On this day in radical history - June 20th

[KonaKane]

Thank you to The Daily Bleed for the following excerpts of interest....


1432 -- Hamburg, Germany: CHERRY FESTIVAL; one day during the siege of 1432,
the city gates opened & out come children dressed in white.
Hussite hearts melted, the siege was raised,
& the children were sent back laden with ripe cherries.

1756 -- 146 British soldiers imprisoned
in India — Black Hole of Calcutta — most die.

1782 -- US: The United States chooses the Eagle as it's symbol.
A pig was proposed & seriously considered

1848 -- US: Albert Parsons lives, Montgomery, Alabama (some sources say the 24th) American anarchist, Haymarket Martyr, husband of Lucy Parsons, wrongly executed by the government. Albert Parsons was targeted for death by city leaders. A bomb was thrown at police during the Haymarket Bombing.

Parsons was not even present, but was indicted, convicted, executed. Evidence suggests Police Captain John Bonfield, a brutal thug, may have been involved in the bomb-throwing.

1893 -- US: Eugene Debs forms the American Railway Union (ARU).

In just a few months the union leads an 18-day strike against the Great Northern Railroad, forcing management to reverse three wage cuts. The victory against a railroad with 2,500 miles of track & 9,000 employees was so remarkable — especially during a depression — that the union signs up 2,000 members a day. This sets the stage for Chicago's Pullman Strike of 1894 — the first organized nationwide strike in US history.

1905 -- Lillian Hellman lives (1905-1984), New Orleans. American playwright/memoirist. Had lifelong relationship with mystery writer Dashiell Hammett until his death (1961). Both were attacked during McCarthy/HUAC witchhunts. Active on the political left, Lillian attacked injustice, exploitation & selfishness in her plays. Wrote The Little Foxes; Pentimento.

1909 -- México: Rebel forces of the anarchist Flores Magón brothers attack Casas Grandes, Chih.

1912 -- US: Voltairine de Cleyre dies, age 45, following a long illness.
The original anarchist-feminist, & teacher of newly arrived immigrants. Atheist, poet & free-thinker, she taught in Philadelphia. Voltairine made lecture tours in Europe, where she met Peter Kropotkin, Louise Michel, Sebastien Faure, & many others. An active supporter of the Mexican Revolution & Ricardo Flores Magón, she also wrote for his paper, "Regeneración".

Two thousand attended the funeral at Waldheim cemetery where she was buried next to the Haymarket Martyrs.


1918 -- Ireland: Two months after its introduction, the British government is forced to abandon conscription in Ireland.


1920 -- Police shoot 14 Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World members) during a labor clash in Butte, Montana.

1925 -- Bulgaria: Vassil Ikonomov dies. Tracked down by the army & paramilitary groups, the revolutionary guerrilla is killed under mysterious circumstances today while bathing in a river close to the village of Bélitsa.
A significant figure in the Bulgarian anarchist movement & an anti-fascist partisan against the dictatorship of Stambolijski, Ikonomov organized groups which included anarchists, Communists, & members of the peasants' party.


1941 -- US: Breakthrough labor contract signed with Ford at River Rouge Plant; the first United Auto Workers contract with Henry Ford, who recognizes the UAW.

Labor & business leaders are beginning to see themselves as partners in pacifying & controlling the workers. Context, see John Zerzan's "Organized Labor versus 'The Revolt Against Work'."

1942 -- Nazis begin mass extermination of Jews at Auschwitz camp.


1943 -- US: Striking African American auto workers attacked by National Workers League, KKK & armed white workers at Detroit's Bell Isle amusement park, 34 people killed, 1,300 arrested in race riots.

1949 -- UN Commission on Human Rights adopts a covenant outlawing arbitrary arrest, torture, slavery & forced labor.

1972 -- US: Bit of A Stretch? Sinister gremlin-like forces invade the Nixon White House secret taping system & erase 18 minutes of the first Watergate discussion between Dick M & Bob. Blaming the secretary was really reaching.

1997 -- Annette Rubinstein (1910-2007) dies. New York Marxist School co-founder, radical educator, author. Her writings emphasize the massive, but officially hidden, presence of the literature of resistance to oppression at the heart of the history & development of modern English language & literature.



more at The Daily Bleed
http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/0620.htm