Tag: Politics

Watch Your Back, Subversives

I’m glad I wasn’t a student at Berkeley in the 1960’s. Being chased by cops during student protests looks fairly terrifying.

Berkeley pioneered the Free Speech Movement (FSM), a long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year.

These days when we see students running for their lives, it’s for a different reason. But either way, it’s still frightening.

Ain’t Nobody Got Time For Constitutional Rights

Illustrated History of the US, Getty Images

Panic and fear of a Japanese invasion led to the rounding up and internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII per Executive Order 9066. This woman’s body language in Redondo Beach seems to show some panic and fear as well. Both Canada and Mexico followed suit shortly thereafter.

This shot of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Dillon S. Myer, director of the War Relocation Authority, seems to imply no resentment on the part of those who were relocated to Gila River Relocation Center in Rivers, Arizona. Can we leave soon please?

Per http://www.history.com, about 117,000 people were affected by relocation, with a total of 10 housing camps. Two were located on Indian reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Snap.

Army-directed evacuations began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under 10, as well as several thousand elderly and handicapped.

These folks are smiling at Santa Anita, but the crowded conditions betray them. Although they were not met with the horror and atrocity of concentration camps, a cage is still a cage is still a cage, especially since most of the people were American citizens.

Getty Images

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946.

Granddad’s Monthly Test #1

My granddad Bill was born in 1920. Wasn’t he a happy toddler? As a child of The Depression, he tended to hoard things–things others might toss without batting an eye. Much of it was unnecessarily saved, but among his piles of things salvaged were monthly tests. Today I share one that he took in 1930, just after he turned 10 years old.

I hope that you have found this interesting. You can see how children only 9 and 10 were already learning about Fascism before they ever learned about Hitler. One wonders if children nowadays are so aware of their political system. Actually, one is certain they are not. They are busy playing Fortnite. Perhaps I will share more of these in the future, as a testament to the lives of those in The Greatest Generation.

 

Cast Your Vote For The Lanky Lad With Scoliosis

Evidently, Elam was a pelvis-forward kind of man. I can’t say as I ever voted for an editor in college. The best I mustered was my first presidential vote.

But college politics have always been a big deal. Selig was willing to endanger his own life by sitting on the hood of this here jalopy.

Others simply strolled with signs.

Lovely signs, I’ll give them that. Both Brown and Ferguson remind me of civil rights cases. 

Folks sure showed enthusiasm for Sterling Steve. I hope he took it by a landslide. 

Hoo Ray For Raye

1949 Cactus

With politics so prevalent in today’s news feed, let’s dial it back to a simpler time. When the wheels were turning for Ferris.

When babies were too young to vote for Jane Cloyes.

And cows were used as props to show that voting for Cissy was no bull!

Truman Strolling Down French Riviera

LIFE 6-23-58

Five years after he’d left the White House, Truman (not visibly flanked by any Secret Service) took a monthlong Mediterranean tour. Here, he walks through the alleys of St. Paul de Vence. Behind him are his traveling companions, Mr. and Mrs. Sam Rosenman.

Other vacations were less formal, like this trip to Key West, Florida in November of 1951. The man holding up swimming trunks is General Harry H. Vaughan.

Truman Library

Doesn’t he look happy as a clam in the Key West “chow line” for lunch?

http://www.trumanlittlewhitehouse.com March 8, 1951

Nothing slowed old Harry down.

twitter.com/TrumanLibrary

President Truman didn’t pass until the day after Christmas of 1972 at the age of 88. His wife, Bess, outlived him by another decade, making her the oldest living First Lady to date.

Here they are with daughter Margaret in the lounge of the American President Lines’ President Cleveland, April 28, 1953, before sailing for San Francisco and home after a one-month Hawaiian vacation.

Pinterest

Aloha!

On The Stump

LIFE May 5, 1958

In the reflection of the glass, State Commissioner of Agriculture A.W. Todd delivers a speech in Maplesville, Alabama. These three men don’t seem too excited about Todd’s prospect as governor. As it turned out, he never did make it to governor, but he holds the distinction of being both the youngest and the oldest commissioner to ever serve in the history of Alabama as well as being the only three-term commissioner. He was 79 when he left office in 1995, leaving Arvel Woodfin Todd with a long political career. 

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