Vol. 79/No. 11 March 30, 2015
March 30, 1990
On March 5 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a sweeping decision that provoked little public debate or outcry. The ruling virtually eliminates a person’s right of appeal to federal courts to review the constitutionality of state criminal convictions. This right was made law by Congress in 1867 during the period of “radical reconstruction” when the struggle of freed slaves and their supporters helped extend many democratic rights.For death row inmates the consequences are devastating. The ruling will guarantee and quicken the execution of many of the 2,500 inmates on death row in state prisons across the United States, whose cases are in various stages of appeal to federal courts.
March 29, 1965
MARCH 24 — The march from Selma to Montgomery is a significant victory for the Negro freedom movement. The right to hold this protest march was won over the opposition not only of Sheriff Clark, state storm-trooper commander Lingo and Governor Wallace, but over the opposition of the federal government which at first brought all sorts of pressure, including a court injunction, to prevent it.The militancy of the Alabama Negroes, and the unprecedented wave of demonstrations throughout the country supporting them and putting the heat on the federal government, finally forced Johnson to permit the march and to send federal troops to protect it.
March 30, 1940
Events of the last few days indicate that we have reached a new stage in the struggle against the war. Among these events are:Replacement of the Daladier government by a bourgeois-“socialist” coalition government.
A secret trial for the 44 Stalinist deputies in Paris — the first time in French history that a political case has been heard in secret.
Resolution of the British national convention of the National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks, a union of 175,000 members, that Britain’s war “is an imperialist war fought for the defense of British and French colonial possessions. The working class has no interest in supporting it.”
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