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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, NOV 12–18, 2025
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_ Scorned Black Soldiers Rescue Yankee Doodle (1775), CIA Won’t
Give Guatemala a Break (1960), Jim Crow on Parade (1865), ‘Give
Peace a Chance’ (1969), Racist Terror at Its Worst (1900), Honoring
Frederick Douglass (2015) _
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_SCORNED BLACK SOLDIERS RESCUE YANKEE DOODLE _
NOVEMBER 12 IS THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY of George Washington, as
commander and chief of the Continental Army, issuing this order:
"Neither Negroes, boys unable to bare arms, nor old men unfit to
endure the fatigues of the campaign, are to be inlisted."
Washington had to eat his words less than two months later, when he
wrote – referring to himself in the third person – “As the
General is informed that numbers of free Negroes are desirous of
enlisting, he gives leave to the recruiting officers to entertain
them, and promises to lay the matter before the Congress, who, he
doubts not, will approve of it.”
Historians are unsure ot Continental Army’s eventual racial makeup.
It is widely believed that 10 to 15 percent of the troops were people
of color (including Native Americans), but some sources argue that the
true number was close to 30
percent. [link removed]
_CIA WON’T GIVE GUATEMALA A BREAK_
NOVEMBER 13 IS THE 65TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of the extremely
brutal, bloody and 36-year-long Guatemalan Civil War. The war began in
1960 when left-wing members of Guatemala’s Army attempted a coup
against the right-wing government that had been installed by the CIA
in 1954.
As if to prove the adage that history does not repeat itself but that
it does rhyme, the trigger for the coup attempt was the clandestine
agreement by Guatemala’s right-wing military government to allow the
CIA to use Guatemala as operations HQ for the U.S. attempt to
overthrow the left-wing Cuban government at the Bay of Pigs in April
1961.
The CIA built a secret airstrip in Guatemala where it trained
right-wing Cubans to pilot U.S. Air Force bombers for the attack on
Cuba. The planes were stripped of their USAF insignia, which was
replaced by the insignia of the Guatemalan Air Force, in an attempt to
make the Bay of Pigs invasion appear as though it came from Guatemala.
When the left-wing coup attempt began on Nov. 13, the disguised USAF
bombers, most of them piloted by the USAF pilots who were in Guatemala
so they could train the right-wing Cubans, flew repeated sorties
against the would-be coup-makers. The aerial attacks prevented the
coup’s success, setting the stage for a civil war that lasted for
more years than the average Guatemalan
lives. [link removed]
_JIM CROW ON PARADE_
NOVEMBER 14 IS THE 160TH ANNIVERSARY of an official military parade
to celebrate the end of the Civil War that deserves an entry in this
country’s Hall of Shame.
A Grand Review of the Union Army’s victorious troops took place in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the state’s capital. Almost all of the
tens of thousands of proud, uniformed, marchers were Black because
they all belonged to the United States Colored Troops (almost all of
their officers were white). Not only was the Union Army that won the
Civil War segregated, but every one of the Union’s Black troops had
been excluded to the Grand Review that had taken place in Washington,
D.C. six months previously.
The segregation of U.S. armed forces personnel would continue through
the Spanish-American War, World War 1, and World War 2 until it was
abolished in time for the Korean War in
1950. [link removed]
_GIVE PEACE A CHANCE’_
NOVEMBER 15 IS THE 56TH ANNIVERSARY of the largest anti-war
demonstration in U.S. history, when half a million people took to the
streets of Washington, D.C.
The New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam pulled out
all the stops to give the lie to President Richard Nixon who had
thrown down a verbal gauntlet on Nov. 3 by accusing anti-war activists
of hindering his efforts to negotiate an end to the war during a
nationally televised prime-time speech.
When half a million people assembled at the Washington Monument
calling for the U.S. to end the war immediately, one of the huge
crowd’s most effective cheerleaders was Pete Seeger, who asked them
to join him in singing “Give Peace a Chance.” As the vast throng
sang, “All we are saying is give peace a chance,” over and over
and over, Seeger demanded of the distant White House, with its
recently demolished East Wing in plain sight, “Are you listening
Nixon? Are you listening Agnew? Are you listening in the Pentagon?”
This 3-minute clip gives a sense of what it was like to be
there: [link removed]
_RACIST TERROR AT ITS WORST_
NOVEMBER 16 IS THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY of the lynching, by burning
alive, of a 15-year-old Black teen-ager in front of at least 300
spectators in Limon, Colorado.
That 1900 execution was one of at least 6500 racial terror murders
occurring in the U.S. between 1865 and 1950. Visit this Equal Justice
Initiative link for more
information. [link removed]
_HONORING FREDERICK DOUGLASS _
NOVEMBER 18 IS THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY of the unveiling of a heroic,
larger-then-life statue of Frederick Douglass and the dedication of
the surrounding Frederick Douglass Square in the middle of the
University of Maryland’s College Park campus. The bronze statue is
the work of sculptor Andrew Edwards. Click here for a stirring
rendition of “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me
Round” [link removed]
For more People's History,
visithttps://www.facebook.com/jonathan.bennett.7771/
* American Revolution
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* Guatemala
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* US Civil War
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* Anti-Vietnam War movement
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* lynching
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* Frederick Douglass
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