November 15, 1974

While a team of Militant reporters was interviewing miners here in West Virginia, contract talks between the UMWA and the Bituminous Coal Operators' Association (BCOA) in Washington, D.C. were slowly grinding to a halt. Now that a nationwide strike appears inevitable on or before Nov. 12, when the old contract runs out, the coal operators and the government have begun cranking out their lies and distortions in the hopes of turning public opinion against the miners' demands.

The UMWA demand for more safety will cut into "productivity," they complain; higher wages and a cost-of-living clause will cause more inflation, they argue; the coal companies are "too poor" to afford better fringe benefits, they moan.

Many miners don't even have to read the newspapers to know that the companies are raking profits in the meantime. Daniel Sears, for example, buys his heating coal from Bethlehem at cost. "Our wages haven't gone up for a year now," he said. "But the coal cost me $7.60 a ton last year; then they raised it to $10.25 the first of April; then they raised it to $14.25 this fall; then they raised it to $18.75 last week." 
 

November 14 , 1949

Participants in an outdoor Davis election rally at 110th St. and Lenox Ave., learning that Davis himself would speak at a meeting at 125th St. and 7th Ave., started marching north behind three sound trucks. When the procession reached 114th St. and Lenox Ave., it was stopped by radio cars and cops, who began to push the people off the street. Some of the spectators pushed back. That set it off.

The cops then charged the crowd, not only the paraders but everyone on the sidewalks, "night sticks flailing indiscriminately," according to Ted Poston, N.Y. Post reporter who was himself struck twice by police clubs because he happened to be in the vicinity.

At this point the people living in the adjacent buildings entered into the picture. They had not been participants in the Davis parade, and presumably had no special sympathies for the Stalinists. They had merely been looking out of their windows, attracted primarily by the music of the sound trucks. But what they saw taking place before their eyes — a brutal police attack on defenseless people — is an old and familiar story in Harlem, and it moved them to action. Bottles, tin cans and other household implements began pouring out of the windows and off the roofs.  
 
 
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