July 8, 1977
SAN FRANCISCO--A tremendous throng of more than 200,000 turned out here June 26 for a gay rights demonstration. The giant march through the city’s downtown area paid tribute to the memory of Robert Hillsborough, a homosexual who was murdered some seventy-two hours earlier by hoodlums screaming "Faggot, faggot" as they stabbed him to death.

This city has a large gay community, perhaps one of the largest in the country. Each year there has been a big turn out for Gay Freedom Day. Last year 100,000 participated. But previous parades were marked by a largely festive and even carnival atmosphere.

This year was entirely different.

Anita Bryant’s campaign of bigotry and hate has evoked a deep anger here. That anger was intensified by the poisonous antigay declarations of John Briggs, a member of the California Senate and a contender for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

Following the defeat for gay rights in Dade County, Florida, last month, Briggs declared his intention to introduce a bill authorizing the firing of gay teachers.

The Hillsborough murder added even more fuel to the sentiment for a massive political protest.

"No more Miami’s" and "Gay rights now" were the central slogans of today’s demonstration. The marchers stepped out at noon for a parade of about a mile to the city’s civic center.Equally impressive was the mass of people who lined the mile-long parade route, from start to finish. Lined up on both sides of the street, four or five deep and more, the great majority were clearly supporters of the demonstration.  
 
July 7, 1952
YOUNGSTOWN, June 24--Fifty-five thousand steelworkers in this major steel center started their strike of June 2 in a mood of lighthearted confidence. A feeling of power spread through the union ranks because for thousands of workers the strike of June 2, like that of May 7, was a real taste of independent job action. All steel strikes before 1946 were marred by the presence of scabs in the plants, and in the industry-wide strikes of 1946, 1949, and April 8 of this year, the steel corporations made elaborate and long-drawn shutdown preparations.

June 2 was different. Within minutes after the Supreme Court ruling on the seizure, the plants started going down. The daily flow of 25,000 tons of ingots in the Mahoning Valley steel producing district was turned off like a sink faucet.

The workers struck with such unity, abruptness and thoroughness that the usual arrogance of the mill foremen and superintendents was replaced by placating smiles. The editorial writers of the Youngstown Vindicator wrung their hands in impotent fury. "Never," they complained, "had costly blast furnaces been struck with such reckless abandon."

Picketing was apathetic the first week of the strike. Most workers felt that the man, called by steel union Secretary-Treasurer David J. MacDonald a "friend in the White House," would pull a new contract out of a magic hat. The collapse of negotiations on June 9 was like a a splash of cold water. There is no longer any doubt in the minds of the steelworkers that hardships lie ahead in this struggle to win the union’s demands.  
 
 
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