Portside

Activists Resist U.S. Government’s Deportation Spree (1981)

FORTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, ON SEPTEMBER 9, 1981, the U.S. was supporting foreign governments that were forcing citizens to flee official brutality. One of those governments was El Salvador’s, with the result that tens of thousands of Salvadoran political refugees needed safe haven, and many turned in desperation to the U.S. 

When the Reagan administration responded to the waves of asylum seekers with wholesale deportations, social, political and religious activists organized the sanctuary movement. One of the sanctuary movement’s early manifestations took place on this day, when 11 churchwomen, standing behind a banner reading Political Asylum for El Salvadoran Refugees! blocked a Los Angeles federal building’s driveway to prevent the delivery of El Salvadoran refugees to the airport for deportation to El Salvador. 

When the protesters were handcuffed and arrested, it became national news that added momentum to a growing movement to provide sanctuary and end deportation. As one of those arrested, who was an Episcopal deacon, told a reporter, “we did everything we could to minimize any perception of us as a group of '60s hippies, because I think people have become immune to that kind of media barrage. The shock value of women doing it was effective. People began to say, ‘What is it that's going on that a group of middle-aged women would actually go down and be arrested?’"   https://portside.org/2025-06-19/future-sanctuary

Round Up the Usual Suspects! (1901)

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, ON SEPTEMBER 10, 1901, the well-known anarchist Emma Goldman was arrested in Chicago and charged with conspiracy to assassinate the President. 

The President, William McKinley, had been shot and mortally wounded four days previously, and he died on September 14.

The basis for the charge against Goldman turned out to have been a command to “Round up the usual suspects!” After two weeks in jail as punishment for being a well-known anarchist, when the total lack of evidence against her could no longer be denied, she was released.  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldman-she-fought-law/  

‘Freedom Began Here’ (1851)

ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, ON SEPTEMBER 11, 1851, Christiana, Pennsylvania, was the site of a famous act of anti-slavery resistance. 

An enslaving farmer from the slave-state of Maryland (which is 15 miles south of Christiana) led a posse to Christiana to try to kidnap people alleged to be formerly enslaved people who had absconded from Maryland. The citizens of Christiana put up a fierce and fair fight (the posse was heavily armed). The Maryland slaver was killed. 

The slaver’s friends in Maryland raised a hue and cry about the death of their fellow enslaver. In an effort to mollify the slavocracy, 38 Christiana townspeople who had helped prevent the kidnapping attempt were indicted. When the first one was tried in federal court in Philadelphia, the jury acquitted him, and soon the prosecutions of the rest were abandoned. 

Christiana's town motto is now "Freedom began here." There are several monuments to the Christiana Rebellion and a museum in the center of town.

One of the monuments to the participants in the Christiana Rebellion is on the left in the photograph;  the building is Zercher's Hotel, which was the town watering hole in 1851 and now is home to the museum.   https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/christiana-riot-1851/

Sunshine Is the Best Disinfectant (1976)

FIFTY YEARS AGO, ON SEPTEMBER 13, 1976, the federal Government in the Sunshine Act went into effect. 

The law requires that all federal agencies led by a board or committee conduct policy-making meetings in public. It also requires such agencies to give the public a week’s notice of such meetings.

The basic premise of the sunshine act is that because the people are the only legitimate foundation of governmental power, then the government should be fully accountable to the public for the actions it takes on their behalf.

The law provides that agency discussions of 10 specific subjects, such as national security, personal privacy, or ongoing criminal investigations, are exempt from its provisions.

All 50 states have similar laws that apply to their own agencies.

Unfortunately, over the last half century, agencies covered by the Sunshine Act and similar state laws have developed methods of skirting its requirements, such as holding meetings that cannot make policy because they lack a quorum.  https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2624&context=dlj

A Billion Here, A Billion There, Pretty Soon You’re Talking about Real Money (1996)

THIRTY YEARS AGO, ON SEPTEMBER 15, 1996, the national debt of the United States was $5,220,000,000,000. That’s $5.22 trillion. 

This month the national debt hit a new record of $40 trillion ($40,000,000,000,000), an increase of more than 766 percent in 30 years. 

The federal government is now paying $1.25 trillion annually to cover the interest due to the financial institutions and individuals who have lent the U.S. a share of it’s $40 trillion worth of IOUs. $1.25 trillion is 18.5 percent of all federal tax collections.  https://fortune.com/2026/09/07/us-national-debt-interest-1-trillion-1991-bond-yields-scott-bessent/

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