1913 - Human Rights, Social Justice

Human Rights, Social Justice

A South African Natives' Land Act adopted by the all-white Parliament June 19 prevents Zulu, Mfengu, and other black tribesmen from owning any land outside a few arid, worthless parcels in what later will be called bantustans, or homelands. The new law restricts the size of individual land holdings inside these areas, makes it impossible for natives to live as subsistence farmers, forces them to work for wages on white-owned farms (or in factories or mines), and reserves about 92.5 percent of the country's land for whites, who make up only 20 percent of the population (blacks will be allowed to own 13 percent of the land beginning in 1936) (see 1924).

Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa leads 2,500 Indians into the Transvaal in defiance of a law, they are violently arrested, Gandhi refuses to pay a fine, he is jailed, his supporters demonstrate November 25, and Natal police fire into the crowd, killing two, injuring twenty (see 1906; 1914).

The California legislature passes a xenophobic Alien Land Act aimed primarily at Chinese and Japanese farmers. The act places a 3-year limit on leases of agricultural land and bans purchases of farmland by "aliens ineligible for citizenship"; the Issei (first generation) Japanese circumvent the act by leasing and buying land in the names of their Nisei (second generation) children, who are citizens by birthright, but the Native Sons of the Golden West and other nativist organizations will work to strengthen the act (see 1920).

Jamaican social reformer Marcus (Moziah) Garvey, 26, founds the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Largely self-educated, the charismatic Garvey began working as a printer's apprentice at age 14, was blacklisted for leading employees in a strike for higher wages, moved to South America, and has witnessed the poor working conditions of blacks in several countries; he revives the dream of the late Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, who envisioned a society in which blacks owned land, directed industries, and held power (see 1916).

Harriet Tubman dies in poverty March 10 at age 92 in the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged Negroes that she founded years ago at Auburn, N.Y.

The murder of Atlanta pencil factory worker Mary Phagan, 14, April 26 brings accusations that her killer was Texas-born New York-raised engineer and plant superintendent Leo (Moses) Frank, 28; he is indicted July 28, convicted on little evidence, and sentenced to death August 26 (see 1915).

U.S. suffragists march 5,000-strong down Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue March 3 (the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration) following New Jersey social worker Alice Paul, 28, who was studying at the London School of Economics in 1908 when she became involved in the militant English suffrage movement and in the next 2 years was repeatedly imprisoned for demonstrating on behalf of the cause. Force-fed through her nose when she staged hunger strikes, Paul returned to America 3 years ago to fight for woman suffrage in her own country, only to find that most U.S. suffrage leaders were fearful of offending anyone. Suffragist lawyer Inez Boissevain (née Milholland), now 27, rides a white horse down the avenue, but crowds of angry, jeering men slap the demonstrators, spit at them, and poke them with lighted cigars. A brawl stops the march before it can reach the White House, 40 people are hospitalized, and it takes a cavalry troop from Ft. Myer to restore order (see 1916).

Norwegian women gain the right to vote on the same basis as men (see Finland, 1906; Russia, 1917).

English suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst draws a 3-year jail sentence April 3 for arson (she has incited her supporters to place explosives in the house of the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George) but will serve only 1 year and devote part of it to a hunger strike (see 1906). Pankhurst supporters invade the Manchester Art Gallery and mutilate 18 paintings. Parliament passes the Prisoners' Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Act in April to thwart hunger strikes; militant suffragists call it the Cat and Mouse Act (see 1918).

Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst led the British suffragist movement, petitioned the king, and went to prison for her impudence. (© Bettmann/Corbis.)

Suffragist Emily Davison, 41, sustains fatal injuries June 4 when she runs onto the track at the Derby wearing a WSPU banner, tries to grab the reins of the king's horse, and is trampled. Imprisoned several times for stone-throwing, setting mailboxes afire, and attacking a Baptist minister whom she mistook for Prime Minister Lloyd George, she had attempted suicide at Holloway Gaol to protest against force-feeding.

Sylvia Pankhurst draws a 3-month prison sentence July 8.

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is," writes Irish-born English journalist Rebecca West, 20, in the November 13 issue of the Clarion: "I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." Cicily Isabel Fairfield has been using the pen name "Rebecca West" since about 1911 when she went to work as reviewer for the feminist magazine Free Woman; she joined the Clarion as a political writer last year.