This Week in the United States - The 15th Amendment

This Week's Historical Theme: The United States

30 March 1870

A significant event throughout the history of the United States that occurred in March was the adoption of the 15th Amendment into the U.S Constitution. On 30 March 1870 the 15th Amendment (the last of the 3 Reconstruction Amendments) was passed by Congress and ratified, granting African American men the right to vote. The amendment followed the 13th Amendment (1865) which abolished slavery, and the 14th Amendment (1868) which granted African Americans full rights to citizenship. In the same year, Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Natchez Mississippi, became the first African American ever to sit in Congress.

Despite this, by the late 1970s support for Reconstruction was dwindling and the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 marked the end of the Reconstruction Era. The individual state authority over their laws left the door open for southern state legislature to determine specific qualifications for suffrage. Such tactics used were literacy tests and poll taxes – as well as Jim Crow Laws and intimidation by white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan - which  disenfranchised a majority of Black votes in the decades following Reconstruction. It wasn't until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s that triggered the end of discriminatory voting practices with President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act into law in 1965.

Want to find out more about the Reconstruction Amendments? Click here for more information, or here for more about the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Kill the Bill

In the wake of the Sarah Everard Virgil which saw the shocking use of unnecessary force by the police on the 12th of March, an eruption of protests have broken out against the Government's Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill with momentum quickly building as people exercise the very civil liberties that could be taken away.

Over the last two weeks hundreds have gathered in London and more recently Bristol, to protest the Bill, coining the popular slogan "Kill the Bill" as it passed its second reading on the 16th of March by 359 votes to 263. Criticised as being "the most draconian restrictions we have seen on protests for decades" by journalist, author, and broadcaster Ian Dunt, why exactly is the Bill so controversial?

The controversy is saturated around the policing aspects of the Bill, 4 sections in particular – protests; public nuisance; memorials; and gypsies and travellers. These sections drastically increase the powers of the police to arrest and detain people and most significantly, to curb protests.

Protests – gives state more powers to stop protests

- The special powers the police had to intervene in major marches would also apply to static and single person protests.

- The police jurisdiction to restrict protests to prevent disorder, damage, disruption, intimidation would be extended to included "impact" which is vague, meaning excessive force can be used unnecessarily.

- Currently you can only be persecuted if you knowingly breaking the law while protesting, but this Bill dictates you can be persecuted if it's decided that you ought to have known.

- The police are allowed to stop protests from getting too loud which isn't defined objectively but instead when noise "may result in serious disruption to the activities of an organisation". The Bill allows the Home Secretary (Priti Patel) to quite literally define "serious disruption" however she wants via the statutory instruments meaning she can effectively change the law unilaterally to get rid of a protest.

Public Nuisance – makes being a public nuisance a statutory offence

- Being a public nuisance is already a crime but only under common law so there are no explicit regulations, but this Bill makes being a public nuisance a statutory offence with a maximum sentence of 10 years.

- The Bill expands the definition of public nuisance to include "annoyance" meaning you can go to jail for being publicly annoying.

Memorials – increased sentences for damaging statutes and memorials

- Damaging a memorial or statue is already illegal with a fine of up to £5000 and a maximum prison sentence of 3 months but this Bill increases that to a maximum of 10 years.

- The minimum sentence for rape in the UK is 5 years so in theory someone could have a longer sentence for spray painting a statue than for rape.

Gypsies and Travellers – gives the state more powers to persecute Gypsies and Travellers

- The police can already remove gypsies and travellers if they have caused damage to land or used threatening language, but this Bill allows the police to remove gypsies and travellers if they think that significant distress to the public is likely to be caused.

- This means they don't have to do anything wrong; the police just have to suspect that they are likely to do something wrong which sets a dangerous precedent.

The Government's main defences for the Bill run along the lines of Covid-19 provisions, women's safety, and ironically, upholding democracy.

During the Sarah Everard Virgil, Covid-19 was used to explain the excessive police force, and it is now being used to apply blanket restrictions on protesting in the name of social distancing guidelines. Despite this, the Bill does not specify a time frame for these new policing powers as being singularly for use during the pandemic. Covid is seemingly being used to justify an unjustifiable Bill that will see the end to freedom of expression as we know it.

Furthermore, Home Secretary Priti Patel claims "this Government is committed when it comes to violence against women and girls" and the Bill is needed to "safeguard more and more women and give the protection they desperately need from their abusers". This is true to an extent as the Bill does increase the minimum time severed in prison for people found guilty of serious crimes like rape and sexual assault, however this is clearly not the Bill's primal aim as the significant new powers are awarded to the police. This can be seen as rather questionable since the Black Lives Matter movement exposed the severe abuses of police power and brought this problem to the forefront of public attention.

The Government have also claimed the Bill was always in their manifesto with Priti Patel claiming "this is a manifesto Bill that this Government were elected on" then going on to say, "we live in a democracy and this Government will work to deliver on that". However once again this is not wholly true as while the 2019 manifesto does include tougher sentencing and clamping down on traveller camps, it does not say anything about protestors so it can hardly be claimed by the Government that this Bill is being enforced in the name of democracy.

Multiple Tories MPs have also claimed the concerns about the right to protests were exaggerated, listing off examples such as people handcuffing themselves to public transport or an instance where an ambulance couldn't get to a hospital as reasons for the increased policing powers on protesting. However, these actions were already against the law under the Public Order Act 1989 so how exactly do these examples justify the new Bill?

"This Bill will be of great comfort to law-abiding British People...if you cannot live by the rules of our society, then you should live in a place that has a different set of rules, and that place is prison. The good news is that we are recruiting 10,000 extra prison officers and 20,000 new police officers, and we are building more prisons." – Lee Anderson, Conservative MP for Ashfield

This terrifying insight into the motivation behind the Bill with its hard-line law and order stance seethes with authoritarian undertones – after all, it is protesting the Bill seeks to criminalise.

With all this in mind, it is hardly surprising the Bristol "Kill the Bill" protests on the 23rd of March descended into a riot outside Bridewell Police Station where several police officers were injured, police vans were torched, fireworks were set off in the street, and several arrests have been made. Videos of the riot show the police charging at protestors dressed in riot gear and accounts from people who attended said it was peaceful and tensions only escalated once the police arrived. If people feel their civil liberties are under threat, the narrative begins to emerge that it's the people versus the state.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said there was "no acceptability" for "criminality and thuggish behaviour" at the Bristol protests, while Prime Minister Boris Johnson said people had a right to protest but the violent scenes were "unacceptable". But the question is, under their new Bill proposal, do we have the right to protest? University student Rhianna Prewitt, who attended the demonstration, said: "This is a symptom of not allowing organisers to actually properly organise protests and, by doing that, extremists and people who are looking for a riot are going to take advantage to cause chaos...if the Government doesn't want us to protest during the pandemic, why are they pushing through a significant law at this time without public scrutiny?"

Surprisingly, former Prime Minister and former Home Secretary Theresa May has been one of the main opponents to the Bill stating, "freedom of speech is an important right for our democracy", then going on to say, "there will be people who have seen scenes of protest and will have said 'why isn't the Government doing something?', to which the answer in many cases may simply be because we live in a democratic, free society". May then went on to criticise the Bill for various reasons, particularly how the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has effectively given herself more power through this Bill in being able to unilaterally define "serious disruption" by law and thus curb any protest she so desires.

Leader of the Labour party, Keir Starmer is unwaveringly against the Bill and clashed with Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the Prime Minsters questions stating the Bill "sounded a lot more like protecting statues than protecting women".

There has also been disagreement within the Conservative party ranks with Charles Walker, a senior Conservative MP blatantly stating, "this House criminalised freedom of protest".

This overt assault on freedom of speech and expression comes as a shock considering the stance Conservative MPs have taken on the topic of civil liberties and free speech in the past. Many railed against the Covid-19 lockdown provisions and called for intervention by the state to prohibit cancel culture on university campuses - yet they are in favour of an anti-protesting bill. Fundamentally the Bill gives both the ministers and the police more power and takes power away from the people. It is hardly the Bill for women's safety it has been pitched as.

David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham put it best:

"By giving the police the discretion to use these powers some of the time, it takes away our freedoms all of the time".

This Week in Women's Rights - The Equal Rights Amendment

This Week's Historical Theme: Women's Rights

22 March 1972

A significant event throughout the history of women's rights that occurred in March was the passing of the Equality Rights Amendment by the U.S Senate. First proposed by the National Women's political party, it was introduced to Congress in 1923 shortly after women in the United States were granted the right to vote. The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) was to provide for the legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. The revival of feminism in the 1960s led to its approval by the U.S Senate on 22 March 1972 and it was then sent to the states for ratification.

Hawaii was the first state to ratify the ERA followed by 30 other states within a year. However, during the mid 1970s there was a conservative backlash against feminism and thus growing opposition to the ERA led by Phyllis Schlafly. Despite a deadline extension to June 1982, it was not ratified by the requisite majority of 38 states. What would have been the 27th Amendment to the Constitution was therefore rejected. Regardless of the considerable legislation since passed to protect the legal rights of women, due to the rejection of the ERA women still do not legally have equal rights under the U.S Constitution.

Want to find out more about why the Equal Rights Amendment is still yet to be ratified? Click here for more information, or here for more about Phyllis Schlafly's campaign against it.

This Week in the Great Depression - Gambling is Legalised in Nevada

This Week's Historical Theme: The Great Depression

 

19 March 1931

 

A significant event throughout the history of the Great Depression that occurred in March was the legalisation of gambling in Nevada. This was done in an attempt to lift the state out of its hard times. At the beginning of the Depression, Nevada's mines were in decline and its economy was in shambles. These mining opportunities had been revealed by settlers in 1859, with discovery of the 'Comstock Lode' of gold and silver, before Nevada had been made the 36^th state of the Union during the Civil War five years later. Divorce was also legalised in the same year as gambling, in response to population flight.

 

Established in 1905, Las Vegas has since become the gambling and entertainment capital of the world. It is especially famous for its casinos, nightclubs and sporting events. In the first few decades after the legalisation of gambling, organised crime flourished in the city. It's tolerance for many forms of adult entertainment has also earned it the title of 'Sin City', making it a popular setting in literature, films, television and music videos. Today, state gambling taxes account for the lion's share of Nevada's overall tax revenues.

 

Want to find out more about the history of gambling in Nevada? Click here for more information, or here for more about the Great Depression.

This Week in Japan - The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

This Week's Historical Theme: Japan

 

11 March 2011

 

A significant event throughout the history of Japan that occurred in March was the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan had caused massive devastation, and the subsequent tsunami decimated the Tōhoku region of north-eastern Honshu. This triggered the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The failure of its backup power and cooling systems caused the fuel rods in all three nuclear reactors to partially melt down. After several days, all three reactors would explode. Thousands of people were evacuated, as workers attempted to use helicopters, water cannons and seawater pumps to cool the facility.

 

Over the next few months, the full extent of the disaster became apparent. No deaths were initially attributed to the incident, but 18,000 people nevertheless lost their lives due to the earthquake and tsunami. As of 2021, a 371-square-kilometer "difficult-to-return-zone" remains evacuated. In 2018, the government announced that a former plant worker who had served during the meltdown was the first death officially attributed to radiation from the disaster. Today, the Fukushima incident is considered to be the second-worst nuclear disaster in history, ranking behind Chernobyl, as it forced the relocation of over 100,000 people.

 

Want to find out more about the Fukushima disaster? Click here for more information, or here for more about history's other nuclear disasters.