Social Movement Calendar 11

November 5th 1855: Eugene Debs, labor leader, socialist, anti-war activist is born in
Indiana. In 1893 he organized, the first industrial union in the United States, the
American Railway Union (ARU). The Union successfully struck the Great Northern
Railway in April 1894. He was later the Socialist Party of America candidate for
President in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920, the final time from prison.

November 8th 1897: Dorothy Day, American radical pacifist is born. She and Peter
Maurin founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 espousing non-violence, and
hospitality for the impoverished and downtrodden. Always an outsider, she was seen
as too radical for the Church and too Christian for the radicals.

November 9th-10th, 1938: German Nazis orchestrate an anti Jewish pogrom known
as Kristallnacht. Many Jews were murdered, thousands of Jewish shops were
vandalized, and thousands of windows were broken - thus the name 'Night of Broken
Glass'. Officially, the pogrom was an expression of the German people's revenge for
the murder of a German diplomat at the hands of a young Jew, but in reality the
events were a centrally directed offensive against the Jewish population. As a result
of the pogrom, an enormous "compensation" was imposed on the Jewish population
and the amount of anti-Jewish legislation was steeply increased. It had been made
particularly clear to the German population that any solidarity with the Jews could
result in violence.

November 9th 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall. It is the symbolic end of the Soviet
political and state capitalist dominance in Eastern Europe. Erected by the East
German administration of Walter Ulbricht and approved by Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev, the wall was a long separation barrier between West and East Germany,
which permanently closed the border between East and West Berlin for a period of 28
years.

November 12th 1815: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, abolitionist and first wave feminist, is
born. An active abolitionist, Stanton was outraged when the World's Anti-Slavery
Convention in London, also in 1840, denied official standing to women delegates. She
served as the first president of the National American Woman Suffrage died in New
York October 26, 1902, nearly 20 years before the United States granted women the
right to vote.

November 12th 1939: The great Canadian rebel physician and humanitarian, Norman
Bethune dies on the battlefront in northwestern China from blood poisoning. He has
been credited with the introduction of the first mobile blood transfusion system which
led to the saving of many lives on the battlefield.

November 16th 1989: Six Jesuit priests and their housekeeper are murdered for their
social justice stance in El Salvador by an army death squad.

November 16th 1885: Louis Riel Metis-Canadian leader is unjustly executed in Regina
for his leadership in the rebellion that aimed at acquiring human rights for Aboriginal
people. He was particularly hated both for his race and religion (RC) in Eastern
Canada by the Orange Lodge.

November 17th 1961: The government of Saskatchewan enacts Medicare, the first
socialized medicine act in Canada. Though the legislation and battle were led by
Tommy Douglas, Woodrow Lloyd is premiere as the former had departed for work on
the federal scene.

November 17th 1947: American Screen Actors Guild votes to make its officers take a
non-communist pledge, thus caving in to the nefarious machinations of the Red
baiting U.S.A. politicians of House Un-American Activities Committee.

November19th 1915: Swedish American Joe Hill, IWW organizer, artist, song writer
and poet is executed by a firing squad (After a very controversial/suspect trail) at
the Utah State Penitentiary in Salt Lake City. He is reputed to have himself, given the
order to shoot and certainly (and famously) asked his fellow IWW members to, "not
waste time on me, organize".

November 20th 1969: Aboriginal people from a variety of nations occupy Alcatraz
Island in the USA to dramatize their resistance to centuries of dispossession and
oppression. It lasted for two years. Prior to this event, Indian activism was generally
tribal in nature, centered in small geographic areas, and focused on specific issues
such as illegal trespass on Indian lands or violation of Indian treaty rights for access
to traditional hunting and fishing sites. The Alcatraz occupation brought together
hundreds of Indian people who came to live on the island and thousands more who
identified with the call for self-determination, autonomy, and respect for Indian
culture.

November 22nd 2004: The Orange Revolution begins as massive popular protests
began in cities across Ukraine begin against fraud and external (read Russian)
meddling in national elections. Orange was adopted by the protesters as the official
color of the movement since it was the election campaign color of the main
opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko who had earlier survived an assassination
attempt.

November 24th 1947: Caving in to House on Un-American Activities pressure fifty
Hollywood executives announce as a group that the Hollywood Ten - Alvah Bessie,
Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard
Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz , Adrian Scott, Dalton Trumbo a group of film
makers who refused to implicate friends and acquaintances in the hysterical
anti-communist witch-hunt, were be suspended without pay and in effect
black-balled from working in the USA.

November 29th 1864: Sand Creek Massacre. Colonel John M. Chivington leads about
700 U.S. soldiers to a village of about 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho people camped
along the banks of Big Sandy Creek in southeastern Colorado. Although the Cheyenne
and Arapaho people believed they were under the protection of the army, the troops
attacked and killed about 150 people, mainly women, children, and the elderly.
Ultimately, the massacre was condemned following three federal investigations.