Vol. 73/No. 33      August 31, 2009

The incidents that touched off the rebellion began earlier that day when two Latino women were subjected to racist taunts from a group of whites as they walked past Pettoruto’s Liquor Store. Later that evening, a small group of whites who lived above this same liquor store came down the block, entered the Latino neighborhood, and smashed the windshield of a car parked on the street.

Shortly thereafter, the mainly Puerto Rican and Dominican community took control of the four-block Lower Tower Hill area. City cops tried to enter the neighborhood but were forced to retreat until state police reinforcements arrived.  
 
August 31, 1959
Weighted heavily on the side of liberal Democrats elected last fall as “friends” of labor and of civil rights, the 86th Congress is winding up its first session by clubbing the labor movement over the head and knifing the Negro people in the back. There will almost certainly be no civil rights law this year. A last minute flurry by some Senators and Representatives to make a showing for the benefit of their constituents only further exposes the sham.

The liberals forgot their campaign promises even before Congress got under way. Civil rights legislation suffered its first defeat in January when most liberal Democrats knuckled under to Lyndon Johnson and Speaker Sam Rayburn (both from Texas), the majority leaders in the Senate and House. Johnson blocked a move in the Senate to change Rule 22 by means of which Dixiecrats can filibuster any civil rights measure.  
 
September 1, 1934
Unless Mrs. Elinore M. Herrick, vice-chairman of the Regional Labor Board, succeeds in delaying the issue (when has she ever settled one?) 10,000 truck drivers in Greater New York will go out on strike today.

The issue is simple and clear. In January 1933 the trucking bosses succeeded in persuading the leaders of the truck drivers union that a voluntary reduction of $5 a week would be for the good of the industry. The period of the reduction has expired, and presumably the bosses were to restore the wages to the 1933 level, but this they refuse to do.

There is no need to offer here the pretext on the part of the bosses for not sticking to their promise. The workers were tricked by pleas for cooperation with the bosses. Now they are undeceived, and willing to fight for their most elementary rights.  
 
 
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