Reclaim Our History: Oct. 1-15
Oct. 1, 1964: UC Berkeley math grad student Jack Weinberg is arrested for setting up CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) information table in Sproul Plaza, inadvertently starting the Free Speech Movement as students surround a police car for 32 hours.
Oct. 2, 1869: Birth of Indian independence fighter, pacifist theorist, Mohandas Gandhi. 1924: Twenty-four Japanese radicals and trade unionists bayoneted to death near Tokyo. 1968: Tlatelolco Massacre. At the Plaza of Three Cultures, after nine weeks of student strikes, the Mexican Army ambushes some 15,000 protesting students, killing close to 300 and arresting several thousand.
Oct. 3, 1909: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn arrested in Missoula, Montana free speech fight.
Oct. 4, 1535: First complete English translation of the Bible printed in Zurich. “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for America!” 1887: Louisiana sugar workers strike, 37 peaceful strikers murdered. Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of “prominent citizens,” shot unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage, and lynched two strike leaders.
Oct. 5, 1934: Forty thousand miners and iron workers strike, seizing towns around Gijon, Spain. Three thousand killed. 1990: Seventy-five thousand Costa Rican service workers strike against government austerity measures demanded by International Monetary Fund “structural adjustment program.”
Oct. 8, 1984: American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Dennis Banks gets three-year sentence for phony riot charge after leaving sanctuary at Onondada Nation in New York. 1998: A CIA report reveals that in the 1980s the CIA ignored importation of cocaine into the US by Nicaraguan “Contra” rebels who were trained and funded by the CIA.
Oct. 10, 1932: National Guardsman armed with bayonets charge crowd of 1,500 striking miners in Taylorville, Ill. 1933: Eighteen thousand cotton workers go on strike in Pixley, California. Four are killed before a pay-hike is finally won. 1994: For the second year in a row, Denver, Colorado cancels its traditional Columbus Day parade due to fears of confrontations with “radical elements” among the Native American community.
Oct. 12, 1492: Christopher Columbus, lost and confused, runs aground, discovered by Arawaks. Tragedy ensues. By the time he is sent back to Spain in chains eight years later, accused of mistreating the natives (by the standards of the regime that perfected the Spanish Inquisition!), nearly the entire Arawak tribe that originally discovered him will have been enslaved or exterminated, setting the tone for the next 500 years.
1792: First US Memorial to Columbus dedicated in Baltimore. 1898: Fourteen killed, 25 wounded in violence resulting when Virden, Illinois mine owners attempt to break a strike by importing 200 nonunion black workers. 1902: Fourteen more miners killed, 22 wounded by scabs at Pana, Illinois.
Oct. 13, 1925: Birth of radical comedian and social rebel Lenny Bruce. “If you can’t say FUCK you can’t say FUCK THE GOVERNMENT.”
Oct. 14, 1920: Italy: Demonstrations held in support of the Russian Revolution and to demand the release of the political prisoners. In Bologna, where the anarchist Malatesta appears, police open fire on demonstrators, killing several.
Comments
By David M. on October 5th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Love what you folks do.
Next year, remember October 2 ’68.
Tlatelolco.
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