Vol. 80/No. 25      July 11, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

July 5, 1991

SHEFFIELD, Britain — The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) won a big victory here June 19 against a slander campaign aimed at discrediting the union, its leadership, and the example it set through its 1984-85 strike.

Charges by the government against NUM President Arthur Scargill and General Secretary Peter Heathfield were dismissed. The miners’ leaders and the union had been accused of failure to account for funds donated during the l984-85 strike.

The NUM led the miners out on strike against the threat that up to 75 mines would be closed. Tens of thousands of miners mobilized daily. Women in the coalfield communities organized and solidarity was widespread among working people. The strike became an example of how to respond to employer attacks in Britain and internationally.

July 11, 1966

The Johnson administration’s criminal bombings of oil storage depots in Hanoi and Haiphong give added urgency to building the Aug. 6-9 International Protests against the war in Vietnam.

There can be no doubt about the seriousness of the U.S. attack. In spite of Washington’s denial that heavily populated areas had been bombed, the only Western correspondent in Hanoi reported heavy civilian casualties.

From the beginning, Washington has been conducting a war of destruction in Vietnam — aimed at the revolutionary people both north and south. Each step of the U.S. escalation has been carefully measured in the Pentagon war rooms. Thus the U.S. has gone from the role of “adviser” with only a few thousand soldiers, by stages to become a mighty aggressor with over 280,000 combat troops in the space of less than two years.

July 5, 1941

The Negro March on Washington, scheduled for July 1, has been called off. Thousands of Negroes, preparing to leave for the demonstration, at the last minute heard A. Philip Randolph over the radio Saturday night declare that “the March is unnecessary at this time.”

The Randolph-White leadership was willing to “compromise” and call it off if they were offered something they could use to save face before the thousands who insisted on the March going through. Roosevelt finally granted them this face-saving device in his “executive order” of June 25.

The leaders of the March were being subjected to all kinds of pressure from their “friends” in the administration, but they were forced to resist it because nothing concrete had been offered them. Then Randolph and Walter White were called to Washington.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home