October
Oct 1
1917

Columbia University Fires Two “Disloyal” Faculty

 
1948

California Supreme Court Ends Ban on Interracial Marriages

 
1948

Guilty of Speaking in the Park

 
1961

Christian Broadcast Network Begins Broadcasting

 
1962

Riot, Federal Troops at University of Mississippi Over Integration

 
1964

Jack Weinberg Arrested; Berkeley Free Speech Movement Escalates

 
1968

Yippies Disrupt HUAC Hearing in Chicago

 
1969

Daniel Ellsberg Begins Illegal Copying of the “Pentagon Papers”

 
1979

H-Bomb “Secret” Explodes – But Published Article Contains No Actual Secrets

 
1985

Annual Free Speech Day in California: Commemorates Free Speech Movement

Oct 2
1929

Liberal Catholic Priest Opposes Equal Rights Amendment for Women

 
1930

Cleveland Police Club, Tear Gas 2,500 Protesting President Herbert Hoover

 
1932

LA Police, American Legion Break Up Scottsboro Defense Meeting in Long Beach, CA

 
1932

“Professional Patriot” Calls Colleges a “Hotbed of Radicalism”

 
1952

Candidate Eisenhower Caves in to Joe McCarthy

 
1953

Earl Warren Joins Supreme Court

 
1967

Thurgood Marshall Joins Supreme Court – First African-American Justice

 
2012

NY Civil Liberties Union Report Blasts Inhumane Use of Solitary Confinement

Oct 3
1915

John Sumner to Continue Comstock’s Censorship Work

 
1930

Fish Committee Begins Hearings on Communism in Washington State

 
1950

Gov. Earl Warren Signs Levering Act, Loyalty Oath for All State Employees

 
1957

You Can Now Read “Howl”– Publisher Acquitted of Obscenity Charges

 
1965

LBJ Signs Historic Immigration Reform Law in Ceremony at the Statue of Liberty

 
1967

Yes, This Land Really IS Your Land: Woody Guthrie Dies

 
1974

Edward Garner Shot and Killed by Memphis Police; Case Reaches Supreme Court

Oct 4
1948

First “First Monday” for African-Americans: William T. Coleman Becomes First African-American to Clerk for Supreme Court Justice

 
1951

Ford Foundation Gives Fund For the Republic $1 Million For Bill of Rights Studies

 
1961

Lenny Bruce, Pioneering Comedian, Arrested for Obscenity in San Francisco

 
1965

Abe Fortas, Great Civil Libertarian, Joins Supreme Court

 
1976

Nazi Group Requests Skokie Demonstration Permit – National Controversy Erupts

 
2001

President Bush Orders Illegal NSA Spying

Oct 5
1943

Everson: Landmark Church-State Case Begins

 
1944

Poet Langston Hughes Tops HUAC Anti-Communist List with 49 “Affiliations”

 
1986

Iran-Contra Affair Unravels – Scandal Embroils President Reagan

 
2012

Fanny Lou Hamer Statue Dedicated in Ruleville, Mississippi

 
2017

Harvey Weinstein Sexual Harassment Scandal Sparks Anti-Sexual Harassment “Me Too” Movement

Oct 6
1917

“Free Speech in Wartime” Defended by Senator Robert M. LaFollette

 
1917

Trading With the Enemy Act Passed – Used to Censor Foreign Language Press

 
1928

New York Mayor Jimmy Walker Denounces Religious Intolerance

 
1955

Allen Ginsberg Reads “Howl” for the First Time

 
1960

“Spartacus” Premiers in NYC – First Hollywood Film With Credit for Blacklisted Writer

 
1990

Robert Mapplethorpe and Gallery Curator Indicted for Obscenity in Cincinnati

 
2015

Justice Department to Release 6,000 Prisoners –Beginning of the End of the War on Crime?

Oct 7
1938

National Woman’s Party to Raise $1 Million for Equal Rights Campaign

 
1955

ACLU Condemns Secret Recording of Juries

 
1975

John Lennon Can Stay in U.S. – Court Ends Government Deportation Effort

 
1998

Matthew Shepard, Gay Student, Beaten, Robbed, Left to Die

Oct 8
1692

Salem Witch Hunt Begins to End – Governor Bans Use of “Spectral Evidence”

 
1892

Don’t Tell Anyone, But . . . The Pledge of Allegiance Written by a Christian Socialist

 
1938

Birth Control Blamed For Low Citrus Prices – Seriously

 
1951

Emergency Civil Liberties Committee Formed

 
1999

“Giuliani Time” – NYCLU Sues NYC Mayor Over Brooklyn Museum Censorship

Oct 9
1917

Noted Historian Charles Beard Quits Columbia University in Protest of Repression

 
1929

National Woman’s Party Begins Radio Series on NBC

 
1940

FDR White House Says Military Will Not “Intermingle” Different Races

 
1945

White Residents Seek to Enforce Racially Restrictive Housing Covenants, but Fail

 
1990

“A Grave Injustice Was Done” – First Japanese-American Reparations Paid

Oct 10
1955

“The Ladder:” First National lesbian Magazine Releases First Issue

 
1960

Committee to Abolish HUAC Holds First National Convention

 
1963

AG Robert Kennedy Approves FBI Wiretaps on Martin Luther King

 
1970

Your Right to Eat German Food: ACLU Chapter Chairwoman Denied Service at German Restaurant, Sues

 
1972

First Supreme Court Case on Same-Sex Marriage – No Substantial Federal Question

 
2015

CIA Documents Reveal Role of Chile in 1976 Assassination on U.S Soil and CIA Role in Cover-Up

Oct 11
1911

Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan I, Author of Famous Dissent on Separate But Equal, Dies

 
1918

New York City Women Destroy German Language Phonograph Records

 
1939

NAACP Legal Defense Fund Organized

 
1957

“Don’t Put the T*ilet Se*t On TV”

 
1961

Student Activist Tom Hayden Beaten in McComb, Mississippi

 
1962

American Legion Calls for Investigation of the ACLU

 
1963

President Kennedy’s Commission on Status of Women Releases Report

 
1987

National Coming Out Day – March in Washington

 
1988

Lesbian and Gay Rights Group ACT UP Shuts Down FDA for a Day

Oct 12
1920

ACLU Leader Arrested for Speaking from Her Car

 
1920

Arrested for Reading the Constitution

 
1926

Army General Calls ACLU “The Most Radical Organization in the Country”

 
1942

Supreme Court Opinion in “Ex Parte Quirin” — Ten Weeks Late

 
1965

Pauli Murray Calls for Women’s March on Washington – No March But Call Leads to Founding of NOW

 
1978

Inspector General Act Passed – A New Approach to Government Accountability

 
2007

California Governor Signs Name Equality Act

Oct 13
1926

Right-Wing General Charges ACLU is “Moscow Controlled” – ACLU Demands Evidence

 
1929

Martial Law, Suppression of the Press in Oil-Boom Texas City

 
1934

NYC Police Break Up Anti-Fascist Rally – NYCLU Demands Mayor Investigate

 
1940

Ten States Bar Communist Party from the Ballot in November 1940 Elections

 
1967

LBJ, Under Pressure, Adds Women to Affirmative Action Order

 
1970

Cops Blame ACLU, Supreme Court for Violent Crime

Oct 14
1927

Do Pajamas = Nudity? NYC DA Threatens Theater Prosecutions

 
1927

Irish-American Groups Seek Ban on Films That Offend Racial or Religious Groups

 
1946

Atlanta Officials Put “Negro” Designation After Coroner Candidate’s Name – Candidate Protests

 
1949

Communist Party Leaders Found Guilty in Major Smith Act Trial

 
1964

Martin Luther King to Receive Nobel Peace Prize

 
1979

National March for Lesbian and Gay Rights

Oct 15
1927

“No Lustful Kissing:” Hollywood Producers Issue “Don’ts and Be Carefuls”

 
1951

Corliss Lamont, Prominent Civil Libertarian, Denied Passport

 
1955

“Right to Travel” Art Exhibit Opens: Paintings by Rockwell Kent

 
1956

William J. Brennan Joins Supreme Court

 
1961

Hunter College Denies Permit to Conservative “National Review” – ACLU to Defend Magazine

 
1963

FBI Distributes Vicious Report on Martin Luther King’s Alleged Communist Ties

 
1965

David Miller First to Publicly Burn His Draft Card in Vietnam War Protest

 
1969

First Vietnam War Moratorium – Massive Protests Across the Country

Oct 16
1916

Margaret Sanger Opens First Birth Control Clinic in America

 
1918

Immigration Act Bars Entry of Anarchists to the U.S.

 
1926

NYC Workers Demand End to Labor Injunctions

 
1935

Right-Wing Group Offers Free Legal Defense to Protect Constitutional Rights

 
1940

First Peacetime Draft in American History Begins; Creates Two Civil Liberties Issues

 
1968

Black U.S. Athletes Stage Political Protest at Olympics Award Ceremony – Inspiration for a Later Generation of Athletes

 
2002

Iraq War Disaster Begins – Congress Authorizes Use of Military Force Against Iraq

Oct 17
1919

Striking Steel Workers Seek to Enjoin Police from Interfering with Meetings

 
1924

Democrats Accuse Republicans of Coercing Votes of Federal Employees

 
1928

Al Smith, Dem. Presidential Candidate, Promises to End Abuses of Native Americans

 
1952

California Supreme Court Invalidates University of California Loyalty Oath

 
1960

Major Sit-in Victory: Four Chain Stores Desegregate 150 Lunch Counters in 112 Cities

 
2006

President George W. Bush Signs Military Commissions Law

Oct 18
1913

British Suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst Barred from U.S. – Later Admitted

 
1942

Wartime Curfew and Travel Limits on Italian Aliens to be Lifted

 
1944

Irene Morgan Convicted of Integrating Virginia Bus – Inspires Later Freedom Rides

 
1956

Southern States Violating the Law, Charges ACLU

 
1962

“The Connection,” Powerful Play and Film About Drug Addicts, Banned in NYC

Oct 19
1940

NYU Students Protest University Discrimination Against its Own Player

 
1947

ACLU Attacks State Department “Gag” on Foreign Visitors

 
1955

Public Housing Residents Threatened with Eviction for Not Signing Loyalty Oath

 
1955

NAACP Called a “Threat” to Georgia

 
1960

Martin Luther King Arrested in Georgia – Leads to Famous JFK Phone Call

 
2000

Jimmy Carter Breaks with Southern Baptist Convention

Oct 20
1917

Suffragist Alice Paul Arrested For Picketing White House

 
1934

University of Michigan Wins Game, Loses Integrity – Gerald Ford Embarrassed

 
1947

HUAC Opens Hearings on Communists in Hollywood

 
1951

Protestant Church Leaders Protest Nomination of U.S. Envoy to the Vatican

 
1967

1,000 Draft Cards Turned in to Justice Department in Vietnam War Protest

 
1967

Seven Convicted for 1964 Mississippi Civil Rights Murders

 
1973

“Saturday Night Massacre” – Watergate Scandal Deepens

 
1979

Women Against Pornography March on Times Square

Oct 21
1923

Boston Mayor Curley Bans KKK Meetings, ACLU Protests

 
1923

National Woman’s Party to Meet with President Coolidge over Equal Rights Amendment

 
1949

President Truman Nominates Burnita Shelton Matthews as First Woman District Court Judge

 
1963

Supreme Court Justice Goldberg Invites Constitutional Challenges to the Death Penalty

 
1964

American Mental Health Association Denounces “Hysteria” Over Homosexuality

 
1967

100,000 March on Pentagon to Protest Vietnam War

 
1967

Yippies Try to Levitate Pentagon – Pentagon Stays Put

 
1970

John T. Scopes, of Famous Monkey Trial, Dies

 
1994

U.S. Ratifies UN Convention Against Racial Discrimination

 
1994

U.S. Ratifies UN Convention Against Torture

Oct 22
1955

Future Civil Rights Hero Frank M. Johnson Appointed District Court Judge in Alabama

 
1963

President Kennedy Asks NY Times Publisher to Transfer Reporter David Halberstam from Vietnam

 
1965

225,000 Students Boycott Chicago Schools to Protest De Facto Segregation

 
1971

“A Civil Liberties Disaster” – New York Civil Liberties Union Attacks Procedures in Police Corruption Probe

 
1975

Nebraska Judge Bars Press Coverage – Overruled by Supreme Court

Oct 23
1915

33,000 March in New York City Suffrage Parade

 
1947

“An Appeal to the World” – NAACP Petition to the UN on Human Rights Violations in the U.S.

 
1947

Ronald Reagan Testifies Before HUAC as “Friendly” Witness

 
1987

Senate Rejects Supreme Court Nominee Robert H. Bork

 
1998

Dr. Barnett Slepian, Abortion Provider, Murdered by Anti-Abortion Fanatics

 
2006

“The CIA’s Travel Agent” – New Yorker Magazine Details CIA Use of Private Charter Airlines for Renditions

 
2013

Spying on Our Friends: German Chancellor Merkel Protests NSA Tapping Her Cell Phone

 
2015

FBI Director James Comey Blames Police Critics For Recent Rise in Violent Crime

Oct 24
1928

African-American Doctor Demands Candidate Herbert Hoover Take a Stand on the Klan

 
1947

Committee for the First Amendment Opposes HUAC Investigation of Hollywood

 
1952

Secret Truman Order Creates National Security Agency

 
1955

Can We Say “Virgin”? Supreme Court Okays Film “The Moon is Blue”

 
1956

J. Edgar Hoover Warns Eisenhower of Communist Infiltration of Civil Rights Movement

 
1970

Too Much Sex! President Nixon Denounces Obscenity Commission Report

 
2005

Rosa Parks, Hero of Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dies

 
2012

Four Freedoms Park Opens in NYC, Honors FDR’s Famous Speech

 
2015

Al Bronstein, Leader of ACLU Prisoners Rights Project, Dies at Age 87

Oct 25
1916

Birth Control Pioneer Margaret Sanger Arrested For Opening First Birth Control Clinic in U.S.

 
1955

Paul Child, Husband of Famous Chef Julia Child, “Cleared” by FBI

 
1958

Youth March for Integrated Schools in D.C. Draws More Than 10,000

 
1978

FISA Enacted – Special Court to Regulate National Security Spying

 
1981

ACLU Issues Handbook on “The Rights of Police Officers”

Oct 26
1892

Ida B. Wells, Crusading African-American Journalist, Publishes Her First Report on Lynching

 
1921

President Harding Gives Civil Rights Message in Segregated Birmingham, Alabama

 
1954

Save the Children! Comic Book Code Adopted

 
1960

John F. Kennedy Calls Coretta Scott King About Husband’s Imprisonment in Georgia

 
2001

Congress Passes the USA PATRIOT Act – Civil Liberties Violations Follow

 
2015

Televangelist Pat Robertson Calls Same-Sex Marriage Still Illegal – Says Supreme Court Decision Only an “Opinion”

Oct 27
1947

“Hollywood Ten” HUAC Hearings Begin – Angry Confrontation Erupts

 
1960

Martin Luther King Released From Reidsville, Georgia Prison; RFK’s Phone Call Helped

 
1965

LBJ Caves on De Facto School Desegregation in the North

 
1997

Oregon’s “Death with Dignity” Law Takes Effect

Oct 28
1917

Anti-War Minister Kidnapped, Beaten Near Cincinnati

 
1927

New York Debates Censoring Offensive Racial or Religious Films

 
1947

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo Defies HUAC, Is Blacklisted

 
1952

Attorney General: Charlie Chaplin Must “Prove His Worth” to Return to U.S.

 
1952

Frank Wilkinson Fired From LA Public Housing Job – Begins Long Civil Liberties Career

 
1974

President Ford Signs Equal Credit Opportunity Act

 
1989

Flag Protection Act Become Law – Protests Erupt in Seattle

 
2009

Matthew Shepard And James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crime Act Signed Into Law

 
2015

Professor Larry Gara, Fired in 1962 for Political Views, Gets Apology 53 Years Later

Oct 29
1947

“To Secure These Rights:” Truman’s Civil Rights Committee Delivers Historic Report

 
1966

NOW Formally Chartered

 
1969

Black Panther Bobby Seale Bound and Gagged in Court at Trial of the Chicago 8

 
1971

First-Ever Conference on the FBI

 
1975

First Time Ever: Head of National Security Agency (NSA) Testifies Before Congress

Oct 30
1918

Roger Baldwin, ACLU Founder, Sentenced to Prison – Delivers Famous Statement of Conscience

 
1947

Famed Playwright Brecht Testifies Before HUAC – Immediately Leaves the U.S.

 
1947

Writer of M*A*S*H Refuses to Tell HUAC About His Beliefs and Associations – Is Blacklisted

 
1951

Photo League Disbands; Victim of the Cold War

 
1970

Secret Oklahoma “Blacklist” of “Troublemakers” Challenged in Lawsuit

 
1973

Cover Your Ears! George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words Broadcast

Oct 31
1950

Earl Lloyd First African-American Player in NBA

 
1969

Two 12-Year-Old Girls in Court For Refusing to Recite Pledge of Allegiance

 
1970

Former Chief Justice Earl Warren Speaks Out Against Discrimination

 
1972

“Trail of Broken Treaties:” Native American Manifesto for Reparations

 
2001

Massachusetts Exonerates Five Salem Witch Trial Victims – On Halloween !

Index

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Abortion Rights ACLU african-americans Alice Paul anti-communism Anti-Communist Hysteria Birth Control Brown v. Board of Education Censorship CIA Civil Rights Civil Rights Act of 1964 Cold War Espionage Act FBI First Amendment Fourteenth Amendment freedom of speech Free Speech Gay Rights Hate Speech homosexuality Hoover, J. Edgar HUAC Japanese American Internment King, Dr. Martin Luther Ku Klux Klan Labor Unions Lesbian and Gay Rights Loyalty Oaths McCarthy, Sen. Joe New York Times Obscenity Police Misconduct Same-Sex Marriage Separation of Church and State Sex Discrimination Smith Act Spying Spying on Americans Vietnam War Voting Rights Voting Rights Act of 1965 War on Terror Watergate White House Women's Rights Women's Suffrage World War I World War II Relocation Camps

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