Those were Former Congressman John Lewis’s remarks advocating for the For the People Act (H.R. 1) just days before it passed the House. Almost two years ago.

That’s how long Mitch McConnell has refused to try and pass this bill — legislation that would reform redistricting and make our government work for the people, not the special interests.

With more pro-democracy senators now in Washington, there may be enough Senate votes to pass a new version of the bill Former Congressman Lewis spoke of — but it could come down to every last vote.

Will you reach out to your representative and ask them to support the For the People Act? Use our online advocacy tool to contact Congress and demand action on democracy reform.

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On Jan. 28, 1917, 17-year-old Carmelita Torres, who crossed the border daily from Juarez to clean houses in El Paso, refused to take a toxic disinfectant bath. Press accounts estimated that, by noon, she was joined by several thousand demonstrators at the border bridge. The protest became known as the “Bath Riots.”

By David Dorado Romo

Mexican border crossers were not considered illegal in the United States until 1917, when a new law imposed formidable barriers to entry: a literacy test, a head tax and a prohibition against contract labor. Mexican nationals for the first time needed a passport to enter the United States. That’s also the year that the U.S. entered World War I.

The war stirred deep feelings of paranoia and anti-foreigner patriotism in this country. Americans were afraid that Germans would launch bombing raids from Mexico. As a protest against Germany, Americans changed the name of frankfurters to hot dogs and sauerkraut to “liberty cabbage.” And to protect the country from the threat of typhus, U.S. Customs agents began the mandatory delousing of Mexican border crossers at the El Paso-Juarez international bridge; 127,000 people were subjected to this procedure in 1917 alone.

All immigrants from the interior of Mexico, and those whom U.S. Customs officials deemed “second-class” residents of Juarez, were required to strip completely, turn in their clothes to be sterilized in a steam dryer and fumigated with hydrocyanic acid, and stand naked before a Customs inspector who would check his or her “hairy parts” — scalp, armpits, chest, genital area — for lice. Those found to have lice would be required to shave their heads and body hair with clippers and bathe with kerosene and vinegar.

My great-aunt, Adela Dorado, would tell our family about the humiliation of having to go through the delousing every eight days just to clean American homes in El Paso. She recalled how on one occasion the U.S. Customs officials put her clothes and shoes through the steam dryer and her shoes melted

Source: zinnedproject.org

On January 28, 1997 in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission announces the confessions of four apartheid-era police officers to the killing two decades earlier of Stephen Biko, a leader of the South African “Black consciousness” movement. The confessions—that Mr. Biko was ”handled robustly,” but that there was never any intention to kill him—were given in exchange for political amnesty against prosecution.

In 1969, Biko, a medical student, founded an organization for South Africa’s Black students to combat the minority government’s racist apartheid policies and to promote Black identity. In 1972, he helped organize the Black People’s Convention and in the next year was banned from politics by the Afrikaner government. Four years later, in September 1977, he was arrested for subversion. While in police custody in Port Elizabeth, Biko was brutally beaten and then driven 700 miles to Pretoria, where he was thrown into a cell. On September 12, 1977, he died naked and shackled on the filthy floor of a police hospital. News of the political killing, denied by the country’s white minority government, led to international protests and a U.N.-imposed arms embargo.

Source: history.com for the complete article

521 – The Diet of Worms began, at which Protestant reformer Luther was declared an outlaw by the Roman Catholic church.

1547 – England’s King Henry VIII died. He was succeeded by his 9 year-old son, Edward VI.

1788 – The first British penal settlement was founded at Botany Bay.

1807 – London’s Pall Mall became the first street lit by gaslight.

1871 – France surrendered in the Franco-Prussian War.

1878 – The first telephone switchboard was installed in New Haven, CT.

1878 – “The Yale News” was published for the first time. It was the first, daily, collegiate newspaper in the U.S.

1902 – The Carnegie Institution was established in Washington, DC. It began with a gift of $10 million from Andrew Carnegie.

1909 – The United States ended direct control over Cuba.

1915 – The Coast Guard was created by an act of the U.S. Congress to fight contraband trade and aid distressed vessels at sea.

1916 – Louis D. Brandeis was appointed by President Wilson to the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member.

1918 – The Bolsheviks occupied Helsinki, Finland.

1922 – The National Football League (NFL) franchise in Decatur, IL, transferred to Chicago. The team took the name Chicago Bears.

1935 – Iceland became the first country to introduce legalized abortion.

1945 – During World War II, Allied supplies began reaching China over the newly reopened Burma Road.

1957 – The Brooklyn Dodgers announced that circus clown Emmett Kelly had been hired to entertain fans at baseball games.

1958 – Roy Campanella (Brooklyn Dodgers) was seriously injured in an auto accident in New York. He would never return to play again.

1958 – Construction began on first private thorium-uranium nuclear reactor.

1965 – General Motors reported the biggest profit of any U.S. company in history.

1980 – Six Americans who had fled the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 4, 1979, left Iran using false Canadian diplomatic passports. The Americans had been hidden at the Canadian embassy in Tehran.

1982 – Italian anti-terrorism forces rescued U.S. Brigadier General James L. Dozier. 42 days before he had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades.

1986 – The U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded just after takeoff. All seven of its crew members were killed.

1994 – In Los Angeles, Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg declared a mistrial in the case of Lyle Menendez in the murder of his parents. Lyle, and his brother Erik, were both retried later and were found guilty. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

1998 – In Manilla, Philippines, gunmen held at least 400 children and teachers for several hours at an elementary school.

1999 – Ford Motor Company announced the purchase of Sweden’s Volvo AB for $6.45 billion.

2002 – Toys R Us Inc. announced that it would be closing 27 Toys R Us stores and 37 Kids R Us stores in order to cut costs and boost operating profits.

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1606 – The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators began. They were executed on January 31.

1870 – Kappa Alpha Theta, the first women’s sorority, was founded at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, IN.

1880 – Thomas Edison patented the electric incandescent lamp.

1888 – The National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, DC.

1900 – In China, foreign diplomats in Peking, fearing a revolt, demanded that the imperial government discipline the Boxer rebels.

1926 – John Baird, a Scottish inventor, demonstrated a pictorial transmission machine called television.

1927 – United Independent Broadcasters Inc. started a radio network with contracts with 16 stations. The company later became Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).

1931 – NBC radio debuted “Clara, Lu ’n’ Em” on its Blue network (later, ABC radio).

1943 – During World War II, the first all American air raid against Germany took place when about 50 bombers attacked Wilhlemshaven.

1944 – The Soviet Union announced that the two year German siege of Leningrad had come to an end.

1945 – Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

1948 – Wire Recording Corporation of America announced the first magnetic tape recorder. The ‘Wireway’ machine with a built-in oscillator sold for $149.50.

1951 – In the U.S., atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats.

1957 – The “CBS Radio Workshop” was heard for the first time.

1967 – At Cape Kennedy, FL, astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo I spacecraft.

1967 – More than 60 nations signed the Outer Space Treaty which banned the orbiting of nuclear weapons and placing weapons on celestial bodies or space stations.

1973 – The Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.

1977 – The Vatican reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on female priests.

1981 – U.S. President Reagan greeted the 52 former American hostages released by Iran at the White House.

1984 – Carl Lewis beat his own two-year-old record by 9-1/4 inches when he set a new indoor world record with a long-jump mark of 28 feet, 10-1/4 inches.

1984 – Wayne Gretzky set a National Hockey League (NHL) record for consecutive game scoring. He ended the streak at 51 games.

1985 – The Coca-Cola Company, of Atlanta, GA, announced a plan to sell its soft drinks in the Soviet Union.

1992 – Former world boxing champion Mike Tyson went on trial for allegedly raping an 18-year-old contestant in the 1991 Miss Black America Contest.

1996 – Mahamane Ousmane, the first democratically elected president of Niger, was overthrown by a military coup. Colonel Ibrahim Bare Mainassara declared himself head of state.

1997 – It was revealed that French national museums were holding nearly 2,000 works of art stolen from Jews by the Nazis during World War II.

2002 – A series of explosions occurred at a military dump in Lagos, Nigeria. More than 1,000 people were killed in the blast and in the attempt to escape.

2003 – Altria Group, Inc. became the name of the parent company of Kraft Foods, Philip Morris USA, Philip Morris International and Philip Morris Capital Corporation.

2010 – Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple iPad.

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