On this day, 13 March 1940, Indian revolutionary Udham Singh assassinated former lieutenant governor of the Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer, at a meeting in London. The assassination was in revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre when O'Dwyer dispatched troops to attack a peaceful protest, resulting in around 1,800 people being killed and over 1,200 wounded. O'Dwyer referred to the events as a “correct action”.
While in custody, Singh called himself “Ram Mohammad Singh Azad”: the first three words of the name reflect the three major religions of Punjab (Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh), while the last, “azad”, means “free”.
Convicted of murder, Singh was sentenced to death. Speaking at his trial, Singh explained: “He deserved it. He was the real culprit. He wanted to crush the spirit of my people, so I have crushed him. For full 21 years, I have been trying to seek vengeance. I am happy that I have done the job.”
More: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8498/udham-singh-attentathttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2229544330564038/?type=3
On 12 March 1990, dozens of disabled people descended on the US Capitol and carried out a protest which became known as the Capitol Crawl. Participants were protesting against the stalling of a proposed law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which would prohibit discrimination against disabled people.
Around 1000 other protesters watched and cheered while dozens of members of ADAPT, a group campaigning for public transit access for disabled people, abandoned their wheelchairs and mobility aids and began crawling up the steps of the building housing Congress.
It was a powerful illustration of the difficulties faced by many disabled people faced with a hostile environment which had been constructed without their needs in mind.
Michael Winter, one of the participants later reflected: “Some people may have thought it was undignified for people in wheelchairs to crawl in that manner, but I felt that it was necessary to show the country what kinds of things people with disabilities have to face on a day-to-day basis. We had to be willing to fight for what we believed in.”
In the wake of the protest, Congress passed the bill and it was signed into law in July 1990. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2229212140597257/?type=3
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Awesome poster art for Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead by Jay Gordon.
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Poster art for John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) by Anthony Petrie.
