August 21, 1995
PHILADELPHIA — Supporters of Black activist Mumia Abu-Jamal cheered as Judge Albert Sabo issued a stay of execution August 7. The ruling means that the death warrant for August 17 will not be carried out. Abu-Jamal, however, will remain on death row.
The much smaller number of armed and uniformed cops in the courtroom sat grimfaced. Abu-Jamal was framed up, convicted, and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Hearings on his appeal for a new trial will continue.
Demonstrations have taken place in more than 50 cities in the United States since governor [Tom] Ridge signed the death sentence June 2. On August 1, some 200 prisoners at the Maximum Security Federal Prison in Lewisburg ran a total of 500 miles around the prison yard in solidarity with Abu-Jamal.
August 7, 1970
CENTER, Colo. — Center is the scene of a strike by Chicano workers that began June 2. The more than 100 strikers and their families are demanding a pay raise, the right to collective bargaining, recognition of their union, and an end to the use of child labor.
The powers-that-be have resorted to all kinds of harassment of the strikers. They have been prevented from holding meetings in a number of places. “We’ve been harassed by the police a lot,” said strike leader Len Avila, “and especially by the sheriff who has two relatives who are running scab crews.”
“The longer the grower holds out the harder it’s going to be for him to negotiate because we’re getting smarter every day,” predicts Avila. “I think we are going to have a victory because our eyes are opening, our minds are opening,” explained [striker] Orlinda de Varga.
August 18, 1945
The second imperialist world war has ended. Six years of slaughter and devastation have been brought to an awful climax with the atomic bomb against the people of Japan.
All ruling class propaganda is mobilized to deceive the masses into thinking that the end of the war means the dawn of true and lasting peace and that peace can be preserved without revolutionary social change.
There can be leisure and comfort and cultural advancement for every man, woman and child on earth. All on one condition—that capitalism, the strangler of human progress, is destroyed! Working men and women in the factories and on the farms! The Trotskyists summon you to the struggle for the socialist revolution! Enlist with us in the battle for a new world in which permanent peace and well-being will be assured for all!