Vol. 78/No. 44 December 8, 2014
December 8, 1989
Czechoslovakia, a country in Eastern Europe of more than 15 million people, was almost completely shut down on November 27 as millions joined a two-hour walkout to press the Communist Party to give up its grip on power.This action and the massive protests leading up to it have shattered the CP and the structures of Stalinist repression. For the first time in 40 years the door to practicing politics has been opened for working people.
The stunning success of the protest strike was the culmination of an upsurge triggered 10 days earlier, on November 17, when Czechoslovak police attacked a student demonstration, beating beyond recognition and killing 20-year-old Martin Smid. The killing galvanized the population’s revulsion for the regime’s four decades of Stalinist terror and police state regimentation.
December 7, 1964
NEW YORK, Nov. 30 — Malcolm X denounced the “criminal action of the United States government in conjunction with Belgium in the Congo” last night at the first Harlem rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity since his return from Africa.“We want the world to know we don’t like what Sam is doing to our brothers in the Congo,” the black nationalist leader declared.
At a press conference held upon his arrival at Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 24, Malcolm X was asked about the alleged massacre of white hostages in the Congo. He replied: “When Lyndon B. Johnson began to finance Tshombe’s white mercenaries, it was only natural to expect such things. The weight of the guilt is on the white mercenaries. It’s too bad they had to die, but when you shed tears for those hostages, shed tears for the Congolese who died too.”
December 9, 1939
CAIRO, Ill. — The Labor Board election which was scheduled for Dec. 2 was called off at the request of AFL Federal Local 22199 because of the actions of Valley Steel Co. and the Cairo Association of Commerce in attempting to buy votes at $10 a throw.The moment the union agreed to end the month-old strike for recognition by consenting to an election, the company agents and the businessmen began to circulate the rumor that the plant would move if the union won the election and offering $10 to any man who informed them that he had voted against the union provided, of course, that the union lost the election. The union called off the election and decided to continue to show the company officials their majority — on the picket line.
The two other strikes in this town are still completely effective with 170 Negro workers holding the lines militantly.
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home