1975 February
A wide range of black leaders attack President Ford's budget which proposes to reduce and eliminate humanitarian programs and to raise the cost of food stamps. Democrats declare opposition to much of the plan.
1975 February 25
Elijah Muhammad (77) leader of the Nation of Islam (sometimes called the Black Muslims) dies in Chicago, Illinois.
1975 March
William T. Coleman is appointed Secretary of Transportation by President Ford, becoming the second black in the nation's history to hold a cabinet post.
1975 March 25
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is assassinated by his nephew, Prince Faisalibn Musad, in Riyadh.
1975 April 13
Terrorist gunmen kill four Phalangists during an attempt on Pierre Jumayyil's life. Perhaps believing the assassins to have been Palestinian, the Phalangists retaliate later that day by attacking a bus carrying Palestinian passengers across a Christian neighborhood, killing about twenty-six of the occupants, and triggering a long and bloody civil war in Lebanon.
1975 April 14
Violent fighting breaks out in Lebanon with Phalangists pitted against Palestinian militiamen, thought by some observers to be from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The confessional layout of Beirut's various quarters facilitates random killing. Most residents stay inside their homes and few imagine they are witnessing the beginning of a war that will devastate their city and divide their country. A leftist Muslim coalition confronts rightist Christians.
1975 April 19
India's first satellite is launched by a Soviet rocket.
1975 May
Department of Labor figures report the national unemployment rate
at 9%, the black rate at 15%. Vernon L. Jordan Jr. of the National Urban League
reports that the black rate is actually 26% when undercounts and "discouraged"
workers are considered.
1975 June
Focus the publication of the Joint Center for Political Studies,
charges that the proportion of blacks being recruited for the Armed Forces is
being deliberately reduced.
1975 June
President Ford addresses the NAACP's annual convention in
Washington. D.C. He asks blacks, in the interest of economic stability, to
accept his reduced spending policies, which mean lower aid to minorities and
poor people. Black leaders differ strongly with the President's programs.
1975 June 5
Egypt reopens the Suez Canal to international shipping, eight years after it was closed because of the 1967 war with Israel.
1975 June 24
An Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashes while attempting to land during a thunderstorm at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing 113 people.
1975 July
The NAACP's sixty-sixth annual convention in Washington, D.C.
focuses on the country's bitter economic situation with over 12% of adult black
workers and as much as 40% of black youth unemployed. Discussion centers on
programs for creating new jobs and on organized labor's seniority system, which
unintentionally, but automatically, discriminates against blacks. President Ford
addresses the convention but refuses to create special programs for unemployed
or under employed blacks.
1975 July 1
Wallace Muhammed, supreme minister of the Nation of Islam,
delivers a historic speech, opening the Muslim Nation to members of all races.
1975 August 1
The Helsinki Accords, officially known as the Final Act of the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) is signed. The Accords are drawn up for a 35-member nation summit conference that
includes all European nations plus the U.S., Canada and the Soviet Union. The document signed at Helsinki is not
legally binding on the signatory nations, but is an attempt to set forth principles of future cooperation that will assure peace and settle post-World War II national boundaries in Europe.
1975 August 18
District of Columbia Appellate Court Judge Julia Cooper is confirmed by the Senate, becoming the highest ranking black woman in the federal courts.
1975 August 20
Senator Edward Brooke calls for a $10 billion federal
employment program to end the economic "depression" in black America
by creating 1 million public service jobs.
1975 August 22
In a celebrated North Carolina trial, 21-year-old Joan
Little is freed of the charge of murdering a white jailer while she was a
prisoner in a county jail; the defense contended she slew the jailer while being
raped.
1975 August 29
General Daniel "Chappie" James Jr., becomes
commander-in-chief of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). On the
same day he is promoted to become the first black four-star general in U.S.
history.
1975 September
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission rebukes President Ford for
voicing public opposition to a federal court's busing plan for Boston, saying
that the President's stand has contributed to the entrenched and sometimes
violent resistance to busing.
1975 September 3
The case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and John
Artis, who have been serving life sentences for murder since 1967 despite the
fact that the two chief prosecution witnesses recanted in September 1974
(asserting they were coerced into perjury by the Passaic County Prosecutor's
office) was sent by New Jersey Governor Byme to the Assembly Judiciary Committee
for review and to determine whether pardons should be granted. Carter has long
claimed that he was framed because of his outspoken views about racism and
police brutality in Paterson.
1975 September 5
President Ford escapes an attempt on his life by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a disciple of Charles Manson, in Sacramento, California.
1975 September 27
The Congressional Black Caucus, now 17 members
strong, holds its fifth annual dinner, an event that has frown into a two-day,
2,800-person civil rights convention. The major theme of the affair is "From
Changing Structures to Using Structure - 1879-1976." Panelists recommend
federal takeover of the welfare system and poverty assistance, that the states
assume more fiscal responsibility for education, and that Caucus-directed
programs develop a national black position on matters of policy.
1975 September 29
WGPR-TV, the first black-owned, black-operated television station in the United States, goes on the air in Detroit, Michigan.
1975 November 20
Members of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities (including Walter F. Mondale, Gary Hart, Howard W. Baker and Barry Goldwater) issues Report No. 94-465. Page 71 states: "We found concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assinate Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965."
