This Week in People’s History, Nov 13–19
¡Karen Silkwood, Presente!
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, IS THE 50th ANNIVERSARY of the night Karen Silkwood was killed in a mysterious 1-car crash. She had been driving to a meeting with an investigator from her union and with a New York Times reporter, where the three were planning to discuss the horrible safety conditions at the nuclear fuel plant where Silkwood worked. There was a great deal of circumstantial evidence that Silkwood's death was no accident, and her employer was eventually forced to pay her estate more than $1 million for negligence, but without having to admit liability.
Silkwood is a hero of the movement for occupational safety and health because of her activism, coupled with the circumstances of her untimely death. Her sacrifice is commemorated every year when a rank-and-file worker is presented the Karen Silkwood Award by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. https://ktul.com/news/investigations/44-years-later-the-death-of-karen-silkwood-is-still-a-mystery
Whatever Became of William Dawson?
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, IS THE 90th ANNIVERSARY of the wildly successful 1934 premiere performance of William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. The audience in Philadelphia began a standing ovation at the end of the second movement and they remained on their feet until the end of the last, third, movement.
Six days later, the Philadelphia Orchestra performed the same work in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, where the audience called Dawson to the stage repeatedly to accept their applause after the work’s end. It’s about 35 minutes long and you can listen to it here. https://youtu.be/HJX1jCmCev8?si=wCcCrC_BRUfEaz8K
‘Give Peace a Chance’
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1969, IS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY of the largest anti-war demonstration in U.S. history, when half a million people took to the streets of Washington, D.C.
The New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam pulled out all the stops to give the lie to President Richard Nixon who had thrown down a verbal gauntlet on Nov. 3 by accusing anti-war activists of hindering his efforts to negotiate an end to the war during a nationally televised prime-time speech.
When half a million people assembled at the Washington Monument calling for the U.S. to end the war immediately, one of the huge crowd’s most effective cheerleaders was Pete Seeger, who asked them to join him in singing “Give Peace a Chance.” As the vast throng sang, “All we are saying is give peace a chance,” over and over and over, Seeger demanded of the distant White House, “Are you listening Nixon? Are you listening Agnew? Are you listening in the Pentagon?” This 3-minute clip gives a sense of what it was like to be there: https://youtu.be/bH2dsp4Vr3A?si=_wtSR4ZVlMuUVerF
Who Says, Crime Doesn’t Pay?
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, IS THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of Roger Stone’s 2019 conviction for witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements, charges that had been brought against Stone by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Stone was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison, but President Trump commuted the sentence before he began to serve his sentence. Later, on December 23, 2020, Trump gave Stone a complete pardon. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-trumps-commutation-of-roger-stone-is-highly-unusual
Ornette Coleman Takes Manhattan
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, IS THE 65th ANNIVERSARY of the 1959 debut of the iconoclastic Ornette Coleman Quartet at The Five Spot Café in Manhattan. In addition to Coleman on alto sax, the others were Don Cherry (trumpet), Charlie Haden (bass), and Billy Higgins (drums).
What had been scheduled to be a 2-week run won props from the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Lionel Hampton, and the Modern Jazz Quartet, and was so successful it was eventually extended to more than two months. You can listen to what attracted so much attention here: https://youtu.be/YMasmoE-_vY?si=8Ag9IPgYteKiaq5G
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