The Execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg : June 19, 1953

(image: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, separated by heavy wire screen as they leave US Court House after being found guilty by the jury) 

On this day June 19, 1953: At the peak of McCarthyist anti-communist hysteria, the US government executed Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for spying for the Soviet Union.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were both born in New York City and had similar interests. Ethel was born Ethel Greenglass in Manhattan to a Jewish family on September 28, 1915. Julius was born to a family of Jewish immigrants on May 12, 1918. Julius and Ethel joined the Young Communist League (YCL) shortly after finishing high school. 

Through their membership with the YCL, Julius and Ethel met in 1936. They married three years later and had two sons Ethel was employed by the National New York Packing and Shipping Company as a secretary after graduating high school in 1931. Julius attended the City College of New York, where he received a degree in electrical engineering. After he graduated, Julius joined the US Army Signal Corps in 1940 as a civilian engineer and later became an inspector.

Julius left the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) in 1942 to prevent any potential suspicions about his involvement. Due to the tensions between the US and the Soviet Union following World War II, a period known as the Cold War, any associations with the Communist Party raised red flags for individuals employed by the US government. Party of the USA (CPUSA) in 1942 to prevent any potential suspicions about his involvement. 

The arrest of the Rosenbergs was set in motion when the FBI arrested Klaus Fuchs, a British scientist who gave atomic secrets to the Soviets while working on the Manhattan project to develop the U.S. atomic bomb,  Fuchs's arrest and confession led to the arrest of Harry Gold, a courier for Soviet spies. Gold in turn led investigators to David Greenglass, a small-time spy and a former army sergeant and machinist at Los Alamos, the secret atomic bomb lab in New Mexico. Greenglass, who himself had confessed to providing nuclear secrets to the Soviets through an intermediary,  then accused his sister Ethel and brother-in-law Julius of controlling his activities.This led  to Julius Rosenberg being arrested on suspicion of espionage on June 17, 1950, and accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Ethel was arrested two months later. Greenglass testified against his sister and brother-in-law in court. He later served 10 years in prison. In the intervening decades, it has since been conclusively proved that David Greenglass committed perjury against his own sister. 

Ethel Rosenberg’s Jewish identity was forged not by any ties to traditional Judaism but by her political radicalism. Indeed, when she and her husband, Julius, were charged with espionage, attempts were made by their fellow "leftists" to link their prosecution with antisemitism. But the established Jewish community, fearing any association with Jewish radicalism, rejected this charge. 

A brief trial  began on March 6, 1951, and attracted much media attention, and the trial took place as the US government was launching its Cold War against the USSR. This campaign sought to demonize the Soviet Union and communists, to cancel out the great prestige of the Soviet Union during the Second World War, and to turn back the worldwide surge toward national liberation and socialism. On the domestic front, anti-communism reached a fever pitch in the Rosenberg trial and Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts. 

A concerted effort was made by McCarthy, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and others to paint U.S. communists as Soviet spies seeking to overturn the “American way of life.” The real goal was to wipe out the gains made under the New Deal in social legislation and to weaken the labor movement. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were victims of this anti-communist hysteria, a hysteria that made it impossible for them to get a fair trial

Julius and Ethel maintained their innocence throughout the trial by asserting their Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to answer questions. This was a tactic to prevent incrimination upon themselves. Refusal to answer questions about their involvement with the Communist Party during a period of heightened espionage paranoia caused many to quickly label them as spies based on the popular belief that all Communist members were Soviet spies.

In the months between the sentencing and execution, criticism of the trial grew more strident, and major demonstrations were held. Nobel Prize winner Jean-Paul Sartre called the case "a legal lynching which smears with blood a whole nation."

On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced them to death and the pair was taken to Sing Sing to await execution. The Rosenbergs were the first U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed for espionage for espionage and the first to receive such an extreme penalty during peacetime years. and their case remains controversial to this day. There were protest marches held across the world.

Ethel's refusal to fulfill a stereotypical feminine role by breaking into tears during the trial was thought to show that she was unwomanly and more attached to Communism than to her children. Her stoicism may have helped to turn the jury of 11 men and one woman against her. 

The global political context was also a clear factor. In pronouncing their death sentence, Judge Irving Kaufman described the Rosenbergs' crime as "worse than murder ... causing the communist aggression in Korea," thus blaming them for the Korean War. 

 Wrongful execution happens regardless of factual innocence when the state denies a defendant due process. Also, punishment should be proportionate to the crime. In the Rosenberg case, the prosecution engaged in ex parte communications with the judge. The prosecution suborned perjury from its key witness, David Greenglass. The judge refused to permit testimony from experts who called into dispute the value of the information Greenglass passed to Julius Rosenberg. The judge imposed capital punishment, which should have been the province of the jury. 

The death penalty in the case rested on the premise that the Rosenbergs passed nuclear technology to the Soviet Union, thus endangering millions of lives. The prosecution portrayed the Rosenbergs as responsible for the Korean Police Action. The Rosenbergs were the victims of a propaganda campaign to justify the death penalty.

The government undoubtedly expected Julius Rosenberg to yield to pressure and give up information. When he didn’t, the government arrested Ethel to increase the pressure. The bluff failed when the Rosenbergs continued in their refusal to cooperate.  

The conviction and sentence were followed by a lengthy series of appeals. During the next two years, the couple became the subject of both national and international debate. Some people believed that the Rosenbergs were the victims of a surge of hysterical anti-communist feeling in the United States, and protested that the death sentence handed down was cruel and unusual punishment. Other  Americans, however, believed that the Rosenbergs had been dealt with justly.

Although a number of leftist organizations protested the verdict, Jewish organizations were conspicuously absent in the Rosenbergs' defense. Public condemnation of the Rosenbergs, a general identification of Jews with left-wing causes, and the shadow of McCarthyism made many Jews fear that their own loyalty was under scrutiny. Some Jewish leaders, including the American Jewish Committee, publicly endorsed the guilty verdict. They agreed with President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he issued a statement declining to invoke executive clemency for the pair. He stated, “I can only say that, by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent people all over the world. The execution of two human beings is a grave matter. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.”

Following failed pleas for clemency to President Truman and then to President Eisenhower and affirming their innocence to the end, the Rosenbergs were cruelly executed on June 19, 1953.On the morning of their execution, the Rosenbergs wrote in a letter addressed to their two sons: “We were innocent and could not wrong our conscience.To the end, both Rosenbergs insisted on their innocence. On the day, Ethel’s execution was botched. She was removed from the electric chair after three charges, only for it to be discovered her heart was still beating, so, gruesomely, she had to be strapped back into it. There was international outrage at her death. 

Their children  Michael and Robby Rosenberg were 10 and six respectively when their parents were executed. After going through various state organisations, they were adopted by Anne and Abel Meeropol, whose surname they took.Their sons later sued the government to release files related to the case and, in 2015, petitioned President Obama to exonerate their mother, Ethel. Debate over this case continues today.And Robby and his wife created the Rosenberg Fund, to help the needs of children whose parents have suffered because of their progressive activities and who, therefore, are no longer able to provide fully for their children .https://www.rfc.org/

It must also be remembered that, although the Rosenbergs were communists and spies, they did not spy for an enemy of the United States, as the sentence might indicate, but rather for its wartime ally and  it is difficult, however, to imagine the execution of a married couple without understanding of the hysteria that the Cold War produced.At the end of the day. depending on whose side the spy is spying for, and whose nation suffers from the spying, spies are seen as heroes or villains.  There is no middle of the road in the spy game.   

The release of classified information such as the Venona files, along with information made available after the collapse of the Soviet Union, show that  although Julius Rosenberg was probably guilty, Ethel's role in any conspiracy was tiny at most. Julius's KGB handler indicated that Rosenberg’s most valuable information was a proximity fuse. Julius Rosenberg passed no valuable nuclear technology to the Soviet Union.

Julius Rosenberg should have served a sentence for his espionage that was comparable to the sentences of other people in the spy ring. Ethel Rosenberg should never have been arrested, charged, and tried, let alone executed. 

While scholarly debate over the Rosenberg case continues, their names remain a touchstone for many. Playwright Tony Kushner, for instance, offered a powerful portrayal of Ethel Rosenberg's strength and humanity in his landmark production Angels in America. Heir to an Execution (2004), a recent documentary by the Rosenbergs' granddaughter, Ivy Meeropol, presents a particularly moving portrayal of how Ethel confronted her arrest, trial and execution.

In memory of Anti-fascist Kevin Gately 18 September 1953 – 15 June 1974.

Kevin Gately pictured above circled

On 15 June, 1974,clashes between anti-fascists and the police at London’s Red Lion Square, Holborn, culminated in a police charge against anti-fascist demonstrators opposing the far right National Front’s meeting at Conway Hall, resulted in one anti-Front protester, Kevin Gateley, a 20  year  old student at Warwick University, being killed. He was not a member of any political organisation, and the march at Red Lion Square was his first. He was the first person to be killed at a political protest in mainland Britain for at least 55 years. (since the British Army shot two looters dead in Liverpool during the riots associated with a police strike in August 1919) 

The events leading up to his death began in April 1974, when the Front booked the large hall at Conway Hall, a venue long associated with secular humanism and the anti-war left.The Front had been using Conway Hall for meetings during the previous four years, but anti-fascist pickets began in October 1973. On 15 June 1974, they planned a meeting entitled “Stop immigration – start repatriation”.  In early June, the anti-imperialist campaign group Liberation, headed by veteran Labour MP Fenner Brockway, learned of the Front’s booking and attempted to book a room of their own elsewhere in the building. By 9 June, the police were aware that both the Front and its opponents planned to hold demonstrations culminating at Conway Hall. 

The owners of Conway Hall, the South Place Ethical Society, through their General Secretary Peter Cadogan, released a press statement defending the decision to allow the Font a room on free speech grounds.  

The National Front was founded in 1967 as a far-right, fascist political party. From its inception the organisation had four main issues on which they campaigned: opposition to Britain's membership of the European Economic Community; Ulster; the trade unions and what the journalist Martin Walker calls "the post-immigration attack on black people born in Britain".The National Front had grown rapidly in the early 1970s and by 1974 the membership was about 10,000–12,00 and the Front’s influence was growing; from their origins as a merger of three far right splinter groups in 1967, run by men with long histories in neo-nazi organising, the NF had played populist nationalism to the max.

In an era where full employment and the hopes of the 60s were giving way to recession, unemployment and increased industrial action by workers, the NF whipped up fears that migrants were threatening the ‘British Way of Life’, taking white workers jobs etc. Ably abetted by tory and some Labour politicians and many a media front page… Refugees like the Uganda and Kenyan Asians were hysterically held up as scapegoats; workers fighting for better wages and conditions were also painted as a threat to order.

At this point, in the early 1970s, the Front was concentrating on trying to win middle-class support, among traditional Conservative supporters disillusioned with tory policies from a rightwing perspective: a demographic nostalgic for empire and everyone knowing their place.

Rightwing violence, racist attacks were on the rise. NF candidates were winning larger shares of the vote in elections. But many on the left were determined to oppose the Front. 

Freedom of expression was Conway Hall’s mantra – coming from a long history of freethought – but should this be extended to fascists? If most on the left were prepared to demonstrate their opposition to fascism, but not to physically fight it, a growing minority had come round to the position of ‘No Platform’ for fascists; while in practice this was “about denying the NF venues to speak and was not interchangeable with the opposition on the streets”. “Essentially ‘no platform’ was an extension of the successful anti-fascist strategy that had been developed since the late 1940s. As well as physically combating fascist agitation in the streets, one of the major strategies was campaigning for local governments and other institutions to prevent fascists from using public places to speak or meet. Between 1972 and 1976, the ‘no platform’ concept dominated anti-fascist strategy, supported by the Communist Party, the International Socialists and the International Marxist Group (IMG), as well as becoming policy for the National Union of Students (NUS), which was considerably influenced by the IMG and the CPGB.

The ‘no platform’ strategy was not limited to petitioning local councils and institutions to deny the NF access to meeting places, but included physical opposition to the NF organising in public.” (Evan Smith)  However, how ‘No Platform’ was interpreted varied among the different organisations…  Liberation (formerly the Movement for Colonial Freedom) organised a counter-demonstration that was to end with a meeting outside the hall, which was supported by most of the larger groupings on the left – including the Communist Party of Great Britain, the International Socialists (now the SWP), the International Marxist Group (IMG) and many other groups within the labour movement.  Liberation, not intending to try to prevent the NF meeting, booked a smaller room at Conway Hall for a separate meeting, to be preceded by a march along a route agreed in advance with the police, starting at the Thames Embankment to avoid the route of the National Front march. The police agreed that both marches could end at Red Lion Square. An open-air protest meeting was planned on the north side of the square, to the west of the National Front meeting in Conway Hall, with an address by Syd Bidwell, then Labour MP for Southall. 

However while Liberation and others were content to march in protest,  the International Marxist Group planned to organise a mass picket at the main entrance of the hall, to deny the NF access. 

When the Liberation demo of around 1,200 people came from the east, having marched westwards along Theobald’s Road and turned into Old North Street to enter Red Lion Square, a police cordon blocked the way to the left, east of Old North Street, to allow the National Front march to reach Conway Hall.  The NF march of around 900 people approached from the west, marching down Bloomsbury Way to the west side of Southampton Row, accompanied by an Orange Order fife and drum band. The march arrived at Southampton Row around at around 5:50 pm, where they were stopped by the police.  A group mainly composed of the IMG moved to block the doors of Conway Hall. The police, with what Lord Scarman later described as a ‘concern… with maintenance of public order’, attempted to disperse the IMG contingent. The IMG members refused to be dispersed and according to Lord Scarman’s report, ‘when the IMG assaulted the police cordon there began a riot, which it was the duty of the police to suppress, by force if necessary’.

The cordon was reinforced by members of the Special Patrol Group who eventually forced the demonstrators back with a vicious and wholly disproportionate police response – with  mounted police charging  into the crowd flailing about with liberal use of their truncheons. 

Kevin Gately who was born in England to parents of Irish descent. became a mathematics student at Warwick University, and was in his second year in June 1974, three months before his 21st birthday.He had red hair and was approximately 6′ 9″ tall; contemporary photos show him standing out above the crowd because of his exceptional height and must have presented a tempting target.

During this initial violent clash between police and anti-fascists, lasting for less than fifteen minutes, Kevin Gately, was fatally injured. Gately died from a brain haemorrhage, resulting from a blow to the head.

Photographs from the day show mounted police striking at the heads of demonstrators with sticks. Nick Mullen, a twenty-eight-year-old student from an Irish family was one of those struck on the head. He had been on Old North Street at the same time as Kevin Gateley and a picture shows Mullen’s face thick with blood.

In Mullen’s account, the fatal conflict began when the policemen on foot received an order to attack, causing them to lift their batons. One demonstrator called out, ‘Why don’t you put your truncheons away?’ To which a policeman answered, ‘You must be fucking joking.’ There was a push and one of the demonstrators fell. Mullen claims to have heard a policeman shout, ‘One of the bastards is down. Let’s trample him.’ 

The last photographs before Gateley suffered the blow that killed him show the student at the junction of Red Lion Square and Old North Street with his way seemingly blocked by police officers. Between Gateley and Conway Hall there are mounted policemen, riding their horses into the crowd. Gateley is three rows back from them, facing mounted officers to his front and police on foot to his side. Subsequent photographs show Gateley after he collapsed. Officers reached for Gateley’s unconscious body and lifted his foot before it fell weightless to the ground. 

By quarter past four, the police had succeeded in clearing the north east corner of Red Lion Square, after which they were able to bring in the Front to their meeting. Aside from Gateley, some 48 people were reported to have been injured and by the end of the day some 51 anti-fascists were arrested. Eighty-two charges were brought against the fifty-one people arrested on the day.Twenty-nine of the charges were dismissed, with fifty-three convictions.

A  bitter row over the police conduct at the demonstration started with demands for an inquiry and questions being tabled in the House Mr Tony Gilbert, who organised the march for the Central Council of Liberation, said  that Mr Gately, had in effect been murdered by the police. “When you get police diving in with truncheons and horses and somebody is killed in circumstances like this I would call it murder.”

 NUS President John Randall said, ‘We now know that Kevin Gately died as a direct result of police violence’  Other Left-wing spokesmen accused the police of unwarranted brutality. Miss Jackie Stevens, a fellow student, said that she had been next to Mr Gately linking arms with him. Their line was the first in the march which turned into the police cordon by swinging left when they entered Red Lion square, instead of right. Organisers of the demonstration claimed that they had agreed with Scotland Yard to turn left and only found out at the last moment that they were being made to turn right. This was flatly denied by Scotland Yard. 

By the end of the month, Lord Scarman had been placed in charge of a public inquiry, conducting a tribunal with witnesses throughout September 1974, eventually reporting in February 1975. Scarman’s report was seen by many as a travesty which whitewashed the police actions and criticised the demonstrators, primarily putting the blame for the violence – and Kevin Gately’s death – on the IMG, and criticising the naivety of Liberation. The report was ‘unable to make any definition finding as to the specific cause of the fatal injury which Mr Kevin Gately suffered’. and suspicions that his injuries arose from police brutality on the day were never fully answered. 

The post-mortem was conducted by Dr Iain West of St Thomas’s Hospital. West indicated that the cause of death was a subdural  haemorrhage resulting from a head injury. He found an oval bruise at the back of Gateley’s ear about three quarters of an inch long. The injury had been caused by a hard object. It was impossible to tell from the shape of the bruise what had caused the injury, other than that it was likely to be a blunt object, possibly a police truncheon.Neither a coroner’s inquest nor the Lord Justice Scarman inquiry were able to find evidence to prove or disprove this claim. The jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure on 12 July 1974 by a majority of 10-1.

Gately was buried in Surbiton on Friday 21 June. The same day, 500 students marched through Coventry with black armbands. The following day, Saturday 22 June 1974, thousands joined a silent march retraced the route of the Liberation counter-demonstration from the embankment to Red Lion Square. The march was led by personal friends of Gately, followed by University of Warwick students and then by students from many other universities and colleges as well as contingents from many of the left wing groups that had taken part in the original march. This march also received widespread media coverage. Here's a very short snippet from youtube  

The events of 15th June 1974 raised questions of how fascism was to be opposed – questions the Communist Party (CP) addressed by getting all the answers wrong. The CP had supported the counter-demonstration, claiming 5-600 who attended were CP members. In the Morning Star (the Communist Party newspaper) on 15 June, 1974, an article urged people to support the counter-demo, including an appeal by leading trade unionists, stating that the NF’s ‘poisonous ideas are a threat to all that is best in our society’.

In the aftermath, the Morning Star declared that “blame for what occurred… must be placed where it belongs – on the authorities for permitting it, and the police for brutality”. The CP position was that the march by the NF was in violation of the Race Relations Act, and should have been banned. As London District Secretary Gerry Cohen wrote in the Morning Star, “The police, like the National Front, are on the side of the exploiting class. They operated on that side with thoroughness and with fury on Saturday in Red Lion Square.

The CP’s stance – appealing to the repressive apparatus of the State, such as the police, the judiciary and the Home Office, to deal with fascists – showed some extreme naivety. Suggesting the police and the wider State could be persuaded to counter the NF, (despite long experience of the police’s hostility to the left, preparedness to use force against pickets, demonstrations etc, and growing evidence of police rank n file sympathy for NF politics), was a non-starter as anti-fascist strategy.  The logical extension of this liberal stance was that the CPGB also slagged off the IMG for aiming at confrontation with the NF. They took the view that the anti-fascist movement needed to appeal to the broader progressive and labour movements, “But  what this small section of the march did was to make this more difficult”. 

Physical confrontation, they suggested, ‘played into the hands of all those in the key positions of establishment…aimed at destroying our basic democratic rights’. The CP seemed concerned to distance themselves from the physical opposition.

In a press release, the CP stated that, “At no time did our Party contemplate, nor did it take part in any discussions that contemplated of bringing about any physical confrontation with the police or anybody else at this demonstration’; tactics like the IMG’s blocking of the doors they called ‘the adventurist tactics of a minority’. 

According to the Party, there was ‘absolutely no reason why the police could not have contained the situation peacefully at all times’ and the police had ‘undoubtedly mishandled the situation”. 

This blatantly ignored the reality of organising against fascism, whether in the 1930s, the 1970s, or today. It was physical confrontations that forced the British Union of Fascists onto the defensive at Cable Street and beyond; it was to be mass physical opposition later in the 70s that was to defeat the BF on the streets (if politically they were also undermined by the tories moving to the right under Thatcher). This analysis reflects the reality of later anti-fascist mobilising, in which the CP organisationally played little part. (In fact, the IMG would also not play as significant a role again, being eclipsed by other groups like the International Socialists, before declining and imploding…) 

Scarman’s report reflected the ‘nuanced’ establishment response – the police were ‘right not to ban the National Front demonstration’, but the Race Relations Act needed ‘radical amendment to make it an effective sanction’, the anti-fascists were ultimately responsible for the trouble and Kevin’s death, and the anti-fascist movement should ‘co-operate with the police’. 

The NF’s electoral fortunes thankfully did not grow exponentially – their profile brought them “notoriety but no tangible gains”. In response the more street-oriented elements of the NF pushed the organisation towards more street marches and confrontation, and attempted to orient their politics more towards a working class audience. This NF campaign chimed with, and contributed to, an increase in violence against Britain’s black population, including racist attacks and murders. 

But this led to a broad culture of resistance to the Front and galvanised the anti-fascist movement. helping establish many local anti-fascist groups which, a few years later, became the grass roots of the Anti-Nazi League and inflicted a historic defeat on the NF. By the October 1974 general election the Labour Party prevented any Labour candidate from sharing a platform with the NF. 120 Labour Councils banned the NF from using council halls. The TUC began to take a stand and raise a voice against the NF, calling it a “Nazi Front”. 

It  would also see the  events of 1977 in Wood Green and Lewisham and 1979 in Southall; which led to the tragic death of Blair Peach https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-death-of-blair-peach.html.

After Peach's death, the Labour Party Member of Parliament Syd Bidwell, who had been about to been about to give a speech in Red Lion Square when the violence started, described Peach and Gately as martyrs against fascism and racism/ 

The National Front became vastly outnumbered on the street. In fact, in the aftermath of Red Lion Square, numbers at anti-fascist demonstrations increased dramatically and continued to rise throughout the mid-to-late 1970s. As Nigel Copsey wrote, ‘despite adverse publicity that the Red Lion Square disorder had generated for the left, more anti-fascists than fascists could be mobilised at street level’.  

In the end to the present day. with fascists force again on the rise  despite the right to protest being stripped away by the powers that be it doesn’t change the necessity for  opposing fascism. physically and no platforming fascists wherever they raise their heads. 

Worrying our present government's policies are very close to those of the NF from that era.With the  passing of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, we are living in very dark days for civil liberties in the UK. This deeply-authoritarian Bill places profound and significant restrictions on the basic right to peacefully protest and will have a severely detrimental impact on the ability of ordinary people to make their concerns heard. The inexorable rise of fascism in Britain continues.

Protest is a cherished part of British history - from the anti-slavery movement, to the suffragettes and recent anti-war marches and the Policing Bill is in direct conflict with the values of freedom and liberty that this government claims to uphold.

The rise of fascism in Britain is gradual and creeping but sadly more and more evident.The racist  Nationality and Borders Bill, is also a clear indication that the British Government is well on the road to becoming a fascist government. If you stand by and do nothing you're an enabler.

Let's not forget  Kevin Gately, killed in 1974, in London, whilst opposing the nazi National Front who like Blair Peach and  other  such fallen anti fascists, their example lives on. British people have a long tradition of fighting fascism. No Pasaran! 

The University of Warwick have a collection of documents relating to the aftermath of Gately's death, and in 2019 the university's student union named one of its meeting rooms after Gately. The union have a mural commemorating him in their main building. Lots of information for this post were sourced from here:-   https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/red-lion-square-and-the-death-of-kevin-gately/

Poem for Pride

Under rainbow's arc

In meadows sweet with scent

Lovers embrace. release gentle kisses

Proudly declaring their love

While tangential  clouds

Prepare to dance with sunset

Hand in hand in union

Shedding particles of light

That the ignorant can't consume

Pride carries on opening hearts

In a ;place where no walls 

Or borders can conquer

Though dark  forces try to deny

Tongues beyond closeted fortresses

Continue releasing desire

Under the constellation of stars

Delirious  in abundant emotion

Abandoning the chains of prejudice

Among branches of liberation.

Assurgent Buds

With current trends full of twisted mistrust

In a land I feel to be so wrong and unjust,

Full of vacuous politicians that do not hear

Spreading division bathed and laced with fear,

Duplicitous in nature. totally out of touch

Criticise all, make themselves beyond reproach,

Their bonds of light and trust nowhere to be seen

They don't seem to listen, making people scream

Beyond their dark reflections of ugliness

I try to ignore the continuing insidiousness, 

Being woke in thought without callousness

Do not abandon myself to hopelessness,

Will not be controlled by powers untender

Inner defences fight back, refuse to surrender,

Among the enshrouding blackness, break free

Follow spirits of kindness and glimmering empathy,

Breathing with defiance, moving gigantically 

Under glowing sun. try to cancel negativity,

I hear the loud voices of strength and solidarity

Forces of good, spinning forth.that don't irritate me,

Angry voices of needed resistance and positivity

Ambassadors of change, forces of necessity,

Like wild red roses tired of keeping their distance

Hope spreaders, that manipulators can't extinguish.

In remembrance of the heroes of the Tiananmen democracy movement and victims of the massacre in Beijing on 4 June 1989

 

Today marks the anniversary of the bloody  massacre of hundreds of unarmed peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Beijing and the arrest of tens of thousands of demonstrators in cities across China.

The Chinese government has never released a death toll of the June 4, 1989 crackdown, but estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.

China had slid into economic chaos in 1988 with panic buying triggered by rising inflation peaking at more than 30 per cent in cities. Public discontent, coupled with the death of purged reform-minded Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, set the stage for the demonstrations.
More than one million people flooded into central Beijing, keen to vent their anger against corruption, economic mismanagement, nepotism and poor career prospects for students. Gathering in Tiananmen Square, the students erected their own 'Goddess of Democracy' statue opposite the official portrait of the Communist revolutionary leader Chairman Mao Zedong.

The Tiananmen Massacre was precipitated by the peaceful gatherings of students, workers, and others in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and other Chinese cities in April 1989, driven  by the hope for a better future, they were simply  calling for freedom of the press and for some government accountability, and the imminent problems of corruption, and began the largest political protest in the history of Communist China. #

The government responded to the intensifying protests in late May 1989 by declaring martial law.Overnight on 3 to 4 June, the government sent tens of thousands of armed troops and hundreds of armoured military vehicles into the city centre to enforce martial law and forcibly clear the streets of demonstrators. The government wanted to 'restore order' in the capital.

As they approached the demonstrations, troops opened fire on crowds of protesters and onlookers. They gave no warning before they started shooting.A night of bloodshed on  June 3rd resulted  with over 2,000 of protestors being killed.As the troops kept firing into the crowds, some of those running away were shot in the back. Others were crushed to death by military vehicles. Brave, innocent, the Chinese government has never accepted responsibility for the massacre or held any officials legally accountable for the killings. despite individual souls, shotdown and massacred triggering shock and outrage across the world.

The Tiananmen protests were immortalised in Western media on 5 June through the image of a lone man in a white shirt carrying shopping bags, facing an imposing column of military tanks sent by the government to disperse protesters. The man is known simply as Tank Man: his identity has never been confirmed.
Tank Man would not let the military vehicles pass. He succeeded. Eventually, he was pulled out of the way of danger by onlookers. But the image of unarmed man versus tank quickly came to symbolise the struggle of the Tiananmen protesters - peaceful protest met with military might.
'It demonstrates one man's extraordinary courage, standing up in front of a row of tanks, being prepared to sacrifice his own life for the sake of social justice' Stuart Franklin, Tank Man photographer
Stuart Franklin took the Tank Man photograph.

Tank Man



In  the following short film below he talks about how he came to capture what would become one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century.

In the aftermath long prison sentences were given out, one  of which was for 17 years for  simply throwing paint at a portrait of Mao Zedong. We should take a minute and think about those sacrifices and all those who died,  so that their actions  have not been in vain. Sadly brutal suppression and censorship has continued to this day, that  condemns the Chinese nation and its people to a future without freedom.

Today many activists are still being  ruthlessly persecuted by the Chinese Authorities, and the climate of free expression remains stifling,  with scores of writers still being silenced, also many social media sites are still banned, and three decades later, China, under President Xi Jinping, is undergoing the worst crackdown on human rights since the Tiananmen massacre. Hopes that China would gradually liberalize politically as it opened up economically have been dashed.

The  Chinese regime to this day  continues to bury the truth of what happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Tiananmen remains one of the most censored issues in an internet and social media environment that has become increasingly restrictive  since Xi Jinping became president in 2012.Young Chinese below the age of 35 today either know nothing about it or believe that it was the protesters who were the criminals. A regime that sent tanks and guns to slaughter its people now seeks to hide the evidence, threaten its critics, eliminate alternative ideas and impose absolute control. Seeking to suppress every form of freedom, with Pro-democracy activists being jailed, and in every corner of China's territory, from Xinjiang to Hong Kong, that  has also seen critics abroad being intimidated, threatened and, in the worst cases, kidnapped.The Chinese government has never accepted responsibility for the massacre or held any officials legally accountable for the killings. It has been unwilling to conduct an investigation into the events or release data on those who were killed, injured, forcibly disappeared, or imprisoned.

For those who participated or observed the events of 1989, however, the search for truth goes on. Memories have not faded. The hard facts of the massacre are etched into history.No one can erase it; no power, however mighty, can alter it; and no words or tongues, however clever, can deny it.

Chinese censors scrubbing the internet of any words or symbols that could be used to reference the Tiananmen Square massacre in the run-up to todays anniversary had a new target in their sights: a bridge in Beijing where a rare protest was staged last year.  As the 34th anniversary of the 1989 massacre approached, anyone searching in Chinese for Sitong Bridge on Baidu maps will  have drawn a blank. 

On 13 October 2022 white banners with large red characters criticising the Chinese Communist party  (CCP) were hung over the bridge near Beijing’s university district in advance of a major CCP congress.  According to pictures posted on social media, the road sign for Sitong Bridge has been removed. Searches on Baidu for Sitong Bridge return the message: “No related places were found.”  

It is still possible to search for the bridge using the traditional Chinese characters used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, rather than the simplified characters used on the mainland. And it is still possible to find related locations, such as “Sitong Bridge East” – a nearby bus stop – on Baidu.  October’s Sitong Bridge banners called for “freedom”, “respect” and the right to be “citizens, not slaves”, as well as the removal of Xi Jinping, China’s leader, who was about to begin an unprecedented third term as the CCP’s general secretary. The man responsible for the banners, Peng Lifa, was detained by police shortly after they appeared and has not been seen since.

He has become known as Bridge Man, a reference to the Tank Man of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.  Peng’s stunt precipitated the White Paper protests, which called for an end to the zero-Covid policy that swept Chinese cities in late November and early December. It was a period of mass unrest the likes of which have not been seen in China since 1989.

Since this day  a candlelight vigil has been held in Hong Kong to remember the victims, but the authorities banned the event in 2020. In 2021, union leader Lee Cheuk Yan, along with seven others, was sentenced to 14 months in prison for “inciting, organising and participating” in the candlelight vigil on the 4th of June 2020.

Police in Hong Kong have again detained pro-democracy activists on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.  Authorities have banned public commemoration of the 1989 incident, which saw China crush peaceful protests in Beijing with tanks and troops.  However, dozens of candlelight vigils are expected to take place in cities around the world.

 Among those detained was 67-year-old campaigner Alexandra Wong, widely known as "Grandma Wong".  Amid a tense evening in Hong Kong, she was detained while carrying flowers near Victoria Park, where vigils had been held for decades.  The leader of one of Hong Kong's main opposition parties has also been detained and placed in a police van. Chan Po Ying, a veteran pro-democracy activist who heads the League of Social Democrats party, was holding an LED candle and two flowers.  Mak Yin Ting, former head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, was also detained and subsequently released. Police later said they had made one arrest and taken 23 people to police stations for investigation. 

Events to mark the 1989 massacre in Beijing are banned in mainland China.  Hong Kong was previously the only Chinese city where these commemorations were allowed, under the city's semi-autonomous economic, political and legal set up - known as "one country, two systems" - established when the city handed over to China by the UK in 1997.  But public events to mark the anniversary have since been outlawed, after the Chinese government imposed a strict national security law outlawing many forms of dissent in 2020.  The annual commemorations have not been held since 2019, after being initially banned under Hong Kong's Covid regulations. 

The Chinese government has long ignored domestic and international calls for justice for the Tiananmen Massacre, and some of the sanctions that the European Union and US imposed in response have over the years been weakened or evaded. The lack of a sustained, coordinated, international response to the massacre and ensuing crackdown is one factor in Beijing’s increasingly brazen human rights violations.Three decades on from the Tiananmen Massacre the human rights situation for all who live under China’s rule has hit an all-time low and repression across all regions and occupied territories.

The spirit of the Tiananmen movement continues to burn in the hearts of veterans of 1989 and younger generations of activists who fight for a more just China.We must continue to support all those that fight  against state  oppression and censorship and never forget the tragic  legacy of Tinanamen Square that continues to haunt us.,

China’s government wants us to forget what happened 34 years ago today in Tiananmen Square.The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. We must remember 

In remembrance of the heroes of the Tiananmen democracy movement and victims of the massacre in Beijing on 4 June 1989 Support the democracy struggle today!  Defend China democrats and  workers, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and the Uyghur peoples.

Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman?"

On  the 29th of May 1851 enslaved woman and abolitionist , Sojourner Truth delivered her famous stirring"Ain't I a Woman?" speech to the Women's Rights Convention in Akron. Ohio . The speech challenged discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and intellectual ability, and lays  bare the cruelty of slavery and would become a pivotal moment in the women's rights movement.

Born into slavery in Ulster County, New York, as Isabella Baumfree. Her  early  childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. Like other slaves, she experienced the miseries of being sold and was cruelly beaten and mistreated. Around 1815 she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, but they were forced apart by Robert’s master. Isabella was instead forced to marry a slave named Thomas, with whom she had five children. In 1827, after her master failed to honor his promise to free her or to uphold the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, Isabella ran away, or, as she later informed her master, “I did not run away, I walked away by daylight….” 

After experiencing a religious conversion she became a itinerant Pentecostal preacher and an outspoken abolitionist and supporter of womens rights. She traveled throughout the northeast and midwest, of the USA speaking publicly and (famously) singing her message as well.and in  1843, Isabella changed her name to Sojourner Truth. 

According to Frances Gage, the president of the Convention at the the time of her famous speech, on the second day several male ministers showed up and argued that women should not have the same rights as men. The ministers reasoning: women were weak, men were intellectually superior to women, Jesus was a man, and our first mother sinned. 

Sojourner Truth rose and (amidst protests from some of the women who feared shed talk about abolition) delivered her short, masterful speech. invoking tenets of Christianity and using her strong, imposing presence to debunk the ministers arguments

By all accounts, as Truth spoke, the crowd in the church rose and wildly applauded.Several versions of Truths famous speech exist today .One version was published a month after the speech was given in the newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle by Rev. Marius Robinson, a friend of Truth's. 

The most famous  however is an 1863 account of the speech as remembered by Frances Gage. but  some believe that Gage changed the speech so that Truth would sound more like a Southern slave. In fact, Truth did not speak in a Southern style, having been born in New York and speaking Dutch until age 9. 

Both versions of the speech are included below.

Narrative of Sojourner Truth : Ain't I A Woman?

Delivered 1851.Women's Rights Convention,  Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

 Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say

  Anti-Slavery Bugle version:

' May I say a few words? Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded; I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights [sic]. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am strong as any man that is now.

As for intellect, all I can say is, if woman have a pint and man a quart—why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much—for we won’t take more than our pint’ll hold.

The poor men seem to be all in confusion and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble.

I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the Bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept—and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part?

But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.'

Regardless, of the two different versions . what remains  undisputed  and beyond doubt  is that Truth's speech.and many others she gave throughout her adult life, moved audiences, and .with her voice  straightforwardly described the predicament of Black women, who were not even afforded the paternalistic treatment their white counterparts received.

Truth  would continue speaking throughout the rest of her life, advocating for women’s rights, equality and suffrage. and when   the Civil War started, Truth urged young men to join the Union cause and organized supplies for black troops. After the war, she was honored with an invitation to the White House and became involved with the Freedmen’s Bureau, helping freed slaves find jobs and build new lives. While in Washington, DC, she lobbied against segregation, and in the mid 1860s, when a streetcar conductor tried to violently block her from riding, she ensured his arrest and won her subsequent case. In the late 1860s, she collected thousands of signatures on a petition to provide former slaves with land, though Congress never took action. Nearly blind and deaf towards the end of her life, Truth spent her final years in Michigan.until her death in 1883 where her funeral was said to be one of  the largest he town had ever seen.. 

Many readings of Truth’s famous speech have since been recorded, including some by notable actresses like Kerry Washington and Alfre Woodward, as well The Color Purple author Alice Walker. All three readings follow the transcript containing the “Ain’t I a Woman” phrasing,

More than a century since her speech, Truth's words continue to resonate with generations, being taught in schools and "Ain't I a Woman" emblazoned on t-shirts, posters, pins and more.Her words continue to impact American society as a beacon of hope and equality, Sojourner Truth's bold assertion of her own identity, serves as a timely reminder that the fight for equality has always been, and will continue to be, a constant challenge and an ongoing rhetorical and physical process that continues  to  resonate and speak to us today.

The legend of St Melangell and the Hare

St Melangell. the patron saint of hares and rabbits and 27th May marks her  feast day which and was established in the year 590.Her latin name is Monacella though it is rarely used.   The story of St. Melangell is a blend of local history, custom, folklore and pre-Christian goddesses and practices.

The association of religious female figures and hares is legendary and predates Melangell by several centuries.The hare is itself a beast of legend. Primarily seen as a creature of the Moon goddess, an emblem of fecundity.  It has also acquired many names.

The hare was a sacred and mystical animal to the Celts; a symbol of abundance, prosperity and good fortune. They were believed to have connections to the Otherworld. They were treated with great respect and never eaten. A group of hares is called a drove, a down or a husk and they are well known for their boxing antics around the mating season in March.

In Ireland the hare was associated with women who could shapeshift into their form, so eating them was taboo. and there is a legend too that the God and warrior, Oisin, hunted a hare, wounding it in the leg.  He followed the wounded animal into a thicket, where he found a door leading down into the ground. He went in and came to a large hall where he found a beautiful young woman sitting on a throne bleeding from a leg wound.

The young Scottish witch, Isobel Gowdie, at her trial for witchcraft in 1662, recited the charms that turned her and her sisters into hares, in which shape they leaped away to meet the Queen of Elphame in her home “under the hills.”

I shall go into a hare,
Wi’ sorrow and sighing and mickle care;
And I shall go in the devil’s name
Aye, till I come home again.
To change back, she would say:
Hare, hare, God send thee care.
I am in a hare’s likeness now,
But I shall be in a woman’s likeness even now.

In Wales such “hare witches” ran in families. The Victorian folklorist, Sir John Rhys, tells how his own nurse belonged to one such family and how his mother was considered to be rather reckless in entrusting him to her care, “as she might run away at any moment, leaving her charge to take care of itself.” An early poem by Walter de la Mare perfectly captures this long-standing belief:

In the black furrow of a field
I saw an old witch-hare this night;
And she cocked a lissome ear,
And she eyed the moon so bright,
And she nibbled o’ the green;
And I whispered “Whsst! witch-hare”,
Away like a ghostie o’er the field
She fled, and left the moonlight there.

It’s the usual story of a creature once revered as a goddess, demoted to the rank of woodland spirit, and finally to an evil witch. Yet somehow, the legend of Melangell managed to preserve the old memory of the hare as a sacred creature to be protected and cared for, a view appealing to all those who care about living creatures of the wild.

Melangell’s life is as obscure as anyone’s from 7th century Britain might be, but  in most accounts Melangell is described as a 7th-century Irish princess. who had dedicated her life to prayer, the daughter of an Irish king who  had arranged for her to marry against her will. Unhappy at the prospect of an arranged marriage to a man she did not love in  about the year 590 she fled Ireland and  arrived at the remote valley of the river Tanat, at the foot of the Berwyn mountains in Powys, Wales where she lived a life of solitude and prayer  and founded a small  nunnery.

Nearly fifteen years later, in the year 604, Brochwel Ysgithrog, then Prince of Powys and Earl of Chester, encountered the young Melangell while hunting, when the hare that his hounds were chasing took refuge under her cloak. Seeing her, the hounds stopped.  Brochwel tried to command them to go on but Melangell defied them and they turned and fled.

Brochwel had never experienced anything like this, and was keen to speak to the mysterious young woman. Struck by her beauty, he had hoped that she would marry him, but when he heard her story he was so moved and impressed by her determination and piety that he donated to her a parcel of land in the valley where she could live her monastic life among the wild creatures there.

News of her spread throughout the area and other women came to gather around her, forming a community there. They ordered their communal life on prayer and works of mercy, providing sanctuary to the poor and needy. Melangell was the mother to this community of women for the remaining 37 years of her life, and was often seen surrounded by hares during this time.

After Melangell's death, her tomb became a place of healing, with pilgrims travelling for miles to venerate her relics and ask her intercession. Brochwel's successors decreed that the area must be protected as a place of solace for those in need of healing and restoration, as well as a place of refuge for the small animals, who were to remain unharmed. So it remained for centuries. However, at the Reformation, the site was desecrated. The holy shrine was destroyed and the stones were scattered in the churchyard, with some incorporated into walls and other structures. In an act of love and devotion reflected in many parts of the country where holy places were laid to ruin, the pious local people had hidden St Melangell's relics.

In the 1990's the shrine was reconstructed from the stones reclaimed from around the churchyard, and the holy relics were enshrined once more. The little church at Pennant Melangell is once again a place of pilgrimage, where people go to venerate St Melangell, to ask for her prayers, and to thank her as a model of piety and protectress of the little animals. A grove of ancient yew trees encircles the church,estimated to be two thousand years old,which in turn is encircled by the boundaries of the churchyard,and near to her shrine archaeologists have discovered evidence of a nearby Bronze Age settlement, while many round barrows, ring cairns, and standing stones dot the higher ground testament to a long-forgotten Neolithic race. 

On the opposite side of the river is a rock ledge known as ‘Gwely Melangell’ (Melangell’s Bed) where the saint was said to have slept. Yet it is also known as ‘Gwely y Gawres’ (the Giantess’s Bed), presumably based on an older legend of a female giant who lived in the valley.Throughout Wales and other Celtic countries, significant natural or constructed rock features in the landscape are associated with giantesses and goddesses, and are often named “the Hag’s Seat” or  “the Old Woman’s Bed.”

Up above the Pennant valley rears the mountain peak of Cadair Bronwen, “Bronwen’s Seat," the highest point in the Berwyns. Bronwen may have been an early mountain goddess, perhaps cognate with Branwen, sister of the god Brân in Welsh legend.

Inside the little church at Pennant Melangell, the legend of Melangell and the Hare can still be seen carved on a 15th-century oak rood screen with carvings that tell the story of St Melangell and Prince Brochwel of Powys and depicts hares running to her for her protection. The carving of the legend is underlined by a frieze of oak-leaves; at one end, significantly, we see a Green Man, oak-leaves spilling from his mouth; at the other, a hand holding a vine, perhaps, , a symbol of the creative power at work in nature. And  because of her association with them she was made the patroness of hares which were sometimes called St. Monacella’s Lambs or Oen Melangell. The words "Duw a Melangell a’th gadwo" (God and Melangell keepeth thee) are offered to hunted animals.

In recent years, the legend of Saint Melangell has attracted increasing attention from poets in Wales. They have explored a range of different, even contrasting, meanings, revealing the complexity of what might seem at first hearing quite a straightforward tale.

A slim selection of lovely poems about St Melangell, The Hare That Hides Within, was published by Parthian in 2004. It contains 10 poems that  play on the pagan, magical associations of the hare; others on the power of the maiden over the hunter.

I huddle at your feet in your garments' folds, 

and am simple hare, fool hare, hunted hare.' 

(Ruth Bidgood, Hare at Pennant.)

The legend of St Melangell and the hare continues to inspire people to this day. 

RIP Kenneth Anger, Legendary Gay Underground filmmaker and Hollywood Babylon author. (February 3rd 1927 – May 11th 2023)

 

It is sad  to write that the legendary gay underground  experimental filmmaker  and author Kenneth Anger' has  died at the age of 96 on May 11 in Yucca Valley, Southern California from natural causes after living for some time in an assisted living facility. His death was  reported by the Sprüth Magers gallery, which has represented Anger's work since 2009  said “It is with deep sadness that we mourn the passing of visionary filmmaker, artist and author Kenneth Anger,” the gallery tweeted on May 24. “Kenneth was a trailblazer. His cinematic genius and influence will live on and continue to transform all those who encounter his films, words and vision.”

A pioneer in the field of avant-garde film and video art, Anger’s short films were characterized by what his gallery describes as “a mystical-symbolic visual language and phantasmagorical-sensual opulence that underscores the medium’s transgressive potential.” The films are often credited with have a deep impact on the aesthetics of 1960s and 1970s subcultures, particularly queer iconography.

Born in Santa Monica, California, on February 3rd 1923 Anger was the the third child of Wilbur Anglemyer, an electrical engineer, and Lillian Coler. The Presbyterian family had moved to Santa Monica to be closer to Lillian’s mother, Bertha.

Anger created his own first film in 1937, when he was ten. Titled Ferdinand the Bull, the short used 16mm film and features Kenneth dressed as a matador. His second film, Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat, was made several years later, in 1941, and comprised footage of kids playing during the summer.

His family’s Midwestern Presbyterian roots offer no clue as to his later immersion with the occult. His father's job enabled a comfortable life for the family  until the Great Depression joined with Kenneth’s stature as the troubled family member who would spend more time with grandmother, Bertha, who encouraged his artistic interests; she took him to the movies for the first time, a double bill featuring The Singing Fool (1928) and Thunder Over Mexico (1933) and financially supported the Anglemyers during the Great Depression.. 

He claimed to have gotten his start in the film  industry as a child actor in the 1935 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that starred James Cagney and Mickey Rooney.According to official records, he did no such thing. But the story was, among other things, a way for Anger to place himself in the Hollywood firmament that he would make often gorgeous war on via art and prose.

Anger created his own first film in 1937, when he was ten. Titled Ferdinand the Bull, the short used 16mm film and features Kenneth dressed as a matador. His second film, Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat, was made several years later, in 1941, and comprised footage of kids playing during the summer.

In the 1940s, Kenneth shortened his name from Anglemyer to Anger. He  rejected Christianity in childhood, saying he preferred reading comics on a Sunday.  During high school,  Anger was influenced first by fantastic readings such as The Wizard of Oz, then by Rosicrucian philosophy, and by the writings of Eliphas Levi,French esotericist, poet, and writer and James Frazer Scottish social anthroplogist and folklorist and creator of the seminal tome The Golden Bough. His favorite author, however, was the British magician Aleister Crowley, who founded the Thelema religion based on his experiences of 1904 in Egypt, a stay during which he declared that he had been contacted by Aiwass, the mysterious Minister of Hoor-Paar-kraat, or Harpocrates, the Egyptian deity of silence Horus the Son, who had recited the Book of the Law to him. Later, having moved to Los Angeles, he met avant garde film-maker Curtis Harrington, and Anger converted to the Thelema religion. which urges members to “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will,” and for a time he lived in the house of Thelema founder Aleister Crowley.His absorption in the Crowley demi-monde led to various works centered on the mystic’s Thelemite belief system,

In the following decade, Anger became aware of his homosexuality at a time when it was still illegal. In the mid-1940s he was also arrested for this crime. During that time he began studying cinema at the University of Southern California and began using drugs, especially cannabis and peyote.

In 1947, when he was just 20, Anger directed a short gay art film Fireworks – not worlds apart from Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel’s collaborations Un chien andalou (1929) and L’Age d’or (1930)  filmed at his parents’ house in Beverly Hills .It’s a daring “dream of a dream”, according to Anger. ‘Daring’ because it featured a gay gang-rape fantasy, a Roman candle exploding from a guy’s crotch, and Anger himself being brutally beaten by a group of sailors with chains.

The film  did not go unnoticed by Jean Cocteau, with whom he became friends and this landmark of queer cinema also  inspired the poet Robert Duncan, who  too became friends with Anger and dedicated sections of his poem “The Torso,” whose imagery is akin to that of Fireworks.

Acknowledged as the first American film to openly deal with homosexuality, it also ruffled a few feathers with the military and became an instant favorite of the famous Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who became a frequent correspondent with Anger.  also ruffled a few feathers with the military and became an instant favorite of the famous Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who became a frequent correspondent with Anger. Seen today it's still quite potent, and the image of Anger's abused face drenched in blood and milk can still make viewers gasp.

 

 

Fireworks won the poetic film prize at Cocteau’s 1949 festival Le Film Maudit (“The Cursed Movie”). Quite rightfully sensing that Europe was more accepting of his work than the U.S., he moved to Paris and worked under Henri Langlois at the Cinémathéque Française. 

Anger switched to color with the beautiful, non-narrative "Puce Moment," a six-minute mood piece which begins with a series of vividly colorful shimmering past the camera.Then a baby-faced movie star (Anger's cousin, Yvonne Marquis) emerges and regards herself indulgently, then sprawls around outside in the Southern California hills. The film was originally intended to be much longer, but the only filmed fragments are still a visual treat and feature an effective psychedelic folk-rock piece by Jonathan Halper, added much later.

 

 For his 1950 film Rabbit’s Moon (not completed and released until 1971), Anger used an 18th century magic lantern from the Cinematheque’s collection and 35mm film stock left over from an UNESCO shoot in Paris. He had only four weeks to make the costumes, build the set and film in Pierre Braunberger’s Pantheon Cinema soundstage before the French producer returned from vacation.

Anger created a a visual feast jumping off from the Eastern myth of a magical rabbit in the moon. Here that deity becomes the obsession of Pierrot, a mime alone in a magical forest whose doomed quest is complicated by the arrival of a harlequin, his beautiful princess companion, and a magic lantern which projects various arcane symbols. Sort of like Children of Paradise on acid

 

 

In 1953 he went to Rome, where he wanted to make a film about the sixteenth-century occultist, Cardinal d’Este. He only managed to shoot the first scene in the Villa d’Este in Tivoli where a woman dressed in eighteenth-century clothes wandering around the gardens accompanied by Vivaldi’s music.

Shortly thereafter Kenneth returned to the States following the death of his mother. During this period he entered the circle of Californian artists. Times were changing and California was fast becoming a leading art breeding ground and refuge for experimental and extreme artists who found no place in the rest of the country.

1954’s Inauguration  of the Pleasure Dome  made with the artist Marjorie Cameron and  writer Anaïs Nin.  is a 40 minutes of layered images, in which footage of the hell sequence from the 1911 Italian silent film L'inferno is intercut with characters with giant eyelashes, who appear as if plucked from a classical painting. It builds and builds. Suddenly there’s a volcanic explosion of distorted images accompanied by a thunderously operatic soundtrack. It’s beautiful, mind-melting stuff, and probably Anger’s most demanding work.

In his own words: “The film is derived from one of Aleister Crowley’s dramatic rituals where people in the cult assume the identity of a god or a goddess. I wanted to create a feeling of being carried into a world of wonder.”

 “Scorpio Rising,a 28-minute production from 1963 was heavily influenced by the influence of the Sixties’ atmosphere and Aleister Crowley‘s magical occultism.Scorpio Rising,featured footage of motorcyclists is accompanied by such hits as Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet” and Elvis Presley’s “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise.” In one especially provocative sequence, the Crystals’ hit “He’s a Rebel” is played to images of Jesus and his disciples from Cecil B. DeMille’s silent epic “King of Kings.””  His work proved that sound and image could be combined to create something powerful. 

Kenneth sensed that the right place to be was San Francisco, the Hippie capital and frequented at the time by a multitude of artists such as Fritz Leiber, Philip Dick, and many others, and more precisely at the Ford Foundation, which gave him 10,000 dollars for the production of an artistic short, Kustom Kar Kommandos. 

Kenneth spent most of the money on daily life and handed over an edit of the previous footage. Psychedelic drugs, initially still legal, made their massive appearance on the market and probably influenced by this fertile cultural fabric, Anger projected a special version of “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome”, entitled “Sacred Mushroom Edition” to an audience of people under the influence of LSD.and the film became a  firm favoirite with 60s acid heads, 

Anger began to play on his growing fame as a cursed author and defined himself as the most abnormal of underground directors. At this point, Anger could not miss another great controversial personage, namely Anton Lavey, founder of the Church of Satan. The two became good friends. At that time Kenneth would also seem to harbor a certain resentment towards Andy Warhol, who managed to be hugely popular both in the underground and in the mainstream.

In 1966 Anger moved to the Russian Embassy, ​​a nineteenth-century mansion in San Francisco. Here he planned his new project Lucifer Rising, a film in search of symbolic lucifer. Kenneth in search of a truly Luciferian actor proposed to each of the candidates to live with him for a certain period. In the end, the choice felt on Bobby Beausoleil. Bobby Beausoleil at that time also formed a musical group, the Magick Powerhouse of Oz, to create the soundtrack for the film.

In 1967 Anger reported that all the material filmed so far had been lost, stolen and blamed Beausoleil for the theft, which instead responded to the accusations in Bill Landis’ unofficial biography, stating that Anger had spent all the money and that he had invented this story to please the producers. Beausoleil ended up joining Charles Manson’s Family and in 1969 he was arrested for the murder of Gary Hinman.

In 1967 Anger published an obituary announcement on an entire page of a newspaper: “In Memoriam. Kenneth Anger. Filmmaker 1947 – 1967”. Shortly thereafter he reappeared claiming to have burned all his previous productions.

In 1968 he went to London where he became friends with J. Paul Getty, the industrialist, founder of the Getty Foundation, and wealthiest man in America who became his patron.

For those who see his short films, which are now collected in the Magick Lantern Cycle. the influences are evident.The themes of his stories range from surrealism to occultism, not excluding experimental, erotic, and psychedelic elements and homosexual culture. His most famous works, such as  Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) partly filmed on Haight Street in San Francisco – ground zero for countercultural experimentation  against the grim backdrop of 1969 – specifically the Manson murders and the Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont concert it sees Bobby Beausoleil,(who would later join the Manson family and become a convicted murderer). Anton LaVey, Mick Jagger, who also composed the soundtrack and Keith Richards, appear among others. The film was released the following year 

The new version of the film thus became a symbolic representation of the arrival of the Age of Horus, as prophesied from the Book of the Law. The famous actress and singer Marianne Faithfull was involved in the project in the role of Lilith. Anger had asked Mick Jagger to play the role of Lucifer, but the singer of the Rolling Stones refused, rather suggesting his brother. Anger reluctantly accepted. The director shot eight minutes of the film, presented it to the British National Film Finance Corporation, and obtained a £ 15,000 grant to complete it.

Thanks to this funding, however, Anger managed to  shoot some sequences in Germany and Egypt. During this period Kenneth also became friends with Jimmy Page, the guitarist of Led Zeppelin. At the very invitation of Page, who shared an interest in Crowley with the Californian director, Anger went to Boleskine, on the banks of Loch Ness in Scotland where Crowley once lived, to help the musician exorcise the place from a headless ghost.The episode of the exorcism was later recounted at a press conference by Jimmy Page’s ex-wife to ridicule her husband.

 Lucifer Rising, lasting 30 minutes, which  was only finished in 1981, is perhaps Anger’s most ambitious effort to date. Like a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic put through the blender with a pinch of paganism, it touches on the story of Lucifer, the fallen angel who rebelled against God. It was inspired by Aleister Crowley's poem ‘Hymn to Lucifer’ and, as with all Anger films, it’s not so straightforward. Suffice to say, it ends with a flying saucer hovering over ancient Egypt.

The filmmaker, who shot this mini epic in Egypt, Germany and at Stonehenge,again enlisted famous friends. Along for the ride were Marianne Faithfull again, filmmaker Donald Cammell. Jimmy Page, (who also scored the movie, though it was scrapped by Anger after the pair fell out) and in the  end it was Beausoleil's score, written and recorded from prison,while on death row, (The death penalty was later commuted to life imprisonment) that tied the final film together. Even if one does not quite understand what's going on, it is at least visually fantastic.

 

 

Anger who had a  “Lucifer” tattoo emblazoned across his chest,  made films for much of his life. He  knew everyone from the poet Jean Cocteau to sexologist Alfred Kinsey.and was close enough to Keith Richards that the Rolling Stone would claim that Anger called him his “right hand man.” 

Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page both wrote soundtrack music for Anger, who in turn helped bring about a Rolling Stones classic by lending a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov’s satanic satire “The Master and Margarita” to  Marianne Faithfull. Faithfull passed the novel along to her boyfriend, Jagger, who cited it as the basis for “Sympathy for the Devil.”Asked about Anger, Mick Jagger replied: "Know 'im? Guy threw a book through my window"

Few so boldly and imaginatively mined the forbidden depths of culture and consciousness as Anger, who has since inspired other film makers  such as Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, and John Waters. Scorsese would emulate Anger’s style in “Mean Streets,” “Goodfellas” and other movies, and Lynch featured Vinton’s drowsy ballad in the 1986 cult favorite “Blue Velvet.” John Waters would praise Anger as one of the directors who “dirtied” his mind.

And well before the rise of punk and heavy metal, Anger was juxtaposing music with bikers, sadomasochism, occultism and when the Sex Pistols and the Clash appeared on the same bill at a 1976 concert, clips from Anger’s movies were screened behind them.

Since 1982, however Anger's, film s production  slowly decreased. Only in 2000, after almost thirty years of artistic inactivity, Kenneth made a new short film “Don’t Smoke That Cigarette” and the following year “That Man We Want To Hang“which comprised images of Crowley's paintings that had been shown at a temporary exhibition in Bloomsbury, London.

In 2004, he began showing Anger Sees Red, a short surrealistic film starring himself, and the same year also began showing another work, Patriotic Penis. Anger soon followed this with a flurry of other shorts, including Mouse Heaven, which consisted of images of Mickey Mouse memorabilia; Ich Will!; and Uniform Attraction, all of which he showed at various public appearances.

Anger's most recent project was Technicolor Skull, with  musician Brian Butler, described as a "magick ritual of light and sound in the context of a live performance", in which Anger plays the theremin and Butler plays the guitar and other electronic instruments amid a psychedelic backdrop of colors and skulls.

Anger makes an appearance in Nik Sheehan's 2008 feature documentary about Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine.  He also appears alongside Vincent Gallo in the 2009 short film Night of Pan, written and directed by Brian Butler In 2009 his work was featured in a retrospective exhibition at the MoMA PS1 in New York City, and the next year a similar exhibition took place in London

Anger  had his greatest commercial success, and notoriety, as the author of Hollywood Babylon  written in 1959. a book that anticipated the highs and lows of celebrity journalism. In it Anger assembled an extraordinary and often apocryphal family album, whether pictures from the fatal car crash of Jayne Mansfield or such widely disputed allegations as actor Clara Bow having sex with the University of Southern California football team.Completed in the late 1950s and originally published in French, “Hollywood Babylon” was banned for years in the U.S. and was still adult fare upon formal release in 1975.

Although much of Hollywood Babylon has been dismissed as fiction, the book still has many admirers.  Anger released a sequel, the less popular “Hollywood Babylon II,” and in 1984.and also  said he was working on a third book in recent years, with a chapter dedicated to Tom Cruise and Scientology.

In  the latter years pf his life Anger lived the part of a respected if underfunded doyen of cinema as art. Speaking to a cineaste site in his latter days, he still carried the mantle of a Hollywood maverick who nonetheless carried a deep love for the town and the medium he so boldly influenced: “I loved the young John Wayne. ..that’s a little slice of history. I love the things that have gone by the wayside.”

Death preoccupied Anger and he was a frequent visitor to Hollywood Forever, the burial site for everyone from Judy Garland to Johnny Ramone. Actor Vincent Gallo, a friend of Anger’s, told the filmmaker that he had purchased a plot for him next to Ramone’s.

“They’re peaceful,” Anger said during a 2014 interview with Esquire when asked about his affinity for cemeteries. “They’d better be…”

RIP Kenneth Anger,iconic extraordinary filmmaker, Thelemite, who doubtless takes fascinating secrets to the grave although he liked to tell all. He was one of the first st and was openly and unapologetically  gay filmmakers, a  remarkable achievement considering the hostile environment in which he rose to prominence. He was also one of the few to understand cinema as ceremony. a true alchemist of media arts whose work offered a distinctively radical mix of paganism and homoeroticism.

Ever controversial and confoundingly brilliant. Few so boldly and imaginatively mined the forbidden depths of culture and consciousness as Anger did.While many will no doubt mourn  his recent passing and detractors will continue to mock, he  has I believe left an  undoubtable legacy that will live on. All my heroes are dying but every man and every woman is a star. 

“Although, of course, my definition of evil is not everybody else's. Evil is being involved in the glamour and charm of material existence, glamour in its old Gaelic sense meaning enchantment with the look of things, rather than the soul of things.”

 "Making a movie is casting a spell." 

 Time is all we have and every second that ticks away is one less second we’re alive,”

- Kenneth Anger