This Week in People’s History, Nov. 7–13
Congress Finds Its Spine, But Not Soon Enough
November 7, 1973 (50 years ago). In a display of backbone that is welcome but also a prime example of too-little-too-lateness, the U.S. Congress overrides President Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, thereby putting limits on Nixon's power to wage war without the approval of Congress. Even so, if Nixon had won the support of only five more House members, his veto would not have been overridden. The War Powers Resolution remains in force today, but whether Congress is able to enforce it has been cast into doubt by its probable violation by every President since 1974 with the exception of Ford and Carter. https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-1973-war-powers-act/
North Carolina Racists Take Over
November 8, 1898 (125 years ago). On this Election Day, the majority of the population of Wilmington, North Carolina -- which is then the state's largest city -- is Black by a large margin. Wilmington's incumbent city government is multi-racial and anti-racist. Black men (only men, because women had not yet won the right to vote) occupy positions of authority in Wilmington's government and business community.
The result of this day's vote is determined by a massive, well-organized and blatant fraud committed by the explicitly white-supremacist Democratic Party. The fraudulent election is the culmination of a years-long campaign of intimidation and outright terrorism by Democrats and their vigilante squads known as the Red Shirts. The terror campaign, which is directed at all anti-racists, both Black and white, had already been so successful that almost all the city's anti-racist incumbents chose not to run for re-election, because they have good reason to think they would be lynched if they tried to remain in office.
As would be expected under the circumstances, the Democrats win the election, but in the normal course of affairs they will not take office until early the next year. In addition, the Mayor and the city's Board of Aldermen were not up for re-election in 1898, so their right to remain in office is clear. Not willing to wait for inauguration day, on November 10 the Democrats staged a bloody coup, forcing the mayor and city council to resign and leave town, as well as killing hundreds of their supporters and forcing the rest to flee for their lives. Sadly, the coup is a complete success, because no one in the state or federal government makes any attempt to reverse it. For a detailed description of background, the Wilmington Massacre itself, and its aftermath, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898
Nazis on the Rampage
November 9, 1938 (85 years ago). Throughout Germany and German-occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia, Nazi party paramilitary forces, Hitler Youth and pro-Nazi civilians begin a violent 2-day attack on Jews and Jewish homes, hospitals, schools and synagogues. Hundreds are killed, thousands are beaten and/or raped, and more than 30 thousand arrested. More than 250 synagogues are looted and demolished along with more than 7000 Jewish businesses. Even though Nazis have been persecuting, deporting and engaging in small-scale violence against Jews for years, the events -- which are known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) for the mountains of broken glass resulting from the attacks -- are shockingly unprecedented. For Kristallnacht survivors accounts, visit https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/kristallnacht/index.asp
Malcolm Disses Non-Violence
November 10, 1963 (60 years ago). It is 10 weeks after one of the Civil Rights Movement's defining moments, when some 250,000 participants in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom filled the Mall. The Civil Right Movement, based on the principle of non-violence, is fast gaining adherents, support, and publicity. But is it enough?
On this day Nation of Islam Minister Malcolm X tells a large Detroit crowd, in a speech known as Message to the Grass Roots, that the answer is definitely no, because non-violence will never achieve what is needed by the Black population of the U.S.
Here is how he put it: "The Mau Mau [in Kenya], they were revolutionary, they believed in scorched earth, they knocked everything aside that got in their way, and their revolution also was based on land, a desire for land. In Algeria, the northern part of Africa, a revolution took place. The Algerians were revolutionists, they wanted land. France offered to let them be integrated into France. They told France, to hell with France, they wanted some land, not some France. And they engaged in a bloody battle.
"So I cite these various revolutions, brothers and sisters, to show you that you don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. The only kind of revolution that is nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only revolution in which the goal is loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. It's the only revolution in which the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public toilet; you can sit down next to white folks--on the toilet. That’s no revolution." https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/2/21/malcolm-x-is-still-misunde…;
Lynch Mob Does the Right Thing
November 11, 1903 (120 years ago). Racist vigilante justice is frustrated, for once, two miles north of New York City, in Bronxville, NY, when a mob seizes Edward Green, who is Black, and prepares to lynch him to avenge a white woman who identifies him as the man who robbed and assaulted her. Luckily for Green, cooler heads prevail and he is turned over to the police. When Green was tried for robbery and assault, he was acquitted because Edwin Fiske, the Mayor of neighboring Mt. Vernon, testified that he and Green had been in a meeting together at the time the assault took place. https://ia800509.us.archive.org/15/items/theredrecord14977gut/14977-h/1…;
Who's Afraid of HUAC?
November 12, 1958 (65 years ago). An arbitrator rules that CBS Television violated its contract with the Radio and Television Directors Guild when CBS fired Joseph Papp from his job as unit manager for "I've Got a Secret." The arbitrator orders CBS to put Papp back on the payroll and pay him half of what he would have earned during his 6-month layoff.
CBS had fired Papp in June 1958 when he refused to testify before a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing about "Communist infiltration of entertainment." The arbitrator ruled that Papp's refusal to testify was not grounds for dismissal.
Papp went back to work for CBS, but he continued to moonlight as the producer of two organizations that he founded in 1954 -- the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater. Before long he was earning enough from his non-profit theater work for him to resign from CBS and focus entirely on the work that resulted in his becoming a cultural icon. For Papp's eloquent statement about his refusal to testify, visit https://www.villagevoice.com/joe-papp-stands-up-to-huac/
Hormel Strikers Win! (In 1933, That Is)
November 13, 1933 (90 years ago). After striking meatpacking workers, members of the Independent Union of All Workers, had taken over the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota, expelled all non-strikers, and held the idle plant for two and a half days, on this day Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson brokers an agreement between the union and the plant owners, in which the union members end their occupation of the plant and return to work and both union and management agree to binding arbitration of all disputed issues by the State Industrial Commission. The plant reopens and three weeks later the Industrial Commission orders a substantial wage increase and splits the difference between management and union concerning work rules. Governor Olson is excoriated in the mainstream media for having settled the unprecedented and illegal plant take-over without punishing the workers. For a long but fascinating history of how the plant was organized by a group of former Industrial Workers of the World members, visit https://libcom.org/article/we-were-poor-people-hormel-strike-1933-larry…