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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, FEB 11–17, 2026  
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_ Hell No We Won’t Go! (1966), A Titan of a President (1809), What
Part of ‘War Crime’ Don’t You Understand? (1976), Bringing NYC
to Its Knees (1946), Kidnappers Go to Hell! (1851), A Woman in Revolt
(1986), ‘No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger’ (1966) _

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_HELL NO, WE WON’T GO!_

FEBRUARY 11 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of Julian Bond urging a large
audience at City College in Manhattan to resist the U.S. Army’s
efforts to turn them into cannon-fodder in Vietnam. 

Bond, a civil rights activist and neophyte Georgia politician, was the
featured speaker at a 1966 meeting that was co-sponsored by the local
chapters of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Independent
Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the W.E.B. Du Bois Club. He
called for “an organized movement of Negroes to avoid military
service on racial grounds” because “we’re first-class citizens
on the battlefield but second-class citizens at home.” He asked,
“Why fight for a country that has never fought for you?”

If Bond had known it, he could have counselled his listeners that the
most effective way to dodge the draft was simply to never register
with the Selective Service System. 

The federal government had the names, addresses and ages of most young
men, but it was very easy to “disappear” by moving and not giving
the Post Office a forwarding address. Because the authorities lacked
the resources to track down the hundreds of thousands of men who
relocated in that way, if such a person avoided arrest, they were
almost certain of avoiding prosecution for draft evasion, at least
until 1973, when the draft was
abolished.  [link removed]

The image is by Simeon Dorelus.

 

 

_A TITAN OF A PRESIDENT_

FEBRUARY 12 IS THE 217TH ANNIVERSARY of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. 

You can read “Lincoln and Marx” by historian Robin Blackburn,
former editor of New Left Review,
here:  [link removed]

 

_WHAT PART OF ‘WAR CRIME’ DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?_

FEBRUARY 13 IS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the UN Commission on Human
Rights finding Israel responsible for committing war crimes in the
West Bank. The vote was 23 to 1, with 8 abstentions. The United States
cast the sole negative vote.

The 1976 resolution “deplores once again Israel's continued grave
violations, in the occupied Arab territories, of the basic norms of
international law and of the relevant international conventions . . .
which are considered by the Commission on Human Rights as war crimes
and an affront to humanity, as well as its persistent defiance of the
relevant resolutions of the United Nations and its continued policy of
violating the basic human rights of the inhabitants of the occupied
Arab territories”.

The resolution condemns Israel’s “mass arrests, administrative
detention and ill treatment of the Arab population” and moves to
annex parts of the occupied lands. It accused the Israelis of
destroying Arab houses and confiscating Arab property, of
“purging” archeological and cultural property, interfering with
religious freedoms and hindering “the exercise by the population of
the occupied territories of their rights to national education and
cultural life.” You can read the complete resolution
here: [link removed]

 

_BRINGING NEW YORK CITY TO ITS KNEES_

FEBRUARY 14 IS THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY of the end of a 10-day strike by
3,500 New York City tugboat workers that brought the city to its
knees.

In 1946 almost all the food and the fuel for heating and power
consumed by New Yorkers was delivered to the city on barges powered by
tugboats. 

All of the tugboat workers were members of Local 333 of the
International Longshoremen’s Association.  When the tugworkers
struck on February 4, the fuel and food supply-chain came to a
screeching stop that could not possibly have been ameliorated by
deliveries via railroad and truck. And even the little food and fuel
that could be delivered to wholesalers by truck and train could hardly
be distributed to retailers because of lack of fuel to operate
delivery trucks.

Less than three days after the strike started, 15 thousand buildings
had no heating fuel, a number that was expected to quadruple in three
days. Outside, the temperature was around 40 degrees.

Four days into the strike, almost all the city’s coal and oil stocks
were gone and all the schools were shut due to lack of heat. The mayor
released a report saying “No more serious disaster has ever faced
this city than confronts it right now.” The federal government took
control of the tugboat companies, but the striking tugboat workers
refused to return to work, so all tugs remained idle until Navy
sailors began to try, with very slight success, to learn how to
operate tugs safely and effectively. Some tugs belonging to the Navy
started to move emergency supplies, but their numbers were totally
insufficient to make up for the deficit caused by the strike.

As dire as the situation was, negotiations between the union and the
tugboat owners association remained at a standstill until the owners
finally agreed to binding arbitration. With an agreement to abide by
an arbitrator's decision in place, the tug workers returned to work,
and one of New York City’s most desperate moments came to an
end.  [link removed]

 

_KIDNAPPERS, GO TO HELL!_

FEBRUARY 15 IS THE 175TH ANNIVERSARY of one of the first acts of
successful militant disobedience to the newly amended version of the
thoroughly racist federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

On this day in 1851, a large group of outraged African-Americans burst
into a Boston courtroom to rescue Shadrach Minkins, who was the first
formerly enslaved, self-emancipated person arrested in New England
under the recently amended law.

The new law required any and all law enforcement officials to assist
in the recapture of the self-emancipated; refusal to do so was a
federal offense. 

When Minkins's former “master” learned that Minkins was in Boston,
he had U.S. marshals arrest him. They took him to the federal building
in Boston, where an angry crowd stormed the courtroom and freed
Minkins. 

He was taken to a nearby hiding place and then, that night, he began
his journey on the Underground Railroad. Six days later he arrived in
Canada, where he was not subject to arrest. Minkins settled among
self-emancipated slaves in Montreal, married, raised a family, and
worked as a barber. 

While about two-thirds of U.S.-born blacks in Canada returned to the
U.S. after the promulgation of the 13th Amendment, Minkins did not. He
remained in Montreal, where he died in December 1875. 

This post summarizes (and borrows from) the lengthier “Shadrach
Minkins Seized” page on the Mass Humanities website. The excellent,
more detailed version is
here: [link removed]

 

_EMMA GOLDMAN, A WOMAN IN REVOLT_

FEBRUARY 16 IS THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY of the New York City premiere of
the only (I think) play written by historian Howard Zinn, “Emma: A
Play in Two Acts About Emma Goldman, American Anarchist.”

No one, I believe, would call it a really great play, but it’s a
fine one, with a superb first act.

Zinn succeeds in bringing a totally believable, clever, daring,
selfless and loving Emma Goldman to life on the page, or the stage. (I
have only watched the video.)

Zinn puts lines like  – “Everybody in this system has to sell
something to stay alive'' – into Emma’s mouth that bring to life
her radical vision of fighting for justice.

The opening, set in 1887, introduces four young clothing-factory
workers, whose fear of being trapped in a fire, as has happened to
others like them, leads them to protest and to organize, to build a
labor union and, perhaps, a revolution.

In “Emma”, Howard Zinn shows a theatrical flair that is well worth
reading and deserves to be brought to the stage again. You can watch a
2-minute trailer by Teaching for Change
here: [link removed]  or the full
2-hour production
here:  [link removed]

 

_‘NO VIETNAMESE EVER CALLED ME NIGGER’_

FEBRUARY 17 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of world heavyweight champion
boxer Muhammad Ali’s announcement that he would refuse to allow
himself to be drafted into the U.S. Army because of his opposition to
the Vietnam War. In so doing, he displayed his talent as a poet with
one of his many catchy refrains:

Keep asking me no matter how long,On the war in Vietnam I sing this
song,I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.

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

* anti-draft movement
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* Julian Bond
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* Abraham Lincoln
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* West Bank
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* Strike Wave
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* Fugitive Slave Act
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* Emma Goldman
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* Howard Zinn
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* Muhammed Ali
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