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Quotes of the Month

Let the workers organize. Let their voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of labor is the future of America.

~John L. Lewis

Improving the outlook for US workers isn't about creating millions of minimum-wage jobs. It is about creating sustainable, skilled employment that allows Americans to earn a fair wage with benefits that allows them to pay for housing and put food on the table and sustain a middle-class lifestyle.

~James P. Hoffa

Political freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

~Mikhail Bakunin

Labor Day celebrates the power of collective action in defense of the dignity of work.

~EJ Dionne

More than a Labor Day, America needs an all-out labor rebellion.

~Jim Hightower

Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

~Adam Smith

News of the Month

Labor Day, an annual celebration of workers and their achievements, originated during one of American labor history’s most dismal chapters. In the late 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the US, the average American worked 12-hour days and 7-day weeks in order to eke out a basic living. Despite restrictions in some states, children as young as 5 or 6 toiled in mills, factories and mines across the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages. People of all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants, often faced extremely unsafe working conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities and breaks. As manufacturing increasingly supplanted agriculture as the source of American employment, labor unions, which had first appeared in the late 18th century, grew more prominent and vocal. They began organizing strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions and compel employers to renegotiate hours and pay. Many events turned violent during this period. Others gave rise to longstanding traditions. On September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in New York City, holding the first Labor Day parade in US history. Labor Day alone didn’t change much. But from the 1930s through 1950s, labor unions were on the rise and one in every three workers was unionized, ushering in a new middle class, safety procedures and a voice at work.

According to American labor leader Peter J McGuire, who is often credited with founding the holiday (although others claim union leader Matthew Maguire actually did), Labor Day celebrates the everyday men and women who work to create "all the grandeur we behold." The idea of a workingmen’s holiday, celebrated on the first Monday in September, caught on in other industrial centers across the nation and many states passed legislation recognizing it. Oregon was the first state to recognize the holiday. It made Labor Day a legal holiday on February 21, 1887. That same year, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York also legally adopted the holiday, although Congress did not legalize a national holiday until 12 years later. Labor unions bring to mind the concept of solidarity but the long-standing goals of the labor movement also enhance individual freedom. Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor and an advocate of making Labor Day a national celebration, lifted up freedom in a commentary on the holiday in 1910. “The struggle of labor,” he declared, “is to free man from his own weakness … from his own unfair, unjust and unnecessarily cruel environments,” and to bring forward “the day of deliverance from absurd economic conditions and cruel burdens.” In a Labor Day address in 1941, just months before Pearl Harbor drew the US into WWII, President Franklin D Roosevelt underscored that “one of the first acts of the Axis dictatorships has been to wipe out all the principles and standards which labor had been able to establish for its own preservation and advancement. Trade unionism is a forbidden philosophy under these rule-or-ruin dictators for [it] demands full freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Trade unionism has helped to give to everyone who toils the position of dignity which is his due.” Despite the successes of the past, though, all is not currently well with American labor.

Today, around 200 million American workers are producing goods and services more efficiently than ever. The average hourly employee’s productivity has increased 80% over the past four decades. Many work longer and harder than ever before - the average American now spends 41 hours per week on the job - yet half of all workers make less than $1,139 a week, a figure that, adjusted for inflation, matches the level of earnings 20 years ago. Wages aren’t keeping up with rising costs. According to experts, a minimum of $25 an hour constitutes a living wage throughout the US economy … and 50% of US workers earn less than that. Too, 55% of Americans don't use all of their paid time off and 33% of Americans' vacation time went unused in 2020, even though 80% of Americans would take time off if their bosses were more supportive. And those figures include only the workers who actually get paid vacations. In the US (the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation days and paid holidays), 31% of Americans don’t get any paid vacation or paid holidays. Nor is job-protected paid sick leave, medical leave or family leave guaranteed in the US. Economic disparities, long-term unemployment, wage stagnation, inflation and other challenges remain problems in a struggling US economy. Unions are a much smaller part of the American economy than they once were, representing only 6% of private-sector workers. Still, unions allow their members to earn substantially more than similar workers who are not unionized. Research suggests that union decline has contributed significantly to the rise in inequality in America.

A few years ago, some parts of the labor movement, particularly at the rank-and-file level, seemed to have reached their breaking point. Dissatisfaction with pay and benefits, job security and working conditions led more and more US workers to decide that once again the best way to get what they wanted was through collective bargaining. There was an increase in employee activism, a flurry of new union activity across the country and a dramatic increase in the number of election petitions to form unions. For the first time in decades labor contracts ratified in 2023 provided union-represented workers with an average first-year pay raise of 7%. Many young people saw hope in the flurry of new organizing efforts, especially in industries not previously unionized. For example, union drives could help hospitality workers gain the job security and pay that autoworkers achieved decades ago, once again transforming the prospects of the American middle class. And the American public seems to agree. Americans generally like unions and broadly support the right of workers to unionize. A majority (71%) holds a favorable view of unions, the highest since 1965. A majority of Americans (55%) says labor unions positively affect the country and 58% sees the long-term decline in the share of workers represented by unions as a bad thing for both the country and working people.

Interestingly, much of the recent union organizing took place in industries and companies that previously avoided union representation. Mega-corporations, especially in retail, tech and service, had long kept out unions … until recently. Historically, unions advanced during booms of successful activity in favorable legal, political and economic circumstances. But these booms were often followed by employers’ innovations in reducing unions’ effectiveness and increasing legal restrictions, leading to union busts. If companies resisted negotiating contracts, a possible union response was to threaten to strike and shut down production. Historically, strikes were a major way that workers were able to win higher wages and union recognition, from the sit-down strikes in the 1930s to the public-sector strikes in the 1960s to the Justice for Janitors strikes around the 1990s to the more recent educator strikes. But as new union elections declined over the past 50 years, so did strikes - and as union elections increased in the recent past, strikes increased as well. When new unions form, win their first contracts or win strikes, it inspires other workers to do the same. A few years ago, it appeared that frustrated workers were inspiring one another nationwide. But much of that momentum was crowded out by anxieties: a worsening affordability crisis, geopolitical instability and the specter of artificial intelligence looming over the workplace.

Blue-collar workers, who have long grappled with surveillance and optimization at work, are now worrying that technological advancements will make their jobs even more dehumanizing. White-collar workers are now wondering if their work will begin to resemble blue-collar labor, either because they will be similarly tracked and managed, or because they will need to switch to more manual work that’s resistant to being taken over by AI. It feels as if workers haven’t been this vulnerable in a long time. In some ways, that’s true, but this may also be a pivotal moment. Society’s collective anxiety over AI may be unexpectedly catalyzing workers to push back. According to Sarita Gupta, the Ford Foundation’s vice-president of US programs, “When you have a young Silicon Valley software engineer realize that their performance is tracked or undermined by the same logic as a working-class warehouse picker, class divisions dissolve, and larger working-class movements for dignity are possible.” Because people across industries and income brackets are anxious and frustrated, the rise of AI may be an opening for the labor movement to regain some of the power it has lost after decades of attacks from employers in terms of how workers are treated and how the rewards of productivity are distributed. The question of worker power in the age of AI hasn’t been decided yet, even if billionaire CEOs with a vested interest in the unregulated dominance of AI keep implying that it has.

But it’s difficult to organize a union in the US. Due to delay tactics and appeals, it takes an average of 465 days for workers to reach a first union contract, and it can be much longer in many cases. Most employers have a greater ability to simply “wait it out” than do their rank-and-file employees. It’s very rare for employers to accept worker unionization without a fight and there’s little punishment for violating the law. Over the years, an entire industry has developed around union avoidance, including consultants who specialize in helping employers form strategies to prevent unionization and defeat unions. Anti-union propagandists, threats, delays by employers, intimidation (at least implicitly) of workers trying to organize and even the termination of workers, has hindered US workers in exercising their right to unionize. A couple of years ago, for example, Amazon fought every attempt to organize its workers, targeting union supporters, holding anti-union meetings, challenging union elections and even arguing in court that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which supervises and enforces labor law, is unconstitutional. (If there’s no agency to enforce labor law, there won’t be much of a labor movement left.) Joining a union is a risk and workers have to believe that it’s worth the risk. But because polling places are at workers’ job sites, the current system is so stacked against unions that they cannot fairly compete with employers. US employers are charged with violating labor law in 41.5% of all union elections. Although there are penalties for unfair and illegal labor practices, those penalties are often modest and are sometimes imposed only many years later. Even as the risks for workers increase, the risks for employers decrease. US employers have learned how to defeat unionization efforts, even when the majority of their workers want to be represented by a union and desire a greater voice in the workplace. Employers always have the choice to voluntarily recognize a union or agree to a neutrality agreement. If they don’t, that’s a choice to try to bend the will of workers who are seeking to exercise their rights to free association, and that’s immoral and offensive to democratic values and the right to free association.

Labor laws, meant to protect workers’ rights to organize, have failed to effectively adapt to the changing dynamics of work. States have passed laws that make it easier for employers to restrict unions and replace workers. For instance, half of states now have “right to work” laws that make it optional for workers to pay union dues, even when a union’s bargaining must apply to all workers. Companies routinely use legal and illegal tactics to prevent unions from forming, including hiring union-avoidance firms, threatening to close workplaces if a union forms, holding mandatory meetings to persuade workers to vote no, offering new perks and promises of better conditions, and bogging down election processes with legal challenges. US employers spend more than $1.5B a year on labor union opposition efforts, hiring consultants ($442M) and law firms specializing in union avoidance, and on legal counsel, representation and litigation services during union elections and organizing campaigns. Amazon alone spent $26.6M in 2025 on union-avoidance consultants. That’s millions or even billions of dollars that are not going toward workers or their workplaces. The decline of unionization over the past several decades is due, at least in part, to the rise of union-avoidance law firms and consultants. One union-avoidance law firm, Littler Mendelson (which has represented Amazon, Starbucks and Delta Air Lines in union campaigns) has its own Workplace Policy Institute that tracks and opposes state and federal legislation aimed at expanding workers’ rights, and exploits loopholes and weaknesses in labor law and reporting requirements in an effort to erode worker rights, not just for union workers or workers trying to form unions, but for workers at large. US employers already hold significant power over workers, and the use of union-avoidance consultants and law firms further magnifies that imbalance.

Although US union organizing experienced a small increase in the past few years, the long-term trend has been a steady decline in unions. Other advanced economies are still strongly unionized so what happened in America? The most plausible explanation is that beginning in the 1970s, employers became very aggressive in fighting unionization efforts and were empowered to do so by a political climate, especially after the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, in which Republicans were hostile to organized labor while Democrats were at best weakly supportive. Although Joe Biden, who joined a UAW picket line in Michigan, was arguably the most pro-labor president since Harry Truman, recent decisions by the US Supreme Court made it more difficult for the NLRB to intervene when a company was accused of illegally suppressing labor organizing. Too, during his second term in 2025, Donald Trump took significant steps to diminish the power of unions, both federal and private-sector. For example, Jeff Bezos’s multi-million dollar capitulation to Trump freed him to dodge labor laws at both the state and federal levels (including antitrust law and two labor statutes, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act), resulting in the abrupt end of several years-long labor cases against Amazon to the detriment of Amazon workers. And that’s only one example. With the decline of unions, corporations chipped away at the conventional mid-century work arrangement, which involved steady employment, opportunities for advancement and raises, and decent pay with some benefits. In the long term, the decline of unions hurt all workers. Studies have found that union members make about 20% more on average than otherwise similar nonunionized workers. Those additional wages often come out of corporate profits, explaining how the decline of unions has contributed to our rising economic inequality. The shrinking of unions effectively redistributes income from low- and middle-income workers to affluent investors. Then there are the political effects of union decline. Studies have shown that the passage of right-to-work laws reduces the vote by about 3% on average because unions help turn out voters and focus them on economic issues.

Economists say that increasing union membership to just 30% of US workers (union membership’s peak in the 1950s) would result in a number of benefits. It would raise wages for the median worker - all workers, not just union members - by $7,700 a year, shifting an estimated $1.2T to workers annually. That shift would narrow the K-shaped pattern of economic growth we see now, where labor is earning a decreasing share of GDP while CEOs get even richer. It would also decrease racial pay disparities affecting Black and Latino workers. Of course, there are other benefits to unionization. Unions tend to win better benefits for workers, including health insurance, retirement savings, paid time off and job protections. Increasing the rate of unionization would fundamentally transform the economy and politics more broadly because strong unions give workers a voice in shaping their communities. High-union-membership states invest more in public education. They deliver unemployment insurance benefits to a much greater share of jobless workers. The list goes on and on. To the extent that strong unions are a driving force behind those things, increasing union membership creates better outcomes on a huge array of factors. Perhaps most importantly, unions protect democracy.

Without meaningful federal labor legislation, increasing union membership at all - much less to 30% - will be difficult. However, it is a fact that an increase in union membership has far-reaching positive benefits, economically and politically. It is a fact that Americans view unions positively and Americans believe their decline is bad for the nation. If Congress can’t do what is needed to truly support and protect unions, maybe it is a fact that we need a new Congress. CEOs will always put their own interests first. Our elected representatives are supposed to put the nation’s interests first. If they don’t, American workers need to … at the ballot box. Labor Day honors the struggles of American workers to live lives of their own choosing with a degree of prosperity, security and freedom. The low unemployment rate that developed during the pandemic altered the balance of power between employers and employees, creating an environment that fostered union membership and resulted in the formation of unions at several high-profile companies. The question now is whether there was a real, lasting change in public opinion and worker attitudes about the need for a stronger worker voice. The question now is whether the people we elect to Congress will step up and provide meaningful support for workers. The question now is whether we want a nation that works for everyone, including US workers.

Resources:

See How the Average US Worker Has Changed Over 250 Years

A Crucial Labor Day for Unions – Remember Why This Matters

Workers deserve real power.

DOL Wage and Hour Division: Worker Rights

DOL Wage and Hour Division: State Minimum Wage Laws

Why the US Is Ranked as One of the Worst Countries for Workers’ Rights

National Labor Relations Board

Laws That Protect Employees

Labor Rights and Civil Rights

Library of Congress: America at Work

Know Your Workplace Rights

History Channel: The Labor Movement

No One Knows Their Legal Rights at Work

Seven Ways the US Lags Behind the Rest of the Developed World in Providing Worker Protections

How Organized Labor Protects US Workers against Unfair and Illegal Employment Practices

The Right to Unionize

US Employment & Labor Laws and Regulations

The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions In The US

The Best and Worst States for Workers

The Worst States for Workers Have Something in Common

A Map of the Campaign to Suppress Workers’ Rights in the States

Labor Action Tracker

State of the US Unions 2025

Then and Now

September 15 through October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month.

   09/01/1864 - Atlanta fell to Union forces.

   09/01/1939 - WWII began as Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

   09/01/1941 - Germany ordered Jews over the age of six in German-occupied areas to wear yellow Stars of David.

   09/01/1942 - A federal judge in Sacramento upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-Americans as well as Japanese nationals.

   09/01/1951 - The US, Australia and New Zealand signed a mutual defense pact, ANZUS.

   09/01/1961 - The Soviet Union ended a moratorium on atomic testing with an aboveground nuclear explosion in central Asia. President John Kennedy followed with underground testing in mid-September 1961, but delayed atmospheric testing until the spring of 1962. Both sides tested more than 200 weapons during 1961 and 1962.

   09/01/1998 - Federal legislation made airbags mandatory.

   09/02/1666 - The Great Fire of London broke out claiming thousands of homes but only a few lives.

   09/02/1789 - The US Treasury Department was established.

   09/02/1901 - VP Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice: Speak softly and carry a big stick.

   09/02/1945 - Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam an independent republic.

   09/02/1945 - Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, ending WWII.

   09/02/1963 - Alabama Governor George Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers.

   09/02/1969 - The first ATM opened for business.

   09/02/1973 - JRR Tolkien, the author of the best-selling fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, died at the age of 81 in Bournemouth, England.

   09/02/1998 - A UN court handed down the first international conviction for genocide, finding Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts,

   09/02/2026 - VJ Day

   09/03/1777 - The American flag was flown in battle for the first time during a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch's Bridge, Delaware.

   09/03/1783 - The Treaty of Paris between the US and Great Britain officially ended the Revolutionary War.

   09/03/1939 - Britain and France declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland. Despite the declaration of war, there was initially only limited engagement between the German and British militaries. This period is consequently known as the Phoney War.

   09/03/1955 - Emmett Till was buried, and his disfigured body was showcased to the world upon his mother's deliberate decision to have an open casket funeral. Till was a fourteen-year-old African-American boy from Chicago. While visiting his uncle in Mississippi, Till was brutally murdered after allegedly whistling at a white woman in a grocery store. Pictures from Till's funeral were published in numerous magazines and newspapers, reigniting a widespread passion for the Civil Rights Movement.

   09/03/1978 - The Roman Catholic Church installed Pope John Paul I as its 263rd pontiff. Though in office for only about a month, he was loved for his ability to be close to ordinary people.

   09/04/476CE - The Western Roman Empire fell when Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a German barbarian who proclaimed himself king of Italy … But that’s not really what happened.

   09/04/1781 - Spanish settlers founded Los Angeles.

   09/04/1886 - The last Native American warrior surrendered when Geronimo, the wiliest and most dangerous Apache warrior of his time, finally surrendered in Skeleton Canyon AZ.

   09/04/1951 - President Harry S Truman's opening speech before a conference in San Francisco was broadcast across the nation, marking the first time a television program was broadcast from coast to coast. The speech focused on Truman's acceptance of a treaty that officially ended America's post-WWII occupation of Japan.

   09/04/1957 - Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock.

   09/04/1962 - The Beatles had their first official recording session for EMI, Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You.

   09/04/2026 - Janmashtami/Krishna Janma (Birthday of Krishna) – Hindu

   09/05/1774 - In response to the British Parliament's enactment of the Coercive Acts in the American colonies, the first session of the Continental Congress convened at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Adams and John Jay were among the delegates.

   09/05/1793 - The Reign of Terror began during the French Revolution as the National Convention instituted harsh measures to repress counterrevolutionary activities.

   09/05/1836 - The Republic of Texas elected Sam Houston as president.

   09/05/1877 - After his victory at Little Bighorn, US Army forces led by Colonel Nelson Miles pursued Crazy Horse and his followers. His tribe suffered from cold and starvation, and on May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to General George Crook at the Red Cloud Indian Agency in Nebraska. He was sent to Fort Robinson NE, where he was fatally bayoneted on this date by a US soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse.

   09/05/1972 - Arab terrorists attacked the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympic Games. Eleven Israelis, five terrorists and a German police officer were killed.

   09/05/2026 - National Hummingbird Day

   09/06/1975 - Czechoslovak tennis star Martina Navratilova, in NY for the US Open, requested political asylum.

   09/06/2026 - Read a Book Day

   09/07/1901 - The Boxer Protocol ended the Boxer Rebellion in China.

   09/07/1940 - Nazi Germany began its Blitz on London during WWII, on what has come to be known as Black Saturday.

   09/07/1977 - The Torrijos–Carter Treaties, calling for the US to eventually turn over control of the Panama Canal to Panama, were signed in Washington.

   09/07/1979 - Lee Leonard introduced sports fans to ESPN as the channel simultaneously debuted its first SportsCenter telecast.

   09/07/2026 - Labor Day

   09/08/1664 - The Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.

   09/08/1900 - A hurricane that killed about 8,000 people stuck Galveston TX. It was the greatest natural disaster to ever strike the US.

   09/08/1935 - Senator Huey P Long (the Kingfish) of Louisiana politics was shot and morally wounded. He died two days later.

   09/08/1952 - Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea was first published.

   09/08/1971 - The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in Washington DC with a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.

   09/08/1974 - President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Richard Nixon.

   09/08/2026 - Star Trek Day … Trekkies Unite!

   09/09/1776 - The Second Continental Congress made the name United States of America official, replacing United Colonies.

   09/09/1948 - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) was established.

   09/09/1957 - President Dwight D Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights bill to pass Congress since Reconstruction.

   09/09/1976 - Communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong died in Beijing at the age of 82.

   09/09/2002 - Iraq challenged the US and Britain to produce "one piece of evidence" that it was producing weapons of mass destruction.

   09/10/1608 - John Smith became president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.

   09/10/1846 - Elias Howe received a patent for his sewing machine.

   09/10/1939 - Canada declared war on Nazi Germany.

   09/10/1955 - Gunsmoke premiered on CBS.

   09/10/1963 - Twenty black students entered Alabama public schools in Birmingham, Mobile and Tuskegee, following a standoff between federal authorities and Governor George Wallace.

   09/10/1991 - The Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court.

   09/11/1973 - Chilean President Salvador Allende died in a US-backed violent military coup.

   09/11/1997 - Scots voted to create their own Scottish Parliament after 290 years of union with England.

   09/11/2001 - Terrorists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade towers in NYC and the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

   09/11/2022 - After months of Russian encroachment, Ukrainian forces pushed the Russian military back, reclaiming over a thousand square miles. Russia lost nearly all of the northeastern region of Kharkiv, infuriating Putin and demonstrating Ukraine’s ability to repel the Russian military by force. In response, the Russians attacked Ukrainian infrastructure, leaving many without power and water.

   09/11/2026 - National 401(k) Day

   09/11/2026 - Patriot Day

   09/11/2026 - Rastafari New Year – Rastafari

   09/11/2026 - Rosh Hashanah begins this evening and ends at sundown on the 13th – Judaism

   09/12/1609 - English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name.

   09/12/1944 - During WWII, US Army troops entered Germany for the first time near Trier.

   09/12/2000 - Hillary Rodham Clinton became the only First Lady to win an election as she claimed victory in the NY Democratic Senate primary.

   09/13/1948 - Elected to the US Senate, Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine became the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

   09/13/2023 - A Ukrainian missile strike badly damaged a submarine and ship dry-docked at Russia's Black Sea Fleet main port in Sevastopol, Crimea. A few days later, Ukraine struck fleet headquarters, killing 34 senior Russian officers. Russia moved much of its fleet to Russia, giving Ukraine more leeway in the Black Sea.

   09/13/2026 - Grandparents’ Day

   09/14/1814 - On this evening, Francis Scott Key stood onboard the ship Minden in Chesapeake Bay and composed the lines known as The Star-Spangled Banner.

   09/14/2026 - Ganesh Chaturthi – Hindu

   09/15/1821 - Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador proclaimed their independence from Spain, by signing the Act of Independence of Central America in Guatemala City.

   09/15/1935 - The Nuremberg Laws deprived German Jews of their citizenship and made the swastika the official symbol of Nazi Germany.

   09/15/1963 - A bomb went off during Sunday services at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham AL killing four black girls.

   09/15/2026 - September 15 through October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month.

   09/15/2026 - Happy Costa Rica Independence Day!

   09/16/1810 - Mexico began its revolt against Spanish rule.

   09/16/1919 - The American Legion was incorporated by an act of Congress.

   09/16/1940 - Sam Rayburn of Texas became Speaker of the US House.

   09/16/1940 - President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act which set up the first peacetime military draft in US history.

   09/16/2026 - Mexican Independence Day

   09/16/2026 - Mayflower Day

   09/17/1787 - A majority of delegates attending the constitutional convention in Philadelphia completed and signed the Constitution of the US.

   09/17/1862 - The Battle at Antietam was the bloodiest day of fighting in American history with over 23,000 killed, wounded or missing. President Lincoln took advantage of the Union strategic victory to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation a few days later.

   09/17/1920 - The American Professional Football Association, a precursor of the National Football League, was formed in Canton OH.

   09/17/1939 - The Soviet Union invaded Poland, more than two weeks after Nazi Germany launched its assault.

   09/17/1978 - After meeting at Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords, a framework for a peace treaty.

   09/17/2026 - Citizenship Day and Constitution Day (Federal law now requires all schools receiving federal funding to teach the Constitution on this day. Doesn’t that seem a little contrary to the spirit of the Constitution?)

   09/18/1793 - George Washington laid the US Capitol cornerstone at the southeast corner of its foundation to mark the building of the nation's most symbolically important and architecturally impressive building. Home to both chambers of the US Congress since 1800, including the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Capitol building also previously held the Library of Congress until 1897 and the US Supreme Court until 1935. Having undergone several expansion projects since its initial construction, the US Capitol now covers over 1.5 million square feet, has over 600 rooms and miles of corridors.

   09/18/1850 - Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act which allowed slave owners to reclaim slaves who had escaped to other states.

   09/18/1970 - Jimi Hendrix, a self-taught American rock superstar, singer, songwriter and iconic guitarist, died in London from drug-related complications at age 27. Hendrix was known for his innovative electric guitar playing. One of his most memorable performances was at Woodstock in 1969, where he performed a rock guitar rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner.

   09/19/1796 - President Washington's farewell address was published.

   09/19/1912 - When feminist Rebecca West, 19, reviewed Marriage by HG Wells, 45, and called him "the old maid among novelists," Wells asked to meet her. By the next spring, they had embarked on what became a 10-year love affair.

   09/19/1957 - The US conducted its first fully contained underground nuclear test, code named Rainier, in the Nevada desert.

   09/19/1986 - Federal health officials announced that the experimental drug AZT would be made available to thousands of AIDS patients.

   09/19/2026 - International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) is the world's largest single-day volunteer effort to remove trash from beaches, lakes and rivers, documenting debris to build the world's largest marine database. Volunteers use the Clean Swell App to log every item of trash picked up, helping scientists track pollution trends.

   09/20/1519 - Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain on a voyage to find a western passage to the Spice Islands in Indonesia.

   09/20/2001 - President George W Bush gave an address to a joint session of Congress cautioning the nation that there were "struggles ahead and dangers to face."

   09/20/2026 - Yom Kippur (Atonement) begins at sunset and ends tomorrow night – Judaism

   09/21/1780 - Benedict Arnold’s plan to surrender the fort at West Point NY to British forces was discovered. Arnold was an American military officer who served during the Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defecting to the British side of the conflict in 1780. General George Washington had given him his fullest trust and had placed him in command of West Point in New York. Arnold was planning to surrender the fort there to British forces, but when the plot was discovered, he fled to the British lines. In the later part of the conflict, Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army, and placed in command of the American Legion. He led the British army in battle against the soldiers whom he had once commanded, after which his name became synonymous with treason and betrayal.

   09/21/1792 - The French National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy.

   09/21/1897 - The New York Sun ran its famous editorial that declared, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

   09/21/1970 - NFL Monday Night Football made its debut on ABC.

   09/21/1981 - The Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

   09/22/1776 - Nathan Hale was hanged as a spy by the British during the Revolutionary War.

   09/22/1862 - President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that declared all slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863.

   09/22/1980 - The Persian Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into full-scale war, when Iraqi forces led by Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. The brutal conflict lasted for nearly eight years.

   09/22/2026 - First Day of Autumn … also known as the Autumn Equinox (when day and night are nearly equal in length)

   09/22/2026 - Autumn Equinox – Wicca, Celtic

   09/23/1806 - The Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis from the Pacific Northwest.

   09/23/1846 - German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet Neptune.

   09/23/1949 - President Harry S Truman publicly announced that the Soviet Union had conducted an atomic explosion, ending the American nuclear monopoly years earlier than US officials anticipated.

   09/23/1957 - A white mob forced nine black students (The Little Rock Nine) who had entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas to withdraw.

   09/23/2026 - Autumn Equinox Day – Shinto

   09/24/1789 - Congress passed the First Judiciary Act which provided for an Attorney General and a Supreme Court.

   09/25/1690 - Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick, the first newspaper published in America, was printed by Richard Pierce and edited by Benjamin Harris in Boston. It contained 3 printed pages and 1 blank page. Although it was intended to be a regularly published newspaper, four days later the Governor’s Council ordered Harris never again to publish the newspaper or any other newspaper in the colony.

   09/25/1789 - The first US Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten were ratified as the Bill of Rights in 1791, one later became the 27th Amendment, and one failed.

   09/25/1897 - Author William Faulkner was born in New Albany MS.

   09/25/1957 - With 300 US Army troops standing guard, nine black children forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, because of unruly white crowds, were escorted to class.

   09/25/1979 - Evita opened on Broadway.

   09/25/1981 - Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in to the Supreme Court. She was the first woman nominated and the first confirmed to the court. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she was considered the swing vote for the Rehnquist Court and the first five months of the Roberts Court. O'Connor's relatively small shift away from conservatives on the Court seems to have been due at least in part to Justice Clarence Thomas's views. When Thomas and O'Connor were voting on the same side, she would typically write a separate opinion of her own, refusing to join his. In the 1992 term, O'Connor did not join a single one of Thomas's dissents. She retired in 2005.

   09/25/2026 - Roi Wangol, Mousindi – Vodou

   09/25/2026 - Anant Chaturdashi – Hindu

   09/25/2026 - Sukkot begins at sunset and ends at nightfall on October 2nd. It is followed immediately by Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah from sundown on October 2nd through nightfall on October 4th. – Judaism

   09/26/1789 - Thomas Jefferson was confirmed by the US Senate as America's first Secretary of State.

   09/26/1914 - The Federal Trade Commission was established, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Trade Commission Act into law.

   09/26/1950 - UN troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans.

   09/26/1960 - The first televised debate between presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John Kennedy took place in Chicago.

   09/26/1962 - The Beverly Hillbillies premiered on CBS.

   09/26/1986 - William Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the US Supreme Court.

   09/26/2024 - After making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane and tearing through the Gulf Coast of Florida, Hurricane Helene plowed north through Georgia and walloped the Blue Ridge Mountains, washing out roads, causing landslides, knocking out power and cell service for millions of people, and obliterating whole towns. Helene carved a path of destruction through the region, including portions of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia,. With over 252 confirmed fatalities, Helene is the second-deadliest hurricane to make landfall in the US mainland since 1950.

   09/26/2026 - No Nukes Day

   09/27/1779 - John Adams was appointed as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain.

   09/27/1954 - The Tonight Show, hosted by Steve Allen, debuted on NBC.

   09/27/1964 - The Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President John F Kennedy.

   09/27/1996 - Afghanistan's Taliban drove President Burhanuddin Rabbani's government out of Kabul, captured the capital and founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

   09/27/2026 - Gold Star Mother’s Day

   09/28/1066 - William the Conqueror invaded England to claim the English throne.

   09/28/1542 - Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrived at present-day San Diego, marking the first European landing in California. He sailed into San Diego Bay with three ships - the flagship San Salvador, the Victoria and the San Jose.

   09/28/1850 - The US Navy abolished flogging as a form of punishment.

   09/29/1789 - The US War Department established a regular army with several hundred men.

   09/29/2008 - By a vote of 225–208, with most Democrats in support and Republicans against, the US House of Representatives rejected the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which included a $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. In response, the DJIA dropped 777.68 points, or 6.98%, then the largest point drop in history. The S&P 500 Index fell 8.8% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 9.1%. Several stock market indices worldwide fell 10%. Gold prices soared to $900/ounce. The economic crisis (or Global Financial Crisis) of 2008, which started in the US but spread to the rest of the world, was the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929. Predatory lending targeting low-income homebuyers, excessive risk-taking by global financial institutions and the bursting of the US housing bubble culminated in a "perfect storm." Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to American real estate, as well as a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBSs, collapsed in value. Financial institutions worldwide suffered severe damage, reaching a climax with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, and a subsequent international banking crisis. If you’re interested in the details, try books Crash Proof by Peter Schiff and Meltdown by Thomas Woods, movies Inside Job (2010), The Big Short (2015) and Too Big to Fail (2011), or Frontline 2009 episodes Inside the Meltdown, Ten Trillion and Counting, Breaking the Bank and The Warning.

   09/29/2026 - National Coffee Day

   09/29/2026 - Feast day of Manman Aloumandia (St Anne) – Vodou

   09/30/1791 - Mozart's opera The Magic Flute premiered in Vienna.

   09/30/1868 - The first volume of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was published.

   09/30/1954 - The US Navy commissioned the first atomic-powered vessel, the submarine Nautilus.

   09/30/1962 - Black student James Meredith succeeded on his fourth try in registering for classes at the University of Mississippi.

   09/30/2026 - Maitresse Délai – Vodou

Online Resource Links

   How Wobbly Is Our Democracy? | The American Abyss | US is polarizing faster than other democracies. | The Ballad of Downward Mobility | A Crisis Coming … The Twin Threats To American Democracy: (1) A Growing Movement to Refuse to Accept Defeat in an Election and (2) Policy and Election Results that Are Increasingly Less Connected to What the Public Wants | America’s Surprising Partisan Divide on Life Expectancy | ‘Freedom’ Means Something Different to Liberals and Conservatives. Here’s How the Definition Split - and Why That Still Matters.| Politics is personal. | For elites, politics is driven by ideology. For voters, it’s not. | Trust and Distrust in America | One America is thriving; the other is stagnating. How long can this go on? | America Is Growing Apart, Possibly for Good - The great “convergence” of the mid-20th century may have been an anomaly. | Are we really facing a second Civil War? | How ‘Stop the Steal’ Captured the American Right | Conspiracy theorists want to run America’s elections. These are the candidates standing in their way. | Two Americas Index: Democracy deniers | Where will this political violence lead? Look to the 1850s. | American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic | Yes, the economy is important, but we found that election subversion attempts appear to matter more to voters than polling suggests. | Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign, in His Own Menacing Words | A Warning | We Are in a Five-Alarm Fire for Democracy | According to Freedom House, the US, whose aggregate score for political rights and civil liberties fell 11 points between 2010 and 2020, now falls near the middle of the free spectrum, behind Slovenia, Croatia and Mongolia. | The Looming Contest Between Two Presidents and Two Americas | Why Losing Political Power Now Feels Like ‘Losing Your Country’ | Here Is One Way to Steal the Presidential Election | In tense election year, state officials face climate of intimidation. | In the GOP’s new surveillance state, everyone’s a snitch. | Political scientists want to know why we hate one another this much. | How Civil Wars Start: Three factors come into play, and the US demonstrates all of them. | Political violence may be un-American, but it is not uncommon. | The Political Violence Spilling Out of Red States | A powerful Christian conservative legal group is quietly reshaping America through the courts. Here’s what it’s after. | In Texas and elsewhere, new laws and policies have encouraged neighbors to report neighbors to the government. | An honest assessment of rural white resentment is long overdue. | This is the unspoken promise of Trump’s return. | American Democracy in its Final Death Throes | Mandate for Leadership (Project 2025) | Project 2025: Summary and Chapter Breakdown | Are we sleepwalking into autocracy? | How to Destroy What Makes America Great | Trump Just Bet the Farm | The question of the day is whether the US is embroiled in a constitutional crisis. | Are We Losing our Democracy: 12 Markers of Democratic Erosion | Support for political violence is not as high as it may seem. | How the Billionaires Took Over | A majority of Americans understand just how unequally wealth is distributed in the country and they’re not happy about it. | Justice Sotomayor is trying to warn us about the Supreme Court’s dirtiest open secret. | The 2025 State of the Nation Project provides an overall assessment of how the US is doing on a wide range of factors that the American people believe are important. | The US is currently in a period of diminished democracy, according to three recently released reports from Bright Line Watch, Freedom House and V-Dem. According to the latter, the speed with which American democracy is currently dismantling is unprecedented in modern history. However, V-Dem says in 70% of the cases where a country was becoming more autocratic, that process had been reversed. The recipe for renewing democracy usually involves: other institutions checking the executive, particularly courts; an organized civil society mobilizing people against the regime; and aggressively contesting the autocrat in the first election after he takes power. | The average score for the 180 countries assessed by the World Press Freedom Index is the lowest in the index’s 25-year history. Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the press and journalists are described as a “systematic policy,” pushing the US down to 64th place (from 55th in 2025) in the index and fuelling a decline across the American continents. | Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R. | The white working class knows rightwing conservatism isn’t working but that will never matter to them. | Oligarchs don’t just want to be rich. They want to kill democracy too. | The Real Reason Trump Never Stops Talking About Voter Fraud | They’re some of the most famous words ever written. Have you ever really read them? | Seven Everyday Founders | In 2025, Trump quietly established a new office, the National Design Studio staffed by Doge veterans, which installed surveillance software on some of the federal government’s most sensitive websites (including those connecting Americans with prescription drugs, children’s savings accounts, passports, voter registration) in violation of federal law. | Atlas of Surveillance: Enter a city, county, state, law enforcement agency or vendor in the US and select which technology you’re interested in tracking (flock surveillance cameras, facial recognition, drones, biometric surveillance, electronic monitoring, etc). You’ll get a list of details based on your search, including links to public records or news articles. Learning about a technology - including how long data is retained and who has access to it - helps people have conversations about whether that tool is appropriate for local use, start asking questions, and advocate for standards around how their police can or can’t use such equipment. Pair the Atlas tool with the EFF’s Street-Level Surveillance hub, which offers deeper documentation. | The Authoritarian Checklist | Trump’s authoritarianism has failed in one critical way. | Why Despots Hate Cities and the Mayors Who Run Them | The Trump administration is executing a plan to subvert the 2026 midterm elections. | The government conducted expansive surveillance, infiltrated group chats and obtained financial records of left-leaning groups during Minnesota immigration crackdown. (The links in this article are important.) | The surest sign of democratic collapse is the unwillingness of an elected political party to leave office.

   At The Brink: A Series about the Threat of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World | The Brink: If it seems alarmist to anticipate the horrifying aftermath of a nuclear attack, consider this: The US and Ukraine governments have been planning for the scenario for at least two years. The possibility of a nuclear strike, once inconceivable in modern conflict, is more likely now than at any other time since the Cold War. | A nuclear weapon strikes. What happens next? (8:10) | 72 Minutes Until the End of the World? | The Doomsday Clock 2024: It’s 90 seconds to midnight. The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has left the hands of the Doomsday Clock unchanged due to ominous trends that continue to point the world toward global catastrophe. (Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes nine Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe caused by man-made technologies.) | The Toll: The Threat of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World | Proud Prophet: The Secret Pentagon Nuclear War Game That ​Offers a Stark​ Warning for Our Times | Overmatched: Why the US Military Needs to Reinvent Itself

   Visualizing the State of Global Debt, by Country: The debt-to-GDP ratio is a simple metric that compares a country’s public debt to its economic output. By comparing how much a country owes and how much it produces in a year, economists can measure a country’s theoretical ability to pay off its debt. The World Bank published a study showing that countries that maintained a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 77% for prolonged periods of time experienced economic slowdowns.

   What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy and for how to stop it  |  ISIS Claims Responsibility, Calling Paris Attacks First of the Storm  |  Syria Iraq: The Islamic State Militant Group  |  Isis: The Inside Story  |  Frontline: The Rise of ISIS  |  Council on Foreign Relations: A Primer on ISIS  |  Cracks in ISIS Are Becoming More Clear  |  How ISIS’ Attacks Harm the Middle East |  Timeline: the Rise, Spread and Fall of the Islamic State

   Keeping the Shi'ites Straight Based on the opinion that no story has been more confusing for the Western news media to cover in postwar Iraq than the politics of the country's Shi'ite majority, this article provides a basic outline of Shi'ite religious history. Discusses the Sadr family (Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and Muqtada as-Sadr), Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim and other figures.

   What it’s like to live on $2 a day in the United States (PDF)

   Check out Today's Front Pages. Each day, you can see the front pages of more than 800 newspapers from around the world in their original, unedited form.

   PBS's 30 Second Candidate allows you to view more political ads than you ever knew existed. Choose the Historical Timeline link to see how political ads have changed over the years. Start with the infamous Daisy Ad that Lyndon Johnson used against Barry Goldwater. Click on Watch Johnson ads. Then click on either the QuickTime link or the Real Video link next to Daisy.

   Check out the Political Compass. The site does a good job of explaining political ideologies (although with definitions different from those I use) and gives you a chance to discover your own political philosophy.

   Law Library of Congress: North Korea: Collection of links to websites on North Korean government, politics and law. Includes legal guides, country studies and links to constitutions and branches of government (where available). Council on Foreign Relations: North Korea: Background, articles and opinion pieces about North Korea government and politics. Many of the articles focus on North Korea's nuclear program. From the Council on Foreign Relations, "an independent membership organization and a nonpartisan think tank and publisher."

   State of the Union (SOTU): The site uses an interactive timeline to provide a visual representation of prominent words in presidential State of the Union addresses by displaying significant words as "determined by comparing how frequently the word occurs in the document to how frequently it appears throughout the entire body of SOTU addresses." The Appendices section describes the statistical methods used. Also includes the full text of addresses.

   Small Town Papers: This site provides access to scanned images of recent issues of dozens of small town newspapers from throughout the United States. Newspapers are updated periodically, 2-3 weeks after publication. The site also includes a searchable archive (of articles, photos and advertisements), which covers different periods for each paper, some as far back as the 1890s. Access to the archives requires free registration.

   This website serves as a centralized location to learn about the Congressional Research Service and search for CRS reports that have been released to the public by members of Congress. (CRS Reports do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.) Features a searchable database with more than 8,000 reports, a list of recently released reports, other collections of CRS reports and a FAQ about CRS.

   Stem Cell Research: See the official NIH resource for Stem Cell Research. In 2005, NOVA aired an overview of The Stem Cell Issue.

  Instances of the Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2020: This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past US military ventures abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted. | Here's How Bad a Nuclear War Would Actually Be | This is What It’s Like to Witness a Nuclear Explosion

   Government Product Recalls

   Homeland Security Knowledge Base

  If you're worried about retirement, try some of these sites: IRS Tax Information for Retirement Plans | Social Security Retirement Planner | Retirement Planning Resources from Smart Money

   This commercial site presents brief information about dozens of Black Inventors from the United States. Some entries include portraits and images. Also includes a searchable timeline covering 1721-1988. Does not include bibliographic information.

  Annenberg Political Fact Check: This site describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit, consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in US politics. The site provides original articles, with summaries and sources, analyzing factual accuracy in TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Searchable. From the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

   The State of State and Local Finances: New studies afford a state-by-state or city-by-city analysis of fiscal well being. The Year of Living Dangerously: While leaders in a growing number of states appear to believe they're serving the public good by squeezing government dry, there's little question that minimizing management carries a host of dangers that directly affect the lives of citizens.

   First Amendment Library: Provides info on Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence,  including rulings, arguments, briefs, historical material, commentary and press coverage.

Community Service

If you need a presentation or workshop for your group,

use this Community link or the link at the top of the page.
The link will take you to a list of the topics I currently have available.
To schedule a date or for more information, feel free to contact me at dramyglenn@gmail.com