Portside

Striking U.S. Workers Are Off to a Great Start (1786) 

JUNE 10 IS THE 240TH ANNIVERSARY of the successful end of a 10-day strike by Philadelphia’s journeyman printers. 

The strike was triggered when most of Philadelphia’s printshop owners imposed a 28 percent wage cut on their workers. In response, the city’s printers all vowed to refuse to work for less than what they had been paid before the cut.

Faced with the printers’ united front, in a matter of days the employers agreed to restore the printers’ wages to their previous level. The job action is believed to have been the first strike in the U.S., which was getting ready to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its independence. https://www.library.upenn.edu/events/typography-independence/makers-blog/workers-apprentices-and-unions-0           

YOU Are the Un-Americans! (1956)

JUNE 12 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of Paul Robeson’s appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in response to a subpoena.

 Robeson testified: "You are the non-patriots and you are the un-Americans and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves."  

Given that Robeson’s testimony was dripping with his contempt for the committee and everything it stood for, it was not unexpected that the committee voted to cite him for contempt of Congress. But the committee’s vote was just a face-saving show, because the whole House was never given the opportunity to vote and make the citation official.  

Listen to 11 minutes of Robeson's stirring testimony that day at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhnCrHZkgNk

The Pentagon Papers, Warts and All (1971)

JUNE 13 IS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY of the Sunday New York Times 4-column headline, "Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement." 

It was the first installment of the hitherto top-secret Pentagon Papers, a warts-and-all history that was written at the request of the Pentagon about how four US presidents and their flim-flamming henchmen in and out of government had promoted the big lie that the defense of freedom required the destruction of Vietnam.

Of course, very little of the information in the Pentagon Papers was actually secret; most of it was out in plain sight but was largely ignored because it was steadfastly denied by politicians, generals, corporations, and most of the media. 

Nevertheless, the information in the Pentagon Papers was threatening to the Nixon White House because it showed exactly what the government knew to be true and when the government had known it, which made the information much more difficult to deny and distort.

View the 90-minute-long documentary, “Daniel Ellsberg: Secrets - Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers” here: https://youtu.be/OF8nuvGyngU?si=sRYKV8Ku53ijAczA

¡Vieques Libre! (2001)

JUNE 14 IS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY of the U.S. government’s announcement that it would stop using Isla de Vieques for a bombing and gunnery range, as the people of Puerto Rico had been demanding for more than five decades.   

For more information about the long struggle to return Vieques to civilian use, visit https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/us-ends-bombing-exercises/

A Conspiracy of Hope (1986)

JUNE 15 IS THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY of the final curtain for A Conspiracy of Hope, a 6-city tour with featured artists the Neville Brothers, Joan Baez, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Bryan Adams, Joni Mitchell, U2 and the Police, benefiting Amnesty International on the organization’s 25th anniversary. A Conspiracy of Hope played San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta and Chicago before closing with an all-day event for fifty thousand people at New Jersey’s Giants Stadium. 

For the concert’s finale, all the featured artists were joined on stage by 25 former political prisoners who had been released with Amnesty International’s help singing alongside John Eddie, Third World, the Hooters, Peter Paul & Mary, Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul, Bob Geldof, Stanley Jordan, Joan Armatrading, Jackson Browne, Rubén Blades, Nona Hendryx, Yoko Ono, Howard Jones and Miles Davis for a rendition of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” You can watch the show here https://youtu.be/ydhOVRF_Vqc?si=CEZAA89Tlso-fBiK

The Beginning of the End for Apartheid (1976)

JUNE 16 IS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the South African police opening fire on a peaceful anti-apartheid protest by high-school students in Soweto, a Black township on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

Scores were killed and hundreds wounded; it was an unforgettable scene of the carnage resulting from apartheid's brutality.

Despite the government's weeks-long effort to stop the protests, they continued until the apartheid regime was forced to give in to some of the students' demands. 

The student uprising in Soweto was a pivotal moment in the long struggle that led to the end to white-minority rule in South Africa in 1994.  https://www.saha.org.za/youth/bantu_education.htm

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