Vol. 73/No. 5      February 9, 2009

The meeting, attended by nearly 400 people, was organized by the Coalition Against American Intervention in Grenada. Earlier that day, 175 people braved sub-zero temperatures to demonstrate in front of the U.S. consulate.

On January 13, 80 people attended a meeting to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Comité de los Amigos de El Salvador (CAS), a group in which supporters of the Salvadoran Communist Party play a leading role. CAS spokespeople emphasized the importance of unity of all Salvadoran forces. This view was echoed in a message read by the Comité Farabundo Martí.

Speakers at the January 21 rally a week later included Nicaraguan government representative Rodolfo Palacios; Oscar Dada of the FMLN and Revolutionary Democratic Front; and Don Rojas, former press secretary to murdered Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.  
 
February 9, 1959
The newspapers of America’s colored people have noted with particular interest how the Castro government has answered the charges of “blood purge” leveled by such senators as Sparkman of Alabama and Fulbright of Arkansas; and also what the new regime proposes to do about discriminatory practices inherited from Cuba’s past.

For instance, C.W. Mackay, editor of Afro-American, reported an answer by one official to Sparkman that did not appear in such papers as the New York Times: “Why is he so broken up over the just punishment of murderers here when he remained so silent while White Citizens Councils and Klan bombers were blowing up the homes and churches and castrating innocent colored people of Montgomery and Birmingham?”

He also reported the reaction of another Castro spokesman to Fulbright; “If he can approve Faubus using armed soldiers to keep little children out of school, he certainly should have no complaints about military trials in Cuba where confessed assassins are being dealt with justly.”  
 
February 10, 1934
15,000 taxicab strikers jammed the basement of the Madison Square Garden at 11:00 P.M., Saturday, February 3, in a monster demonstration of solidarity and determination to fight for the unionization of the entire field.

In spite of the attempts of the speakers to dampen the strikers’ militancy by demanding over and over again that no violence be permitted or tolerated during the strike, the tone of the men was for a determined and bitter struggle to win their demands for complete and thorough unionization of the taxicab drivers, recognition of the union, full protection for employees on the job, the entire five-cent on all rides and the tax money already collected to go to the strikers, a minimum wage scale and maximum work week.

Ross, the chairman, had difficulty in obtaining order, so high was the enthusiasm and spirit of the strikers.

Ex-Judge Panken, Socialist politician, spoke: “It is high time that the taxicab workers organize themselves. You cannot buy them by nickels now, what they want is union conditions!”  
 
 
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