Sands was demanding the rights associated with political prisoner status for Irish nationalists held in British jails. But the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher remained ruthless and implacable, dismissing Sands as a criminal and even presenting his death as proof of her firmness.

Sands, a member of the Irish Republican Army, was elected to parliament form his cell in April. He was the thirteenth Irish nationalist allowed to die in British jails as a result of a hunger strike.

The world responded with outrage. In Northern Ireland, families poured into the streets in the Catholic neighborhoods. Garbage can lids were pounded to spread the word through the working-class ghettos.  
 
May 14, 1956
The second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision against school segregation will be celebrated this week at meetings throughout the country. It is fitting that opponents of Jim Crow commemorate that momentous victory of May 17, 1954. It is also appropriate to recall how it was won and to compute its results up to now and in the coming years.

For 60 years the Supreme Court cheated the Negro people of their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by its “separate but equal” doctrine. The overthrow of this vicious doctrine was a great victory in the struggle for equal rights. It was the culmination of 20 years of effort by American Negroes.

Out of the struggle for survival in the Great Depression the Negro people had emerged with new militancy and with a new ally—the white industrial workers organized in the CIO.  
 
May 15, 1931
Over 300 unemployed clothing cutters, members of the most powerful local union of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Local 4 of New York, have come together and decided to launch a struggle against their miserable conditions. For a long time, these oppressed, starving workers have been suffering patiently and hoping for a change in their conditions. Day in and day out, they have been waiting for their officials to do something for the redress of their miserable situation. Some of them have been unemployed for years and their families have been starving. At the same time they have been witnessing acts of the rankest corruption and have suffered abuse and discrimination at the hands of their officials. Their patience has finally broken down and they came out in an open revolt against the rotten methods of their officials who are responsible for their misery and destitution.  
 
 
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