Vol. 80/No. 38      October 10, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

October 11, 1991

Haitians set up barricades in the capital city of Port-Au-Prince September 30 in response to a military coup against the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Hundreds of Haitians living in Miami took to the streets to condemn the coup. Several thousand rallied outside the United Nations building in New York, calling on the UN Security Council to denounce the coup. In Haiti, at least 26 people were reported killed and 200 wounded by the military.

Aristide won the presidency by a landslide vote last December, in what most Haitians regarded as the first freely conducted election in decades.

Washington backed the brutal reign of the Duvalier family that took power in 1957. The dictatorship was overthrown in 1986 through a massive upsurge.

October 10, 1966

NEW YORK — Immediately after the Sept. 29 fire-bombing of the headquarters of the Socialist Workers Party, Judy White, SWP candidate for governor, told newsmen:

“If the right-wing terrorists think they can intimidate us by such tactics, they are mistaken. We intend to continue our opposition to the American intervention in Vietnam and our opposition to Johnson’s escalation of the war. We will continue to demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“We appeal to all opponents of the war in Vietnam to rally with expressions of solidarity against the pattern of violence being used in hope of silencing opposition to Johnson’s drive toward war.

“Answer the terrorists by closing ranks.”

October 11, 1941

BAYONNE, N.J. — 1500 workers of the Maiden Form Brassiere factory, members of Local 160 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, went out on strike here last week.

The strike came after many efforts by the shop negotiating committee to obtain an improved contract had been stalled by the employers. The employers had received assistance from the bureaucratic representatives of the national office of the ILGWU, who were proposing to sign a contract behind the backs of the workers involved.

The strike, supported unanimously by the workers in the plant, has not been authorized by the ILGWU. The questions of local autonomy and union democracy have become as prominent in the strike as the problem of wage increases and improved conditions.  
 
 
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