Two dead and 111 injured after bomb explodes at the 1996 Summer Olympics

A crude but deadly terrorist bomb tore the heart from the Olympics yesterday, as an early morning blast destroyed Atlanta’s party atmosphere and prompted a massive manhunt. The bombing, which FBI sources said was likely an act of domestic terrorism, led to at least two deaths and 111 injuries at Centennial Olympic Park. Authorities said their suspect was a white …

Out Of The Horror In Oklahoma City, Merrick Garland Forged The Way Forward

Twenty-one years ago, the nation was rocked by the largest domestic terrorism attack it had ever experienced. A bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people, including 19 children in a day care center on the ground floor. Within days, Merrick Garland would arrive on the scene to supervise the investigation and prosecution. Most …

The Mysterious Wall Street Bombing, 95 Years Ago

As the clocks struck noon on September 16, 1920, a massive explosion tore through Wall Street in Manhattan’s Financial District. The blast killed 38 people and injured hundreds more, but despite years of government investigations, the perpetrators—commonly believed to be Italian anarchists—were never brought to justice. Ninety-five years later, learn the little-known story of one of the deadliest terrorist attacks …

Red Flags Over Los Angeles, Part 2: Bombs, Betrayal, and the Election of 1911

Labor organizer and Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) is a hero to Sen. Bernie Sanders. To a broad range of policies – workers’ rights, regulation of corporations, finance, taxation, and benefits for the poor – both Debs and Sanders apply socialist principles. But their socialisms are very different. That they’re not the same begins with the events of …

Los Angeles and New York Differ in Their Responses to a Terrorism Threat

LOS ANGELES — The nation’s two largest school systems confronted threats of a terrorist attack on Tuesday and reacted in sharply different ways: New York City reviewed the warning and dismissed it as a hoax, but officials here abruptly shut down all public schools, upending the lives of parents, students and teachers. The emailed threats to school officials on both …

Reflections on white supremacy by an anti-imperialist political prisoner

Sept. 28 — This wide-ranging essay, written by anti-imperialist, U.S. political prisoner Jaan K. Laaman, one of the original Ohio-7/United Freedom Front defendants, lays out a historical and current analysis of white supremacy in the United States. This essay is part of Abolition’s inaugural issue. Recently, a smart, progressive, retired English professor remarked, “How can it be that in late …

Symbionese Liberation Army shootout with the LAPD — 40 years later

Fourty years ago, the Symbionese Liberation Army — the group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst — was involved in a shootout on May 17, 1974, with the Los Angeles Police Department that left six SLA members dead. Here are images and video from that violent confrontation. The Symbionese Liberation Army began in the fall of 1973 when no more …

Police: Austin shooter was a ‘homegrown American extremist’

Larry McQuilliams had “let me die” written in marker across his chest when he fired more than 100 rounds in downtown Austin early Friday morning. McQuilliams, who Austin Police officials called a “homegrown American extremist” with ties to a Christian identity hate group, was shot dead on Friday by a police officer outside the department’s headquarters. Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo …