Three groups filed amicus briefs in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit backing the American Historical Association (AHA), American Oversight, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) in their fight to stop the Trump administration from evading the Presidential Records Act (PRA). [Read more…] about New Amicus Briefs Back Fight to Protect Presidential Records
Justice Department
Watchdog, Historians Sue to Block Trump Effort to Evade Presidential Records Law
American Oversight and the American Historical Association have filed suit challenging a sweeping memorandum from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that declared the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional and that President Donald Trump “need not further comply” with its requirements, effectively encouraging the president to violate federal law.
The lawsuit argues that the memo relies on virtually no judicial authority and defies binding U.S. Supreme Court precedent outright, representing what they say is “a radical attempt to nullify a law that has governed presidential records for nearly half a century.” [Read more…] about Watchdog, Historians Sue to Block Trump Effort to Evade Presidential Records Law
New York State Deportation Raids & The First Red Scare
The Palmer Raids are generally understood by professional historians to have been unconstitutional, aggressive and abusive mass arrests and deportations of political enemies in 1919 and 1920. The raids and deportations in 36 cities, but especially in New York State, provoked a national reaction focused on protecting the human rights and civil liberties won during the American Revolution.
The Palmer Raids, in conjunction with raids conducted by New York State’s Lusk Committee, were some of the most egregious constitutional violations in the era now known disreputably as “The First Red Scare.” At the time the American understanding of the social contract was being intensely debated as part of a great international war between the haves and the have-nots. [Read more…] about New York State Deportation Raids & The First Red Scare
Immigration and Deportation: NYC Mayors and Federal Officials
On April 27, 1972, Mayor John V. Lindsay sent a letter to the Hon. Raymond F. Farrell, Commissioner, Immigration and Naturalization Service, U. S. Department of Justice, in Washington, DC.
Lindsay wrote to Farrell on behalf of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, “who are currently facing deportation proceedings initiated by your Department.” Lindsay acknowledged to Farrell that the couple “speak out with strong and critical voices on major issues of the day.” [Read more…] about Immigration and Deportation: NYC Mayors and Federal Officials
Italian-Americans as Alien Enemies: Westchester Opera Star Ezio Pinza
In 1766 jurist William Blackstone published his Commentaries on the Law of England in which he defined the term “enemy alien” as it was understood in common law. He confirmed that during a time of war “alien enemies have no rights, no privileges.” The Crown exercises absolute power. In a simple turn of phrase, the Oxford professor anticipated the agony of millions of migrants. [Read more…] about Italian-Americans as Alien Enemies: Westchester Opera Star Ezio Pinza
Martin Luther King in the Catskills in 1960
In October of 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a speech entitled “The Future of Integration” at the annual convention of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in the Catskills at the Laurels Country Club in Sackett Lake, Sullivan County, NY.
Less than two weeks after that October 8th appearance, he was sitting in jail for attempting to integrate the lunch counter at Rich’s Department Store in Atlanta, Georgia. [Read more…] about Martin Luther King in the Catskills in 1960
James Colby Harrington: Con Man Extraordinaire
In 1898, James Colby Harrington was known in Schuylerville as an honest and friendly young man, yet only four years later he had gained the title “Schuylerville’s Star Swindler.”
And that is only the beginning, as this story spans 30 years and traverses a thousand miles as it follows the life of this notorious con man. [Read more…] about James Colby Harrington: Con Man Extraordinaire
A History of Segregation in NYC Public Schools
The first schools in New York City were established in 1805 as the Free School Society, run by Quakers, and later by Baptist groups who renamed the school system, The Public School Society.
The Catholic Church dissuaded participation in The Public School Society believing it to be anti-Catholic, and with Irish Catholic immigration on the rise in the 1830s, the pressure to include their involvement in schools led to the establishment of the NYC Board of Education (BOE) in 1842. [Read more…] about A History of Segregation in NYC Public Schools
Interracial Marriage: Some History of Anti-Miscegenation Laws
The interracial marriage prohibition is deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition. Statutes prohibiting interracial marriage were enforced in American colonies and states for more than three centuries.
The first anti-miscegenation law was enacted in Maryland in 1661. Virginia followed suit soon after. [Only Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington, D.C. never enacted anti-miscegenation laws.] [Read more…] about Interracial Marriage: Some History of Anti-Miscegenation Laws
FDR, The New Deal, And A Mass Lynching in Georgia
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt developed New Deal programs to hire unemployed men to work on public works projects. In the South, New Deal jobs typically provided higher wages than those in the private sector and under those programs black men were paid the same wage as white men. [Read more…] about FDR, The New Deal, And A Mass Lynching in Georgia
$3.5 Million Awarded for Environmental Justice Initiatives
A total of $3.5 million in state funding was awarded to support environmental justice initiatives being led by more than 20 community-based organizations across the state. [Read more…] about $3.5 Million Awarded for Environmental Justice Initiatives
FBI’s Covert Anti-Nazi Long Island Radio Station
On this episode of the A New York Minute in History podcast, Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts tell the recently declassified story of a covert radio station built by the FBI on Long Island to deceive the Nazis during the Second World War. [Read more…] about FBI’s Covert Anti-Nazi Long Island Radio Station
Islands of Punishment and Exclusion
The exclusion of “undesirables” to remote lands has a long history. The shameful attempts by contemporary governments to “solve” the refugee problem in that manner has had precedents.
During the mid-1930s Mussolini dumped socialists and anti-fascists in the inaccessible and malaria-ridden southern areas of the country.
The use of islands as off-shore detention centers has a parallel history. The government of Charles I locked up its opponents at Jersey, Guernsey, or the Isles of Scilly. Having lost the English Civil War, Charles I himself was incarcerated in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. Faced with continuing sedition and agitation, Charles II sent several former leaders of the Interregnum into island isolation. [Read more…] about Islands of Punishment and Exclusion
Paintings Stolen 50 Years Ago Returned to Historic Huguenot Street
The New York Art Crime Team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently returned two paintings by 19th-century portrait artist Ammi Phillips to Historic Huguenot Street (HHS).
The two portraits, depicting prominent New Paltz residents Dirck D. Wynkoop (1738-1827) and his wife Annatje Eltinge (1748-1827), were missing for fifty years, after they were stolen on February 16th, 1972 while on display at the 1799 Ezekiel Elting (aka LeFevre) House on Huguenot Street. [Read more…] about Paintings Stolen 50 Years Ago Returned to Historic Huguenot Street
Hubert Harrison: Tribune of the People
Over the past two decades there has been an upsurge of interest in the life and work of Hubert H. Harrison. As a leading socialist and subsequent proponent of what he termed the mass-based “Race First” approach to organizing, Harrison exercised a direct, seminal influence on his contemporaries including A. Philip Randolph, W. A. Domingo, Marcus Garvey, Richard B Moore, Chandler Owen, Arturo Schomburg, Cyril Briggs, Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson, Hodge Kirnon, J. A. Rogers and William Monroe Trotter.
As W. A. Domingo, childhood friend of Garvey and first editor of the Negro World would later explain, “Garvey like the rest of us followed Hubert Harrison.” [Read more…] about Hubert Harrison: Tribune of the People
Trust Busting: William Jennings Bryan & Theodore Roosevelt
As control of the American economy became increasingly centralized in trusts located on Wall Street after the Civil War, and the wealth of men like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller grew exponentially, there developed an increasing backlash against such concentrations of wealth. In the 1880s, through an investigation by a committee of the New York State Legislature, Americans became aware that Standard Oil secretly controlled a number of supposedly competing oil companies. By 1910 almost 90% of the world’s oil supply was controlled from the company’s headquarters at 26 Broadway in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Trust Busting: William Jennings Bryan & Theodore Roosevelt
Gamblers and Gangsters of Saratoga
Saratoga has always been a gambling town. Even before the famous racetrack was built, Saratoga was full of gambling dens.
Many of the early gambling places were run by men who were considered “gentlemen gamblers.” They ran relatively clean games and generally avoided violence or other forms of vice. They were professional gamblers.
Later, with gambling well entrenched and Saratoga’s location along the notorious bootleg trail from Canada during prohibition, Saratoga attracted nationally known gangsters. [Read more…] about Gamblers and Gangsters of Saratoga
The First Red Scare: Socialist Suppression and Explosive Anarchism
In the course of the nineteenth century, powerful and relatively stable explosives were developed. Dynamite became synonymous with radicalism and the moniker “dynamitist” preceded that of terrorist.
On September 16, 1920, a bomb was set off on a busy corner of Manhattan’s financial district. At 12:01 pm, a horse-drawn wagon concealing 100 pounds of dynamite was detonated. The blast killed thirty-eight people. [Read more…] about The First Red Scare: Socialist Suppression and Explosive Anarchism
Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss in New York
Seventy years ago this month, a lower Manhattan courtroom provided the stage for a remarkable confrontation – much of which played out in New York – that symbolized the frustration of a nation that had recently won the Second World War but felt more insecure than ever.
The euphoria of victory had been quickly succeeded by a perception of global communism on the march. In Europe, the Soviet Union had only recently ended an 11-month blockade of Berlin and had, since 1945, rung down the Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe. In China, Mao’s communists were winning their civil war against Chiang Kai-Shek’s U.S.-backed Nationalists, who would soon flee the mainland for Taiwan. And the Soviets were about to end the U.S. monopoly on the atom bomb with a successful test explosion. [Read more…] about Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss in New York
Watertown’s Ketchup Murder Case
In late July 1934, the average life of Watertown’s Vincent Sparacino took a sudden, drastic turn, becoming anything but humdrum. Vincent was an Italian immigrant who came to America in 1906 when he was 16 years old. The family settled in Watertown and operated Sparacino & Company, a fruit wholesaler that later branched out into vegetables. By the late 1920s Vincent and his brother Tony were partners in the business with other family members. Vince was a hands-on guy, frequently driving a delivery truck to customer sites around the city.
On many days after finishing work and taking supper, he drove to a nearby grocery store, parked outside, sat in the front passenger seat, and played the car radio. His good friend of many years, Patsy Carbone, ran the store, and whenever there was free time, Patsy came out to visit. [Read more…] about Watertown’s Ketchup Murder Case