1964 New York World's Fair

==== Civil rights protests ====
The [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE) organized a protest during the World's Fair.{{when|date=March 2024}} About 700 protestors participated; of those, 300 were arrested.<ref name="demnow">{{Cite web |title=Protesting the 1964 World's Fair: Activists Recall Effort to Highlight Civil Rights, Labor Struggles |url=http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/25/protesting_the_1964_world_s_fair |access-date=2022-03-21 |website=Democracy Now! |language=en}}</ref> Demonstrators used [[walkie-talkie]]s to communicate during the protest.<ref name="demnow"/> Protestors demanded that the Civil Rights Act be passed and criticized the lack of inclusive hiring for the World's Fair.<ref name="demnow"/> During President Johnson's speech, demonstrators shouted "Jim Crow must go!" and "Freedom now!" and jeered as he outlined his plans for the Great Society.<ref name="Tirella"/> The mayor of New York later publicly apologized on behalf of the city.<ref name="Tirella"/>

More radically, [[Louis Lomax]], of the Brooklyn chapter of CORE, had proposed a "stall-in"; 500 drivers would go to the fair and stop or deliberately run out of gas on the way there, creating a traffic jam.<ref name="Tirella">{{Cite web |last=Tirella |first=Joseph |date=2014-04-22 |title=Fifty Years Ago Today, Rogue Civil Rights Activists Tried to Ruin Robert Moses' Greatest Triumph |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/cores-1964-stall-in-the-planned-civil-rights-protest-that-kept-thousands-away-from-the-worlds-fair-in-new-york.html |access-date=2022-03-21 |website=Slate Magazine |language=en}}</ref><ref name="NYT19640422">{{Cite news |date=1964-04-22 |title=Drivers Take Up Positions To Block Roads at 7 A.M. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/22/archives/drivers-take-up-positions-to-block-roads-at-7-am.html |access-date=2022-03-23 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Because it would clog the highways, it would also have been a protest against [[Robert Moses]] and his newly renovated traffic networks.<ref name="Tirella"/>  [[Henry Barnes (traffic engineer)|Henry A. Barnes]], the New York City Traffic Commissioner, made it illegal to intentionally run out of gas on a New York roadway.<ref name="Tirella"/>  Tactics such as using emergency brakes to stop subways and releasing rats during Johnson's speech were also proposed.<ref name="demnow"/> [[James Farmer]], who was the national chair of CORE at the time, suspended the group.<ref name="Tirella"/> [[Martin Luther King Jr.|Martin Luther King, Jr.]] wrote a letter stating that he did not support the stall-in as a tactic, but also would not condemn it. He wrote: "Which is worse, a 'Stall-In' at the World's Fair or a 'Stall-In' in the United States Senate? The former merely ties up the traffic of a single city. But the latter seeks to tie up the traffic of history, and endanger the psychological lives of twenty million people".<ref name="Tirella"/> Despite a ''New York Times'' article stating that "the stall is on",<ref name="NYT19640422"/> only a few drivers actually showed up.<ref name="Tirella"/> Isaiah Brunson, chair of the Brooklyn chapter, promised future protests, but went into hiding a few days later.<ref name="Tirella"/>