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.” https://www.uaine.org/suppressed_speech.htm
‘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 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/community.39212702.pdf 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". https://wikileaks.org/plusd/?qproject[]=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. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol16/iss1/5/
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. https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/montgomery-bus-boycott-1955-56/
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: https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/dec/02
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