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   Vol.65/No.17            April 30, 2001 
 
 
25 and 50 years ago
 
April 30, 1976
BOSTON, April 21--In face of rapidly escalating anti-Black terror here, which has sharply increased the race polarization in this city, leaders of the Black community in Boston have decided to postpone the national probusing march scheduled for April 24.

March coordinator Maceo Dixon, speaking for the April 24 coalition, told the media: "This city is hot. It is tense. The race polarization has escalated with the recent beating of two Black bus drivers in South Boston and the beating of a white man in Roxbury.

"The reason why this city is hot, tense, and racially polarized rests with Mayor Kevin H. White, City Council President Louise Day Hicks, Gov. Michael Dukakis, and President Gerald Ford," Dixon said. "They are responsible for the over two-year campaign against school desegregation and for the physical and violent attacks against Blacks and Puerto Ricans."

As Dixon told the news media, the level of anti-Black violence is such that "it's not possible to hold a peaceful, legal activity at this time."

Boston is a city on the brink of explosion. Months of unchecked racist attacks have generated deep rage and frustration in the Black community.

In the wake of recent night-riding forays by carloads of racist thugs into Roxbury, and the gang beating of two Black bus drivers in South Boston on April 17, this pent-up anger erupted into retaliation by Blacks against whites.  
 
April 30, 1951
Truman claims that his continuation of the "limited" war in Korea will bring "peace" and "save lives." MacArthur answers that his command to extend the war to China will also "bring hostilities to an end...at a saving of countless American and Allied lives." Both lie.

Ten long months have passed since Truman intervened in the Korean civil war. He called it a "police action"--implying that a brief display of American armed might would suffice to "restore order." Gen. MacArthur too gave the impression that all that was needed was for a couple of divisions of American troops to march in and the North Korean forces would scurry like scared rabbits.

But the North Koreans didn't run. They almost drove the U.S. and South Korean armies out of Korea.

The more forces the U.S. has committed the greater have been its losses and the fiercer the resistance of the Chinese and North Koreans. At this writing the U.S.-U.N. armies, despite their tremendous superiority in fire power and air forces, are again in retreat.

U.S. bombs have flattened almost all of Korea, slaughtered and maimed millions of Koreans. That has not stopped the war. Japan not only bombed but seized all China's coastal territories and Manchuria and sent more than 2 million troops into China. The fate of Japanese intervention alone should show the merits of MacArthur's scheme to "save lives."  
 
 
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