25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

July 30, 2018

August 9, 1993

PINCKNEYVILLE, Illinois — As the strike battle between the United Mine Workers and Bituminous Coal Operators Association expands, the miners are reaching out to win new support across the country. There are now 16,000 miners striking in seven states — Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

Five thousand camouflage-clad striking miners, their families and supporters joined an “international labor rally” here July 15 to support the strike. Two thousand had participated in a similar rally in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, a day earlier.

“When it comes to trade unionists, there is only one language — solidarity,” said UMWA president Richard Trumka in his keynote address to the rallies.

August 2, 1968

The trial of Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton has been going on in Oakland, Calif., since July 15. Throughout this time, the Panthers and other Bay Area groups have organized a continuous series of rallies to “Free Huey.”

A large crowd came to a rally and picnic on the eve of the trial, and 3,500 people turned out for the big demonstration at the courthouse the day the trial began.

Newton is charged with murder stemming from an incident last October when Oakland cops stopped a car he was driving. The cops shot Newton in the stomach, wounding him seriously. In the struggle, one of the cops was killed.

At the trial, Newton’s attorney, Charles Garry, is demanding that Newton be tried by a jury of his peers. Newton’s trial is heavily guarded. Members of the press must obtain a different pass each day.

July 31, 1943

Great events are transpiring in Italy. The Italian masses are in revolt against the imperialist war. They want to get out of the war. They want to finish with the whole despicable crew of fascists and their supporters who inflicted on them for twenty years untold indignities, horrors, cruelties, and suffering.

The Italian masses want political liberty. They want economic security. They want the good things of life denied them under fascism and capitalism.

The question is: how are they going to get what they want?

The Italian workers and peasants can win peace, bread and freedom only by following the example of the Russian masses in the first World War. They must place confidence only in their own revolutionary Marxist party. They must go forward to create their own Workers and Peasants Government.