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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, DEC 24–30, 2025  
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_ Remember the Stonewall Rebellion Veterans! (1920), Just Who Might
Be a War Criminal, Anyway? (1945), Your Constitutional Rights Can’t
Defend Themselves (1980) _

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_REMEMBER THE STONEWALL REBELLION VETERANS!_

DECEMBER 24 IS THE 105TH ANNIVERSARY of the birth of Stormé
DeLarverie, who is known to many as the Rosa Parks of the gay
community’s struggle.

DeLarverie was an established entertainer and singer when they helped
to spark the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion by loudly resisting arrest at
the beginning of a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay-friendly
bar in Greenwich Village. DeLarverie was one of a small group of the
bar’s patrons whose challenge to police persecution of sexual
minorities was quickly imitated by other club patrons being targeted
for arrest. It was one of the first instances of collective militant
queer resistance to police harassment in the U.S.

What had started with resistance by DeLarverie and others to a routine
police shakedown turned into an angry crowd that put the outnumbered
police on the defensive, then to a gathering of hundreds of people
standing in the street shouting insults at the police, and then to at
least two nights of large, spontaneous anti-police demonstrations in
the vicinity of the Stonewall Inn.

The Stonewall Rebellion was "the shot heard round the world" according
to historian Lillian Faderman, explaining, "By calling on the dramatic
tactic of violent protest that was being used by other oppressed
groups, the events at the Stonewall implied that homosexuals had as
much reason to be disaffected as
they." [link removed]

 

 

_JUST WHO MIGHT BE A WAR CRIMINAL, ANYWAY?_

DECEMBER 25 IS THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY of a reasonable, but very
disturbing request from a war criminal. 

The war criminal, a Japanese admiral, was not denying his
responsibility for his heinous actions during World War 2, but he was
challenging a U.S. military court to understand that even a war’s
winners might be guilty of horrendous war crimes. 

The speaker, Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara, admitted he had committed a
war crime when he had ordered the execution of 98 unarmed U.S.
civilians who had been captured by the Japanese in late 1941. 

Knowing that he was about to be condemned to death, Sakaibara told the
court, "As we are about to receive a decision by an American court, I
would like to make a request that the people who planned and carried
out the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan should be regarded in the
same light as
we." [link removed] 

 

 

_YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS CAN’T DEFEND THEMSELVES_

DECEMBER 30 IS THE 45TH ANNIVERSARY of the day when a class-action
lawsuit filed by 16 political activists against the New York City
Police Department ended in a substantial victory. The NYPD had to
agree to enforceable limits on its authority to investigate political
activists and political activity.

The lawsuit was settled when the NYPD agreed that its future
investigations of “purely political activity” would be governed by
the terms of a court-approved agreement, which required the NYPD to
obtain a warrant from a 3-person “Handschuh Authority.” For the
NYPD to apply for such a warrant, it was required to show that it had
reasonable grounds to suspect that “criminal” and not “purely
political” activity was taking place.

The agreement also prohibited indiscriminate police videorecording and
photographing of public gatherings when there was no indication that
unlawful activity was occurring. The NYPD was also prohibited from
sharing information pertaining to political activity with other law
enforcement agencies unless those agencies agree to abide by the terms
of the Handschuh agreement.

The Handschuh agreement was in full effect for more than 22 years, but
after the 2001 terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center,
the NYPD requested that the agreement be relaxed. The judge in the
case would not agree to all the modifications requested by the police,
but he did allow a substantial revision that gave the police a great
deal more discretion.

Four years later, a lawsuit by the New York Civil Liberties Union
succeeded in tightening up some of the loopholes that had been opened
in
2003. [link removed]

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

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