This Week in People’s History, Jul 23–29, 2025
Ever Try to Throw a Rock 85 Yards? (1970)
JULY 23 IS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY of the sensational leak about a federal investigation of the killing of four Kent State College students by members of the Ohio National Guard.
The deadly 1970 attack on unarmed antiwar demonstrators, which had taken place eleven weeks earlier, had electrified the movement against the war in Vietnam, leading huge demonstrations and student strikes on hundreds of campuses coast-to-coast.
Even though the Guards’ use of deadly force was hard to explain, many federal and state officials claimed that the troops opened fire because they were surrounded by a rock-throwing crowd that made the soldiers fear for their safety.
The leaked report, which was prepared by the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division based on an investigation by the FBI, made it clear that the 100-member National Guard unit was not surrounded by protesters and that the troops were in no danger when they opened fire.
The photo is from the May 15, 1970, Life magazine.
According to the Justice Department and FBI, the distance between the closest student victim and the Guard was 85 yards, or nearly the length of a football field. In the report’s words, none of the student victims “was in a position to pose even a remote danger to the National Guard at the time of the firing . . .” https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/31/archives/excerpts-from-summary-of-fbi-report-on-kent-state-u-disorders-last.html
Vietnam Stands Up to U.S. Bombs (1965)
JULY 24 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the first time North Vietnamese defense forces used a surface-to-air missile to shoot down a U.S. Air Force fighter-bomber that was on the attack 45 miles north of Hanoi.
Because it was the first time in the war that a U.S. aircraft had been downed by a surface-to-air missile, July 24 was celebrated annually as “Missile Day” in Vietnam until the mid-1970s.
Between 1965 and the war’s end, more than 200 U.S. aircraft were destroyed by surface-to-air missiles while attacking Vietnam. https://web.archive.org/web/20191209053037/https://media.defense.gov/2010/May/26/2001330292/-1/-1/0/AFD-100526-034.pdf
A Big Win for Lunch-Counter Sit-Ins (1960)
JULY 25 IS THE 65TH ANNIVERSARY of a major breakthrough for the anti-racist militants, most of them college and high-school students, who had spent six months demanding an end to the Jim Crow policies of some Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch-counters.
The 1960 sit-ins had started at the Woolworth and Kress stores, where managers welcomed customers of all races shopping for dry goods, but insultingly refused to allow some of the same customers the opportunity to grab a sandwich or a soda at the stores.
Despite the stores’ initial refusal to integrate their food service, the lunch-counter sit-in movement spread like wildfire throughout the South, quickly resulting in peaceful demonstrations in more than 35 cities and towns in eight states.
Even before the managers of the Greensboro lunch-counters agreed to desegregate on July 25, demonstrators in 14 other places – Norfolk, Portsmouth, Alexandria and Arlington, Virginia; Nashville and Knoxville, Tennessee; Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill, Salisbury and Charlotte, North Carolina; and Galveston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio and Austin, Texas – had achieved their objective even though their demonstrations got started after the first Greensboro sit-in. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960sitins
Nazis Are Like Pirates (1935)
JULY 26 IS THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY of a successful attack by Communist militants on the Nazi government’s right to flaunt Germany’s swastika in the middle of Manhattan.
The attack occurred in 1935, before the beginning of World War 2, but after Hitler’s seizure of power, Germany’s violation of the Versailles Treaty’s ban on German rearmament, the expulsion of Jews from German government jobs and educational institutions, the execution of numerous German anti-Nazis and the opening of the concentration camp at Dachau for political prisoners.
The anti-Nazis were protesting the presence of the swastika hanging from the bow of the ocean liner Bremen, in full view of passers-by on 12th Avenue and the elevated West Side Highway. Knowing that the ship was about to depart for France, thousands of demonstrators gathered at the foot of the pier, singing the Internationale and shouting anti-Nazi slogans.
A number of anti-Nazis took advantage of the traditional pre-sailing festivities to sneak aboard and make their way to the ship’s bow, where they cut the flag down and dumped it in the Hudson, inspiring a raucous cheer from the street full of demonstrators.
All charges against five demonstrators who had been arrested for their roles in the attack on the flag were dismissed on September 6, 1935, by Magistrate Louis Brodsky, who declared from the bench that the defendants considered the Bremen to be guilty of “gratuitously brazen flaunting of an emblem which symbolizes all that is antithetical to American ideals” and likened the Bremen to “a pirate ship . . . with the black flag of piracy proudly flying.” Much more information on the incident is here: https://peterduffy.net/index.php/books/the-agitator/
The Ink-Stained Wretches’ Safety Net (1935)
JULY 27 IS THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY of the creation of the Federal Writers Project, which was launched to employ more than ten thousand jobless writers, librarians, clerks, researchers, editors and historians during the Great Depression.
A few notable beneficiaries of the Project were Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Kenneth Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, Studs Terkel, Dorothy West and Richard Wright.
The Writers Project’s accomplishments are legion, including the American Guide Series, which includes one detail-and-photograph-filled volume about each of the (then) 48 U.S. states as well as Alaska Territory, Puerto Rico, plus individual volumes about Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Savannah. Most of the volumes in the American Guide Series are available on-line here: https://libguides.rowan.edu/c.php?g=248106
On the Road to Hell (1965)
JULY 28 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the day the U.S. took a very big step down the slippery slope that led to eventual catastrophe in Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson announced a huge escalation to the war, a near doubling of the number of U.S. troops (from 75 thousand to 125 thousand), which would require that the monthly draft call would more than double from 17,000 to 35,000.
Johnson made the announcement in a manner that suggested he hoped that few people would pay attention. Instead of a prime-time address, he went on national television 33 minutes after noon Washington time (9:33 am on the West Coast) when the potential audience was exponentially smaller.
He defended his decision in familiar and highly questionable rhetorical terms: U.S. surrender in Vietnam would not bring peace, "because we learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression. If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in the American promise, or in American protection." He predicted that U.S. combat troops would "convince the Communists that we cannot be defeated by force," and "once the Communists know, as we know, that a violent solution is impossible, then a peaceful solution is inevitable." https://consortiumnews.com/2011/05/17/halberstams-best-brightest-blunder/
Genocide, Texas-Style (1910)
JULY 29 IS THE 115TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of a 2-day outburst of genocidal violence in an area of East Texas that includes Slocum and Denson Springs.
There is no question that during those two days in 1910 whites killed at least eight Black men and no one was ever prosecuted. The number of Black people murdered has been estimated to be as high as 200. There is a historical marker with the heading “Slocum Massacre” alongside a county road near Slocum that reads:
“Racial tensions in America in the early 20th century were sometimes punctuated by violent outbursts. One such occasion began near Slocum and Denson Springs and spread across a wide area near the Anderson-Houston county line. Beginning on the morning of July 29, 1910, groups of armed white men shot and killed African Americans, first firing on a group near Sadler's Creek. Murders in the black community continued during the remainder of that day and night. Accounts in state and national newspapers brought widespread attention to the situation. Judges ordered saloons and gun and ammunition stores to close, and state militia and Texas Rangers were dispatched to the area. The murders of eight men were officially recorded. The victims were Cleveland Larkin, Alex Holley (Hollie), Sam Baker, Dick Wilson, Jeff Wilson, Ben Dancer, John Hays and Will Burly. Many African American families fled the area and did not return.
“Eleven white men were soon arrested, and district judge Benjamin H. Gardner empaneled a grand jury within a week. When its findings were reported on August 17, seven men were indicted. The cases were moved to Harris County but were never prosecuted. The events which came to be known as the "Slocum Massacre" largely disappeared from public view in subsequent generations. In 2011, the 82nd Texas Legislature adopted a resolution acknowledging the incident and stating that "only by shining a light on previous injustices can we learn from them and move toward a future of greater healing and reconciliation.”
The historical marker that is quoted above was put in place in 2015. It has been repeatedly vandalized by rifle fire and other means. According to a very recent report, it is gone without a trace. https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/jul/29
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