party by about 150 students on October 24, 1972.
This set contains images of an anti-Vietnam war march held April 19, 1975 in Washington, D.C. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) had launched what turned out to be a final offensive against the south on April 7.
The march of about 300 began at Farragut Square follow a circuitous route before rallying at Dupont Circle.
The police had been notified that the march would continue further up Massachusetts Ave to Sheridan Circle stopping 500 feet from the Republic of Vietnam embassy. Instead, the group marched quickly to Republic’s information office at 1728 P Street holding another short rally before briefly clashing with police and dispersing.
The forces of the DRV along with the National Liberation Front based in the south captured Saigon on April 29, 1975 ending the war. Vietnam, which had been partioned since 1954, was reunited on July 2, 1976.
The march was mainly organized by the Revolutionary Union which formed the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) the same year. .
This set contains images from a march from Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to Pentagon in Virginia on April 29, 1972 protesting the Vietnam War.
It was sponsored by the National Peace Action Coaltion and mainly organized by the Socialist Workers Party involving about 500 demonstrators in a local action.
By this time, US troop levels in Vietnam had dropped to about 69,000 (from a high of over 1/2 million) although the US continued with heavy bombing. Antiwar protests still continued at a high level on campuses across the country, but with less intensity than two years earlier.
This was a small demonstration, even for a local one sponsored by only one of the two major peace coalitions. Intensity of antiwar demonstrations surged again after the Christmas bombings of North Vietnam in 1972, culminating with 100,000 people protesting at Nixon’s second Inauguration in January 1973.
On January 27, 1973 the Paris Peace Agreement was signed effectively ending US combat in the war and US Secretary of Defense ended the draft of Americans into the armed services the same day. The US continued to provide training and aid to the Republic of Vietnam until Saigon fell to the forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in April 1975.
Wanted: William E. Colby: 1973
This set contains a single photo of a “wanted poster” for William Colby after he was nominated for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief in 1973.
The posters were plastered throughout Washington, DC. Colby was targeted for his part in murdering civilian Vietnamese while head of the “Phoenix Program.”
Between 1968 and 1972, Phoenix “neutralized” 81,740 people suspected of National Liberation Front (NLF—the indiginous opposition to the South Vietnamese government) membership, of whom 26,369 were killed.
Heavy-handed operations—such as random cordons and searches, large-scale and lengthy detentions of innocent civilians, and excessive use of firepower—had a negative effect on the civilian population.
There was eventually a series of Congressional hearings. One former participant in the program, K. Barton Osborne, described the Phoenix Program as a "sterile depersonalized murder program."
Lieutenant Vincent Okamoto, intelligence-liaison officer for the Phoenix Program for two months in 1968 and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross described the program as follows:
“The problem was, how do you find the people on the blacklist? It’s not like you had their address and telephone number. The normal procedure would be to go into a village and just grab someone and say, ‘Where’s Nguyen so-and-so?’
“Half the time the people were so afraid they would not say anything. Then a Phoenix team would take the informant, put a sandbag over his head, poke out two holes so he could see, put commo wire around his neck like a long leash, and walk him through the village and say, ‘When we go by Nguyen’s house scratch your head.’
“Then that night Phoenix would come back, knock on the door, and say, ‘April Fool, Motherfucker!’ Whoever answered the door would get wasted. As far as they were concerned whoever answered was a Communist, including family members. Sometimes they’d come back to camp with ears to prove that they killed people.”
It was reported that rival Vietnamese would often report their enemies as "VC" [Viet Cong—a slang name for the NLF] in order to get U.S. troops to kill them.
Colby led the program from 1968-72. He served as Executive Director of the CIA from September 1973-January 1976. Colby was found dead in water May 6, 1996. He had been reported missing April 27, 1996 after having gone canoing near his home in Rock Point, MD. His death was ruled accidental.
It seemed surreal. A group of well-known Catholic activists committed to non-violence charged with conspiracy to raid federal offices, blow up government buildings and kidnap National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger using Washington D.C.’s heating tunnels to carry out the plot.
The seven charged were primarily composed of Catholic non-violent direct action activists: Phillip Berrigan, Sister Elizabeth MacAlister, Rev. Neil McLaughlin, Rev. Joseph Wenderoth, Anthony Scoblick, Mary Cain Scoblick along with Eqbal Ahmad—a Pakistani journalist and political scientist.
The trial sparked a nationwide defense effort that included a rally in Harrisburg that drew upwards of 20,000 people to support the seven.
Father Berrigan was serving time in the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, in central Pennsylvania at the time of the alleged conspiracy.
Boyd Douglas, who eventually would become an FBI informant and star prosecution witness – was a fellow inmate. Douglas was on a work-release at the library at nearby Bucknell University.
Douglas used his real connection with Berrigan to convince some students at Bucknell that he was an anti-war activist, telling some that he was serving time for anti-war activities. In fact, he was in prison for check forgery. In the course of the investigation the government resorted to unauthorized and illegal wiretapping.
Douglas set up a mail drop and persuaded students to transcribe letters intended for Berrigan into his school notebooks to smuggle into the prison. (They were later called, unwillingly, as government witnesses.)
Librarian Zoia Horn was jailed for nearly three weeks for refusing to testify for the prosecution on the grounds that her forced testimony would threaten intellectual and academic freedom. She was the first United States librarian to be jailed for refusing to share information as a matter of conscience.
U.S. attorneys obtained an indictment charging the Harrisburg Seven with conspiracy to kidnap Kissinger and to bomb steam tunnels. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark led the defense team for their trial during the spring months of 1972. Clark used a then relatively untested theory of scientific jury selection—the use of demographic factors to identify unfavorable jurors.
Unconventionally, he didn’t call any witnesses in his clients’ defense, including the defendants themselves. He reasoned that the jury was sympathetic to his Catholic clients and that that sympathy would be ruined by their testimony that they’d burned their draft cards. After nearly 60 hours of deliberations, the jury remained hung and the defendants were freed.
Douglas testified that he transmitted transcribed letters between the defendants, which the prosecution used as evidence of a conspiracy among them. Several of Douglas’ former girlfriends testified at the trial that he acted not just as an informer, but also as a catalyst and agent provocateur for the group’s plans.
There were minor convictions for a few of the defendants, based on smuggling mail into the prison; most of those were overturned on appeal.
Women’s rights
Washington Women’s Liberation: 1968-72
Washington D.C. Women’s Liberation was formed early in 1968 after women participating in the Jeanette Rankin Brigade protest against the Vietnam War January 15, 1968 decided to form an organization that linked feminism with the broader struggle against capitalism.
Washington Women’s Liberation participated in the protest demonstration at a “Distinguished Ladies” event during President Richard Nixon’s January 1969 Inaugural weekend activities in one of the first women’s liberation marches in the country. Another high-profile activity in their first year was joining other women’s liberation groups in protesting the Miss America beauty pageant in Atlantic City, N.J. Jan. 31-Feb 1, 1969.
A year after their formation, Washington Women’s Liberation had three groups—two in northwest Washington and one in southeast. Its membership was predominantly white and came mainly out of the anti-Vietnam and civil rights movements. A Women’s Liberation office was set up where abortion counseling, women’s health outreach, and newsletter publication took place and also served as a focal point for left-wing women’s meetings through the D.C. metropolitan area.
In the fall of 1969, Washington Women’s Liberation joined with the National Welfare Rights Organization in several actions, including occupying the office of the secretary of the U.S. Health, Education and Welfare department and forming a contingent in the Moratorium antiwar demonstrations. Members of Washington Women’s Liberation began also publishing the feminist journal Off Our Backs that would continue until 2008, though the journal was not an official WWL publication.
Washington Women’s Liberation members spent a good deal of time analyzing how oppression of women fit into capitalist exploitation of labor and how that oppression and exploitation affected their lives and the lives of other women. The group initially opposed the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment fearing it would roll back laws that protected women, but joined with mainstream women’s groups in August 1970 in the first large feminist march in Washington, D.C. since the suffragettes early in the 20th century. The group also sponsored a break-away march that day to the Women’s House of Detention to show solidarity with imprisoned sisters.
Internal fissures began surfacing in 1970—those who favored joining with mainstream women’s organizations in specific actions, lesbian separatism and a perception of newer members that older members did not value them. The internal issues and a lack of overall direction led to the closure of the Women’s Liberation office in 1971 and Washington Women’s Liberation ceased to exist circa 1972 following the establishment of a Women’s Center in the city.
Prominent members of Washington women’s Liberation included Marilyn Salzman Webb and Charlotte Bunch.
Joan (often misspelled Joanne) Little was jailed for minor crimes in the Beauford County, NC jail. On August 27, 1974 white guard Clarence Alligood was found dead on Joan Little’s bunk naked from the waist down with stab wounds to his temple and heart. Semen was later discovered on his leg.
Little turned herself in a week later and claimed self-defense against sexual assault but was charged with first degree murder.
The case attracted national attention in part because Little would have received the death penalty if convicted. Civil rights advocates, death penalty opponents and women’s rights advocates all rallied to her defense.
The jury of six blacks and six whites deliberated for about an hour and a half before delivering a not guilty verdict.
Little may have been the first woman in United States history to be acquitted using the defense that she used deadly force to resist sexual assault. Her case also has become classic in legal circles as a pioneering instance of the application of scientific jury selection.
Hattie Sheehan was one of the first women to operate buses in the District of Columbia in 1943 when the company hired several dozen women to offset a white male labor shortage caused by World War II.
The company hired the white women for both streetcars and buses, but refused to hire black men or women, prompting a series of protests and demonstrations that lasted until the company desegregated its operator ranks in 1955.
The first black female bus operator knowingly hired was Sarah Owens in 1968. At least one black female, Sarah Grayson, was hired in 1943, but was fired when it was discovered she was black.
Frances Lewis was one of the first women to operate streetcars in the District of Columbia in 1943 when the company hired several dozen women to offset a white male labor shortage caused by World War II.
The company hired the white women for both streetcars and buses, but refused to hire black men or women, prompting a series of protests and demonstrations that lasted until the company desegregated its operator ranks in 1955.
The first black female bus operator knowingly hired was Sarah Owens in 1968. At least one black female, Sarah Grayson, was hired in 1943, but was fired when it was discovered she was black.
Emma Goldman was one of two prominent American women anarchists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The other was Lucy Parsons, the widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons. Goldman achieved fame as a labor activist, plotting to kill Homestead Steel owner William Frick, as a feminist and opponent of American participation into World War I. She was deported to the Soviet Union, but became an opponent of the Communist Party there and left for Western Europe in 1921. She later aided anarchists in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and died shortly after their defeat.
International Women’s Day: March 8th
International Women’s Day had its formal beginnings in August 1910 when an International Socialist Women’s Conference was organized to precede the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Inspired in part by the American socialists, German Socialist Luise Zietz proposed the establishment of an annual Women’s Day and was seconded by fellow socialist and later communist leader Clara Zetkin, supported by socialist activist Käte Duncker, although no date was specified at that conference.
Delegates (100 women from 17 countries) agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights including suffrage for women.
The following year on March 19, 1911, IWD was marked for the first time, by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire alone, there were 300 demonstrations.
In Vienna, women paraded on the Ringstrasse and carried banners honoring the martyrs of the Paris Commune. Women demanded that they be given the right to vote and to hold public office. They also protested against employment sex discrimination.
In 1913 Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on the last Saturday in February (by the Julian calendar then used in Russia).
In 1914 International Women’s Day was held on March 8 in Germany, possibly because that day was a Sunday, and now it is always held on March 8 in all countries. The 1914 observance of the Day in Germany was dedicated to women’s right to vote, which German women did not win until 1918.
After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted by the feminist movement in about 1967. The United Nations began celebrating the day in 1975.
Angela Davis achieved prominence in 1969 when she was fired as associate professor at the University of California Los Angeles campus at the urging of then Gov. Ronald Reagan because of her membership in the Communist Party.
She was subsequently charged with providing guns to black prison activist Jonathan Jackson that were used in an escape attempt in which Jackson, two other men and the judge were killed.
After two months underground, she was apprehended by the FBI. A national “Free Angela” campaign was launched and a jury ultimately found her not guilty of the charges.
Davis continued her activism and continues to work for social justice. She left the Communist Party in 1991, along with about a third of the group to form the Committees for Correspondence (now For Democracy and Socialism) that seeks to work within the Democratic Party for socialist goals.
Dagmar Wilson founded Women’s Strike for Peace in 1961 at the height of the Cold War calling for end to atmospheric nuclear testing and an end to nuclear weapons.
Wilson’s organized women in 60 cities who turned out over 50,000 people nationwide in their first action in 1961.
The protest struck a chord in the throughout the U.S.
President Kennedy responded to that demonstration by saying, “I saw the ladies myself. I recognized why they were here. There were a great number of them. It was in the rain. I understood what they were attempting to say and, therefore, I considered that their message was received.”
Two years later a partial test ban treaty was signed by the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain—three of the four nuclear powers at that time. France has never signed the treaty. The treaty banned atmospheric testing but permitted underground testing.
Wilson’s group organized many subsequent demonstrations.
In December 1962 the House Committee on Un American Activities attempted to discredit the group, but Wilson was time-enough for them.
Of the 11 witnesses called, nine invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify. The final witness, Dagmar Wilson, founder of the group, gave full testimony in front of 500 supporters in the committee hearing room.
When asked if she would purge communists from the organization, she responded “certainly not” and asked if she would make the movement equally open to Nazis and Fascists, she replied, “If only we could get them on our side.”
During the hearing, committee counsel Alfred Nittle asked Wilson if she had orchestrated simultaneous demonstrations in 58 American cities on Nov. 1, 1961. Wilson responded that the spontaneity of the feminine peace movement was “hard to explain to the masculine mind.”
As each of the previous women called to testify refused to answer committee questions, each woman was applauded by the partisan audience. Wilson said at the end of the hearing that, “Solid support of the women for those who took the Fifth [Amendment] is an indication that we are simply not concerned with personal points of view.”
Following the hearing, the women marched to the White House where they picketed with signs reading, “End the Arms Race, Not the Human Race” and “Peace is American.”
Wilson and Women’s Strike for Peace were equally active during the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Upon Wilson’s death in 2011, the New York Times wrote:
“Ms. Wilson, an artist and illustrator of children’s books, had never been an activist but had long been worried about nuclear fallout. Women, she decided, should strike — take time from their jobs and homemaking for the cause of peace.”
“’I decided that there are some things the individual citizen can do,” she told The New York Times in 1962. ‘At least we can make some noise and see. If we are going to have to go under, I don’t want to have to go under without a shout.’”
Pauli Murray was a pioneering black, female lesbian activist who worked primarily for civil rights, but broke a number of barriers throughout her life.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Murray was raised in Durham, NC where she “passed” as white until graduation from high school.
In 1938 she was rejected for admission to the University of North Carolina and sought legal representation from the NAACP and other organizations. Her case was rejected, in part because she wore pants rather than the customary skirts and was open about her relationships with women.
In 1940 she and another woman moved out of broken black-only seats on a bus in Virginia into whites-only seating. They refused to move and were arrested and aided in their defense by the Workers Defense Committee, a U.S. Socialist Party group formed to counter the Communist Party’s International Labor Defense.
Murray was soon hired by the Workers Defense Committee and worked to commute the death sentence of Virginia sharecropper Odell Waller who had shot his white landlord during an argument. Her work was unsuccessful, but prompted her to seek at law degree at Howard University.
She was the only woman in her class and dubbed her treatment at Howard, “Jane Crow” after she was told by a professor that he did not know why women went to law school.
She joined the Congress of Racial Equality and participated in early sit-ins 1943-44 in Washington, D.C. seeking to desegregate restaurants in the city.
Murray was elected Chief Justice of the Howard Court of Peers, the highest student position and she graduated first in her class in 1944. However, Murray was rejected for graduate work at Harvard because the school did not accept women.
She ultimately did her post-graduate work at Boalt Hall School of Law at University of California, Berkeley and passed the California bar exam in 1945.
Murray was one of the early advocates for abandoning arguing for equality under the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine and instead challenge segregation as illegal under the Constitution. This approach ultimately led to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation decisions.
Murray worked most of her career as a lawyer and law professor until turning toward the clergy.
She was ordained as the first black woman to become an Episcopal priest in 1977, breaking yet another barrier.
She was an early critic of the sexism within the civil rights movement and an advocate for women. Open with about her sexuality during a time in which the vast majority of gay and lesbian people were in the closet, she described her sexuality as “inverted sex instinct” that caused her to behave as a man attracted to women.
Despite the prejudice and discrimination against her as a black, female lesbian, she excelled in her endeavors until her death in 1985.
Gloria Richardson Dandridge led the Cambridge Non-Violent Action Committee CNAC on Maryland’s Eastern Shore seeking better jobs, health care, schools and desegregated public accommodations and facilities 1962-64.
Richardson attended SNCC’s 1962 Atlanta conference and returned to Cambridge with a new outlook on organizing. She became a member of SNCC’s executive board. With the help of students from Swarthmore College, they surveyed the Second Ward to ensure that the organization prioritized the needs of the community.
The Cambridge Movement directed its work towards improving living conditions for the people of the Second Ward. Meanwhile, continuing militant CNAC protests angered not only the Kennedy administration nearby in Washington, D.C., but also national civil rights leaders.
The Maryland National Guard occupied the town for two years 1963-64.
When the state of Maryland and federal negotiators, led by Robert Kennedy, proposed voting for the right of access to public accommodations in 1963–a so-called “Treaty of Cambridge“–CNAC boycotted the vote.
At a press conference, Richardson stated, “A first-class citizen does not beg for freedom. A first-class citizen does not plead to the white power-structure to give him something that the whites have no power to give or take away. Human rights are human rights, not white rights.” The civil rights movement establishment was angered at her refusal.
Richardson was invited to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to be honored as a woman leader, However, she was snubbed at the event when a seat was not provided for her on the stage.
National hostility toward her activism did not hinder Richardson’s local efforts. Protest continued.
One of Richardson’s thrusts was to organize Cambridge’s non-union packinghouse workers into unions. The successful effort ended a 30-year attempt to unionize the industry.
In May 1964, local youth began protesting for desegregated swimming pools when staunch segregationist and former Alabama governor George Wallace arrived in Cambridge to campaign for the presidential election.
During one protest, Richardson faced bayoneted guardsmen and urged protesters forward. It was ugly. Soldiers resorted to gassing demonstrators with (Cyanogen) CN2, a gas for military use. The gas made protestors sick and led to the death of an elderly man and infant from the fumes.
Two years of struggle and the passage of the national 1964 Civil Rights Act finally broke the back of segregation, though other problems continued.
Richardson married photographer Frank Dandridge and moved to New York in early 1965 where she continued her activism.
She returned to Cambridge briefly in 1967 before and after the disturbances there that led to the indictment of SNCC chair H. Rap Brown for inciting to riot. Richardson acted as an informal advisor to the 1967 civil rights activists.
Richardson’s work left a legacy for Black women to be unabashedly radical in the fight for civil rights. She believed that “all of us, in Cambridge and throughout America will have to sacrifice and risk our personal lives and future in a nonviolent battle that could turn into civil war. For now, Negroes throughout the nation owe it to themselves and to their Country to have Freedom — all of it, here and now!”
–partially excerpted from SNCC Digital Gateway
Mary Gannon led the local operators union (Washington Telephone Traffic Union) from the time it was a company union in 1935 through militant strikes in the 1940s and up until 1950–after the Communications Workers of America was formed.
She led approximately 200 strikes—most for an hour or two—during her career, Many of the strikes were sympathy strikes helping other telephone unions around the country and helping to lay the basis for a national union.
Washington Telephone Traffic: 1944-47
The Washington Telephone Traffic Union was born out of a company-sponsored employee association that was spun off from the Bell System from 1935 to 1937 after the Wagner Act was upheld by the Supreme Court, making such company unions illegal.
The association was composed primarily of women who worked the switchboards before direct dial service became dominant. There were about 3,000 in the Washington union at that time.
The newly independent association continued to play a subservient role to the AT&T system as it had since its roots as a company union formed in 1927.
Things changed, however, when Mary Gannon took over leadership in 1935. Gannon was one of the few (perhaps the only) women to lead a District of Columbia union during the mid-1940s. Males led even the few unions that were predominantly female.
The local branch of the Bell system—The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company—maintained Jim Crow for its operators. The 14th and U Streets facility was staffed entirely by African American operators.
However the union, while predominantly white, was integrated unlike some unions at the time that required separate units for African Americans.
From 1944 to 1950, Gannon led the union to become a militant force against the autocratic monopoly of the Bell system.
Gannon led over 200 work stoppages of the fledgling union—most for four hours at a time.
The Washington telephone operators quickly became known during this period as “Gannon’s Girls.”
In 1944, she led a one-day wartime sympathy strike that disrupted communications across the country, including cutting off the White House. It was centered on the issue of the giant “Ma Bell” importing non-union workers into a union shop in Dayton, Ohio. At least five other cities joined the walkout.
The Washington union used its key location to aid other units around the country—and helping to build the case for a national union.
Eleanor Jane Palmer, the secretary-treasurer of the local union at the time recalled later that Gannon how worked to aid telephone workers around the country:
“Whenever anybody in the country was out! I remember at one time in St. Louis the traffic girls were trying to get some air conditioning put in, and the only thing the company would offer were the tubs of ice. You’ve heard about them. In order to get some satisfaction on their grievance, they could have had a work stoppage, but they weren’t in the prime position where they were really disturbing the country or upsetting the country. So what they did was call to Washington and ask our president if she could give them some help.”
Gannon would lead the union on strike for eight days in 1946, calling for “an eight-day continuous meeting.” That strike centered on “sweatshop practices” like rules that read, “Do not change your headset from one ear to the other without calling a supervisor,” and “Don’t take an aspirin without being relieved from your position.”
The National Federation of Telephone Workers (NFTW) was a loose federation of these associations and local unions and taking on the Bell System required everybody agreeing—something that was difficult at best.
The national union worked to line up contract expiration dates for 1946 with many of the local unions working on day-to-day extensions. They cobbled together 17, including Washington, D.C., and set a strike deadline.
The Bell system caved and signed a first national agreement without a strike; although they would they later denied that it constituted a nation-wide contract.
The following year, the Bell System insisted on local negotiations and the national union led 325,000 workers out on strike.
AT&T refused to negotiate a nationwide agreement and only offered a “pattern” wage increase after workers had been on strike for three weeks. Four weeks into the strike, 17 local contracts had signed local agreements. The nationwide strike collapsed and it marked the end of the NFTW.
However, the Washington operators continued their strike until May 18, 1947, holding out for written guarantees that there would be no reprisals.
The strike, however, succeeded in making a stronger national union the issue with the Washington traffic union one of those pushing hard.
In June 1947, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) was formed as a national union, incorporating most of the locals of the NFTW, including the D.C. unit. Similarly the union later voted to affiliate with the Congress of Industrial Organizations with the support of the Washington unit.
Palmer said Gannon was:
“…a very dynamic woman, who commanded both respect and a following. She had the people working right with her, and we had so much regard for her that you might call it blind faith. I think if she said, ‘jump,’ we’d jump and then ask later.”
The local Washington Telephone Traffic Union helped lead the way to the formation of what became a powerful union. Without Gannon’s leadership, that task would have been much more difficult.
–The quotes in this description are from Communications Workers of America: The Story of a Union by Thomas R. Brooks.
The District of Columbia Nurses Association (DCNA) struck the Washington Hospital Center in 1979 in response to the hospital’s attempt to de-certify the one-year old union and to improve scheduling and the grievance procedure.
The 31-day strike resulted in a stronger union and made the nurses the highest paid in the area while making gains in seniority, the grievance procedure and progress toward an agency shop.
The strike was the second by nurses in the D.C. area, following by several months a strike at the now defunct Group Health Association and served as a clarion call to other nurses in the area.
The union persevered as an independent union and organized several other facilities in the Washington area before health care closures and consolidation set them back.
The union continues to represent nurses at the Hospital Center, but is now affiliated with National Nurses United.
The struggle over abortion rights following court decisions liberalizing the procedure carries on today.
Abortion had been legal in the District of Columbia since 1901 only to protect a woman’s health. Private physicians and hospitals had been performing the procedure for years for wealthy women who could afford the price.
The 1901 law was invalidated by a District Court ruling in late 1969, making all abortions legal.
The Supreme Court overturned the District Court decision in United States vs. Vuitch shortly after Preterm, the city’s first abortion clinic, opened in 1971.
But in doing so, the court defined women’s health as meaning "psychological and physical well-being,” and giving great deference to a doctor’s judgment like other medical procedures–essentially legalizing abortion in the city.
Preterm initially performed abortions for $200, but quickly lowered the price to $150 and did not charge indigent women. Hospitals at the time were charging more than $1,000. Other clinics soon opened.
Pro choice demonstrators sought to defend and expand their gains while anti abortion protesters moved to make the procedure illegal again.
In perhaps the largest demonstration in Washington, D.C. up to that point in time, hundreds of thousands of women came to the city April 10, 1989 demanding to retain the right to choose.
As the United States prepared for war, women were organized into volunteer home defense units like the Washington, D.C. Green Guards.
The women were trained in wrestling, boxing, jujutsu and riflery. In contrast to the Soviet Union, women were not permitted to serve in the U.S. military in combat roles, providing support roles as nurses and clerical workers.
The group fell into internal discord and ultimately did not play a significant role during World War II as the government set up a Office of Civilian Defense to coordinate efforts by the American Legion and others to set up paramilitary units and also organized an “auxiliary military police” under the direction of the U.S. Army that were not soldiers but provided guards for plants, factories and other key facilities.
Images related to the campaign for a woman’s right to vote in the United States.
Images of women’s protests, demonstrations, rallies against war.
The first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives was a pacifist, suffragette and crusader for social justice.
She was elected to two terms–in 1916 and again in 1940. She voted against the U.S. entry into both World War I and World War II, becoming the only U.S. elected official to do so.
Women’s International League 1915-90
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and its activities in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
Approximately 30 women picket the White House on Mother’s Day May 9, 1971 demanding greater access to childcare.
The demonstration was sponsored by the National Organization for Women and demanded “universally available childcare throughout the country” at a time when childcare providers were scarce.
This set contains images related to the Capital Transit Company in Washington, D.C. and their campaign to hire women during World War II when streetcars and buses were idled due to a lack of white male operators.
The company refused to hire African Americans, but White women benefited from the continuous pressure put on the company during the war by civil rights activists.
The set contains various protests and demonstrations for women’s rights
The set includes first national demonstration for women’s rights in over 50 years in Washington, DC August 26, 1970. The demonstration was called on the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage.
Groups ranging from the League of Women Voters to the Black Panther Party participated in the protest march. The marchers had also called for a national strike by women on that day.
Speakers at the main rally called for passage of an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, liberalized abortion laws, an end to the capitalist system and freedom for black people.
A later march to the Women’s Detention Center sponsored by the Women’s Liberation Movement, Black Panther Party and other left of center groups ended with a call to “Free Our Sisters, Free Our Selves.”
Demonstrations over the next decade focused on passing the Equal Rights Amendment–an effort that has not succeeded–and protecting abortion rights, which has had mixed results.
A historic strike by 600 predominantly Black women on the Jim Crow Maryland Eastern Shore in 1938 against two dozen packinghouses that featured a communist organizer, vigilante raids, the burning of a union organizers car, the expulsion of a federal mediator from town and a blockade preventing food from reaching strikers. After the workers held strongt for six weeks, the packinghouses reached an agreement with the CIO union.
Marie Richardson Harris was a leading organizer for civil and labor rights in the District of Columbia from the late 1930s until 1950.
Her pioneering work helped to organize the predominately African American Washington red caps union and their women’s auxiliary while still a teenager. She was a leader of the early fight to integrate Capital Transit operator jobs. She was an active member of the National Negro Congress and served as the executive secretary of the local branch.
According to the Afro American newspaper, she was the first African American woman to hold national office in a major labor union. In her role as national representative of the United Federal Workers (CIO), she helped lead the union’s organizing drives and battles against discrimination inside the federal government in the District.
The price she paid for her leadership was four and a half years in federal prison, a victim of McCarthy-era persecution.
Washington Area Spark Historical
The Washington Area Spark was a left-wing monthly tabloid that was published from 1971-73. A successor publication called On The Move published five issues from early 1974 to early 1975.
The paper began as an anarchist-leaning student paper at Montgomery College and gradually transitioned to an independent monthly newspaper that mainly covered blue collar, progressive and anti-U.S. intervention issues.
When it expanded to a Washington, D.C. area newspaper in 1973, it was widely distributed at blue collar worksites. Circulation peaked at about 25,000 in late 1973.
The paper was an all-volunteer effort. The photographs were nearly all taken by amateurs using inexpensive cameras. However, the subject matter captured was not widely photographed. The images are also from the pre-internet period.
The original images on this site are from the surviving records of the paper.
Many additional images have been added to this site including images with the permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post. Some other images have been added from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution and other collections. These additional images have been added to provide context to the time period. Additional photo sets will be uploaded periodically.
For a complete set of Spark and On The Move click here
Washington Area Spark FBI file – 1973-74
The Washington Area Spark and its successor publication was a left-wing newspaper 1971-75 that began as an alternative student newspaper at Montgomery College and went through a number of iterations that eventually morphed into a workers’ newspaper.
It seemingly came under surveillance by the FBI from 1972-75 and Bureau agents (relying mainly on informants) developed a file that contained a mixture of facts, untruths, speculation, mis-analysis and an astounding failure to collect readily available information on the newspaper.
At least two informants to the FBI were identified by activists. Other informants appear to be mainly landlords, postal employees, employers and other people contacted by the Bureau.
Spark and On The Move mastheads
This set is a sampling of covers of Spark and On The Move through its evolution and eventual death.
The paper began as a student government funded alternative newspaper at Montgomery College and fairly quickly expanded distribution county-wide.
Spark severed ties with college in January 1973 and tried to fill the void in the greater Washington, DC area left by the death of the alternative newspaper Quicksilver Times .
That year the “Spark Bomb” on the masthead first grew smaller and then disappeared in favor of “Power Fists.” 1973 also saw the “double fold” of the tabloid with a small 8 1/2 x 11 cover that when opened up led to a second 11 x 17 cover. The last issue published as “Spark” was in October of 1973.
Reincarnated as “On The Move” in January 1974, it featured white letters on a black background. The paper’s name was slanted to suggest motion. The paper also cost readers a nominal 10 cents whereas Spark had been free.
The last issue of On The Move in January 1975 reflected the overall downward spiral–heavy on capitalized bold letters and rhetoric and light on photos, news and feature stories.
A number of attempts were made in 1975-77 to revive the paper, but none were successful.
Spark started with a circulation of about 500 with its first issue, peaked at about 25,000 in 1973 and fell to about 500 with the last issue of On The Move.
Blogs and other online forums now fill the void left by the death of “underground newspapers.”
Photographers of Spark & On the Move
The Washington Area Spark Flickr site originally contained images collected by the Washington Area Spark and On The Move alternative newspapers from 1971-77.
Most photographers were amateurs who knew little about photography. A few images by professional photographers were obtained by the newspapers during that time period.
Subsequently, other images from the pre-internet period have been added from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution and the Washington Star and Daily News newspaper as well as some other sources.
The photographers and copyright holders deserve thanks for their contributions on this Flickr site. This digitalized collection adds to the understanding of history in that era.
Contributors:
Sue Reading
Craig Simpson
Patrick McCann
J. Bentz
Bernie Boston
G. Dunkel
Herbert French Collection
Pete Schmick
Brig Cabe
Michael Dresser
Wellner Street
Paul M. Schmick
Williard Volta
Insurgent Photo
Walter Oates
___ Silverman
Julia Grimes
Ray Lustig
Pete Copeland
Francis Routt
Craig Simpson and Sue Reading have chosen to have their images jointly credited since they often took photos of the same event on the same roll of film. They are credited for their images as Reading/Simpson.
G. Dunkel has chosen to credit his work as G. Dunkel/Workers World—the newspaper that his images often appear in.
Some images by Pete Schmick, were purchased from the Washington Star in 1976 for publication in On The Move and recently donated back to the Star Collection at the Martin Luther King Library and appear Courtesy DC Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post, All Rights Reserved.
Images by Brig Cabe, Ray Lustig, Bernie Boston, Wellner Street, Warren Oates, Julia Grimes, Pete Copeland, Pete Schmick, Paul M. Schmick and Williard Voltz are also courtesy DC Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post, All Rights Reserved.
Images from the Herbert E French National Photo Company collection courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Many images that appeared in Spark and On The Move do not appear on this site because of the difficulty of contacting the copyright holders, with 40 years passing since the first issues were published. Other images have simply been lost through the years while others have unidentified photographers or artists.
If you had drawings or photographs that were published in Spark or On The Move and would like them to appear on this site, please e-mail us at washington_area_spark@yahoo.com
This set contains photos on this site that were published in the Montgomery Spark, Montgomery County Spark or Washington Area Spark. This represents a small portion of the images on the site. Most were collected by the newspaper but never published.
Many photographs and drawings that were published do not appear on this site. If you had an image published in Spark from 1971-1973 and would like it to appear on this site, please contact us at washington_area_spark@yahoo.com
Images On Site Published in Spark:
2 Children at Spark House 1972 #9, Spark Vol 2 No 2, Week of Oct 4, 1973, pg 18
Rights Executive Board at the Library of Congress # 5, Spark, Vol 2 No 12, July 20 to Aug 17, 1973, pg 8
Marijuna Smoke-In 1973 #7, Spark, Vol 2 No 12, July 20 to Aug 17, 1973, page 1
Cutbacks & Layoffs Must Stop at U of Md 09 12 73 # 8, Spark, Vol 3 No 1, Sep 21-Oct 11, 1973, pg 8
Cutbacks & Layoffs Must Stop at U of MD 09 12 73 # 7, Spark, Vol 3 No 1, Sep 21-Oct 11, 1973, pg 8
US: Keep Out of Mideast 1973 # 6, Spark, Vol 3 No 2, Oct 27-Nov 24 1973, Outside Cover
US: Keep Out of Mideast 1973 # 11, Spark, Vol 3 No 2, Oct 27-Nov 24 1973, pg 1
Meatcutters Strike Betrayed 1973 photo 3, Spark, Vol 3 No 2, Oct 27-Nov 24, 1973, pg 1
Group Photo of Strikers No. 2, Spark, Vol 3 No 2, Oct 27-Nov 24, 1973, pg 3
Farmworkers Safeway Boycott II 1973, Spark, Vol 3 No 2, Oct 27-Nov 24, 1973, page 5
Cutbacks & Layoffs Must Stop at U. of MD 09 12 73 # 7, Spark, Vol 3 No 2, Oct 27-Nov 24, 1973, page 8
DC Jail Uprising Trial # 2, Spark, Vol 3 No 2, October 27-Nov 24, 1973, page 11
Please see the set “Published in On The Move” for images that were published in that version of the newspaper.
Images published in On The Move
This set contains photos on this site that were published in the Washington Area "On The Move." This represents a small portion of the images on the site. Most were collected by the newspaper but never published.
Many photographs and drawings that were published do not appear on this site. If you had an image published in On The Move from 1974-1975 and would like it to appear on this site, please contact us at washington_area_spark@yahoo.com
Images On Site Published in On the Move:
Striking Trailways Drivers 1973, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 1, Jan-Feb 1974, page 1
Union Staff Strike NEA Union 1974 # 2, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 1, Jan-Feb 1974, page 3
Hotel Workers Hit GOP 1974 # 8, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 1, Jan-Feb 1974, page 3
Union Fight at Lanham Hotel 1974 #B1, On The Move, Vol 1 No 1, Jan-Feb 1974, page 3
Post Printers Lockout, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 1, Jan-Feb 1974, page 4
Peoples Drug Warehouse Strike 1974 #2, On The Move, Vol 1 No 1, Jan-Feb 1974, page 5
Throw the Bum Out # A5, On the Move, Vol 1 No. 2 August 1974, page 1
Throw the Bum Out # D3, On the Move, Vol 1 No. 2 August 1974, page 3
Transit Strike 1974 # 1, On The Move, Vol. 1 No. 2 August 1974 page 4
CIA Out of Greece 1974 # 15, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 2, August 1974, page 7
Down With the Shah 1974 # 5, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 2, August 1974, page 12
May Day Picket 1974 Image 3, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 2, August 1974, page 16
ATU Local 689: No Service # 1, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 3, November 1974, page 7
Strike Confrontation 230, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 3 November 1974, page 8
Transit Strike 1974 # 1, On The Move, Vol. 1 No. 4, December 1974, page 4
Teamsters Strike Safeway 1974 # 9, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 4, December 1974, page 14
On The Job Murder at Metro # 2A, On The Move, Vol 1 No. 4, December 1974, page 16
Please see the set “Published in Spark” for images that were published in that version of the newspaper.
Spark and On The Move in action: 1973-74
The Washington Area Spark and its successor publication On The Move did not pretend to be “neutral” and took an active part in many of the demonstrations and protests of that era.
These images are a compilation from other sets. See the individual set descriptions for more information.
This set contains images of two houses and an apartment complex where the Spark and On The Move newspapers were often produced.
The 1972 images are of a house at 7400 Piney Branch Road in Takoma Park where layout and paste-up were often done. The main office from 1971-72 was at the campus of Montgomery College in Rockville where the Freedom Party (a recognized student group) had an office. Work on the paper was also done at a house at 7400 Piney Branch Road, Tacoma Park, MD.
When the paper severed its ties with the college in 1973, it was produced at 201 Lincoln Ave. in Takoma Park, MD. This was the period of the Washington Area Spark’s widest circulation.
A makeshift office with a homemade drafting table, used file cabinets and a desk served as the production facilities in the basement of the Lincoln Ave. house.
After it began re-publishing as On The Move in 1974-75, its office consisted of a converted dining room in a Chillum Heights apartment in the complex at Chillum Road and 16th Ave. in Chillum, MD. An office was rented at the corner of 34th St and Bunker Hill Road in Mt. Ranier but never opened.
Two children at Spark house: 1972
This set contains images of two children in the back yard at 7400 Piney Branch Road, Takoma Park, MD in 1972. Image # 7 was used in the Montgomery County Spark to illustrate a story on day care.
The basement of the house pictured was often used to do layout and paste-up of the Montgomery County Spark newspaper in 1972. The main office of the newspaper in 1971-72 was the “Freedom Party” office on the campus of Montgomery College in Rockville.
This set contains images of students gathering on the football field at Montgomery College in Maryland for a Mike Quatro concert Sept. 1, 1972. See if you can spot the person in the crowd apparently rolling a joint.
Spark ran an article in its October 1972 issue criticizing Detroit musician Quatro and some other male rockers entitled “Cock Rock: The Rape of Our Culture” that criticized the music for degrading women. Quatro responded with a letter defending his style of music and followed up with a phone call. The conversation did not go well and Quatro ended it with a “f… you.”
Craig Simpson grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and became active in the antiwar movement and other progressive issues while in high school. He attended the U. of MD for three years and worked for the US National Student Association at the same time producing their newsletter along with Sue Reading.
He became a bus operator for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) in the mid 1970s. He was active in Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 where he served as a shop steward, assistant business agent and secretary-treasurer of the 10,000 member union before retiring in 2001.
After retirement in 2001, he worked with the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, Progressive Maryland and ATU Local 689 on political and legislative affairs. In 2004 he received a degree in Labor Studies from the National Labor College.
He finished his career as executive director of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400, which represented 33,000 workers in food processing plants, retail grocery, retail sales, nurses, police, woodcutters, production and chemical plants and other workers in District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia and parts of Maryland, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky.
He was a contributor to the original Washington Area Spark and is the administrator of the current Washington Area Spark blog, Flickr site, You Tube and Facebook sites.
Sue Reading was an original Washington Area Spark and On The Move contributor who also later contributed to the revived Washington Area Spark website and photo collection through writing and editing.
Reading grew up in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh and attended Alverno College in Milwaukee from 1964-66.
When the U.S. invaded Cambodia in 1970, she quit her job at a Washington, D.C. advertising agency, got divorced, and began to participate in political activities against the Vietnam War and for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and prison reform.
She worked for the US National Student Association from 1970-73, producing their newsletter with Craig Simpson. She helped to organize annual conventions of the NSA and traveled to at least two of those gatherings at campuses in the midwest. In the later part of her days at NSA Sue worked with the Source Collective, a group dedicated to creating and publishing guides to organizations dedicated to alternative, progressive ways of conducting vital functions of society: Communications, Education, Healthcare, and more.
In the mid-70s she moved to Oklahoma City. She eventually got married and learned to drive an 18-wheeler and hauled heavy equipment across the country with her husband. Their daughter Susanne was born in 1980. Sue and her family moved to Austin in 1983, and she was divorced in 1985.
She worked as a legal assistant and later started building websites so that she could stay at home to raise her daughter. She helped to organize Austin Free-Net, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free computer and Internet access and training in libraries and community centers.
She is currently working in Austin as a freelance copy editor and participating in progressive community activities, learning Spanish and Argentine Tango.
Bob Simpson was a University of Maryland SDS and AFSCME 1072 activist. He was also active in the Official Irish Republican Club and the Venceremos Brigade.
He taught for two years in D.C. high schools and was a contributor to the original Washington Area Spark as well as the contemporary version.
He moved to Chicago and continued teaching there. He published many progressive cartoons, along with his wife Estelle Carol, as Carol*Simpson.
He continued his activism in Chicago and was a photographer of social change events in his later years. He passed in 2023..
Laura Bigman was a contributor to the original Washington Area Spark and On The Move newspapers.
She was especially active in anti-imperialist work and prisoner advocacy.
She later studied at Howard University and published work on conditions in Africa and African Liberation movements.
Bigman passed in 1994.
Alex Ajay was a contributor to the original Washington Area Spark and On The Move newspapers.
He was a graduate student at American University where he was active in the student movement of the early 1970s. He later established chapters of the Revolutionary Student Brigade at American University and the University of Maryland.
Much of his activism has focused on anti-imperialism and defense of Palestinians.
He went on to become active in the NALC Branch 3825.
Marc Miller was the founder and leader of the Freedom Party at Montgomery College in the early 1970s that briefly took control of the student government that funded and published the original Montgomery Spark.
He was an anti-Vietnam War activist beginning in 1967 and continuing until the end of the war. After he transferred to the University of Maryland College Park, he was active in the Revolutionary Student Brigade chapter on campus.
