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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, NOV 26-DEC 2, 2025  
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_ Talk Nice or Shut Up! (1970), ‘You Can Protest, But We Don’t
Care’ (1965), State Department’s Embarrassing Secrets (2010), One
of Robert Moses’s Many Bad Ideas (1955), Throwing Jim Crow Off the
Bus (1955), Wrist Slaps for Killer Cops (1975) _

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_TALK NICE OR SHUT UP!_

NOVEMBER 26 IS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY of a celebration by the state of
Massachusetts to mark the arrival, in 1620, of the ship Mayflower,
which carried the first group of pilgrims to North America. The 1970
event was billed as the 350th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving. 

The event’s organizers, who conceived of the event as a celebration
of brotherhood between the European settlers and the members of the
Wampanoag Nation, invited the leader of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay
Head to give a dinner speech. But when the organizers reviewed a draft
of the speech, they refused to allow it to be delivered because “the
theme of the anniversary celebration is brotherhood and anything
inflammatory would be out of place.”

Here are excerpts of the suppressed remarks. Below is a link to the
complete speech.

“This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary
of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back,
of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what
happened to my People. . . . We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the
white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of
the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no
longer be a free people. . . . here were broken promises - and most of
these centered around land ownership. Among ourselves we understood
that there were boundaries, but never before had we had to deal with
fences and stone walls. But the white man had a need to prove his
worth by the amount of land that he owned . . . 

Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost
extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts. We
may be fragmented, we may be confused. Many years have passed since we
have been a people together. Our lands were invaded. We fought as hard
to keep our land as you the whites did to take our land away from us.
We were conquered, we became the American prisoners of war in many
cases, and wards of the United States Government, until only recently.
. . .We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of
the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees.
What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a
more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once
again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and
brotherhood prevail.” [link removed]
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_‘YOU CAN PROTEST, BUT WE CAN IGNORE YOU’_

NOVEMBER 27 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of a national day of protest
against the U.S.war in Vietnam. It saw demonstrations in many U.S.
cities, including an anti-war rally by some 40,000 in Washington,
D.C., which was the largest demonstration against the Vietnam war up
until then. The massive 1965 demonstration completely surrounded the
White House. 

But the U.S. government doubled down on the commitment to trying to
use its military might to stifle the Vietnamese desire for national
liberation.  On the same day, the U.S. announced a plan to more than
triple the deployment of U.S. troops from 120,000 to 400,000.

For the National Guardian’s detailed account of the Washington
demonstration,
visit [link removed] and
scroll down to the middle of the page.

 

 

_STATE DEPARTMENT’S EMBARRASSING SECRETS_

NOVEMBER 28 IS THE 15TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of Wikileaks
release of more than 250,000 formerly secret messages sent between
Department of State headquarters and more than 270 U.S. embassies,
consulates, and diplomatic missions. The messages, which were dated
between 1966 and 2010, revealed U.S. diplomats gathering personal
information about top officials of the United Nations, sharp and
embarrassing criticisms of U.S. allies, efforts to interfere with
nuclear disarmament campaigns, and U.S. support for dictatorships and
other oppressive regimes.

The detailed information in the leaked messages, which was (and
remains) fascinating and chilling, led Noam Chomsky to comment at the
time, "Perhaps the most dramatic revelation ... is the bitter hatred
of democracy that is revealed both by the U.S. Government – Hillary
Clinton, others – and also by the diplomatic
service". [link removed][]=cg&q=#result

 

 

_KILLING ONE OF ROBERT MOSES’S MANY BAD IDEAS_

NOVEMBER 30 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of a major and lasting victory by
defenders of one of New York City’s natural gems, one of the wildest
but also well-known areas in New York City’s Central Park, the
38-acre Ramble.

Six months earlier, in May 1955, New York City Parks Commissioner (and
highway-construction czar) Robert Moses announced had accepted a
$250,000 donation (worth about $3 million today) to build a recreation
center for the elderly that would occupy more than a third of the
Ramble’s total area. Not only had he accepted the contribution, but
he had already (secretly) contracted with a large architectural firm
to design the building. 

Many park users were outraged, not because they had any objection to
the construction of such a recreation center but because to build such
a large and presumably heavily-used building at that location would go
a long way toward destroying the park’s most renowned woodland. 

The lobbying campaign against the construction got so much attention
the trustees of the foundation that put up the money for the project
withdrew the offer because they “were upset over the fuss made by
nature lovers in general and bird watchers in particular.” Not only
was the plan killed, but 46 years later the Ramble was one of the
first areas in the city to be designated “Forever Wild,” and
exempt from any development
proposals. [link removed] 

 

 

_THROWING JIM CROW OUT OF THE BUS_

DECEMBER 1 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of a watershed moment for the U.S.
civil rights movement, when police in Montgomery, Alabama, arrested
Rosa Parks for her refusal to abide by the rules of Jim Crow public
transportation. 

The effort to end Montgomery’s bus segregation had started eight
months earlier with a court case, but the legal battle was far from
its conclusion when Rosa Parks’ arrest was the signal for the NAACP
to begin a very effective city-wide bus boycott by Montgomery’s very
substantial Black population. 

The eventual success of both the court case after it reached the U.S.
Supreme Court and the nationally publicized 61-week-long boycott in
the very heart of the Confederacy’s one-time capital city forced the
bus company to throw in the towel, and became the rallying cry for a
sustained attack on racism throughout the
country. [link removed]

 

 

_WRIST SLAPS FOR KILLER COPS_

DECEMBER 2 IS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of police killing an innocent and
unarmed Black man with two shots in the back, and the beginning of an
eventually unsuccessful cover-up of those events. 

The family of the dead man, Bernard Whitehurst, Jr., deserves much of
the credit for uncovering the truth, as does the publisher of the
Montgomery, Alabama, Advertiser, who joined in the effort to prove
that the police were lying, but no one can take much satisfaction in
the slap-on-the-wrist quality of the final reckoning. Eight police
officers were eventually either dismissed from the force or resigned.
Montgomery’s Mayor and its director of Public Safety each
resigned. 

The Whitehurst family never received a dime in restitution or
compensation for the death of their family member. They were left to
take what comfort they could from an acknowledgement of wrongdoing by
the City of Montgomery and a City Council resolution formally
expressing regret for Whitehurst’s death. The City also agreed to
install to historical markers the provide an accurate description of
the dereliction of duty that resulted in the killing of an innocent
man and its aftermath. The Equal Justice Initiative has more
information, here: [link removed] 

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

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