The Capitol Siege Has Deep Roots in American History — Part V
This is Part V of a series on the more than 40 micro-rebellions that have occurred in America since the Revolutionary War. The causes of these uprisings have been sparked by political grievances, economic injustices, racial bigotry and paranoia. The Capitol Insurrection of January 6th is not without precedent and understanding what sparked these earlier revolts makes it easier to understand what caused the January 6th uprising. Part V covers the Political Rebellions of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
The Dorr Rebellion, which took place from 1841 to 1842, was an attempt by middle-class residents to force broader democracy in the state of Rhode Island where a small rural elite controlled the government. The rebellion was led by Thomas Wilson Dorr who mobilized the disenfranchised to demand changes to the state’s electoral rules.
Rhode Island was still using its 1663 colonial charter as a constitution. That required voters to be landowners before they could vote. A later law stipulated that property had to be worth at least $134 and only whites could vote.
Rhode Island was dominated by rural interests. Cities were dramatically under represented. As late as 1830, the state legislature failed to invest in roads and bridges and other needs for growing urban areas. Because of the property requirement, few immigrants or factory workers could vote, despite their growing numbers.
At first, the middle classes took the lead in seeking change, led by Dorr. But after years of trying, by 1841, Dorr abandoned attempts to change the system from within. In October of that year, he held an extralegal People’s Convention and drafted a new constitution which granted the vote to all white men with one year’s residence in the state. Dorr had originally supported granting voting rights to Blacks, but he changed his position in 1840 because of pressure from white immigrants who wanted to gain the vote first.
At the same time, the state’s General Assembly formed a rival convention and drafted the Freemen’s Constitution, with some concessions to democratic demands. Late in that year, the two constitutions were voted on, and the Freemen’s Constitution was defeated, largely by Dorr supporters. In December, the People’s Convention charter was overwhelmingly supported in a popular referendum. In early 1842, both groups organized their own elections.
Astonishingly, ignoring their victory at the polls, “Dorrites” led an unsuccessful attack against an arsenal in Providence on May 19, 1842. Ironically, arsenal defenders included Dorr’s father and uncle. And not so puzzling was that arsenal defenders also included many Black men who had supported Dorr before he dropped them from his suffrage push . During the attack, Dorr’s cannon failed to fire, no one was hurt and his army was routed.
After his defeat, Dorr fled to New York and returned in late June of 1842 to assemble a new strike force. He hoped to reconvene The People’s Convention, but the governor called out the state militia. Dorr, realizing that he would be defeated again, fled the state a second time. The governor issued a warrant for his arrest with a reward of $5,000. He returned in 1843, was found guilty of treason and sentenced for life in 1844 to solitary confinement and hard labor. The harshness of his sentence was widely condemned and Dorr was pardoned in 1845 and released, his health now broken. In 1854, the guilty verdict was set aside. He died later that year.
The Green Corn Rebellion was triggered by opposition to World War I and the draft. A tenant farmers’ revolt broke out in three counties along Oklahoma’s South Canadian River in August of 1917. Antiwar sentiments fueled the Green Corn Rebellion but the revolt actually grew from long-standing grievances tenants held against local landowners, businessmen, state and local authorities. Farmers were particularly angry over the concentration of power in small numbers of wealthy landholders who engaged in land speculation and outright fraud to obtain property. By 1917, speculation and falling crop prices had forced more than half of Oklahoma’s farmers into tenancy.
Many tenants and small landowners joined the state’s Socialist Party. Socialists proposed expanding public domain lands, enacting a progressive land tax and creating a cooperative marketing system. But some tenants grew frustrated with the slow wheels of the political process and turned to night-riding and the violence employed by the International Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW, however, refused to allow tenant farmers to join because they were not wageworkers.
More tenants joined the Working Class Union (WCU). The WCU grew dormant when prosperity returned and cotton prices rose in 1916, but American entry into World War I revitalized it. Farmers saw the European conflict as “a rich man’s war, a poor man’s fight,” and throughout the summer of 1917, the WCU planned its opposition to the new federal Conscription Act.
The WCU soon claimed 35,000 members in Oklahoma. With the collapse of cotton prices at the beginning of the war in Europe, WCU membership rebounded. It grew even more a year later when farmers violently opposed a campaign promoting cattle dipping to control a tick-borne “Texas fever.” WCU members alleged that the chemical dips sickened and killed the animals, and the organization dynamited dipping vats and destroyed the property of county officials.
The WCU planned a march to Washington to end the war, planning to graze off the land en route, surviving by eating barbecued beef and roasted green corn, the latter giving the rebellion its name. Rebels burned bridges and cut telegraph lines as they marched but they soon faced hastily organized posses which stopped them. Three men died in the clashes and more than four hundred others were arrested. Of those, 150 were convicted and received prison terms of up to ten years.
The Battle of Athens, also known as The McMinn County War, was a rebellion led by citizens in Athens and Etowah Tennessee against the local governments in August of 1946. Citizens, including some World War II veterans, accused local officials of police brutality, corruption and voter intimidation.
In 1936, the E.H. Crump political machine in Memphis took over McMinn County. The county sheriff and his deputies instituted a fee system. They received money for every person they booked and jailed. This made it easy and lucrative to engage in extensive “fee grabbing” from tourists and travelers. Buses passing through the county were often pulled over and passengers were randomly ticketed for drunkenness whether they were drunk or not. Between 1936 and 1946, these fees amounted to almost $300,000.
Citizens of McMinn County had long been concerned about political corruption and election fraud. It was commonplace to count the votes of the dead in McMinn County elections. Politicians operated gambling and bootlegging businesses. Its control also extended to the newspapers and schools.
Most of McMinn County’s young men were off fighting World War II, so the machine used ex-convicts as deputies. During the war, two servicemen on leave were shot and killed by machine supporters. McMinn County soldiers serving overseas heard about the killings and were anxious to get back and avenge the shootings. The situation was further inflamed because when G.I.’s began filtering home, deputies targeted them for their mustering out pay. So the county was ready for an explosion when the G.I.’s returned.
McMinn County had around 3,000 returning vets, almost 10 percent of the county’s population. Some of the veterans resolved to challenge the machine’s control by fielding their own candidates. A meeting was called in May of 1946 to chose a non-partisan slate of candidates. Local businessmen made sure the G.I.’s campaign was well-funded.
County election polls opened on August 1, 1946. Normally, there would be 15 patrolmen on duty for each precinct, but the machine flooded polling places with about 200 armed deputies. In Etowah, a G.I. poll watcher requested a ballot box to be opened and certified as empty. Although the law permitted the request, he was arrested and jailed. Another patrolman prevented an elderly African-American farmer from voting. When the farmer and a G.I. poll watcher objected, the patrolman struck the farmer with brass knuckles. When the farmer fled, the officer shot him in the back. Polls were ordered closed and two poll watchers were held by police.
In retaliation, G.I.’s captured seven deputies and dragged them to an isolated wooded area ten miles from Athens. There, the deputies-turned hostages were stripped, tied to a tree and beaten. At one polling place, G.I.’s and deputies exchanged gunfire. Veterans laid siege to a jail where police tried to secure ballot boxes. Estimates of the number of soldiers who took part in the onslaught ranged from several hundred to as high as 2,000. And just as estimates of the number of people involved in the conflict varied, accounts of how the Battle of Athens began and how it played out also diverged. One G.I. was said to call out to deputies defending a jail “Would you damn bastards bring those damn ballot boxes out here or we are going to set siege against the jail and blow it down!” Automatic weapons fire erupted, punctuated by shotgun blasts. The battle was joined.
For the veterans, it was either win or face a long time in jail for breaking the law. So the veterans went for broke. They tossed bombs at the jail and breached its walls. Deputies surrendered and the soldiers recovered the ballot boxes taken hostage. As this was going on, rioting had broken out in the streets of Athens, mostly targeting police cars. This continued even after the ballot boxes were recovered. The morning of August 2nd found the town quiet. But G.I.’s occupied the jail for another month until their candidate was installed as sheriff.
When the ballots were tallied, the slate for the G.I.’s Non-Partisan League won in a landslide. It instituted reforms, such as eliminating the fee system and capping government official salaries at $5,000. Gambling houses in collusion with the machine were raided and their operations demolished. The Battle of Athens started a reform wave in Tennessee. Throughout the state, veterans mounted drives in the upcoming November elections against corrupt political machines.
However, once it gained control of the levers of power, the new G.I. government in Athens soon fell victim to same bad political habits of comfortable incumbents. The reform movement lost steam. Old party loyalties emerged and the G.I. government in Athens eventually collapsed. Tennessee’s good government movement, spearheaded by its returning soldiers, quickly faded as politics-as-usual returned. When other returning vets sought out advice from Tennessee’s Non-Partisan G.I. Political League, the league’s advice was tinged with equal degrees of pride and regret: shooting it out is not the best way to win a political battle.
The San Juan Nationalist Revolt, which occurred on October 30, 1950, was one of many uprisings against U.S. government rule in Puerto Rico.
On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced and approved by the Puerto Rican Senate which restricted the freedom of speech and assembly rights of Puerto Ricans. Under this new law, it became a crime to print, publish, sell or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the island government or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent. It became illegal to sing patriotic songs and the statute reinforced an 1898 law that banned display of the Puerto Rican Flag. Anyone found guilty of disobeying the law was subject to a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.
From 1949 to 1950, Puerto Rican Nationalists planned an armed revolution, hoping that the United Nations would intervene on their behalf. The uprising was to occur in 1952, on the date the U.S. Congress was to approve a new status for the island — the Free Associated State for Puerto Rico — that would supposedly loosen Puerto Rico’s colonial bonds. Nationalists considered the new status a sham and a facade for continued colonialism.
The uprising was accelerated when police began arresting Nationalist leaders in October of 1950. On October 27th, police fired upon a caravan of Nationalists in the town of Penuelas, killing four of them. The killings outraged residents and reaction was immediate.
The first armed battle of the Nationalist uprisings occurred in the early morning of October 29th in Peñuelas. Without warning, police fired upon a house where the mother of a Nationalist leader lived. A firefight broke out, resulting in the death of two Nationalists and the wounding of six police officers. Seven Nationalist leaders were arrested and accused of participating in an ambush on the authorities. The very next day, October 30th, there were Nationalist uprisings all over Puerto Rico.
That same day, Nationalists attempted an assault on La Fortaleza, the governor’s mansion in San Juan. They arrived at the mansion at noon and stopped their car 25 feet from its main entrance. They poured out of the car with submarine guns and pistols and began blazing away at the mansion. Fortaleza guards and police had advance warning of the attack because two Nationalist leaders informed on the rebels. Police guarding La Fortaleza returned fire. Raimundo Díaz Pacheco, who led the attack, was killed. The battle lasted just over an hour and when it was over, five Nationalists were dead.
The following day, October 31st, 15 police officers and 25 National Guardsmen arrived at a section of Santurce named Workers Barrio. They surrounded a barbershop owned and operated by Vidal Santiago Díaz, a Nationalist and the personal barber of party leader Don Pedro Albizu Campos. As they surrounded the shop, the reservists believed that a large group of Nationalists were huddled inside and they sent a police officer to investigate. Díaz fired at the advancing cop, sparking a firefight that lasted three hours and ended only when Díaz was shot multiple times. Two bystanders and a child were also wounded. Ten Nationalist leaders were arrested and those with the most serious charges against them were sentenced to fifteen years.
The last major attempt by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to draw world attention to the island’s colonial status occurred on March 1, 1954 when nationalist leaders attacked the U.S. House of Representatives. Three of the rebels were in prison until 1979 when President Jimmy Carter commuted their sentences.
The Black Power Movement was a crusade motivated by a desire for safety and self-sufficiency in African-American neighborhoods. Black Power activists founded Black-owned bookstores, food cooperatives, farms, media, schools, clinics and ambulance services.
But by the late 1960s, Black Power took a more violent turn. More and more, the movement looked to Malcolm X’s militancy and rejected Martin Luther King’s embrace of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of peaceful protest. Sparked by Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965 by a hit squad sent by the Nation of Islam, violent urban riots broke out in virtually every city throughout America. There has long been speculation that New York City police were complicit in Malcolm X’s killing.
The first popular use of the term “Black Power” as a social and racial rallying cry was by Stokely Carmichael, later known as Kwame Ture, a founder of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
After the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, SNCC cut ties with the mainstream civil rights movement. Its philosophy distanced itself from King’s non-violence to one of greater militancy, embracing Malcolm X’s motivating credo to gain equal rights “by any means necessary.” Malcolm borrowed the phrase from philosophers Franz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sarte, who invoked it to justify violence against class repression and colonialism. SNCC allied itself with radical groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In late October of 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded The Black Panther Party.
Throughout 1967, the Panthers staged rallies and disrupted the California State Assembly with armed marches. In late 1967 the FBI began investigating Black nationalist groups and other other radical organizations. By 1968, many Black Panther leaders had been arrested, including founder Huey Newton for the murder of a police officer. His prosecution was eventually dismissed and Black Panther membership surged. The Panthers engaged in multiple gunfights with police throughout 1969, including one at a Los Angeles gas station. That same year, Panther leader Fred Hampton was killed in a pre-dawn raid at his Chicago apartment, triggering the widest wave of social unrest in the U.S. since the Civil War.
In 1971, black militant group, the Black Revolutionary Assault Team, bombed the New York South African consular office to protest that nation’s apartheid policies. It also placed explosives at the U.N. Missions of the Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Malawi. In February of that same year, ideological splits within the Black Panther Party between leaders Newton and Eldridge Cleaver turned deadly and four people were killed in a wave of assassinations.
On May 21st, five Black Liberation Army (BLA) members murdered two New York City police officers while the cops were on patrol in Harlem. On August 29th, three BLA members murdered a San Francisco police sergeant at a police station. And in August, Black Power activist George Jackson attempted to escape from prison, killing seven hostages only to be killed himself before he could get away. His death triggered the Attica Prison uprising which itself ended in a bloody siege. On November 3rd, an Atlanta policeman was shot and killed in his patrol van by BLA army members at a gas station .
MOVE began in Philadelphia in 1972 as the Christian Movement for Life, a communal living group based on Black Liberation principles. When police raided MOVE headquarters in 1978, a firefight broke out and during the shootout, one officer was killed. Seven other police officers, five firefighters, three MOVE members and three bystanders were injured.
After the incident, MOVE shifted its headquarters to West Philadelphia. The police considered move members terrorists.On May 13, 1985, police arrived with arrest warrants, attempting to clear the building and arrest MOVE members. This led to an armed standoff. Police lobbed tear gas canisters into the building. MOVE members returned fire with automatic weapons. The police then bombed the house, dropping a satchel filled with explosives from the air, killing several adults and children and causing an inferno that destroyed the better part of a city block.
In another high-profile BLA incident, three members were accused firing on state troopers in New Jersey after being pulled over for a broken tail light. One BLA member and a state trooper were killed in a gunfire exchange. One of the BLA members, Assata Shakur, was found guilty of the murder of both the state trooper and her BLA companion. She escaped prison in 1979, fled to Cuba and received political asylum.
During the 1980’s the Black Power movement’s popularity and membership declined. The BLA was active in the U.S. until 1981 when a Brinks truck was robbed at a mall in Nanuet NY with the help of two Weather Underground members. A guard and two police officers were killed in the attack. On August 22, 1989, Huey Newton was fatally shot on an Oakland street by 24-year-old member of the Black Family, a Black Power street gang founded by George Jackson.
Today’s Black Lives Matter movement shares some of the core philosophies of the Black Power Movement, but the key and critical difference is that violence is not in its credo.
End of Part V