Vol.59/No.22           June 5, 1995 
 
 
25 And 50 Years Ago  

June 5, 1970
ATLANTA, May 23 - Over 10,000 people attended an anti- repression, antiwar rally here today on the Morehouse College Mall. Every speaker linked the stifling of political dissent at home - Kent, Augusta, Jackson State - to the continuation and deepening of the war in Southeast Asia. The rally, called by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was supported by several unions as well as the Atlanta antiwar movement.

The crowd, predominantly Black and militant, booed Atlanta mayor Sam Massell off the platform. "We just finished a garbage strike in Atlanta, Georgia, a strike where the mayor of Atlanta called out the riot squad. Atlanta is showing off today. Five weeks ago the city was ready to crush us," remarked Hosea Williams in explanation later on. At Ebenezer [Baptist Church], Black people from all over the East Coast and Midwest gathered. A three car liberation train brought Black students from Federal City College and Teachers' College in Washington, D.C. There were over 200 students from Florida A & M and Florida State University in Tallahassee. The administration had helped mobilize students at A & M; the Black Student Union and the Student Mobilization Committee were the principal organizers at FSU.

The National Council of Distributive Workers of America put together a contingent of close to 100 Black workers. While several had come from Charleston, S.C., the majority included workers from the Genesco Shoe Factory and sisters from Georgia Baptist Hospital, both Atlanta institutions.

June 2, 1945
Japan's critical military situation, combined with steadily worsening economic conditions caused by virtual blockade and devastating air raids, has led to renewed peace agitation by the terribly oppressed Japanese masses.

A high Tokyo judiciary official, Procurator-General Namisuki Nakano, last week warned of the "danger" of such peace agitation and threatened arrest of any person making speeches that might disrupt "national unity."

This renewed agitation against the war gives the lie once again to the assertions of the capitalist press in this country that the Japanese people are united behind their rulers, that they are a warlike nation which revels in violence and bloodshed.

Capitalist press liars who say the Japanese people "wanted" war and that they glory in bloodletting, never point out that the people were thrust into the war by their rulers. An iron totalitarian regime (with which the Anglo- American imperialists maintained the friendliest of relations before Pearl Harbor) stifled all voices of protest. The truth is that the Japanese people no more wanted war than did the masses of Germany, Italy, Britain or any other country.  
 
 
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