Politics
Not every strike is legal, although these days most are. Nevertheless, in 1936, the type of strike known as a sit-down strike, or maybe a sit-in, was not legal. On the evening of December 30th at 8pm, in one of the first sit-down strikes in US history, autoworkers took over General Motors’ Fisher Body Plant Number One in Flint, Michigan. They were demanding that the United Auto Workers (UAW) be recognized as the sole bargaining representative for GM employees, an end to the practice of sending work to non-union plants, a fair minimum wage, a grievance system, and safety measures to protect assembly-line workers from injury. The strike went on for a total of 44 days.
The fact is that the Flint sit-down strike wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment move. It had been carefully planned. UAW leaders, inspired by similar actions in Europe, had been organizing it for months. It actually kicked off in smaller plants…Fisher Body in Atlanta on November 16th, GM in Kansas City on December 16th, and a Fisher stamping plant in Cleveland on December 28th. While the other plants were important, it was the Flint plant that was the real prize. The Flint plant housed one of only two sets of body dies that GM used to stamp out nearly all its 1937 cars. Taking over the Flint plant meant workers could bring the company to a near standstill.
On the evening of December 30th, the Flint Plant’s night shift stopped working, locking themselves in, and sitting down. “She’s ours!” one worker shouted. In retaliation, GM claimed the strikers were trespassing and got a court order for their removal, but the union members refused to leave. When GM cut the heat, the strikers bundled up in coats and blankets and held their ground. On January 11th, police tried to block their food supply, sparking the “Battle of the Running Bulls,” which left 16 workers and 11 policemen injured, and led the UAW to seize the nearby Fisher Two plant. By February 1st, the UAW had also taken control of the massive Chevrolet Number 4 engine factory, slashing GM’s production from 50,000 cars in December to just 125 in February. It seemed that no matter what management and police tried, the workers and the union were determined, and they were winning.
The 1936 Sit-Down Strike, known as “the strike heard round the world,” rocked the auto industry when over 136,000 GM workers in Flint, Michigan took part. Despite GM’s massive influence, Michigan Governor Frank Murphy refused to use force to end the strike. While the sit-ins were “technically” illegal, Murphy believed 
sending in the National Guard would be a huge mistake. Murphy worried that using the National Guard could lead to many deaths. Instead, he announced that state authorities would remain neutral, focusing only on keeping the peace. Finally, the problem landed on the desk of President Roosevelt, who then pushed GM to acknowledge the union so the plants could get back to work. Sometimes a problem has to be taken clear to the top to get resolver. By mid-February, the automaker reached a deal with the UAW, granting workers a 5 percent raise and the freedom to chat in the lunchroom. While that battle was over, the sit-down strike had also opened the door for the right to protest peacefully.
Most likely everyone has heard of Cleopatra. She belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty. She was a descendant of Ptolemy, who was one of Alexander the Great’s generals. Her family ruled Egypt from the city of Alexandria, which was, of course, named after Alexander the Great. A strange fact about the Ptolemaic dynasty is that every male ruler was named Ptolemy, which makes studying them pretty confusing. Cleopatra was not, of course, a male descendant, and women were often considered incapable of learning, or at least incapable of learning very well. Nevertheless, while Ancient Egyptian is known as one of the hardest languages to learn, Cleopatra mastered it…along with eight other languages, including Ancient Greek, Ancient Iranian, Ancient Parthian, Syriac, Ethiopian, Troglodyte, Hebrew, and Arabic. While she was “just a woman,” she proved herself to be very intelligent. Of course, IQ could not be measured in those days, and as we all know, women are just as intelligent as men, so for Cleopatra to master nine languages, while an amazing feat, is not unheard of among women or men.
Cleopatra VII was famous for her political skill and romantic ties to Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. She was also a shrewd entrepreneur with a thriving perfume and cosmetics empire. Her factories near the Dead Sea produced some of the most coveted beauty products of the ancient world, like Kohl eyeliner, rouge, and luxurious fragrances. She personally experimented with ingredients and formulas, often testing them on herself. This booming beauty business brought immense wealth to Egypt and shaped cosmetic trends across the Roman Empire. Her lavish recipes featured crushed pearls, gold flakes, and rare plant extracts from Africa 
and Asia, making her creations exclusive to royalty and the wealthy elite. Cleopatra was very much ahead of her time when it came to manufacturing and business. Truly, she was lightyears ahead of many of the men in her era and even modern eras.
Cleopatra VII, born around 70/69 BCE, was the last reigning monarch of Egypt’s Ptolemaic Kingdom. The daughter of Ptolemy XII, she ascended to the throne with her brother, Ptolemy XIII, after their father’s death. Her famous ties with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony played a key role in her fight to keep Egypt free from Roman control. Though of Greek heritage, she fully embraced Egyptian culture and earned a reputation for her sharp mind and political skill. Her rule came to an end with her death in 30 BCE, marking the fall of the Ptolemaic dynasty and the start of Roman rule in Egypt.
The survivors of the Holocaust faced many challenges upon their liberation, not the least of which was what we now call, “survivor’s guilt” but had no real name back then. It was something felt by survivors of the camps and those hidden to avoid the camps alike. Those who survived the camps, while their friends, neighbors, and especially their loved ones were slaughtered, could never understand what caused them to be among those who miraculously made it out of the Nazi death camps. They hadn’t led a necessarily purer life. They weren’t more religious or kinder than others, and in fact some felt like so many others deserved to survive more than they did, and yet those very people were chosen for death. Everyone knew that the Nazis didn’t necessarily have any rhyme or reason for the people chosen to die, but that didn’t make their survival any more sensible. So, many of them spent years feeling that they should have died in the place of others.
The people hidden, especially those hidden in “plain sight” who had to pretend to be something they weren’t…basically gave up their faith as Jews, and pretended to be Catholic, Protestant, or even Agnostics to survive. They did what they could to look less Jewish and refused to wear the Jewish star on their clothing, as had been ordered. They carried false papers and moved around Nazi territory as “Aryan” people, even if they had dark hair. Many of the hidden or adopted children, especially those who didn’t know it until years later, felt like they had betrayed God. They felt like they had abandoned their faith to save their lives. This group couldn’t exactly go back, because they didn’t know how to be Jewish anymore. That past, along with their birth names had been erased from their lives, and they felt like they couldn’t retrieve it. Those who tried to become “Jewish” again, often found that they didn’t fit in there anymore either. They didn’t know the prayers, and they didn’t understand the holidays. They just didn’t fit anymore, and they thought God might even be mad at them now.
No one walked away from survivalship of the Holocaust unscathed. Many people were no longer in the same country, although many felt that was not a bad thing. They weren’t sure they were “wanted” in that country or even in the family they now found themselves living with. Nevertheless, they were now part of an “elite” class of people. Elite, only in that they made it through. I don’t suppose they felt like an “elite” class of people though. In many ways, they may have even felt like traitors…to their friends, family, and neighbors who didn’t survive…like they should have done something to facilitate their own demise. Still, I believe that if their friends, 
family, and neighbors could talk to them now, they would say, “No, you needed to survive!! Someone had to make it out…to tell the world what happened, to show that our people would not be destroyed…to survive!! Someone had to do it!!” Their survival was the only way to carry on for those who were lost…even though it was the hardest single act they could perform, and the one about which they felt the most guilt.
Many people are superstitious or just afraid of new or unusual things, and Britain was no different when it came to technology, at least. When the early motorized vehicles came out, the British decided that there had to be a way to let pedestrians and horses know that theses “contraptions” were coming down the road. So, Britain implemented the Red Flag Act of 1865. The law required every motor vehicle to be led by a man on foot waving a red flag to alert pedestrians and horses of its approach. This odd rule capped speeds at 4 mph in the countryside and just 2 mph in towns, which made early cars slower than walking. I guess the only way it made sense would be if the vehicle had a passenger who couldn’t walk in it, but then again, they could have been transported in a wheelchair or cart. Still, I suppose that would not be acceptable within the part of the community that could afford a car.
The Red Flag Act had certain rules to it, including that the man walking on foot, called a flag bearer had to stay 60 yards ahead of the vehicle he was warning people about. The whole process turned car travel into an impractical and costly venture thanks to the need for a dedicated flag carrier. No worker in their right mind is going to walk around town ahead of their employer’s car without getting paid for it…right?
Basically, the law reflected Victorian fears about new technology and concern for horses, which were prone to panic when encountering the strange mechanical contraptions. Maybe the concern for the horses made sense, but they could and did get used to the automobiles eventually. Because of the Red Flag Act, the sale of 
automobiles to the British suffered. It all just made no sense. When a person can walk somewhere faster than they can drive it, they might as well walk. That made automobile manufacturers angry. Their business was suffering, so they lobbied against the Red Flag Act for over 30 years, arguing that it stifled innovation and made Britain’s automotive industry uncompetitive. It’s shocking to me that it took longer than 30 years to finally get that law repealed, but it wasn’t repealed until 1896, a fact that significantly delaying Britain’s eventual adoption of automobile technology, as compared to other European nations and the United States. When you think about it, fear and superstition can really be detrimental to progress and mental health.
William Magear “Boss” Tweed was born on April 3, 1823, at 1 Cherry Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The son of a third-generation Scottish chair-maker, he grew up on Cherry Street. His grandfather had emigrated from a town near the River Tweed, close to Edinburgh. While his religious affiliation wasn’t widely known during his life, The New York Times later reported, quoting a family friend, that his parents were Quakers and members of the old Rose Street Meeting House. At 11, he left school to learn his father’s trade, later apprenticing with a saddler. He also studied bookkeeping and worked as a brushmaker for a company he invested in before joining the family business in 1852. On September 29, 1844, he married Mary Jane C Skaden and lived with her family on Madison Street for two years.
Tweed joined the Odd Fellows, the Masons, and volunteered with Engine Number 12. In 1848, invited by state assemblyman John J Reilly, he and friends formed the Americus Fire Company Number 6, or “Big Six,” adopting a snarling red Bengal tiger from a French lithograph as their emblem…a symbol tied to Tweed and Tammany Hall for years. Volunteer fire companies were fiercely 
competitive, often linked to street gangs and ethnic communities, sometimes fighting each other instead of fires. Known for wielding an ax in brawls, Tweed was elected “Big Six” foreman until chief engineer Alfred Carlson pushed him out. Fire companies also served as political recruiting grounds, bringing Tweed to the attention of Democratic leaders in the Seventh Ward, who backed him for Alderman in 1850 at age 26. He lost to Whig candidate Morgan Morgans but won the seat the following year, marking his first political role. He soon aligned with the “Forty Thieves,” a notoriously corrupt group of city aldermen and assistant aldermen. After beginning his association with “Forth Thieves,” Tweed started down the road to corruption. He rose to prominence in Tammany Hall, New York City’s powerful Democratic political machine, in the late 1850s. By the mid-1860s, he had taken over as its leader and created the “Tweed Ring,” a group that openly bought votes, promoted judicial corruption, siphoned millions from city contracts, and held a tight grip on New York City politics.
In 1871, the Tweed Ring hit its height of corruption with the remodeling of the City Court House, a shameless embezzlement of public funds exposed by The New York Times. Tweed and his cronies hoped the backlash would fade, but thanks to relentless critics like Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast, who waged a fierce campaign against him, nearly every Tammany Hall member was ousted in the November elections that year. All members of the Tweed Ring were eventually tried and sent to prison. Boss Tweed served time for forgery, larceny, and other charges, but in 1875 he escaped and fled to Cuba and then Spain. On November 23, 1876, Spanish police arrested him, reportedly recognizing him from a well-known Nash cartoon. After being extradited to the United States, he was sent back to prison, where he died in 1878.
If you had recently been promoted, how do you think you might treat your boss…good, or might you be rude to him? Well, on November 13, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln made a late-night visit to General George McClellan, whom he had recently appointed as general in chief of the Union army on November 1, 1861, and was snubbed by the man he had just entrusted with control of a large part of the Union army. While President Lincoln placed a large amount of confidence in McClellan, the general didn’t treat the president with the respect that should have been afforded him. This was the most well-known example of McClellan’s blatant disregard for the president’s authority. Lincoln appointed him to lead the Army of the Potomac, the main Union force in the East, in July 1861, following the Union’s crushing defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia.
McClellan was a competent leader and had quickly set about building a strong army. Very soon he was promoted to general in chief after Winfield Scott resigned that fall. While he earned praise for his military efforts, he also gained a reputation for arrogance and disdain toward Washington’s political leaders. Once in the top army role, he openly aligned himself with Democratic leaders in Congress and made little effort to hide his 
disregard for the Republican administration. In letters to his wife, he described Lincoln as “nothing more than a well-meaning baboon” and called Secretary of State William Seward an “incompetent little puppy.”
Like most high-level security jobs in Washington, the work hours for the army were never expected to be a 9-to-5 job. That said, President Lincoln often visited McClellan’s home in the evenings to talk strategy. On November 13th, he arrived with Seward and presidential secretary John Hay, but McClellan was out, so the men waited. Finally, an hour later, McClellan returned, was told his guests were there, and yet he went straight to his room without saying a word. After another half-hour, they learned he had gone to bed. Hay thought Lincoln should have been offended, but Lincoln said it was “better at this time not to be making points of etiquette and personal dignity.” Lincoln never visited McClellan’s home again, and in March 1862, he removed him as general in chief of the army. He really had no choice.
While President Lincoln chose not to make a scene, he had lost all respect for McClellan, and he couldn’t get 
that back. It was obvious that McClellan was not interested in the necessary strategizing that was needed to plan a war. He was not an ally of President Lincoln’s. They did not share the same values. It was a tough decision, but McClellan was more of a liability than an asset. He had to go. So, President Lincoln made the tough decision to replace him. It was necessary, and a good decision in the end. President Lincoln replaced McClellan with Edwin Stanton, an American lawyer and politician who took on the role of US Secretary of War for most of the Civil War. Stanton played a key part in organizing the North’s huge military resources and steering the Union toward victory. Still, many Union generals saw him as overly cautious and a bit of a micromanager. That makes me wonder what those generals’ political views were.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was founded in 1908. It was created to combat corruption and crime on a national scale. Initially, there were no real federal crimes, so the agency basically concentrated on cases known to have involved national banking, bankruptcy, naturalization, antitrust, and land fraud. At the time, there was no systematic method for enforcing the law across the vast expanse of the United States. This shifted significantly with the start of Prohibition enforcement in 1920.
When the FBI was first established, there were over 100 cities with populations exceeding 50,000, where crime had grown alongside urban expansion. These crowded cities, filled with impoverished and disillusioned residents, often faced ethnic tensions that contributed to frequent outbursts of anger. Violent clashes between striking workers and factory bosses became increasingly common. Still, none of that really fit into the general purpose of the FBI.
During the late 1920s and through the 1930s, high-profile crimes and notorious criminals captured the public’s attention. J Edgar Hoover and his agents, famously called “G-Men,” took center stage. Gangsters like “Machine Gun” Kelly, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, John Dillinger, Al Capone, and “Ma” Barker became larger-than-life figures, idolized by many Americans. Hoover rose to the occasion, using Hollywood and detective fiction writers to craft an image of his agents (and himself) as heroic foes of these criminals. While gangsters were painted as public enemies, the G-Men were celebrated as heroic cops, with J Edgar Hoover as their iconic leader. While I don’t condone illegal activity, the fact that producing and drinking alcoholic beverages became illegal overnight, actually turned otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. It’s hard to say how many of them wouldn’t have become criminals anyway, or how many weren’t into criminal activity already, but the Prohibition Act cemented their activities into crimes. Moonshining came about after Prohibition began, and all 
those moonshiners were criminals caused by the Prohibition Act.
Throughout their history, the integrity and reputation of the FBI have plunged as different scandals and breeches of protocol have plagued the agency. These days, the question of who is investigated and who isn’t, usually based on political affiliation, is a sore spot with me and many others. The agency has a long way to go to ever earn my respect again.
In 1862, the Dakota Indians were found guilty of joining in the so-called “Minnesota Uprising,” which was actually part of the wider Indian wars occurring throughout the West during the second half of the 19th century. The Minnesota uprising in 1862, also known as the Dakota War, was a conflict between the Dakota Sioux and the United States. The battle was driven by broken treaties, starvation, and desperation. For almost fifty years, Anglo settlers encroached on Dakota territory in the Minnesota Valley, while government pressure steadily pushed Native peoples to move to smaller reservations along the Minnesota River. On the reservations, the Dakota faced severe mistreatment by corrupt federal Indian agents and contractors. By July 1862, the agents had brought the Native Americans to the verge of starvation by withholding food supplies until they received their usual kickbacks. Meanwhile, the contractors heartlessly dismissed the Dakota’s desperate pleas for assistance.
The Dakota Indians were outraged by the corruption, and very quickly found themselves at the limits of their endurance. So finally, they struck back, killing Anglo settlers and taking women as hostages. The United States Army’s first attempts to stop the Dakota warriors were unsuccessful, with the battle at Birch Coulee resulting in the deaths of 13 American soldiers and injuries to 47 more. But on September 23rd, General Henry H Sibley led a force that defeated the main Dakota warriors at Wood Lake, freeing many hostages and compelling most of the Native Americans to surrender.
The subsequent trials of the prisoners barely acknowledged the injustices Native Americans had endured on the reservations. Instead, they focused on satisfying the widespread call for revenge. The proceedings were unfair, with Carol Chomsky, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, noting that the evidence was weak, the tribunal was biased, the defendants lacked representation, the process was unfamiliar and conducted in a foreign language, and the tribunal itself lacked proper authority.
In Minnesota, after five weeks of trials addressing the events of the United States-Dakota War of 1862, over 300 Dakota men were convicted of assaulting and killing Anglo settlers and sentenced to death by hanging. 
President Abraham Lincoln later commuted all but 39 of these sentences. While one Dakota man was granted a last-minute reprieve, the remaining 38 were executed simultaneously on December 26, in front of a large crowd of Minnesotans. President Lincoln’s decision to commute most of the death sentences was a reflection on his recognition that the Minnesota Uprising stemmed from a long history of Anglo mistreatment of the Dakota people. He couldn’t allow 300 men to be hung based on a lie.
The Newport Rising of 1839 was the last major armed rebellion in Britain, driven by the Chartist movement’s push for democratic rights like universal suffrage and secret ballots. Prior to their push, the British people had very few rights politically. As often is the case, they had to take drastic measures to get the rights that were due them.
The uprising took place on November 4, 1839, and was part of the broader Chartist movement advocating political reforms for the disenfranchised working class. The movement gained traction after the 1832 Reform Act, which many felt failed to address the workers’ needs. The People’s Charter of 1838 outlined six demands: universal 
suffrage for men over 21, secret ballots, no property requirements for MPs, wages for MPs, equal constituencies, and annual parliamentary elections. The protesters felt that the working class was virtually left high and dry in the 1832 Reform Act.
On the night of November 4th, 4,000 to 10,000 Chartists, led by John Frost, Zephaniah Williams, and William Jones, marched to Newport to free arrested Chartists held at the Westgate Hotel. Tensions escalated as soldiers protecting the hotel opened fire, leaving 10 to 24 protesters dead and many injured. The protesters really had 
no protection as they stormed the hotel. Though it was suppressed that night, the Newport Rising highlighted the working class’s growing discontent and demand for reform. The leaders were arrested and sentenced to death for treason, but their sentences were later reduced to life in prison.
Today, the events are remembered in Newport through memorials and discussions, marking a key moment in the fight for democracy and the eventual expansion of voting rights in Britain. While these people fought for what they believed, their fight was a tough one, but before long, their demands were finally addressed.
Apparently, when you get members of several hate groups together, you have no guarantee that they will get along, even if their “values” are similar, and they “hate” many of the same groups. The Greensboro massacre occurred on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina, when members of the 
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the American Nazi Party (ANP) fatally shot five participants in a “Death to the Klan” march organized by the Communist Workers Party (CWP).
Leading up to the event, tensions were high with inflammatory rhetoric, and the police were aware, through an informant, that the KKK was prepared for violence. As the two groups clashed at the start of the march, gunfire erupted. CWP members and their supporters carried handguns, while KKK and ANP members had various firearms. Among the dead were four CWP members, who had been advocating for workers’ rights among predominantly Black textile workers in the area. Nine demonstrators, two news crew members, and a Klansman were injured during the raging violence.
Following the massacre, there were three trials. The first was a state trial that saw five KKK and ANP members charged with first-degree murder and felony riot. 
Somehow, all five were acquitted. In 1980, surviving protesters filed a civil suit against 87 individuals, alleging civil rights violations and wrongful death. Of those, eight were found liable for one protester’s wrongful death. A federal trial in 1984 also acquitted nine defendants on civil rights charges, with jurors accepting claims of self-defense despite conflicting news footage. Major outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post have highlighted the controversy surrounding the case. The legal system was pretty corrupt if you ask me.
