New York Times Reports a Year of Turmoil

New York Times Reports a Year of Turmoil

Students in Poland Clash with Police in Two More Cities

(March 14, 1968)

People running away as police attack near the Warsaw University during student protests.

University students and the police clashed today in Cracow and Poznan as student demonstrations spread across Poland despite threats of punishment by the Government. Reports to Warsaw indicated that students in eight provincial cities had held protest meetings in sympathy with students in the capital since the first clash with the police at Warsaw University last Friday. In Warsaw, 8,000 students crowded today into the main auditorium of the Polytechnic School and applauded a motion that said they did not want to become the object of factional maneuverings in the Communist Party. The resolution adopted by the students of the Polytechnic School included the following points:

• Respect of the Constitution especially its guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly.
• Release of all students arrested since the first demonstrations last Friday.
• Punishment for those who called the police onto the school grounds in violation of the traditional right of extra-territoriality accorded institutions of higher learning.
• Guarantees that the school staff and professors who sympathized with the students would not be persecuted.
• A request that “secret police now among us” within the auditorium should leave immediately.A stand dissociating students from anti-Semitism and also Zionism.
• Increased possibilities for free discussions with professors.

The rector promised to discuss the resolution Friday with the Senate, the school’s highest executive body, which in turn would send the resolution to Parliament and appropriate authorities. However, he said some unspecified points in the resolution might be watered down.

Questions:

1. Why did 8,000 students crowd into the auditorium of the Polytechnic School?
2. Based on the photograph, what is one inference you can make about these protests?
3. What do you think is the most important point of resolution adopted by the students of the Polytechnic School? Why?
4. What do you think is the most unreasonable point of resolution adopted by the students of the Polytechnic School? Why?

United Farm Workers Strike

Background: Starting in 1965, hundreds of Mexican and Mexican-American farmworkers in Delano, California went on strike against grape growers led by Cesar Chavez, a co-leader of the National Farmworkers Association. The strike was about wages and work conditions, but also about respect, justice and equality. It pitted the powerless against the powerful. Eventually, tens of thousands more joined the fight rallying around the slogan around “Viva La Causa” (Long Live the Cause). In 1968, union President Chavez fasted for 25 days, promoting the principle of non-violence. By the late 1970s, growers in California and Florida finally recognized the United Farm Workers (UFW) union.

Striking Farm Workers

Coast Farm Union Chief to End Fast on 25th Day (March 6, 1968)

Upon urging of doctors, Ceasar Chavez, farm union leader, announced tonight that he would end his spiritual fast in its 25th day at a “mass of thanksgiving” this Sunday. He has been drinking only water since starting the fast 20 days ago to rededicate himself and his followers to non-violence in their attempts to organize farm workers. Doctors said the head of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee faced permanent kidney damage if he continued to go without food. They said the lactic acid count in his blood was dangerously high.

Deal for Farm Workers (June 17, 1968)

A point of decision is nearing on Capital Hill in the long fight to extend agricultural workers the freedom to unionize that workers in industry generally have been guaranteed for more than thirty years. Hired farm labor is the most deprived section of the entire work force. Even now, with a Federal minimum wage finally in effect, the average annual earnings for farm workers run to substantially less than half the poverty level set by the Federal Government. A bill to give them the same organization and bargaining rights that now prevail for all other workers has been reported out of the House Labor Committee and is now bottled up in the Rules Committee . . . Agriculture is becoming big business. It is time that the 1.5 million laborers on the largest farms were brought under the umbrella of industrial democracy.

Questions:

1. Why were Mexican-American farm workers on strike?
2. How did Cesar Chavez try to revive the spirit of strikers and win public support?
3. Why was the federal government considering changing labor law?

Johnson Says He Won’t Run (March 31, 1968)

(A) Lyndon Baines Johnson announced tonight: I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party as your President. Later, at a White House news conference, he said his decision was completely irrevocable. The President told his nationwide television audience.

(B) What we have won when all our people were united must not be lost in partisanship. I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in partisan decisions. Mr. Johnson, acknowledging that there was division in the American house, withdrew in the name of national unity, which he said was the ultimate strength of our country.

(C) With American sons in the field far away, he said, with the American future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the worlds’ hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the Presidency of your country.

(D) He began by quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt: Of those to whom much is given- much is asked. He could not say that no more would be asked of Americans, he continued, but[HB1]  he believed that now, no less than when the decade began, this generation of Americans is willing to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This quotation from a celebrated passage of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address of Jan. 10, 1961, appeared to be a jab at Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who now is campaigning against the war in Vietnam.

(E) In his 37 years of public service, he said, he had put national unity ahead of everything because it was as true now as it had ever been that a house divided against itself by the spirit of faction, of party, of region, of religion, of race, is a house that cannot stand. But these gains, Mr. Johnson said, must not now be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing.
(F) There was some speculation tonight that Mr. Johnson might believe he could work more effectively for peace in Vietnam if he were not a partisan candidate for re-election- despite the lame duck status that would confer on him. In support of this thesis, Mr. Johnson’s speech on Vietnam- which came before his withdrawal announcement- was notably conciliatory, although Senator Gore pointed out that the President did not reveal a change in war policy tonight. He discussed only tactics- a partial bombing halt.

Questions:

1.      What does President Johnson mean by partisanship?

2.      Why does he think there is division in the American house?

3.      What did the President say was the ultimate strength of our country?

4.      In your opinion, why do you think Johnson referenced a quote by former President Roosevelt?

5.      Which former president used the phrase a house divided against itself in their public address?

6.      Why did President Johnson decide not to run for reelection?

Image Source: Envisioningtheamericandream.com

Student Unrest Spreads to South Africa (August 15-23, 1968)

Capetown Students Sit in Over Bar to a Sociologist (August 15, 1968)

Students protest against the rescinding of Professor Mafeje’s appointment as a senior lecturer at the University of Capetown.

About 300 students singing “We Shall Overcome” entered the Capetown University administration building today to stage a sit-in. Student leaders said they intended to remain until the University Council also protested against the barring of Archie Mafeje, an African sociologist, from joining the lecturing staff by central education authorities. The education officials have said his appointment would contravene tradition. He had been the favored candidate for the vacant position. The students also want August 20 to be declared Mafeje Day as an annual protest against Government interference with university autonomy.

Vorster Bars March by Students in Johannesburg (August 19, 1968)

Prime Minister Balthazar J. Vorster forbade a student march through Johannesburg today in a firm move against mounting student protest over South African apartheid laws. But students massed outside the gates of Witwatersrand University near of the of the city in a defiant demonstration against the government’s veto of the appointment of Archie Mafeje, an African, to the staff of Capetown University.

Vorster Agrees to Meet Students (August 20, 1968)

Prime Minister Balthazar J. Vorster promised today to meet dissident students in 10 days to hear their complaints of too much Government interference in South African universities. The promise came as the student revolt over a Government veto on the appointment of an African anthropologist, Archie Mafeje, to a lecturing post at Capetown University entered its seventh day. A group of Witwatersrand students drove 30 limes to Mr. Vorster’s residence in Pretoria last night to present a Petition – and returned with their heads shaved by rival demonstrators. A student leader, Neville Curtiss, said Mr. Vorster had refused to accept the petition. Then, he said, Afrikaner students from Pretoria University seized the protesting group and shaved their heads.

Students in Capetown End a Nine-Day Sit-In (August 23, 1968)

Students of the University of Capetown ended a sit-in protesting Apartheid and Government interference in academic affairs today. They had spent nine days in the university’s administration building. The students, numbering about 100, successfully resisted an attempt by other students to evict them last night.

Questions:

1. Why were South African students in Capetown protesting?
2. What happened when they tried to present petitions to Prime Minister Vorster?
3. Archie Mafeje was never appointed to the University. Why were his appointment to the university position and student protests seen as a challenge to Apartheid in South Africa?

Hundreds of Protesters Block Traffic in Chicago (August 26, 1968)

Anti-War and Anti-Humphrey Groups Clash With Police After Ouster From Park

Hundreds of antiwar and anti-Humphrey demonstrators, driven out of a park on the shores of Lake Michigan here last night staged a series of hit-and-run protests today that blocked traffic and triggered angry shoving matches with heavily armed police. One group of youths, numbering several hundred, congregated in a circle just outside Lincoln Park, which is on the edge of one of the city’s plushest Near North Side neighborhoods, and confronted the police. Several thousands of the youths had gathered in Lincoln Park earlier in the first show of strength by the young demonstrators who have been drawn here by the Democratic National Convention. The youths had been ordered out of the park at 11 P.M. because of the curfew. Soon after the youngsters left the park, a large group congregated in the area of Clark Street and LaSalle Street, which is just southwest of Lincoln Park. Some 400 policemen pursued the group into the maze of traffic circles, drives and islands that dot the area. Tempers flared as the police sought to disperse the crowd, which was almost entirely white. At one point, a group of policemen charged into a mass of youngsters and about 20 were struck with nightsticks. The incident occurred after a bottle had arched out of the crowd and smashed on the ground near a policeman.

Questions:

1. What happened when protesters were driven out of Lincoln Park?
2. In your opinion, why did protests at the Democratic National Convention turn violent?
3. Do you blame the protestors or the police for what happened? Why?

Student Protests in Mexico Draw Military Response (September-October, 1968)

Background: As Mexico prepared to host the 1968 Olympics, student protests against the country’s repressive government swept through Mexico City. On October 2, ten days before the scheduled start of the Olympics, the Mexican Army opened fire on a peaceful student protest in Tlateloclo. Officials announced the death toll as four dead and 20 wounded, but historians put the actual count at between 200 and 300 dead. Thousands of other students were beaten and jailed. The New York Times reported on events as they unfolded between September 1 and October 4.

Questions:

1. Why were the Mexican students protesting?
2. What was the government response?
3. In your opinion, was the government response appropriate? Explain.
4. In your opinion, given the conflict in Mexico, should the Olympics have gone on as scheduled? Explain.

In the midst of serious student dissidence, President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz warned today that he was ready to used armed force to put down “systematic provocation” and to insure that the Olympic Games, scheduled to open here Oct. 12, will be held.

STUDENT DEFIANCE PERSISTS IN MEXICO (September 3, 1968)

President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, in a report to the nation last Sunday, remarked ruefully, “We had been provincially proud and ingenuously satisfied that, in a world of juvenile disturbances, Mexico was an untouched island” . . . What began in nonpolitical and nonideological circumstances has become the country’s main political problem, with 150,000 students involved. According to one account, the trouble started on July 23 when a student from a vocational school became angry when he found his girl being bothered by a preparatory school student. A fight started and soon several hundred students from each school became involved . . . Six days later rioting was in full swing, with students burning buses or seizing them to use as street barricades and the Government bringing in troops to supplement special groups of riot policemen known as “granaderos,: now easily the most unpopular men in Mexico. The act that most aroused the students was the use of a bazooka to blow in an 18th-century door at a preparatory school . . . Scores of students were hurt and hundreds arrested. The students charged that at least 32 of their number had been killed. The bodies were burned, they asserted, and the families of the victims threatened into silence . . . The Government apparently thought that strong repressive action would crush student unrest. Instead, the students of the National University and the National Polytechnic Institute, numbering 150,000 at the secondary, college and postgraduate levels, organized and succeeded in closing every school and faculty.

MEXICAN STUDENTS CALL NEW PROTEST (September 10, 1968) The army seized control of the National University late last night in a move to end seven weeks of student agitation. President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz thus made good his threat to use force against attacks on public order and any attempt to disrupt the Olympic Games, which are scheduled to open here Oct. 12.

STUDENTS BATTLE MEXICAN POLICE; Several Hurt on 2d Day of Clashes at Institute (September 20, 1968)

A policeman was shot to death, scores of persons were injured and hundreds were arrested late last night and early this morning in the worst fighting since the army seized the National University Wednesday night.

3 Dead, Many Hurt in Mexico City Battle; Students Fight the Police Through the Night 3 Are Killed and Many Injured in Mexico City Battle (September 24, 1968)

Eight of the leaders who for two months have been carrying on a strike and agitation by university and secondary school students sat around a classroom yesterday and explained to a reporter that they would do nothing to hinder the Olympic Games here Oct. 12-27.

Students Affirm Strike In Mexico; Resist Pleas to Halt Their 2-Month-Old Agitation (September 27, 1968)(September 30, 1968)

Federal troops ended their occupation of the National University today as both the Government and striking students continued efforts to reduce tensions in the capital. The 1,300 troops and 25 tanks, which had occupied the university since Sept. 18, rumbled out of the embattled campus on the outskirts of the city in 10 minutes. Soon after, the students moved back in.

Mexican Troops Evacuate Campus of National University

Striking university and secondary school students tonight denounced an effort to get them back to their classrooms and halt their two-month-old agitation.

On an Embattled Campus, 8 Mexican Student Leaders Stress Moderate Aims (September 26, 1968)

An all-night battle between the police and students that ended late this morning brought death to at least three persons and possibly to 15.

HUNDREDS SEIZED IN MEXICO CLASHES; One Killed and Dozens Hurt During a Night of Fighting by Students and Police Students and Police Clash Throughout Mexico City (September 22, 1968)

Fighting between the police and students continued for the second day in the aftermath of the army’s seizure of the National University Wednesday night.

Mexican Army Seizes National University to End Agitation by Students (September 19, 1968)

Despite urgings by the rector of the National University for a return to normal operations, striking students called today for a new mass street demonstration Friday.

Students’ Strike Embarrasses Mexico (September 8, 1968)

An effort by President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz to settle almost six weeks of agitation by university and secondary school students has failed. As defiant as ever, student strike leaders said at a news conference last night that they would use “all means within our reach to obtain solutions to our demands.” The students are demanding the dismissal of the Mexico City police chief, Luis Cueto, and his assistant; respect for university autonomy; compensation for those hurt or killed in fighting last month; a fill investigation of those responsible for “brutality” against them; freedom for all persons they describe as political prisoners, and abolition of sections of the penal code that provide punishment for subversive acts and those inimical to public order.

Diaz Warns Dissident Mexican Students Against Provocation (September 1, 1968)

In the midst of serious student dissidence, President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz warned today that he was ready to used armed force to put down “systematic provocation” and to insure that the Olympic Games, scheduled to open here Oct. 12, will be held.

STUDENT DEFIANCE PERSISTS IN MEXICO (September 3, 1968)

An effort by President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz to settle almost six weeks of agitation by university and secondary school students has failed. As defiant as ever, student strike leaders said at a news conference last night that they would use “all means within our reach to obtain solutions to our demands.” The students are demanding the dismissal of the Mexico City police chief, Luis Cueto, and his assistant; respect for university autonomy; compensation for those hurt or killed in fighting last month; a fill investigation of those responsible for “brutality” against them; freedom for all persons they describe as political prisoners, and abolition of sections of the penal code that provide punishment for subversive acts and those inimical to public order.

Students’ Strike Embarrasses Mexico (September 8, 1968)

President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, in a report to the nation last Sunday, remarked ruefully, “We had been provincially proud and ingenuously satisfied that, in a world of juvenile disturbances, Mexico was an untouched island” . . . What began in nonpolitical and nonideological circumstances has become the country’s main political problem, with 150,000 students involved. According to one account, the trouble started on July 23 when a student from a vocational school became angry when he found his girl being bothered by a preparatory school student. A fight started and soon several hundred students from each school became involved . . . Six days later rioting was in full swing, with students burning buses or seizing them to use as street barricades and the Government bringing in troops to supplement special groups of riot policemen known as “granaderos,: now easily the most unpopular men in Mexico. The act that most aroused the students was the use of a bazooka to blow in an 18th-century door at a preparatory school . . . Scores of students were hurt and hundreds arrested. The students charged that at least 32 of their number had been killed. The bodies were burned, they asserted, and the families of the victims threatened into silence . . . The Government apparently thought that strong repressive action would crush student unrest. Instead, the students of the National University and the National Polytechnic Institute, numbering 150,000 at the secondary, college and postgraduate levels, organized and succeeded in closing every school and faculty.

MEXICAN STUDENTS CALL NEW PROTEST (September 10, 1968)

Despite urgings by the rector of the National University for a return to normal operations, striking students called today for a new mass street demonstration Friday.

Mexican Army Seizes National University to End Agitation by Students (September 19, 1968)

The army seized control of the National University late last night in a move to end seven weeks of student agitation. President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz thus made good his threat to use force against attacks on public order and any attempt to disrupt the Olympic Games, which are scheduled to open here Oct. 12.

STUDENTS BATTLE MEXICAN POLICE; Several Hurt on 2d Day of Clashes at Institute (September 20, 1968)

Fighting between the police and students continued for the second day in the aftermath of the army’s seizure of the National University Wednesday night.

HUNDREDS SEIZED IN MEXICO CLASHES; One Killed and Dozens Hurt During a Night of Fighting by Students and Police Students and Police Clash Throughout Mexico City (September 22, 1968)

A policeman was shot to death, scores of persons were injured and hundreds were arrested late last night and early this morning in the worst fighting since the army seized the National University Wednesday night.

3 Dead, Many Hurt in Mexico City Battle; Students Fight the Police Through the Night 3 Are Killed and Many Injured in Mexico City Battle (September 24, 1968)

An all-night battle between the police and students that ended late this morning brought death to at least three persons and possibly to 15.

On an Embattled Campus, 8 Mexican Student Leaders Stress Moderate Aims (September 26, 1968)

Eight of the leaders who for two months have been carrying on a strike and agitation by university and secondary school students sat around a classroom yesterday and explained to a reporter that they would do nothing to hinder the Olympic Games here Oct. 12-27.

Students Affirm Strike In Mexico; Resist Pleas to Halt Their 2-Month-Old Agitation (September 27, 1968)

Striking university and secondary school students tonight denounced an effort to get them back to their classrooms and halt their two-month-old agitation.

Mexican Troops Evacuate Campus of National University (September 30, 1968)

Federal troops ended their occupation of the National University today as both the Government and striking students continued efforts to reduce tensions in the capital. The 1,300 troops and 25 tanks, which had occupied the university since Sept. 18, rumbled out of the embattled campus on the outskirts of the city in 10 minutes. Soon after, the students moved back in.

At Least 20 Dead As Mexico Strife Reaches A Peak; Troops Fire Machine Guns And Rifles At Students — More Than 100 Hurt Many Are Killed In Mexico Clash (October 2, 1968)

Federal troops fired on a student rally with rifles and machine guns tonight, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 100. The troops moved on a rally of 3,000 people in the square of a vast housing project just as night was falling. In an inferno of firing that lasted an hour, the army strafed the area with machine guns mounted on jeeps and tanks. About 1,000 troops took part in the action. Tanks, armored cars and jeeps followed them, spurting .30- and .50-caliber machine-gun fire. Buses, trolley cars and other vehicles were set on fire at several places in the city. Ambulances screamed through the rainy night. Many women and children were among the dead and injured.

Mexican Student Protest Appears to Be Crushed (October 4, 1968)

The long and occasionally violent student protest here appeared today to be smashed as a mass movement following the gun battle in which at least 29 persons lost their lives Wednesday night . . . Those students who could be reached on the university campus, once the major focal point of the agitation, called the clash with army troops “a massacre” and said further demonstrations would be “suicide.”

Emerging Women’s Liberation Movement (September 7, 1968)

The first National Women’s Liberation Conference was held in Sandy Springs, Maryland issued a flyer that announced “Out of our bitch sessions came the idea for the Miss America Protest. All the New York groups joined together for this action and women from Washington, D.C., New Jersey and Florida participated. We crowned a live sheep Miss America, held an action of an All-American Girl replica, threw objects of our torture into the freedom trash can, picketed, and talked to women spectators. At night, we hung a Women’s Liberation banner from the balcony and shouted ‘Freedom for women – No more Miss America’ until the cops forced us out.” The feminists traveled to Atlantic City and on September 7, 1968 and hundreds gathered on the Atlantic City Boardwalk outside the Miss America Pageant where they symbolically threw a number of feminine products, including bras, curlers, girdles, and corsets and copies of Cosmopolitan and Playboy magazines into a “Freedom Trash Can.”

Miss America Pageant Is Picketed by 100 Women (September 7, 1968)

Women armed with a giant bathing beauty puppet and a “freedom trash can” in which they threw girdles, bras, hair curlers, false eyelashes, and anything else that smacked of “enslavement,” picketed the Miss America Pageant here today. The women pickets marched around the Boardwalk outside Convention Hall, singing anti-Miss America songs in three-part harmony, carrying posters deploring “the degrading mindless-boob-girlie symbol,” and insisting that the only “free” woman is “the woman who is no longer enslaved by ludicrous beauty standards.” They also denounce the beauty contest’s “racism,” since its inception in 1921, the pageant has never had a black finalist), announced a boycott of the sponsors (Pepsi-Cola, Toni and Oldsmobile) and refused to talk with males (including male reporters). “Why should we talk with them?” said Marion Davison, a New Yorker. “It’s impossible for men to understand.”

Questions:

1. Why did the women target the Miss America Pageant?
2. In your opinion, why did some of the women protesters believe “It is impossible for men to understand”?
3. In your opinion, how have attitudes toward women changed, or remained the same, since 1968?

New “Troubles” Begin in Northern Ireland (October 7, 1968)

Background: In 1921, following the Irish war for independence from Great Britain, Britain separated off six predominately Protestant northern provinces from the newly established Irish Free State. Catholic in the area long charged they were subject to discrimination and many wanted to be reunited with the rest of Ireland. The October 1968 demonstrations opened a decades long era known as the “Troubles” that resulting in over 3,600 deaths and thousands of injuries. While there have been periods of peace, many of the issues raised in 1968 have still not been resolved.

Rioting Reopens Old Wounds in Northern Ireland (October 7, 1968)

Old antagonisms between Northern Ireland’s Protestants and Roman Catholics have erupted in the worst violence seen since the nineteen-twenties in Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s second largest city. The riots, on Saturday afternoon and Sunday night, are acknowledged by all sides as a setback for the moderate program of Prime Minister Terence M. O’Neill. Mr. O’Neill has sought Protestant-catholic cooperation to erase the ancient religious scares that still blemish the life of the country . . . About 100 people, including Gerard Fitt, a Catholic Republican member of the British Parliament were treated at hospitals for injuries after the Londonderry skirmishes between police and a Catholic civil rights group. Twenty-nine persons were arrested. In the weekend battles, the Royal Ulster constabulary used batons and water cannon against demonstrators. The marchers accused the police of brutality. The demonstrators threw gasoline bombs, stoned police and burned two constabulary huts. They smashed shop windows in the center of Londonderry and looted a few stores . . . The demonstration arose after Mr. Craig [Northern Ireland’s minister of Home Affairs] had refused permission for the Irish Civil Rights Association to parade through Protestant areas to protest against discrimination in housing and voting.

BELFAST ENDORSES POLICE RIOT ACTIONS (October 8, 1968)

The Northern Ireland Cabinet today endorsed the action of the police in the weekend riots in Londonderry. The Cabinet said that the action had been “timely and prevented an extremely dangerous situation from developing.”

BELFAST CATHOLICS STAGE A HUGE SIT-IN (Oct 9, 1968)

About 1,500 Roman Catholic students staged a mammoth sit-in today within sight of angry Protestants, but police averted further violence in Northern Ireland’s religious unrest. The students from Queens University were protesting alleged police brutality in last weekend’s Londonderry riots and what they describe as discrimination against Northern Ireland’s Roman Catholic minority. Police persuaded the Catholics to avoid a clash with Protestants by changing the route of their protest march before the sit-in. The Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Protestants who threatened to disrupt the Catholic march, then accused Prime Minister Terence O’Neill of being soft on Catholic factions who want Northern Ireland removed from the United Kingdom and joined with the Irish Republic to the south.

Questions:

1. What events in Londonderry “reopened” old wounds?
2. Who did the government of Northern Ireland blame for the events?
3. In your opinion, how do the accusations made by Reverend Paisley point to an underlying issue in Northern Ireland?

2 Accept Medals Wearing Black Gloves (October 16, 1968)

Tommie Smith wore a black glove on his right hand tonight to receive his gold medal for winning the final of the Olympic 200-meter dash on the world-record time of 19.8 seconds. John Carlos, his American teammate, received the third-place bronze medal wearing a black glove on his left hand. Both appeared for the presentation ceremony wearing black stockings and carrying white-soled track shoes. The two had said they would make a token gesture here to protest racial discrimination in the United States. While the “Star Spangled banner” was played, these most militant black members of the United States track and field squad bowed their heads and raised their black-gloved hands high.

U.S. Leaders Warn of Penalties For Further Black Power Acts (October 17, 1968)

The United States Olympic Committee formally apologized today to the International Olympic Committee and the Mexican Organizing Committee for what it called the discourtesy displayed by two of its athletes in an Olympic victory ceremony yesterday. The United States committee also warned it would not stand for a repetition of a display made by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, sprinters.

2 Black Power Advocates Ousted From Olympics; U.S. Team Drops Smith and Carlos for Clenched-Fist Display on Victory Stand (October 18, 1968)

The United States Olympic Committee suspended Tommie Smith and John Carlos today for having used last Wednesday’s victory ceremony for the 200-meter dash at the Olympic Games as the vehicle for a black power demonstration. The two Negro sprinters were told by Douglas F. Roby, the president of the committee, that they must leave the Olympic Village. Their credentials were taken away, which made it mandatory for them to leave Mexico within 48 hours.

U.S. Women Dedicate Victory to Smith, Carlos (October 20, 1968)

Black Power emerged among women athletes today as four United States girls dedicated their victory in the 400-meter relay to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the two Americans who were suspended and ordered to leave Olympic Village.

Questions:

1. Why did Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their hands in protest?
2. What was the response of the American Olympic Committee?
3. In your opinion, are these types of protests by athletes at sporting events legitimate? Explain.

Nine Found Guilty In Draft File Case (October 11, 1968)

Background: On May 17, 1968 nine Catholic activists entered Selective Service Office in Catonsville, Maryland. They seized hundreds of draft records and brought them outside, where they were doused with homemade napalm. The Catonsville Nine stated they used napalm on these draft records because napalm has burned people to death in Vietnam. They were arrested and in total, their actions took less than fifteen minutes. Their motive was because everything has has failed.

Seven men and two women were found guilty in Federal Court today of burning draft files with homemade napalm. The jury rendered its verdict against the group, which included two priests at 6:37pm after deliberating [for] an hour and half. The other defendants, also Roman Catholics, included a Christian brother, a former priest and a former nun.

As others rose to their feet in disorder, Chief Judge Roszel C. Thomsen called for order in the courtroom. When he did not get it, he asked Frank Udoff, a United States marshal, to clear the room. The spectators, many of whom were in tears, reached the hall and they began to sing We Shall Overcome.

The defendants face a maximum sentence of 18 years in prison and fines up to $22,000 each. On the fourth day of the trial, the jury was excused and the nine defendants rose to their feet. One after the other they repeated the points that had been made throughout the trial. They said, in effect, that they should not be judged on the acts they had committed but on their motives in committing them. These were to bring to the attention of the people of the United States what they called Government’s immoral activities in Vietnam and Latin America.

The judge answered formally at first that these were not the issues in the case. He replied: To me as a man, I would be a funny sort of person if I were not moved by your views. I have not attempted to cut your discussion short. I frankly say that I am as anxious to terminate the war as the average man, even more, maybe. But people can’t take the law into their own hands.

Questions:

1. Who were the Catonsville Nine?
2. Why did they protest in this way?
3. What was the verdict in the trial of the Catonsville Nine?

Nixon Wins By A Thin Margin, Pleads for Reunited Nation (November 5, 1968)

Richard Milhous Nixon emerged the victor yesterday in one of the closest and most tumultuous Presidential campaigns in history and set himself the task of reuniting the nation. Elected over Hubert H. Humphrey by the barest of margins – only four one-hundredths of a percentage point in the popular vote –and confronted by a Congress in control of the Democrats, the President-elect said it “will be the great objective of this Administration at the outset to bring the American people together.” He pledged, as the 37th President, to form “an open Administration, open to new ideas, open to men and women of both parties, open to critics as well as those who support us” so as to bridge the gap between the generations and the races. Mr. Nixon and his closest aides were not yet prepared to suggest how they intended to approach these objectives. The Republican victor expressed admiration for his opponent’s challenge and reiterated his desire to help President Johnson achieve peace in Vietnam between now and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

Questions:

1. How does the New York Times describe the 1968 Presidential election?
2. What evidence is there that the nation is very divided?
3. In your opinion, why was there a giant “gap” between the generations and races at the time Nixon was elected as the 37th President of the U.S.?

Airplane Hijackers from the United States to Cuba

Background: The term “hijacking” goes back to prohibition days, when gangsters would rob moonshine trucks saying, “Hold your hands high, Jack!” However, in the early days of commercial air travel, the idea that someone would hijack a plane was scarcely even considered. It all changed in the 1960s, when stories about hijacked planes hit the newsstands every week. When the government started to oversee aviation in 1958, hijacking wasn’t technically a crime and the early design of airport terminals reflected this. Airports were once more like train stations, where you walk through the terminal and onto the tarmac, and sometimes straight onto the plane itself, without flashing a ticket or showing anyone your identification. Eleven airplane hijackings occurred before and after the Cuban Revolution starting in1958 and ending in 1959. A second wave started in May 1961 when Antulio Ramirez Ortiz, a Cuban-American electrician from Miami hijacked a plane by holding a steak knife to the pilot’s throat. He claimed that Rafael Trujillo, the long-ruling dictator of the Dominican Republic, had offered him $100,000 to assassinate Fidel Castro and he wanted to go to Havana to warn Castro. Airplane hijackings from the United States to Cuba were act their highest point from 1968 to 1972. There were at least 24 documented airplane hijacking from the United States to Cuba in 1968 alone. The trend declined after Cuba made hijacking a crime in 1970, the introduction of metal detectors in U.S. airports in 1973, and a joint agreement was reached between the U.S. and Cuba to return or prosecute hijackers.

26 Hijack Victims Return To Miami After Day in Cuba (December 4, 1968)

The 26 victims of the latest airline hijacking returned from Cuba tonight to report that the communist authorities treated them well and put them up in a honeymoon hotel. The passengers, forced to remain in Cuba when their National Airlines jet returned with its crew last night, arrived in Miami almost 24 hours behind schedule. They had to wait all day today while the “freedom airlift” ferried its daily quota of two planeloads of Cubans to the United States.

Decades Later, Guilty Plea in a 1968 Airline Hijacking (March 18, 2010)

On Nov. 24, 1968, Luis Armando Peña Soltren boarded a plane to Puerto Rico at Kennedy Airport. Two hours into the flight, he grabbed a flight attendant and held the blade of a pocketknife to her neck. “I told her it was a hijacking,” Mr. Soltren said through an interpreter in federal court on Thursday. “And to open the door to the cabin.” With two armed accomplices, Mr. Soltren, then 25, ordered the pilot to land in Havana, where he would spend the next 40 years avoiding prosecution. He built a new life: he married twice and had four daughters. But as his children grew, he longed for them to leave the island. He spent years trying to secure American passports for them. Eventually, his children left Cuba, and his second wife followed suit. All that was left to keep him company was the legacy of his crime. So it was that a gray-haired Mr. Soltren, 67, found himself in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday, wearing navy blue prison slacks, taking out his glasses to read through court documents. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit air piracy, interfering with flight crew members and kidnapping. He could face life in prison when he is sentenced on June 29.

3 ASTRONAUTS SPEED TOWARD MOON ORBIT AS APOLLO LEAVES THE EARTH AT 24,200 M.P.H.; FLAWLESS LIFTOFF

Craft Is Headed for a Lunar Rendezvous on Christmas Eve 3 Apollo 8 Astronauts Speed Toward Moon on True Course for Orbital Rendezvous

FLAWLESS LIFTOFF STARTS LUNAR TRIP

Borman, Lovell and Anders Soar Aloft on Most Distant Voyage Taken by Man (December 21, 1968)