May 2, 1975

The ordinance would make it illegal for people under the age of seventeen to be on the streets or in public places after 10:30 p.m. on weekdays and 12:00 midnight on weekends.

The proposed ordinance follows a well-orchestrated press campaign against "youth crime" and "juvenile unrest." Blacks are the main targets of the campaign.

The city council has held public hearings on the proposed ordinance and opposition to it has built up at each successive one.

At the final hearing, more than 200 people turned out to demand that the proposed ordinance be killed. The city council, stung by the great majority of opposing speakers, abruptly terminated the hearing long before its scheduled end, and fled out the back door.

"I don't want my freedom taken away," explained a Southern High School student. "Besides, it's not young people who are causing the problems in this country."

The sentiment of the gathering was perhaps best summed up by a Black parent who said, "I think we've got to tell the city council to give us some jobs, swimming pools, and improved education, and not to sweep our young people off the streets."

May 1, 1950

American imperialism is waging war in the Philippines--a war directed against the Filipino people in an effort to stamp out the greatest popular uprising seen in the Islands since the Spanish conquest 400 years ago.

Fighter-bomber planes are bombing and strafing jungle villages. Artillery fire reverberates through the mountains. Warships stand offshore and pour destructive fire into areas where "rebel" forces are operating.

Leading the insurrectionary struggle of the people is the Hukbalahap, a peasant guerrilla organization formed in 1942 at the beginning of the Japanese occupation.

The Huks fought against the Japanese in collaboration with the Americans who smuggled arms to them. These peasant warriors linked the struggle against the invader to hopes for a better life after the war. The U.S. imperialists encouraged these hopes.

Wherever the Huks succeeded in wresting territory from the Japanese, they divided the landlords' estates and set up their own village governments.

If peasants had any illusions as to the postwar intentions of the U.S. imperialists, with their fine phrases about liberty and democracy, there were rudely shattered by the "liberation" of the islands in 1944-45. One of MacArthur's first acts after landing on the main island of Luzon was to order the arrest of the Huk leaders and the restoration of the confiscated estates to the landlords.  
 
 
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