Frank Beacham's Journal

The American Civil Liberties Union announced 67 years ago today that it would defend Allen Ginsberg's book “Howl” against obscenity charges

The American Civil Liberties Union announced 67 years ago today that it would defend Allen Ginsberg's book “Howl” against obscenity charges.

The U.S. Customs Department had seized some 520 copies of the book several weeks earlier as the book entered the U.S. from England, where it had been printed.

Ginsberg had first read the title poem, Howl, at a poetry reading in the fall of 1956 at the Six Gallery in San Francisco to enormous acclaim from his fellow Beat poets.

The poem's racy language, frank subject matter and lack of form offended some conservative readers, but to young people in the 1960s, it sounded a call to revolt against convention.

Along with Jack Kerouac's On the Road, the poem served as the reference manual and rallying cry for a new generation. Ginsberg himself coined the term "flower power."

After the seizing of Howl, publisher and poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, announced he would publish it in the U.S. After its publication, he was arrested and tried for promoting obscene material.

The ACLU successfully defended both Ferlinghetti and the book at Ferlinghetti's trial, calling on nine literary experts to render an opinion on the book's merits. Ferlinghetti was found not guilty.

Thanks History.com

John Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus”comment brought protests in the United States after appearing in the London Evening Standard on March 4, 1966 — 56 years ago today

In England, no one took much notice of the John Lennon quotation that later set off a media frenzy in America.

Chalk it up to a fundamental difference in religious outlook between Britain and America, or to a fundamental difference in sense of humor.

Whatever the reason, it was only after the American press got hold of his words some five months later that the John Lennon comment that first appeared in the London Evening Standard on March 4, 1966 — 56 years ago today — erupted into the "Bigger than Jesus" scandal that brought a semi-official end to the giddy phenomenon known as Beatlemania.

In their original context, Lennon's remarks were clearly meant not as a boast, but as a sardonic commentary on the waning importance of religion. "Christianity will go," Lennon said. "It will vanish and shrink....We're more popular than Jesus now."

It was only one comment in an interview that covered such wide-ranging topics as gorilla suits and car phones, but it was this comment alone that made its way into the American teenybopper magazine DATEbook several months later, boiled down to the straightforward line, "We're more popular than Jesus."

From there, a handful of Bible Belt disc jockeys took over, declaring Lennon's remarks blasphemous and vowing an "eternal" ban on all Beatles music, past, present and future.

"Our fantastic Beatle boycott is still in effect," announced two DJs on WACI, Birmingham in August, 1966: "Don't forget to take your Beatle records and your Beatle paraphernalia to any one of our 14 pickup points in Birmingham, Alabama, and turn them in this week."

The plan in Birmingham, as in various other cities around the South, was to burn the Beatles records turned in by angry listeners. Though it is unclear how many such events really took place, the story of the burnings definitely reached the Beatles.

"When they started burning our records...that was a real shock," said John Lennon years later. "I couldn't go away knowing I'd created another little piece of hate in the world. So I apologized."

The apology Lennon offered was not for the message he was trying to convey, but for conveying it in a way that confused its meaning.

At a press conference in Chicago, John explained: "I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ or anti-religion. I was not saying we are greater or better. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I'm sorry I said it, really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. From what I've read, or observed, Christianity just seems to be shrinking, to be losing contact."

Thanks History.com

More than two million Chinese government employees alone monitor China’s Twitter-clone, Weibo, the Beijing News has reported

More than two million Chinese government employees alone monitor China’s Twitter-clone, Weibo, the Beijing News has reported.

Not all of these people — rather amusingly called "internet opinion analysts" — are actively censoring web content. Instead they are trawling social media for troubling entries that are indexed and collated and then passed on to a presumably smaller group of actual decision-makers.

All of these people are apparently on the government's payroll.

In July, 1981, I went to China when it first opened to Americans. In those days, there was no internet, but still plenty of censorship. In fact, a guide told me a Chinese citizen could be put in prison for possession of a Playboy magazine. (I gave him one as a parting gift, being very careful in the handoff!)

China may be more modern today, but the reigns of censorship remain tight. The internet there is monitored closely — just as in United States and most other countries. Wherever you are in the world today, be aware.

Above, I pose with two Chinese censors in 1981.

Emmett Till was born 80 years ago today

Emmett Till was born 80 years ago today.

Till was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman.

Visiting relatives from Chicago in Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region, the trouble started when Till spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store there.

Several nights later, Bryant's husband, Roy, and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, arrived at Till's great-uncle's house where they took Till, transported him to a barn, beat him and gouged out one of his eyes.

Then they shot Till through the head and disposed of his body in the Tallahatchie River, weighting it with a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. Till’s body was discovered and retrieved from the river three days later.

Till was returned to Chicago and his mother, who had raised him mostly by herself, insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket to show the world the brutality of the killing.

Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his casket and images of his mutilated body were published in black magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the condition of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the country critical of the state.

Although initially local newspapers and law enforcement officials decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they soon began responding to national criticism by defending Mississippians, which eventually transformed into support for the killers.

The trial attracted a vast amount of press attention. Bryant and Milam were acquitted of Till's kidnapping and murder, but only months later, in a magazine interview, protected against double jeopardy, they admitted to killing him.

Till's murder is noted as a pivotal event motivating the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Problems identifying Till affected the trial, partially leading to Bryant's and Milam's acquittals, and the case was officially reopened by the United States Department of Justice in 2004.

As part of the investigation, the body was exhumed and autopsied resulting in a positive identification. He was reburied in a new casket, which is the standard practice in cases of body exhumation.

His original casket was donated to the Smithsonian Institution. Events surrounding Emmett Till's life and death, according to historians, continue to resonate, and almost every story about Mississippi returns to Till, or the region in which he died, in "some spiritual, homing way."

Till continues to be the focus of literature and memorials. A statue was unveiled in Denver in 1976 (and has since been moved to Pueblo, Colorado) featuring Till with Martin Luther King, Jr. Till was included among the forty names of people who had died in the Civil Rights Movement (listed as martyrs) on the granite sculpture of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated in 1989.

In 1991, a seven-mile stretch of 71st Street in Chicago, was renamed "Emmett Till Road." Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett’s mother, attended many of the dedications for the memorials, including a demonstration in Selma, Alabama on the 35th anniversary of the march over the Edmund Pettis Bridge.

She later wrote in her memoirs” "I realized that Emmett had achieved the significant impact in death that he had been denied in life. Even so, I had never wanted Emmett to be a martyr. I only wanted him to be a good son. Although I realized all the great things that had been accomplished largely because of the sacrifices made by so many people, I found myself wishing that somehow we could have done it another way."

Till-Mobley died in 2003, the same year her memoirs were published.

James McCosh Elementary School in Chicago, where Till had been a student, was renamed the "Emmett Louis Till Math And Science Academy" in 2005.

The "Emmett Till Memorial Highway" was dedicated between Greenwood and Tutwiler, Mississippi, the same route his body took to the train station on its way to Chicago.

In 2007, Tallahatchie County issued a formal apology to Till's family, reading "We the citizens of Tallahatchie County recognize that the Emmett Till case was a terrible miscarriage of justice. We state candidly and with deep regret the failure to effectively pursue justice. We wish to say to the family of Emmett Till that we are profoundly sorry for what was done in this community to your loved one.”

The same year, Georgia congressman John Lewis, whose skull was fractured while being beaten during the 1965 Selma march, sponsored a bill that provides a plan for investigating and prosecuting unsolved Civil Rights era murders. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act was signed into law in 2008.

The Emmett Till murder trial, 1955

Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were tried for the murder of Till in late 1955, but acquitted by an all-white Mississippi jury.

Protected by the double jeopardy clause, Bryant and Milam admitted killing Till in a 1956 magazine interview. The widely publicized trial is considered a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement.

Shown in the above photo is the all-white jury

Roy Bryan, left, and J.W. Milam on trial in Sumner, Mississippi, September, 1955 for the killing of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago.

Photo by Ed Clark

Bob Dylan performs “The Death of Emmett Till”

On this day in 1633, Galileo renounced what we now accept as fact: that the Earth orbits the sun. He was tried for challenging the status quo

The story of Galileo Galilei demonstrates many things, not least that science keeps evolving.

It was on this day in 1633 that the Italian scholar renounced what we now accept as fact: that the Earth orbits the sun, not the other way around.

Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s larger moons in 1610 made him question the prevailing assumption that the Earth was at the universe’s center. His advocacy of the heliocentric theory earned him mockery, censure and — in 1633 — a trial in Rome, at which he was forced to recant before a jury of cardinals. He vowed that he would “abjure, curse and detest” his findings.

The declaration saved him from being burned at the stake, but led to house arrest for the rest of his life. It took the Roman Catholic Church more than 350 years to acknowledge that Galileo had been wronged — though astronomers now tell us that the sun is not immobile, but orbits within the galaxy, pulling the planets along with it.

Today, Galileo’s discoveries seem obvious. But all things are easy to understand once they have been discovered, he wrote. “The point is in being able to discover them.”

Tell that to the deniers of climate change.

Thanks New York Times!

A bust of Galileo at a museum dedicated to him in Florence, Italy.

Photo by Kathryn Cook

Prominent figures in the music industry were named as Communist sympathizers in Red Channels on this day in 1950 — 71 years ago

The Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s famously ended the careers of numerous film-industry professionals and forced others to avoid blacklisting by repudiating their political beliefs and "naming names" of suspected Communist sympathizers to the House Committee on Un-Activities (HUAC). 

But Hollywood actors, directors and screenwriters were not the only victims of the Cold War anti-Communist purges in the entertainment industry.

Prominent figures in the music industry were also targeted, including Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lena Horne, Pete Seeger and Artie Shaw, all of whom were named publicly as suspected Communist sympathizers on this day in 1950 —71 years ago — in the infamous publication Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television.

Red Channels was a tract issued by the right-wing journal, Counterattack, the self-described "Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism."

By 1950, Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC had already been at work for several years, and figures like singer Paul Robeson and the so-called Hollywood Ten had already been blacklisted. But Red Channels sought to go further, exposing what it called a widespread Communist effort to achieve "domination of American broadcasting and telecasting, preparatory to the day when…[the] Party will assume control of this nation as the result of a final upheaval and civil war."

Some even believe that the men responsible for Red Channels — including several former members of the FBI — were given illegal access to the confidential files of HUAC in preparing their report, which exposed 151 names in the entertainment industry to public scrutiny and the threat of blacklisting.

Joining famous names like Orson Welles, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller and Dorothy Parker on the Red Channels list were the aforementioned Bernstein, Copland, Horne, Seeger and Shaw and numerous other musical figures, including the legendary harmonica player, Larry Adler, the folksinger Burl Ives, former Library of Congress folklorist Alan Lomax and The New York Times music critic Olin Downes.

The evidence of Communist leanings offered in Red Channels included Lena Horne’s appearance on the letterhead of a South African famine relief program; Aaron Copland’s appearance on a panel at a 1949 Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace; and Leonard Bernstein’s affiliation with the Committee to Re-Elect Benjamin J. Davis, a black, socialist New York City councilman.

In the end, Red Channels caused some of those named to be blacklisted — Pete Seeger, most famously — to fight publicly to prove their "loyalty" to the United States and still others to repudiate their political pasts and provide the HUAC with names of other suspected prominent figures.

Thanks History.com

In 1976, John Lennon's U.S. immigration status was finally resolved favorably, after a years-long battle that included an FBI investigation

This week in 1972, New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay wrote a letter to Washington on behalf of an immigrant couple facing deportation. Their removal, the mayor wrote, would be contrary “to the principles of our country” and amount to “a grave injustice.”

The couple’s problems stemmed from the fact that one of them had pleaded guilty to marijuana possession in his native country.

His name was John Lennon.

Other prominent figures petitioned immigration authorities in support of Lennon and Yoko Ono. “Artisans and universal megagalactic entities,” wrote the poet, Gregory Corso. “Ergo, let my people go — stay — etc.”

Proceedings dragged on for years during the Nixon administration, but John and Yoko remained in New York.

In 1976, Lennon's U.S. immigration status was finally resolved favorably, after a years-long battle that included an FBI investigation — a full-scale effort involving surveillance, wiretaps and agents following Lennon around as he traveled. Lennon insisted that the investigation was politically motivated, a claim that was later proven true.

With the departure of Nixon from the White House, the administration of his successor, Gerald Ford, showed little interest in continuing the battle. At the end of the long ordeal, a reporter asked Lennon a question:

“Mr. Lennon, do you feel any antagonism toward the people who have attempted to have you deported?”

John Lennon responded: “Absolutely not. I believe time wounds all heels.”

Sixty-four years ago today, the U.S. Customs Department confiscated 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s book, Howl, which had been printed in England. Officials alleged that the book was obscene

Sixty-four years ago today, the U.S. Customs Department confiscated 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s book, Howl, which had been printed in England. Officials alleged that the book was obscene.

City Lights, a publishing company and bookstore in San Francisco owned by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, proceeded to publish the book in the fall of 1956. The publication led to Ferlinghetti’s arrest on obscenity charges.

Ferlinghetti was bailed out by the American Civil Liberties Union, which led the legal defense. Nine literary experts testified at the trial that the poem was not obscene, and Ferlinghetti was found not guilty.

Howl, which created a literary earthquake among the literary community when Ginsberg first read the poem in 1955, still stands as an important monument to the countercultural fervor of the late 1950s and ’60s.

Ginsberg continued to write and read poetry until his death from liver cancer in 1997.