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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, DEC 31-JAN 6, 2026  
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_ Black Power Grows in a Tent City (1965), Lead Pollution Is
Profitable, So Shut Up! (1996), ‘Two, Three, Many Vietnams’
(1966), No Responders Left Behind (2006), Protecting Kahoʻolawe from
Bombs (1976) _

Inside the Lowndes Interpretive Center,

 

_BLACK POWER GROWS IN A TENT CITY_

DECEMBER 31 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the day in 1965 when civil
rights activists started to build a refugee camp for the families of
Alabama sharecroppers and tenant farmers who had been forced off their
land and fired from their jobs for having registered to vote.

When the Civil Rights Act of 1965 passed five months earlier, there
were no Black registered voters in Lowndes County, Alabama, where the
population was 81 percent Black. There were hardly any Black
registered voters in nearby Wilcox and Dallas counties, each of which
had a majority-Black population.

Already by late 1965 the number of Black and white registered voters
in Lowndes County was almost equal. Thousands of Blacks were in line
to register. The newly registered Blacks were forming a new political
formation – Lowndes County Freedom Organization – that would be
able to choose its own candidates, who would be shoo-ins to win county
elections in late 1966.

With federal officials in charge of the voter registration process,
the only hope for the dominant whites  was to force Blacks to leave
the county by evicting them from the homes they rented and firing them
from their jobs. Many of the evicted Blacks doubled up in Black-owned
housing, but there was not space for all the homeless, so the Lowndes
County Christian Movement for Human Rights in collaboration with
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) staff members and
students from the nearby Tuskegee Institute erected a tent city on
Black-owned farmland.

Today, the site of that tent city is occupied by the National Parks
Service’s Lowndes Interpretive Center, which contains a museum with
exhibits that incorporate news footage, photographs, and interviews
with civil right
activists. [link removed]

 

_LEAD POLLUTION IS PROFITABLE, SO SHUT UP!_

JANUARY 1 IS THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY of the first day that it became
illegal to sell leaded gasoline in the U.S. 

When oil refiners began to add lead to gasoline in 1924 in order to
improve engine performance, many public health experts objected that
automobile exhaust containing any amount of lead was a serious
environmental hazard, but their warning was drowned out by a
well-financed corporate disinformation campaign. 

Even by the time the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged in
1973 that tens of millions of children were suffering from the toxic
effect of exposure to lead in auto exhaust, the corporate pushback
prevented the ban from going into full effect for more than two
decades. NEEDS LINK   

The Environmental Protection Agency had first proposed banning
lead-spiked gasoline in 1973, but the opposition of auto manufacturers
and oil companies delayed the regulation going into full effect for
more than two
decades. [link removed]

 

_‘TWO, THREE, MANY VIETNAMS’_

JANUARY 3 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the opening day of the 2-week
long Tricontinental Conference in Havana, which was attended by some
500 delegates from 82 countries.  On the meeting’s first day, a
letter from Che Guevara (who was unable to attend) was read, including
his memorable call for "two, three, many Vietnams" to fight against
imperialism.  [link removed]

 

_NO RESPONDERS LEFT BEHIND_

JANUARY 5 IS THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY of the death of New York City
police officer James Zadroga, who died because his lungs were full of
dust particles created by the collapse of the World Trade Center in
September 2001. He was the first police officer whose death was
attributed to exposure to the toxic air near the World Trade Center. 

Zadroga’s life and his untimely death became rallying cries for the
movement to provide free health-care to the tens of thousands of
people whose health has been compromised as a result of the World
Trade Center’s
collapse. [link removed]

 

_PROTECTING KAHOʻOLAWE FROM BOMBS_

JANUARY 6 IS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of a militant demonstration by
native Hawaiians and their supporters against the U.S. Navy’s
refusal to abide by federal environmental laws on Kahoʻolawe, the
smallest Hawaiian island, which was then entirely occupied by a Navy
gunnery range.

In 1976 some 50 activists, who organized themselves as Protect
Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana (PKO), made a successful (but tragic) effort to
defy the Navy by “invading” Kahoʻolawe. The Navy prevented almost
all of their small craft from reaching the island, except for the
“Kahoʻolawe Nine”, who landed in spite of the Navy’s effort.
Sadly, two of the nine successful blockade runners were lost as a
result of heavy weather before they could return to Maui.

After decades of protests, the Navy ended live-fire training exercises
on Kahoʻolawe in 1990, and the whole island was transferred to the
jurisdiction of the state of Hawaii in 1994. Since then the
Hawaiian State Legislature established the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve
to restore and to oversee the island and its surrounding waters. Today
Kahoʻolawe can be used only for native Hawaiian cultural, spiritual,
and subsistence purposes, fishing, environmental restoration, historic
preservation, and
education. [link removed]

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

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