Uncle Mike's Musings: A Yankees Blog and More

Saturday, March 1, 2025

March 1, 1965: The Moynihan Report

March 1, 1965, 60 years ago: The Moynihan Report is released, although that is not its title, and the name "Moynihan" doesn't appear anywhere on it. That's the name that it got, because some people insist upon assigning credit, while others insist upon assigning blame.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan may have seemed like the most Irish of New Yorkers, but he was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1927, before moving to Hell's Kitchen on Manhattan's West Side with his family as a boy. He worked as a longshoreman before getting a free education at City College of New York, then serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and getting a Ph.D. in history from Tufts University.

"Pat" went to the London School of Economics, where he began to cultivate, in his own words, "a taste for Savile Row suits, rococo conversational riffs and Churchillian oratory," even as he maintained that "nothing and no one at LSE ever disposed me to be anything but a New York Democrat who had some friends who worked on the docks and drank beer after work."

He worked on the staff of New York Governor W. Averell Harriman, before being appointed an Assistant Secretary of Labor under President John F. Kennedy. The night that JFK was assassinated, he spoke with Mary McGrory of The Washington Star, invoking the heritage of both of them and the fallen President: "There's no point in being Irish if you don't know that the world will break your heart eventually."

He remained under the new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, who wanted the Department of Labor to give him as much information as he could for his "War On Poverty." The result was The Negro Family: The Case For National Action, published on March 1, 1965. Moynihan wrote the report on his own initiative, hoping to persuade White House officials that civil-rights legislation alone would not produce racial equality. Few people doubted this.

But Moynihan didn't suggest an additional solution, only an additional subject to address: Black families. He pointed out that the out-of-wedlock birthrate was much higher for black people than for white people. And he used the phrase "tangle of pathologies" to describe conditions within black families.

Conservatives loved it: Only 5 months after their epic electoral defeat at LBJ's hands, here was a lifeline, and it was coming from inside their enemy's own house. The report seemed to back up their idea that spending money on achieving racial equality shouldn't be done, giving them the justification that it was pointless.

Liberals hated it: The report seemed to "blame the victim" for his own problems. This presaged later conservative "dog whistles," like "race hustler," "poverty pimp," "welfare queen," and "superpredator."

Between the backlash against this report, and LBJ's perception that Moynihan was too close to his intraparty rival, now-Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, Moynihan realized that his position in the Johnson Administration was untenable. Before the year was out, he resigned to take a professor's position at Harvard University.

But the Republicans remembered. In 1969, the new President, Richard Nixon, appointed Moynihan to be Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy; and, later in the year, as Counselor to the President. (He would be succeeded in these offices by John Ehrlichman and Donald Rumsfeld, respectively.)

But his support for a guaranteed national income, or a "negative income tax," was too close to socialism for Tricky Dick and his tricksters. At the end of 1970, he left the Administration, and went back to Harvard. In 1973, Nixon appointed him to be U.S. Ambassador to India. In 1975, President Gerald Ford appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. In 1976, despite still officially living in Massachusetts, he ran for the U.S. Senate from New York, for the seat formerly held by RFK, and won it.

He would serve 4 terms, becoming, as I eventually put it, in language that wouldn't go over well today, "a political transvestite." He was reliably Democratic on education, the environment, civil liberties and abortion, and was a reliable vote for federal judges appointed by Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. But he seemed to side with the Republicans on taxes, and absolutely sided with them on health care and welfare.

During the health care reform debate in early 1994, he was the Chairman of the Senate's Committee on Finance, which had to approve any reform bill. Clinton had been pushing for universal coverage, saying there was a crisis on the issue. But the Republicans were saying there wasn't any crisis. In other words, the Republicans were lying.

Moynihan appeared as a guest on NBC's Meet the Press, hosted by a former aide of his, Tim Russert, and said, as if he were a Republican, "We don't have a health care crisis in this country. But we do have a welfare crisis." Russert asked him if there would be a new health care reform law. Moynihan said, "Ah, in this Congress? No." By refusing to even consider such a bill, he did as much to kill health care reform for the next 16 years as any conservative, in Congress or in the media.

Clinton did sign a welfare reform bill in 1996, after vetoing 2 others he thought too draconian. But, as someone with more medical difficulties than jobs between 1994 and 2010, I have never forgiven Moynihan -- or the Republicans -- for killing health care reform, offering it as a sacrifice to the god of welfare reform.

Moynihan continued to officially be a Democrat, while taking some Republican positions, until, bowing to advancing age, he retired in advance of the 2000 election. His seat was won by Hillary Clinton, Bill's wife. She had been careful to get on good terms with him, despite the fact that the health care reform movement was as much her pet project as it was her husband's. So Hillary winning Moynihan's seat must have given both Clintons satisfaction on more than one level.

Moynihan died in 2003. In 2021, something for which he had long advocated and attempted to fund, an expansion of New York's Pennsylvania Station, opened in the former main post office across 8th Avenue. Designed to handle Amtrak traffic, so that the station between 8th and 7th Avenues could handle New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road more easily, the new facility was named Moynihan Train Hall.

If anything, the commuter portion of Penn Station should have been named for Moynihan, given how often he commuted between America's 2 main political parties.

March 1, 1945: FDR's Last Speech

March 1, 1945, 80 years ago: President Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses a Joint Session of Congress, at the Capitol Building in Washington.

Just 18 days earlier, he had concluded the Yalta Conference, meeting with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, in the Crimea, on Stalin's home turf. They discussed how to finish the European and Pacific phases of World War II, and what to do with the defeated nations afterward, and how to rebuild the postwar world.

Due to having contracted polio in 1921, whenever FDR had to give a public speech, would be "walked" up to the podium by holding onto a cane with one hand and an aide's arm with the other. His braces would be adjusted so that he could stand, and he would then deliver his speech.

But now, early in his 4th term, he was 63 years old, tired, and sick: His blood pressure was much too high, and he had heart disease. As I said, it had been 18 days since Yalta had wrapped up. Had he been healthy, then, given the transportation modes then available, he could have needed only about half that to get home and prepare his remarks for Congress.

And it wasn't just rest he needed: He wasn't going to be able to stand to make the speech. For the 1st time, he addressed Congress from his wheelchair. Also for the 1st time during his Presidency, in an address broadcast coast-to-coast over the nation's radio networks, he made a public reference to his disability.

He began as follows: "I hope that you will pardon me for this unusual posture of sitting down during the presentation of what I want to say. But I know that you will realize that it makes it a lot easier for me not to have to carry about ten pounds of steel around on the bottom of my legs; and also because of the fact that I have just completed a fourteen-thousand-mile trip." The members of Congress applauded.

He added, "First of all, I want to say, it is good to be home." More applause. He went on: "It has been a long journey. I hope you will also agree that it has been, so far, a fruitful one. Speaking in all frankness, the question of whether it is entirely fruitful or not lies to a great extent in your hands. For unless you here in the halls of the American Congress, with the support of the American people, concur in the general conclusions reached at Yalta, and give them your active support, the meeting will not have produced lasting results."

In other words, unless Congress properly funded the Department of War to end the job of the war, and the Department of State to start the job of the peace, then the war effort, which had already killed about 300,000 Americans, would have amounted to nothing.

Roosevelt went on to explain the progress of our fighting men. U.S. troops had already crossed into German territory. Six days later, they would cross the Rhine River at the Ludendorff Bridge. He spoke of why Yalta was chosen as the site, because it was once a Black Sea resort, and of what the Nazis had done to devastate it. So he spoke of how the Nazis had to pay for what they'd done, but that the German people shouldn't have to suffer any further.

And he spoke of building a new international organization to replace the failed League of Nations, the United Nations, with a Charter that would be based on the Constitution of the United States.

He also said, "On the way back from the Crimea, I made arrangements to meet personally King Farouk of Egypt; Halle Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia; and King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Our conversations had to do with matters of common interest. They will be of great mutual advantage because they gave me, and a good many of us, an opportunity of meeting and talking face to face, and of exchanging views in personal conversation instead of formal correspondence."

He said, "Twenty-five years ago, American fighting men looked to the statesmen of the world to finish the work of peace for which they fought and suffered. We failed them then. We cannot fail them again, and expect the world again to survive."

Ever since the Yalta Conference, conservatives have claimed that FDR "betrayed" Eastern Europe by leaving it to Stalin there. But the war was not over. Germany was still fighting, even if the end, there, was in sight. Japan was still fighting, with no end in sight. The Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were yet to come. FDR needed the Soviet Union in that fight.

The Red Army was already in control of most of Poland by the time they met at Yalta. In other words, Poland and Eastern Europe were not Roosevelt's to "sell." Stalin already had already "bought" them, his "currency" being the lives of millions of Soviet soldiers.

FDR also knew that the United Nations would be stronger after the war if the Soviets were in it. He agreed to some concessions at Yalta, for the same reason he cut his social programs short, telling a reporter, "Dr. New Deal had to give way to Dr. Win the War."

FDR never made another public speech. This address, and his Inaugural Address on January 20, would be his only public appearances in the U.S. during his 4th term. He left Washington, and returned to his home in Hyde Park, New York. But he didn't think he was getting the rest he needed there. So, on March 30, he left for his "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he had previously gone in his vain attempt to regain the use of his legs. He died there on April 12. Not only was the war not finished, but Adolf Hitler was still alive and in charge -- albeit of a quickly crumbling Third Reich.

After FDR's death, it was 18 days before Hitler killed himself, rather than be taken by Soviet troops; 26 days before Germany surrendered, V-E Day; and 134 days before Japan surrendered, V-J Day.

Between the lasting legacy of the New Deal, and the way he set things up for the postwar world, perhaps FDR's greatest achievement was building a world that didn't need him anymore.

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

February 25, 2000: The Murderers of Amadou Diallo Are Acquitted

February 25, 2000, 25 years ago: Four New York police officers are acquitted of the charge of second-degree murder.

It was a disgraceful miscarriage of justice.

In 1996, Amadou Diallo, a native of the African nation of Liberia, came to America, and settled in New York City. On February 4, 1999, at about 12:40 AM, he was standing outside his apartment building on Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section of The Bronx, when an unmarked police car pulled up.

Inside the car were Officers Edward McMellon, Sean Carroll, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy. They were looking for a serial rapist. They saw Diallo. Since they were white New York cops, and he was a young black male, they fell back on their prejudices, and assumed he was the man they were looking for.

They ordered Diallo to show his hands. He reached into his pocket to show his wallet, with his identification. All 4 officers assumed he was reaching for a gun, and pulled theirs, and opened fire.

They fired 41 shots, 19 of which hit Diallo. He never had a chance. He was dead at age 23. Sherrie Elliott, a witness, said that they continued to shoot after Diallo was down. When the body was searched, it was found to have nothing that could have been defined as a weapon.

The officers were not punished by the New York Police Department: An investigation ruled that they had acted within policy, based on what "a reasonable police officer would have done." On March 25, a Bronx grand jury disagreed, and indicted all 4 officers on the charges of second-degree murder and reckless endangerment.

In hindsight, the charge of criminally negligent homicide might have been easier to prove. On December 16, a court ordered a change of venue for the trial, thinking that the officers could not get a fair trial within the City of New York. The trial was moved to the State capital, Albany.

On February 25, 2000, after 3 days of deliberation, a jury -- 4 black people and 8 white people -- found the officers Not Guilty on all charges.

It had been just 8 years since the acquittal of 4 police officers for the brutal beating of a suspect in Los Angeles had led to some of the worst race rioting in American history. I was sure there would be a riot in New York. There was not.

Within days, Diallo's parents filed a $61 million lawsuit against the City, and the individual officers, charging gross negligence, wrongful death and racial profiling. In 2004, they accepted a $3 million settlement.

In 2001, McMellon and Murphy switched from the NYPD to the Fire Department of New York. They both served 10 years, and retired. Carroll left the NYPD in 2005. Boss remained, and was actually promoted to Sergeant, before retiring in 2019.

None of them was ever punished. Think about it: They fired 41 shots at an unarmed man, hitting him 19 times. That means they missed 23 times, an average of 6 misses per officer. They didn't get prison time for being too good at shooting; they didn't even get fired for being too bad at it.

Songs about the killing abound. Oddly, the most famous isn't by a black rapper, it's by a white rocker who was already 50 years old at the time: "American Skin" by Bruce Springsteen. The chorus of "41 shots" permeates the song. Some cops said they would refuse to provide security for Springsteen when he performed in the City.

Forty-one shots.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Bang.

Except the song sees the story from their perspective as well: "Is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it a wallet? This is your life." For both cops and suspects, Bruce sang, "You can get killed just livin' in your American skin."

A person sympathetic to the police would say that these four men have to live with what they did for the rest of their lives, and that this should be punishment enough. A person who accepts that each officer fired at least one bullet that, all by itself, would have killed Amadou Diallo knows that they got away with, at the least, criminally negligent homicide; and, at the most, murder.

Police brutality in America has gotten worse since. And, as we have seen, the race of the cop matters less than the race of the suspect.

Black Lives Matter.

Blue Lives Matter.

All Lives Matter.

Even the lives of people who believe that some of those lives don't.

February 25, 1950: Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" Premieres

February 25, 1950: Your Show of Shows premieres on NBC. It is a 90-minute variety show, specializing in sketch comedy, hosted by Sid Caesar. It may have been the funniest show that the young medium of television had yet seen.

It may still be the funniest TV show of all time.

Isaac Sidney Caesar was born on September 8, 1922 in Yonkers, just north of New York City. When his father immigrated from Poland, the family name was "Ziser." As a teenage waiter in his parents' luncheonette, Sid learned how to mimic the customers' various accents, and developed a flair for language.

He learned the saxophone and the clarinet, and played in dance bands at the resort hotels in the Catskill Mountains, which led New York Jews to "the country" in the Summer. He served in the Coast Guard during World War II. While serving, he married Florence Levy, and they had 3 children: Michele, Rick and Karen.

While playing in a military revue, the show's director, Max Liebman, noticed that Sid's comedy got bigger applause than anyone's music. Liebman got him movie roles, and a spot as the opening act for comedian Joe E. Lewis at New York's famed Copacabana nightclub.

In 1949, Caesar and Liebman met with Pat Weaver, vice president of television at NBC (and eventually the father of actress Sigourney Weaver). They put together Sid's 1st TV show, The Admiral Broadway Revenue, which also starred Imogene Coca. The show became a victim of its own success: Admiral, an appliance company that was one of the first manufacturers of TV sets, could not keep up with the demand for new sets, and the show was canceled after 1 season.

But Weaver knew he had a genius on his hands, and convinced NBC to try again. Your Show of Shows debuted in 1950, with Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris and James Starbuck. The 90-minute show was a mix of sketch comedy, satires of movies and TV shows, Caesar's monologues, musical guests, and big production numbers.

And the writers. What writers the show had. Reiner, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, his brother Danny Simon, Mel Tolkin, Lucille Kallen, Selma Diamond, Joseph Stein, Michael Stewart and Tony Webster. Webster was the only one who wasn't Jewish, and Jewish humor was vital for the show.

The show seemed to take special joy in parodying situation comedies, or "sitcoms," with Caesar and Coca playing "The Hickenloopers." Just the title was a funny-sounding name, and their arguments, predating I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners, were a big reason why the overall show was popular.

Caesar loved wearing various uniforms, and one of his best-known sketches involved him putting on what looked like a military uniform. When he was done, he looked in the mirror, and said, "Mirror, mirror, on der vall, who's der schlickest of dem all?" (Not "the fairest," but "the slickest.") And then, after all his preening and posturing, comes the twist: He's not a general, he's a hotel doorman.

One of his recurring characters was the Professor, a shabby, top-hatted, double-talking, German-accented (of course) expert on, well, everything. In my lifetime, he would reprise this character on the PBS kids' show Sesame Street and in commercials for Saran Wrap.

After 4 years, the show was cut back to 60 minutes, and was renamed Caesar's Hour. There were fewer sketches, but that allowed for longer ones. Larry Gelbart and Woody Allen joined the writing staff. Cast additions included Janet Blair, Milt Kamen and Nanette Fabray. The show lasted 3 more seasons, until May 25, 1957.

In 1961, Reiner created The Dick Van Dyke Show, and wrote for it, based on his own experience having written for Your Show of Shows. So, essentially, Alan Brady was (hopefully, a very exaggerated version of) Sid, Rob Petrie was Carl, Laura Petrie was Carl's wife Estelle Reiner, and Richie is their son, actor and now director Rob Reiner. Though I don't think anybody ever called Richie, or his portrayer, Larry Matthews, a "meathead."

Carl and Mel would combine for "The 2,000-Year-Old Man." Carl would play an interviewer, and Mel played a 2,000-year-old man, not in old-age makeup, but wearing a hat and a cape, telling of his long and funny life:

Carl: What did you do for a living?
Mel: What didn't I do? I was a ten-of-all-trades!

Carl: A what?

Mel: A ten-of-all-trades!

Carl: You mean, a jack-of-all-trades?

Mel: I wasn't that good!

From there, Mel co-created the spy spoof series Get Smart with Buck Henry, and then became a film director, specializing in genre spoofs: Broadway shows with The Producers in 1968, Westerns with Blazing Saddles in 1974, horror films with Young Frankenstein in 1974, silent movies with Silent Movie in 1976, Alfred Hitchcock's films with High Anxiety in 1977, historical epics with History of the World Part I in 1981, and science fiction with Spaceballs in 1987.

In 1965, Neil Simon wrote the Broadway play The Odd Couple, basing the character of fussbudget Felix Ungar on his brother Danny. (The character's name would become "Felix Unger" for the 1970-75 TV show based on the play.)

In 2001, NBC aired its 75th Anniversary special. Sid Caesar, age 79, was brought on as a special guest, but he looked terribly old, was hunched over, with his mouth open, and walking on a cane. I thought this was terrible: Clearly, he wasn't well enough to do this. Then he started talking, and it was clear that his mind was still clear, as he went into his dialects, cracking the audience up as he had half a century earlier, and paid tribute to absent friends who were early NBC legends. He lived until February 12, 2014, at the age of 91.

Selma Diamond died in 1985, while she was playing court matron Selma Hacker on the NBC sitcom Night Court. Milt Kamen died in 1977, Tony Webster in 1987, James Starbuck in 1997, Lucille Kallen in 1999, Imogene Coca in 2001, Howard Morris and Danny Simon in 2005, Janet Blair and Mel Tolkin in 2007, Larry Gelbart in 2009, Joseph Stein in 2010, Nanette Fabray and Neil Simon in 2018, Carl Reiner in 2020. As of February 25, 2022, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen are still alive.

In 2002, with TV Guide preparing for its 50th Anniversary the next year, Your Show of Shows was ranked Number 30 on their list of the 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, for their 60th Anniversary, it was ranked Number 37 on their 60 Best Series of All Time. In 2007, Time magazine named it one of its 100 Best TV Shows of All-Time, although it didn't rank any. In 2013, Entertainment Weekly ranked it Number 10 on its Top 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. The same year, the Writers Guild of America ranked it Number 41 on its list of the 101 Best Written TV Series of All Time.

In 1989, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of television, People magazine named him #4 on their list of the Top 25 TV Personalities of All Time. The article asked 2 questions: "Is he still funny? Yes. As funny as he was? Nobody may ever be that funny again."

Monday, February 24, 2025

Al Trautwig, 1956-2025

The men and women who broadcast our sporting events become indelible parts of our lives, even more so than the ones who play them, because they can last longer, and in multiple sports. Al Trautwig was one of those people here in the New York Tri-State Area.

Alan Trautwig (apparently, no middle name) was born on February 26, 1956 on New York's Long Island -- early obituaries did not list a specific town. He graduated from H. Frank Carey Junior-Senior High School in Franklin Square, Nassau County, Long Island. It opened in 1956, named for a board of education president, and other notable graduates include soccer coach Bruce Arena, and Richie Cannata, longtime saxophone player for Billy Joel.

After being a founding franchise in the American Basketball Association in Teaneck in 1967-68, the New Jersey Americans moved to Long Island, and became the New York Nets. In 1972, they moved to the new Nassau Coliseum in Hempstead (mailing address of Uniondale), and the NHL put the expansion New York Islanders there. Al served as a ball boy for the Nets and a stick boy for the Isles.

He graduated from Adelphi University in Garden City, Long Island in 1978. He was hired by the school's radio station, WBAU, 90.3 FM, broadcasting for a professional soccer team, the New York Apollo, which in 1980 featured English soccer star Rodney Marsh. He was hired by WMCA, 570 AM, to broadcast games of the Major Indoor Soccer League's New York Arrows, who played at the Nassau Coliseum.

It was the early days of cable-TV sports, and USA Network hired him to broadcast hockey. This led to its parent network, NBC, giving him games to broadcast. He moved over to ABC and its subsidiary ESPN. In 1986 and 1987, he was a pit reporter alongside Jim McKay for ABC's coverage of the Indianapolis 500. He anchored U.S. Open tennis tournament coverage, the Tour de France, the Ironman Triathlon, international gymnastics events, and the New York City Marathon. Eventually, in 1995, he became one of the original hosts of Classic Sports Network, which was absorbed by ESPN and became ESPN Classic.

Al covered all of the "Big Four" sports on the Madison Square Garden network:

* MLB: From 1991 to 2001, he hosted the Yankees' pregame and postgame shows.

* NFL: From 1987 to 2004, he he hosted Jets Journal.

* NBA: From 2000 to 2019, he hosted the Knicks' pregame and postgame shows.

* NHL: From 1992 to 2021, he hosted the Rangers' pregame and postgame shows, and did play-by-play for them in the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons.

He got to cover the Yankees in 5 World Series, winning 4; the Rangers in 2 Stanley Cup Finals, winning 1; the Knicks in 2 NBA Finals, both lost; and the Jets in an AFC Championship Game, lost.

In 2006, he hosted a new MSG show named, appropriately enough, Al Trautwig's MSG Vault, featuring footage of Knicks and Rangers games from the 1960s onward. On this show, he once demonstrated that TV stations used to save money on expensive videotape by taping over games.

This is why we don't have videotape of so many big sporting events prior to the mid-1970s. It's why we don't have an entire videotaped broadcast of Super Bowl I in 1967, even though it was broadcast by 2 different networks, CBS and NBC. I'm glad somebody at NBC saved Super Bowl III for Jet fans and the Mets' home games in the 1969 World Series; and somebody at ABC saved Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals for the Knicks.

As part of MSG Vault, Al Trautwig showed the last 5 minutes of a Ranger game from 1975. When the broadcast ended, there was a flicker, and then the last 30 or so seconds of a 1974 Ranger game was played. At the end of that, there was another flicker, followed by the last minute and change of a 1972 Ranger games.

MSG opted not to renew Al's contract in 2021. He returned to Adelphi to teach, but developed cancer, and died yesterday, February 23, 2025, just short of his 69th birthday.

Marty Lyons, Jets All-Pro defensive lineman: "Al was a true professional at everything he did. Working with him for so many years on Jets Journal, we became close friends, and I used him as a mentor. When I was inducted to the Jets Ring of Honor, Al was on the field, which meant so much to me."

Bob Wischusen, Jets broadcaster: "When Al's voice was the first you heard to start a pregame, no one made a local broadcast feel bigger. He was also as nice as they come. Sending every good thought and prayer to his family. RIP."

Mike Vaccaro, New York Post columnist: "Very good company, and a damn good man."

Howie Rose, Mets broadcaster, formerly with the Rangers and the Islanders: "During my years broadcasting Islander games, whenever we brought in a new host/sideline reporter, if I was asked for advice I would simply say, 'Just watch Al Trautwig.' The best to ever do it. RIP."

Details on his survivors were not available at the time I posted this. All I know for sure is that he had a son, also named Alan.

Sunday, February 23, 2025

February 23, 1945: The Flag Raising On Iwo Jima

February 23, 1945, 80 years ago: Six U.S. Marines raise a flag at the peak of Mount Suribachi, the highest point on the formerly Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima. It is photographed by Joe Rosenthal, and becomes the most famous photograph of World War II.

In the "Pacific Theater" of World War II, U.S. troops had been "island hopping," getting an island closer to the Japanese "home islands," an island closer, an island closer. Iwo Jima, which has an airstrip, is 8.1 square miles, 750 miles southeast of the capital of Tokyo. Still a little too far to launch an aerial attack. But it was still one step closer, and it was also being used as an early warning station for the home islands: If the U.S. could take it, it would eliminate that warning ability. So it was still a viable target.

The Japanese Empire forcibly evacuated all civilians the year before, and, ever since, the island has been home only to military personnel stationed there. Officially, it is governed through the Tokyo Prefecture, Japan's equivalent of what Americans call a State.

The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 11 miles of tunnels. The American ground forces were supported by extensive naval artillery, and had complete air supremacy provided by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators throughout the battle. The five-week battle saw some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the Pacific phase of The War. (As my grandmother, who lived through it, reminded me: Always, Capital T, Capital W.)

The battle began on February 19. Four days later, the Marines had fought their way to the top of Mount Suribachi. A 54-by-28-inch flag -- 4-foot-6 by 2-foot-8 -- was attached to an iron water pipe they'd found, and was planted at 10:30 AM local time.

But Colonel Chandler Johnson decided that the flag wasn't big enough to be seen by all the troops on the island -- on both sides. He wanted a bigger one. He wanted the Japanese soldiers to see it, as a blow to their morale. One was found from a nearby ship: 96-by-56-inch, or 8-foot-even by 4-foot-8, taller than the first flag was long.

Six men raised it. From left to right in the photo, they were:

* Private 1st Class Ira Hayes, 22, a member of the Gila River tribe, from Sacaton, Arizona.

* Private 1st Class Harold Schultz, 20, from Detroit.

* Sergeant Michael Strank, 24, born in what is now Jarabina, Slovakia, and raised in Franklin, in Western Pennsylvania.

* Private 1st Class Franklin Sousley, 19, from Hill Top, Kentucky.

* Private 1st Class Harold Keller, 23, from Brooklyn, Iowa. And...

* Corporal Harlon Block, 20, from Weslaco, Texas.

Corporal René Gagnon was one of the men who carried the flag up to Mount Suribachi. He was long believed to be one of the men in the photograph. In 2019, an investigation revealed that the raiser previously thought to be Gagnon was actually Keller. And Navy Pharmacist's Mate Second Class John Bradley was another misidentified as one of the flag-raisers. In 2016, the figure thought to be Bradley was determined to be Sousley.

In addition to the photo by Rosenthal, a 33-year-old native of Washington, D.C., working for the Associated Press, a color film of the raising was made by Marine Sergeant Bill Genaust, 38, from Minneapolis.

Bill Genaust

But the battle was not over. Indeed, of the 6 men who raised the flag, 3 did not make it off the island alive: Strank was hit, probably by "friendly fire," an American artillery shell, on March 1; Block was killed by an enemy mortar shell later that same day; Genaust was killed 2 days later, trying to flush some enemy soldiers out of a cave; and Sousley was shot in the back by a Japanese sniper on March 21.

Michael Strank

When the Japanese finally surrendered on March 26, only 216 of the 21,000 men they started with had lived long enough to be taken prisoner. Of the 110,000 Americans to take part in the battle, 6,762 died -- more in 1 month on this one small island than died in the entire 8 years of the Iraq War.

Harlon Block

The next step was Okinawa, which was even bloodier. That was supposed to be the final stop before the invasion of the home islands, which might have been the deadliest battle in human history. It was prevented by the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan's subsequent surrender.

Franklin Sousley

Rosenthal's photo of the 2nd flag raising was published 2 days later, and became one of the iconic images in the history of warfare. It was used as the basis for the Marine Corps National Memorial, erected at Arlington National Cemetery in 1954.

In 1949, John Wayne made the film Sands of Iwo Jima, indelibly linking him with the U.S. military effort in World War II, and with the Marines in particular, even though he hadn't served in the war: He was classified 3-A, meaning he had a deferment as his family's sole means of support.

In the Vietnam War era, Wayne despised draft dodgers, but while he didn't serve himself, it should be noted that he did not dodge: He simply wasn't drafted, with what the Army thought was a good reason. Hayes, Gagnon and Bradley, then believed to be the 3 flag-raisers who survived the battle, were among the veterans who were cast as witnesses to the film's version of the flag-raising.

Ira Hayes

Hayes suffered from what was then called "shell shock" or "battle fatigue," what's now known as "post-traumatic stress disorder." He dealt with it by drinking, and a night of excess killed him in 1955, only 32 years old. In 1965, as part of a concept album of songs about Native Americans, Johnny Cash sang "The Ballad of Ira Hayes."

Keller became a fireman in his Iowa hometown, and died of a heart attack in 1979.

Harold Keller

Gagnon, who knew he wasn't one of the six flag-raisers, and never claimed he was one, became a travel agent in his native New Hampshire, and also died of a heart attack in 1979. Bradley, who admitted he had little to do with the flag-raising, also suffered from PTSD, became a mortician, and lived until 1994. Schultz moved to Los Angeles and became a postal worker. He was the last survivor of the six, falling victim to a heart attack on May 16, 1995, having lived just long enough to see the 50th Anniversaries of the flag-raising, and of V-E Day, though not of V-J Day.

Harold Schultz

Rosenthal outlived them all, dying in 2006, at the age of 94.

The U.S. kept control of Iwo Jima until 1968, at which point it returned control of the island to Japan. The 48-star, 13-stripe flag from the photo has been on display in the National Museum of the U.S. Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia since 2006.

It's probably the most famous flag in the world, of any kind, along with the Fort McHenry flag that became immortalized in "The Star-Spangled Banner," on September 14, 1814 in Baltimore. Since 1964, the 15-star, 15-stripe Fort McHenry flag, which had long since been reduced by souvenir-hunters from its original size of 30 by 42 feet (now 30 by 34), has been on display at the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution, on the National Mall in Washington.

The Fort McHenry Flag

February 23, 1945 was a Friday. This was also the day of another act of American heroism in the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Raid on Los Baños. A combined U.S. Army Airborne and Filipino guerrilla task force liberated 2,147 Allied civilian and military internees from an agricultural school campus that the Japanese army had turned into an internment camp.

Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And there were no games scheduled in the NHL. So there were no scores on this historic day -- except for the one that truly matters: Freedom 1, Tyranny 0. 2-0, if you count Los Baños.

Friday, February 21, 2025

February 21, 1965: Malcolm X Is Assassinated

February 21, 1965, 60 years ago: Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City. He was 39 years old -- the same age at which his competitor for the hearts and minds of black Americans, Martin Luther King Jr., would be, 3 years later.

He was born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, with the name Malcolm Little. His parents were admirers of Marcus Garvey, a believer in self-determination for black Americans through building their own economy within the larger American economy.

But when Malcolm was 6 years old, and the family was living in Lansing, Michigan, his father died under mysterious circumstances. Officially, he was hit by a streetcar. Both suicide and murder were suggested, as he had willingly run afoul of a local Ku Klux Klan offshoot. When Malcolm was 12, his mother had a nervous breakdown, and was committed.

He did well in school, but dropped out of high school at age 16, after telling a white teacher he wanted to become a lawyer, and the teacher told him that was "no realistic goal for a (N-word)." He moved in with his sister in Roxbury, a mostly-black neighborhood in Boston, then to the most classically black neighborhood of them all, Harlem in Upper Manhattan.

He worked for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, then as a restaurant dishwasher. Another dishwasher was also a black man with red hair, and was known as Chicago Red because he was from Chicago. Malcolm became known as Detroit Red, because he had lived in Michigan, even though he'd never actually lived in Detroit. Chicago Red's real name was John Sanford, but he went into comedy, and became Redd Foxx, later taking then name Fred Sanford for his TV sitcom Sanford and Son.

Malcolm developed side hustles, the kind normally associated with organized crime. When he was drafted to serve in World War II, he convinced the U.S. Army that he was mentally unstable, and received an exemption. In 1945, he went back to Boston, and built a gang that robbed the homes of wealthy white families.

But it was a smaller crime that got him sent to prison: In 1946, he went to a jewelry shop, to pick up a watch he'd left to be fixed. The watch was stolen, and he was caught, and was sentenced to 8 to 10 years.

In 1948, his brother Reginald wrote to him, telling him of the Nation of Islam, a black-oriented offshoot of mainstream Islam. Malcolm wrote to the Nation's leader, Elijah Muhammad, and the response he got led him to a regular correspondence and conversion. He began using the name "Malcolm X," the X, being a symbol of the unknown, taking the place of the family name he would have had if his family hadn't been taken out of Africa in slavery.

Malcolm was paroled in 1952, and went to Chicago, the NOI's headquarters, and met Elijah Muhammad face-to-face. He visited Detroit for the first time when Muhammad sent him to establish a Temple there. Much like an old-style Protestant "circuit rider," he was moved around quickly, to Boston, to Philadelphia, and settled in Harlem, where he led Temple Number 7 starting in 1954.

With his close-cropped hair, horn-rimmed glasses and sharp suits, he looked every inch the intellectual he was. He was 6-foot-3, and at 180 pounds, slim but strong. He was already one of the country's most effective public speakers, and had charisma to spare. Through his efforts, the NOI gained hundreds of new black members every month through the latter half of the 1950s.

That got the attention of the FBI. At the time, "Islamic terrorism" was unknown in North America, but Director J. Edgar Hoover didn't like it when black people demanded more power or, dare they say it, equality with white people. He considered both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King to be Communists, though neither was true.

In 1958, Malcom married Betty Sanders, who took the name Betty X. They had 6 children, all daughters. Malcolm had also begun using the name Malik el-Shabazz, though he was still usually referred to as "Malcolm X" in public. His wife Used the name Betty Shabazz for the rest of her life. In 1959, he was interviewed by Mike Wallace for a televised documentary, which was titled The Hate That Hate Produced.

That hate included calling white people "devils," and using lines like, "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us!" He called Dr. King "a chump," and the 1963 March On Washington "the farce on Washington."

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the NOI sent a message of condolence to the Kennedy family, whose work in electing the country's 1st President who was not a Protestant had moved the cause of religious freedom forward. Elijah Muhammad ordered his ministers not to comment on the assassination.

Malcolm did: On December 1, he cited the assassination, the bombing of a Birmingham church that killed 4 girls 2 months earlier, the murder of NAACP official Medgar Evers 3 months before that, and the assassination of Congo leader Patrice Lumumba 2 years before that, as "chickens coming home to roost." This statement seemed to infuriate everybody, and Elijah Muhammad suspended him from public speaking for 90 days.

The following month, Malcolm went to Miami, where he met with Cassius Clay, who was training to fight Sonny Liston for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. They became close, and after Clay won, he announced his conversion to the NOI, and took the name Muhammad Ali, which Elijah Muhammad had given him.

Something else was going on: Malcolm had begun to hear about Elijah Muhammad taking advantage of women in the NOI, including his secretaries. When Malcolm confronted him, Muhammad not only admitted it, but justified it, through his interpretation of prophecy.

On March 8, 1964, 12 days after Ali's win, Malcolm X announced that he had broken with the NOI. This caused a schism from which the NOI has never recovered. Ali sided with Elijah Muhammad. So did Malcolm's protege, Louis X, who later took the name Louis Farrakhan. Ali would eventually publicly regret his choice; Farrakhan, still alive at this writing, never has.

On March 26, Malcolm was at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, observing the debate over the bill that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dr. King was also there, and the two men met for the only time. They were together for only a minute or so, but photographs suggest that the meeting was cordial.

In April, he traveled to Saudi Arabia, to do what Islam demands that all of its followers able to do so do: Make a pilgrimage to the faith's the holiest site, the Kaaba in Mecca, a city that prohibits non-Muslims from entering. Ironically, given his intelligence and his chosen faith, he had never learned how to speak Arabic, and that caused Saudi officials to question his sincerity. Prince Faisal, who became King later in the year, intervened, and the pilgrimage was made.

Malcolm saw Muslims from all over the world there, from the darkest-skinned natives of Africa to pale, blue-eyed white people, to Asians from the nations of Indonesia and Malaysia. He soon dropped his "white devils" rhetoric, and began to speak of mainstream Sunni Islam as a unifying influence.

Upon his return, threats against him from the NOI -- far more from them than from white supremacists -- increased. In 1963, he had begun meeting with journalist Alex Haley, for the writing of an authorized biography. He told Haley, "If I'm alive when this book comes out, it will be a miracle." On December 4, 1964, Muhammad Speaks, the NOI's official newspaper, published a column by Farrakhan, saying, "Such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death."

And on February 14, 1965, his house in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City was burned down. On February 19, he told photojournalist Gordon Parks, who would later direct the film Shaft, that the NOI was actively trying to kill him.

On February 21, he prepared to address a new organization he had founded, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, at the Audubon Ballroom at 165th Street and Broadway, in the Washington Heights section of Upper Manhattan. Before he could begin his speech, a man yelled out for another man to get his hand out of his pocket. There was some pushing, and Malcolm's bodyguards came forward to try to stop the disturbance.

It was a ruse. Talmadge Hayer, a NOI member, took out a sawed-off shotgun, and shot Malcolm in the chest. Two other gunmen opened fire with pistols. Malcolm was taken across the street, to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, but he had no chance. He was pronounced dead at 3:30 PM.

Dr. King did not attend his funeral, but other civil rights leaders did, including Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, Andrew Young and John Lewis. Actor Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy, and would repeat it for Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X, in which Malcolm was played by Denzel Washington. Davis' wife, actress Ruby Dee, and actor Sidney Poitier's wife Juanita raised money for a new home for Betty and the 6 Shabazz daughters. Malcolm was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York.

Hayer was convicted, and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, where he took the name Mujahid Abdul Halim. He was paroled in 2010, after 45 years. As of February 21, 2025, he is still alive, and has never identified his accomplices, only saying that the other 2 men convicted in the shooting were innocent. He is still a practicing Muslim, but has left the Nation of Islam, no longer agreeing with their ideology. He has expressed "regrets and sorrow" for having shot Malcolm X.

Norman Butler, later Muhammad Abdul Aziz, served 20 years, and his conviction was later overturned. Thomas Johnson, later Khalil Islam, served 22 years, and maintained his innocence until his death in 2009.

In 1975, Malcolm's widow, who had been studying to be a nurse when they met, completed her doctorate in nursing, and was known as Dr. Betty Shabazz from then on. She occasionally joined Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, for joint appearances until her death in 1997. Afterward, their daughters Bernice King and Attallah Shabazz, each having followed their father into their respective faiths' clergy, have worked together.

In 1992, most of the Audubon Ballroom was demolished, but its outer facade was kept, and Columbia University's Audubon Business and Technology Center was built on the site. On May 19, 2005, which would have been Malcolm's 80th birthday, the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center opened in the building's lobby.

Other nearby memorials include the renaming of 6th Avenue in Harlem, which had already been Lenox Avenue, as Malcolm X Boulevard; and the renaming of Newark's South Side High School for him.