MikeDunnAuthor
@MikeDunnAuthor@kolektiva.social  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

Today in Labor History August 24, 1922: Howard Zinn, American historian, author, teacher and activist was born on this day. Zinn has written over 20 books, including his most well-known book, “A People's History of the United States” (1980). He has described himself as an anarchist and as a democratic socialist. He was initially opposed to U.S. involvement in WWII, but later enlisted to help fight fascism. However, after napalm-bombing a town in France, he later learned that over 1,000 civilians had been killed. This experience reinforced the anti-war stance he would maintain for the rest of his life. In the 1960s, he was heavily involved in the SNCC and Freedom Summer. Zinn has mentored many famous activists and writers, including Alice Walker and Marian Wright Edelman. In 2008, the Zinn Education Project launched to support teachers using “A People’s History” in their curriculum. He died in 2010 from an apparent heart attack.

Be sure to come to the annual Howard Zinn Book fair this December 7, 2025, (10am-6pm) at San Francisco City College, Mission Campus. There will be lots of great writers and workshops. This year’s theme is “Fight Supremacy: Actions Against Authoritarianism.” I will be hosting a working-class writers panel with San Francisco Poet Laureate and activist Tongo Eisen-Martin, poet Daphne Gottlieb, educator and author Jenny Worley, and possibly more tbd.

https://www.zinnbookfair.org/2025

#workingclass #LaborHistory#howardzinn#peopleshistory #anarchism #socialism #sncc #historian #civilrights #antiwar #author #writer #books#poet @bookstadon
MikeDunnAuthor
@MikeDunnAuthor@kolektiva.social  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

Today in Labor History August 24, 1922: Howard Zinn, American historian, author, teacher and activist was born on this day. Zinn has written over 20 books, including his most well-known book, “A People's History of the United States” (1980). He has described himself as an anarchist and as a democratic socialist. He was initially opposed to U.S. involvement in WWII, but later enlisted to help fight fascism. However, after napalm-bombing a town in France, he later learned that over 1,000 civilians had been killed. This experience reinforced the anti-war stance he would maintain for the rest of his life. In the 1960s, he was heavily involved in the SNCC and Freedom Summer. Zinn has mentored many famous activists and writers, including Alice Walker and Marian Wright Edelman. In 2008, the Zinn Education Project launched to support teachers using “A People’s History” in their curriculum. He died in 2010 from an apparent heart attack.

Be sure to come to the annual Howard Zinn Book fair this December 7, 2025, (10am-6pm) at San Francisco City College, Mission Campus. There will be lots of great writers and workshops. This year’s theme is “Fight Supremacy: Actions Against Authoritarianism.” I will be hosting a working-class writers panel with San Francisco Poet Laureate and activist Tongo Eisen-Martin, poet Daphne Gottlieb, educator and author Jenny Worley, and possibly more tbd.

https://www.zinnbookfair.org/2025

#workingclass #LaborHistory#howardzinn#peopleshistory #anarchism #socialism #sncc #historian #civilrights #antiwar #author #writer #books#poet @bookstadon
Nonilex
@Nonilex@masto.ai  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago
#Washington has been informed about the intent for the #NationalGuard to now be #armed, though it has not received details about when that could happen or where armed Guard members could be deployed in #DC….

It would be a departure from what the #Pentagon & #Army have said about the #troops being unarmed. The Army said last week that “weapons are available if needed but will remain in the armory.”

#Trump #law#CivilRights#MilitaryState #authoritarianism #autocracy #tyranny #coup#TrumpCoup2
Sumana Harihareswara
@brainwane@social.coop  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

Thursday, April 25, 1912:

Mr. MARCONI.
The actual signs of the messages were received immediately.

Senator SMITH.
How much later?

Mr. MARCONI.
Theoretically, it should take, for 6,000 miles, one-twentieth or one twenty-fifth of a second. I did not measure it, but it did seem instantaneous.

Senator SMITH.
That is, it was received within a minute?

Mr. MARCONI.
Yes; under a minute; one-twentieth of a second. It traveled with the same speed as light, I should say.....
Sumana Harihareswara
@brainwane@social.coop replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

A friend noticed that one of the Senators questioning Marconi was Duncan U. Fletcher, and pointed me to his English Wikipedia bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_U._Fletcher .

Which noted that he was "a staunch supporter of the Confederate cause" in the 20th century -- but also that, in the 1890s, was one of three attorneys, all white, appointed to administer the bar examination to James Weldon Johnson, who was the first African-American admitted to the Florida Bar by examination. Huh.

#CivilRights#BlackHistory

bhaugen
bhaugen boosted
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

(continued from /6)

and the many authoritarian (and, let's face it, racist even when they pretended to be otherwise) Catholics outside the South who were enraged when the federal government recognized reproductive rights for women.

From that history to where we are now with Trump and MAGA is a straight line. These folks have been and are the driving force of the Republican party for years now.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/7

bhaugen
bhaugen boosted
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

This was the genesis of the Religious Right, with Catholic activists then seizing the opportunity to build on the rage of white segregationist Christians in the South by introducing the issue of abortion, about which evangelicals had never cared, to cement an alliance between white Southern evangelicals (continued in /7)

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/6

bhaugen
bhaugen boosted
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

This cabal has shown great sympathy with the argument that "Christians" are being "oppressed" when minority groups receive rights that "Christians" do not want to accept.

Though many of us want to forget this or haven't chosen to learn it in the first place, this all began with huge white evangelical hostility to civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s recognizing basic rights of African Americans.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/3
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

This was the genesis of the Religious Right, with Catholic activists then seizing the opportunity to build on the rage of white segregationist Christians in the South by introducing the issue of abortion, about which evangelicals had never cared, to cement an alliance between white Southern evangelicals (continued in /7)

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/6
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

(continued from /6)

and the many authoritarian (and, let's face it, racist even when they pretended to be otherwise) Catholics outside the South who were enraged when the federal government recognized reproductive rights for women.

From that history to where we are now with Trump and MAGA is a straight line. These folks have been and are the driving force of the Republican party for years now.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/7
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

This was the genesis of the Religious Right, with Catholic activists then seizing the opportunity to build on the rage of white segregationist Christians in the South by introducing the issue of abortion, about which evangelicals had never cared, to cement an alliance between white Southern evangelicals (continued in /7)

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/6
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

White evangelical Christians, especially in the South, had long taught that "God" chose to make the races separate, with Black people consigned by God to serve white people.

When the federal government recognized the rights of people of color, there was a huge hullabaloo among white Southern evangelicals, who claimed that their religious freedom (to discriminate) was being violated, trampled on.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/4
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

When the federal government began threatening to deny federal funding to church-based schools like Bob Jones University as long as the university refused to abide by civil rights laws, white churches across the South began to organize to "defend" their supposedly violated "religious freedom" to discriminate.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/5
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

This cabal has shown great sympathy with the argument that "Christians" are being "oppressed" when minority groups receive rights that "Christians" do not want to accept.

Though many of us want to forget this or haven't chosen to learn it in the first place, this all began with huge white evangelical hostility to civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s recognizing basic rights of African Americans.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/3
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

White evangelical Christians, especially in the South, had long taught that "God" chose to make the races separate, with Black people consigned by God to serve white people.

When the federal government recognized the rights of people of color, there was a huge hullabaloo among white Southern evangelicals, who claimed that their religious freedom (to discriminate) was being violated, trampled on.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/4
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

This is the core of the argument that Republicans want to drive to the Supreme Court, because they know that if the case makes it to the Supreme docket, the right-wing cabal controlling the court will likely side with them.

That cabal is made up entirely of right-wing Catholics (except Gorsuch, raised Catholic but now Episcopalian), many affiliated with the secretive theocratic Catholic cult Opus Dei.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis
/2
William Lindsey :toad:
@wdlindsy@toad.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

This cabal has shown great sympathy with the argument that "Christians" are being "oppressed" when minority groups receive rights that "Christians" do not want to accept.

Though many of us want to forget this or haven't chosen to learn it in the first place, this all began with huge white evangelical hostility to civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s recognizing basic rights of African Americans.

#Obergefell#SameSexMarriage#SupremeCourt#ReligiousFreedom#KimDavis#CivilRights
/3