August 2, 1999
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization held hearings here July 6 on Puerto Rico’s colonial status and approved a resolution supporting that Latin American nation’s right to self-determination, including independence.
The committee heard testimony from almost two dozen representatives of organizations. The big majority were pro-independence groups. Their testimony hammered away at two issues in particular. One was the campaign to free 17 Puerto Rican political prisoners who are locked up in U.S. prisons because of their pro-independence activities. The other was the renewed fight to get the U.S. Navy out of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
The final resolution adopted by the committee, which as in most previous years was sponsored by the revolutionary government of Cuba, explicitly supports these two campaigns.
August 2, 1974
HARLAN, Ky. — One day after 6,000 miners and supporters rallied here in solidarity with the United Mine Workers, Kentucky governor Wendell Ford announced he would withdraw the state troopers from the Highsplint mine. Ford’s move represents a partial victory for the UMW, which called the July 21 rally to protest police and company violence against pickets.
The UMW has been on strike at Harlan County’s Brookside mine for an entire year. Several weeks ago, the strikers began picketing at the Highsplint mine. Ford sent in state troopers, who cordoned off the mine entrance and convoyed 40 carloads of scabs into the mine each day. One UMW retiree was shot by a scab, and two other pickets were beaten, prompting the protest.
Because the bosses oppose the miners’ wage and safety demands, a major strike over the contract is predicted for the fall.
August 1, 1949
The Civil Rights Defense Committee reports an encouraging response to its appeal for funds to help stop the deportation of Carl Skoglund. Solely because of his loyalty to labor and his political opinions, this 65-year-old Minnesota union leader is threatened with expulsion from this country where he has lived for 38 years.
A 90-year-old rebel from Leonardsville, Kansas, W.H. Sikes, comes to the defense of the 65-year-old youngster, comparing his case “to the many persecutions of labor leaders in this country, including Tom Mooney.”
A “token contribution” to Skoglund’s defense fund has been sent to the committee from a friend who has been on a picket line in Hollywood for nearly three years — “the longest lockout in history, I believe.”
It is very likely that Skoglund’s case will have to be carried into the federal courts.