Week of June 25-July 1

June 25

1773—Massachusetts slaves petition for their freedom. As a result of the petition, a bill ending slavery in the state was actually drawn up and passed by the legislature. But the governor refused to sign it and there were not enough votes to override his veto.

1941—President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order #8802 banning racial discrimination in the nation’s war industries on the eve of America’s involvement in World War II. The order came as a result of pressure from Black labor leader A. Phillip Randolph who had threatened a massive “March on Washington” to protest discrimination by the military and the military industry.

A. PHILLIP RANDOLPH

(NNPA)—A Congressional race in California is ground zero for one of the most controversial political ads in recent years after a conservative group made a video mocking an anti-gang initiative of the Democratic candidate.

A program backed by Rep. Janice Hahn paid reformed gang-members to help work to stop the violence that plagues her Los Angeles district. Turn Right USA made light of that initiative in its ad, which showed an exotic dancer resembling Hahn dancing around a pole and two Black men waving guns in the air and chanting expletives, demanding money from her so they “can shoot up the streets.”

JANICE HAHN

(NNPA)—Why did Norman Redlich, Clara Luper, and Paul E. Sullivan act as if the words of the Declaration of Independence about “self-evident truths” and “inalienable rights” were not just rhetoric but had an actual meaning for American society? Why didn’t they leave well enough alone?

Because they knew “well enough” wasn’t good enough.

LEGENDARY ACTIVIST—In this Aug. 9, 1983 photo, Oklahoma Civil Rights Leader Clara Luper poses with one of the many photographs from her scrap books at a North East Oklahoma city Community center in Oklahoma City, Okla. (AP Photo/File)

Week of June 18 to June 24

June 18

1941—Labor and civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph initially rejects a plea by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to call off the first-ever Black-organized March on Washington designed to protest unfair employment practices by the military and the defense industry. The march was planned by Randolph, Bayard Rustin and A.J. Muste—all relatively unsung heroes of the early civil rights movement. The march was not cancelled until Roosevelt signed the Fair Employment Act. Ironically, over 20 years later, Randolph would be one of the principal figures helping Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. organize his historic 1963 March on Washington.