Vol. 80/No. 26      July 18, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

July 19, 1991

Civil war has broken out in Yugoslavia. Undeterred by warnings from the U.S. government and its European allies, the Slovenian people beat back attacks by the Yugoslav Army.

The opening of civil war in Yugoslavia sent shock waves through the governments of Western Europe and highlighted the deepening imperialist rivalries between Washington, Paris and London on one side, and Germany and Austria on the other.

Croatia, Slovenia and other republics and regions of Yugoslavia have for many years suffered national oppression at the hands of the privileged Stalinist bureaucracy that rules the country and is made up primarily of Serbs. Many working people have thrown their support behind the national struggles in the hope that they will rid themselves of the principal force, which has been directly oppressing them for so long.

July 25, 1966

HAYNEVILLE, Ala. — The black people of Lowndes County have taken seriously the idea of black power and are organizing a political party independent of the Democrats and Republicans. This party, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (also known as the Black Panther party because of its ballot symbol), is running its candidates in the next election.

Before my visit to Lowndes County, I had heard the story of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization and knew about the ideas of the leadership. What my trip showed me was that the people of Lowndes County not only have good ideas, but know how to put them into practice. A lot can be learned by watching the leaders of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization as they go about their work. They are real mass leaders who are organizing the black people there to rely on themselves.

July 12, 1941

The United Mine Workers (CIO) scored a major victory over the Southern Appalachian soft coal operators when the latter signed a contract last Sunday in the face of an impending strike of 150,000 Southern miners.

The new contract, providing a $7 a day wage, eliminates the 40 cent wage differential between Northern and Southern miners, the issue over which the Southern operators bolted negotiations last March and precipitated the 28-day strike of 400,000 Northern and Southern miners in April.

Included in the two-year contract was a clause granting vacations with pay for the first time in the history of Southern mines, and the extension of the union shop into the mines of the “Bloody” Harlan County Kentucky Coal Operators Association, sole operators to refuse to sign the union shop agreement in 1939.  
 
 
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