Harriet Taylor Mill Oriental Public School, San Francisco
October 8, 1807 Harriet Hardy Taylor Mill born in London. Arguably one of the most overlooked philosophers of her time, Harriet Hardy Taylor Mill and her second husband, John Stuart Mill significantly contributed to the social, economic, and political issues of the ninetieth century by their writings. Taylor-Mill wrote about women’s rights, sexuality, and politics. Her writings deplore the lack of formal education for women and the restrictions on women’s social experience that prevent them from achieving self-knowledge, happiness and growth . Her book on women’s suffrage, Enfranchisement of Women (1851), makes a case not merely for giving women the ballot but for “equality in all rights, political, civil, and social, with the male citizens of the community.” Many of her arguments in this work would be developed in J. S. Mill’s The Subjection of Women, published eleven years after her death. The major point of difference between the two is that while the Subjection suggests that the best arrangement for most married couples will be for the wife to concentrate on the care of the house and the children, the Enfranchisement instead argues for the desirability of married women’s working outside the home… “Even if every woman, as matters now stand, had a claim on some man for support, how infinitely preferable is it that part of the income should be of the woman’s earning, even if the aggregate sum were but little increased by it…. Even under the present laws respecting the property of women, a woman who contributes materially to the support of the family, cannot be treated in the same contemptuously tyrannical manner as one who, however she may toil as a domestic drudge, is a dependent on the man for subsistence.” www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/taylor_harriet.shtml
October 11, 1906. San Francisco School Board orders segregation of 93 Japanese American students from 23 elementary schools, sparking a diplomatic crisis. At the time, Japanese immigrants made up approximately 1% of the population of California. The Japanese students were assigned to the city’s Chinese Primary School, renamed "The Oriental Public School for Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans.” Japanese-Americans soon contacted the media in Japan to make the government aware of the segregation. Tokyo newspapers denounced the segregation as an "insult to their national pride and honor." The Japanese government was also highly concerned with their reputation overseas as they wanted to protect their reputation as a world power. Alarmed at the uproar, President Theodore Roosevelt promised Japan that he would use his influence to get the order of the San Francisco school board changed. Then, in order to meet the objections of the Californians, Roosevelt obtained a "gentlemen’s agreement," or informal understanding, with the Japanese government. Through this "gentlemen’s agreement," Japanese promised to keep its laborers from migrating to the United States. Roosevelt, in turn, promised that he would not seek legislation prohibiting the Japanese from moving to the United States. The Gentlemen’s Agreement was never written into a law passed by Congress, but was enacted though Executive Agreement by President Roosevelt. It was nullified by the Immigration Act of 1924, which legally banned all Asians from migrating to the United States. aapcgroup11.blogspot.com/2009/12/san-francisco-board
October 14, 1979. National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Ten years after the Stonewall Riots, an estimated 75,000 LGBT people and straight allies rallied in D.C. to demand an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of Lesbians and Gay people and urge for the passage of protective civil rights legislation. www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php
