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1917 – U.S. Congress passes Espionage Act


On June 15, 1917, some two months after America’s formal entrance into World War I against Germany, the United States Congress passes the Espionage Act.

Enforced largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson, the Espionage Act essentially made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. Anyone found guilty of such acts would be subject to a fine of $10,000 and a prison sentence of 20 years.

The Espionage Act was reinforced by the Sedition Act of the following year, which imposed similarly harsh penalties on anyone found guilty of making false statements that interfered with the prosecution of the war; insulting or abusing the U.S. government, the flag, the Constitution or the military; agitating against the production of necessary war materials; or advocating, teaching or defending any of these acts. Both pieces of legislation were aimed at socialists, pacifists and other anti-war activists during World War I and were used to punishing effect in the years immediately following the war, during a period characterized by the fear of communist influence and communist infiltration into American society that became known as the first Red Scare (a second would occur later, during the 1940s and 1950s, associated largely with Senator Joseph McCarthy). Palmer–a former pacifist whose views on civil rights radically changed once he assumed the attorney general’s office during the Red Scare–and his right-hand man, J. Edgar Hoover, liberally employed the Espionage and Sedition Acts to persecute left-wing political figures.

for the complete article… history.com

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June 12, 1963 – Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi, by a rifle bullet from an ambush. – Black History


Evers HAD BEEN ACTIVE IN SEEKING INTEGRATION OF SCHOOLS AND VOTER REGISTRATION FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE SOUTH. WIDESPREAD PUBLIC OUTRAGE FOLLOWING HIS DEATH LED PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY TO PROPOSE A COMPREHENSIVE CIVIL RIGHTS LAW. EVERS WAS BURIED IN ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY.

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2017 ~ Police in Washington D.C. wearing white power symbols over their uniforms –


This post is old, and the petition is possibly invalid now but a reminder

Law4BlackLives-DC just started a petition to

Kick Racist Cops Out Our Community! Tell MPD To Fire Officer Altiere!
We just started a petition titled “Kick Racist Cops Out Our Community! Tell MPD To Fire Officer Altiere!”There is no room for racist cops in Black neighborhoods

 

On June 2, 5, and 13, 2017, Officer Vincent Altiere, Badge #4440, of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department, was seen in the DC community and at the DC Superior Court (where he was present to testify in a criminal case), wearing an offensive, racist, and threatening shirt. The shirt displays symbols of police harassment, hate, and death while prominently displaying the symbols and emblems of the Metropolitan Police Department. We’re asking that you join us, together we can voice our extreme concern about this offensive shirt and demand that Mayor Bowser’s administration, Metropolitan Police Department and the Office of Police Complaints take immediate disciplinary action against Officer Altiere and any other Officers who have worn this or similar shirts. Our effort is already having an effect, the Metropolitan Police Department has already stated that they’re taking Officer Altiere off the street for the time being. We are also demanding that officials take proactive measures to address a department culture that allowed this type of misconduct to go unchecked.

The Seventh District is a Black community being policed by an officer openly displaying white supremacist symbols!

The shirt displays a “sun cross,” replacing the letter “O” of “PowerShift” with a notorious white supremacist symbol adopted by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist hate groups. Immediately below is the image of the Grim Reaper, a personification of death in the form of a hooded skeleton, holding an assault rifle and a Metropolitan Police Department badge. Below, the shirt reads “Let me see that waistband jo,” referring to “jump outs” and the routine practice of demanding to see the waistbands of individuals, who are disproportionately young Black and Brown men, often for no legitimate reason.

Given the prominent placement of MPD logos and a badge number, the shirt does not appear to be attributed to Officer Altiere alone, but instead, appears to have been designed for a group of officers associated with the MPD Seventh District. Ninety-five percent of the residents in MPD’s Seventh District are black and too many Seventh District residents have experienced harassment and abuse at the hands of the police. It is time for the leadership of this city to acknowledge and address the systemic violation of rights, and threat of violence to Black people here in Washington D.C.

This shirt is offensive and indicates systemic bias in the policing of people of color. Join us to fight back.

White supremacy and insinuated threats of death should never be associated with or tolerated in police departments who are sworn to protect and serve. Such ideologies are dangerous and demonstrate a blatant disregard for Black and Brown life. They are at the root of rampant police abuse and result in the unconstitutional terrorizing of Black and Brown communities and the callous murder of Black and Brown men and women at the hands of the police, both in Washington, DC and across the country.

On behalf of a number of community organizations and community members, Law4BlackLives-DC has formally filed complaints with both the  Internal Affairs Division of the Metropolitan Police Department and the Office of Police Complaints regarding this shirt and the message it propagates. The shirt stands alone as an affront to the community. It also embraces ongoing patterns of constitutional violations and constitutes a blatant disregard of MPD’s own general orders, including MPD General Orders 110.11, 201.26, 304.10, and 304.15. We are also asking concerned community members to let Mayor Bowser know that she must step in to check this culture for the people of Washington D.C. 

Such Officers are a threat to public safety and erode public trust in the police. Inaction by the Metropolitan Police Department, Office of Police Complaints, and the Mayor’s office would be an endorsement of this shirt’s hateful message and an acceptance of a policing culture infected by racism and violence. We’re going to keep pushing until we win substantive change, we won’t rest until he is fired and everyone who has taken part in this disgraceful conduct is gone.

Will you pledge to join the fight against racist policing?

Thank you,

Law4BlackLives-DC
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1963 University of Alabama desegregated


 

Facing federalized Alabama National Guard troops, Alabama Governor George Wallace ends his blockade of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and allows two African American students to enroll.

George Wallace, one of the most controversial politicians in U.S. history, was elected governor of Alabama in 1962 under an ultra-segregationist platform. In his 1963 inaugural address, he promised his white followers: “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” When African American students attempted to desegregate the University of Alabama in June 1963, Alabama’s new governor, flanked by state troopers, literally blocked the door of the enrollment office. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, had declared segregation unconstitutional in 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education, and the executive branch undertook aggressive tactics to enforce the ruling.

On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed them to the University of Alabama to force its desegregation. The next day, Governor Wallace yielded to the federal pressure, and two African American students–Vivian Malone and James A. Hood–successfully enrolled. In September of the same year, Wallace again attempted to block the desegregation of an Alabama public school–this time Tuskegee High School in Huntsville–but President Kennedy once again employed his executive authority and federalized National Guard troops. Wallace had little choice but to yield.

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