Vol. 77/No. 25 July 1, 2013
July 1, 1988
NEW YORK — On June 15 Nelson Ramírez turned himself in to police officers at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn. He will serve a 15-month sentence. His crime? Refusing to cooperate with a grand jury.“People will witness the incarceration of an individual who has not been charged with any criminal activity or committed any crime,” said Ramírez.
The 28-year-old emergency medical service technician and supporter of independence of Puerto Rico was approached by four FBI agents on May 23 as he was leaving work at Metropolitan Hospital.
“The United States government has no moral or legal right, being an occupying force in Puerto Rico, to ask me or any Puerto Rican questions pertaining to the independence movement,” said Ramírez. “I would never cooperate with them in the repression of that movement.”
July 10, 1963
YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio — Students picketed the Antioch College administration June 17 to protest its collaboration with a witch-hunt investigation of a former student by military intelligence.The picket line of about a dozen had an effect far beyond its size, because demonstrations have been so rare in the past against the “liberal” Antioch administration.
Large crowds of apparently sympathetic students were attracted by the picket line, where heated arguments took place between demonstrators and members of the faculty and administration.
The action made front-page headlines in the June 17 Dayton Daily News. Before it was all over, the military intelligence agent, who had planned to interview students, reportedly canceled all appointments and left in indignation.
July 2, 1938
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Two union men, one an American Federation of Labor organizer, were convicted of “confederating and banding together to intimidate” and sentenced to one year each in the penitentiary by a Fayette Circuit Court jury last week. The jury, unable after several hours of deliberation to reach a verdict, was forced by the judge to bring in the guilty verdict.The defendants, Frank Kwalleck and Henry Brown, faced trial as the aftermath of a militant strike conducted last September by Teamsters’ Local 779 against the E.L. Martin wholesale grocery company. The indictment and conviction is a brazen attempt by the authorities to prevent the recurrence of effective strikes in this open-shop town.
The two men are guilty of only one crime: helping workers to organize into unions capable of protecting the interests of the workers.
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