A
huge rally in New York City’s Madison Square called
on the U.S. government to reconsider its refusal to offer
sanctuary to Jewish refugees of Nazi Germany.
March
1, 1954
Nuclear Free and Independent
Pacific Day, or Bikini Day, marks the anniversary of the
explosion of the largest-ever U.S. nuclear weapon which
contaminated major parts of the Marshall Islands [see February
28, 1954]. The land and people of the south Pacific have
been exposed to numerous nuclear bomb tests and their radioactive
aftermath.
In addition to the 67 atmospheric U.S. tests at Bikini and
Eniwetok Atolls, France tested 193 weapons in French Polynesia,
46 in theatmosphere.
The U.K. exploded 34 devices on Malden and Christmas
Islands.
The day is also intended
to call attention to the potential danger of the increasing
trans-oceanic shipment of hazardous nuclear materials, and
the need of nuclear and shipping nations to consider the
rights and health of the indigenous peoples of the region.
The
proposed South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty
Indigenous
People and Nuclear Weapons
March
1, 1961
President
John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10924 establishing
the Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of
State. The same day, he sent a message to Congress asking
for permanent funding for the agency, which would send
trained American men and women to foreign nations to assist
in development efforts. The Peace Corps captured the imagination
of the U.S. public, and during the week following its creation,
thousands of letters poured into Washington from young
Americans hoping to volunteer.
What
is the Peace Corps today?
March
1, 1956
The
University of Alabama permanently expelled Autherine Lucy,
the first
African-American person ever admitted to the University (following
a federal court’s ordering her admission).
She
was met with rioting by thousands of students and others
(none of whom were either disciplined or arrested). She
charged in court that University officials had been complicit
in allowing the disorder, as a means of avoiding compliance
with the court order. The trustees expelled her for making
such “baseless, outrageous and unfounded charges
of misconduct on the part of the university officials.”
Burning desegregation litgerature
at the University of Alabama. Students, adults and even groups
from outside of Alabama shouted racial epithets, threw eggs,
sticks and rocks, and generally attempted to block her way.
Autherine Lucy Foster receives her
master's degree from University of Alabama in 1992.
March
1, 1974
Former top
Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman,
and former Attorney General John Mitchell, were indicted
on obstruction of justice charges related to the Watergate
break-in.
March
1, 1981
Irish
Republican Army member Bobby Sands began a hunger strike
at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland; he died 65
days later.
He had dedicated his life to freeing Northern
Ireland
from British rule.
read
more
March
2, 1807
The
U.S. Congress sought to end international slave trade by
passing an act to make it unlawful “to
import or bring into the United States or the territories
thereof from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, any
negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with intent to hold,
sell, or dispose of such negro, mulatto, or person of colour,
as a slave, or to be held to service or labour." Domestic
traffic in slaves, however, was still legal and unregulated.
The first shipload of African captives to North America had
arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, in August 1619, and the first
American slave ship, named Desire, sailed from Marblehead,
Massachusetts, in 1637. In total, nearly 15 million Africans
were transported as slaves to the Americas. The African continent,
meanwhile, lost approximately 50 million human beings to
slavery and related deaths. Despite the federal prohibition
and because the slave trade was so profitable, an additional
250,000 slaves would be “imported” illegally
by the time the Civil War began in 1861.
African
slave trade timeline
March
2, 1955
Nine
months before Rosa Parks made headlines, teenager Claudette
Colvin was
arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up
her bus seat to a white person. She was active in the Youth
Council of the local NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People). Though the Montgomery Bus
Boycott was begun after Ms. Parks’s arrest, Clovin’s
legal case became part of the basis for a federal court challenge
to Alabama’s segregation laws. Colvin became one of
four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, in which the Supreme
Court ultimately struck down the law under which she was
arrested for merely sitting down in a bus seat.
Claudette
Colvin later in life
March
3, 1863
In
the midst of the Civil War, Pres. Abraham Lincoln signed
a conscription act that created
the first draft lottery of American citizens. The act called
for registration of all males between the ages of 20 and
35, and unmarried men up to 45, including aliens with the
intention of becoming citizens, by April 1. Exemptions from
the draft could be bought for $300 or by finding a substitute
draftee. Many objected to this provision describing the war
as a "rich man's war, but poor man's fight." Black
Americans were also not eligible for the draft because they
weren’t considered citizens.
Bounties
for New York military "volunteers" during
the Civil War
March
3, 1913
The
day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration as president,
8000 from the National American Woman Suffrage Association
(NAWSA), representing every
state, marched in Washington, D.C. to call for a constitutional
amendment granting women the right to vote.
Organized by Alice Paul
and Lucy Burns, who had been inspired by the parades, pickets
and speeches of the British suffragists, the march drew hundreds
of thousands of spectators. Though some of the marchers were
attacked by onlookers, the march focused attention on the
suffrage issue.
[see March 4, 1917 below]
Short
video about Alice Paul
March
3, 1961
The
village council in the Inupiat Eskimo town of Point Hope,
Alaska, formally protested, in a letter to President
Kennedy, the proposed chain explosion of three atomic
bombs in the nearby above-ground "Project Chariot" tests.
The project entailed using atomic explosions to create
a harbor near Point Hope, above the Arctic Circle in
northwest Alaska. The excavation never happened due to
public opposition and inspired native peoples in Alaska
to assert their rights and legitimate land claims.
read
more
Edward
Teller "Father of the hydrogen bomb" arrives
to promote plans for Project Chariot
March
3, 2003
In
the first-ever worldwide theatrical act of dissent,
there were at least 1029 stagings of Lysistrata,
the 2400-year-old anti-war comedy by Greek playwright
Aristophanes. Conceived and organized in just two months
by Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower, the performances
all occurred on the same day to express opposition
to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Staged
in 59 countries (including Iraq), the bawdy play tells
of Athenian and Spartan women who unite to deny their
lovers sex in order to stop the 22-year-long Peloponnesian
War between the two city-states. Desperate for intimacy,
the men finally agree to lay down their swords and see
their way to achieving peace through diplomacy.
About
the organizer, Kathryn Blume >
with photos from readings
around the world
Excerpt
from an Iraqi play, Lenin El-Ramly's Salam El-Nisaa
(A Peace of Women),
about the 2003 Iraq invasion and based upon Lysistrata
March
4, 1917
Montana
elected Republican Jeanette Rankin as the first woman
to sit in the U.S. House of Representatives three years
before American women nationwide could legally vote.
A persistent advocate for women’s rights, particularly
suffrage, Rankin voted in Congress against American entry
into both world wars, and late in life led marches against
the Vietnam war.
more
about Jeanette Rankin
Rep. Jeannette Rankin with her
colleagues in the 61st Congress.
March
4, 1933
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
was sworn in as president in the midst of the Great Depression.
From his inaugural address:
“This
is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole
truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly
facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation
will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.
So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to
fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes
needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national
life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding
and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”
Pres.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivering his first inaugural
address
Audio
and video of the speech
March
4, 1965
Moved
to action by Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s sustained bombing
of North Vietnam beginning two months before, Vietnam Day was
declared by the Universities Committee, led by Wayne State
University Prof. Otto Feinstein. At about 100 college campuses
nationwide, faculty, students and others gathered for lectures
and meetings about the war. This occurred just three weeks
before the first “teach-in” at the University of
Michigan.
March
4, 1969
the
UCS today
The
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) was founded.
From
its founding document: “Misuse of scientific
and technical knowledge presents a major threat to the
existence of mankind. Through its actions in Vietnam
our government has shaken our confidence in its ability
to make wise and humane decisions. There is also disquieting
evidence of an intention to enlarge further our immense
destructive capability...”
.
. . continued
at
March
4, 1978
40,000
demonstrated against the enlargement of the uranium enrichment
plants in Almelo, Holland. Enrichment is the processing of
uranium with gas cetrifuges to the level required for use
as fuel in nuclear reactors.
March
5, 1970
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty went into effect after ratification
by 43 nations.
The
agreement sought to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons
and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the
peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal
of achieving nuclear disarmament, as well as general
and complete disarmament. It has since been joined by
189 countries, and is enforced through the United Nations
International Atomic Energy Agency.
More
on the Non-Proliferation Treaty
March
5, 1994
Ukraine,
having voluntarily agreed to give up its nuclear weapons
following the collapse
of the Soviet Union, began their transfer to Russia. Ukraine,
which had the world’s third largest weapons stockpile,
130 SS-19 missiles, 46 SS-24 missiles and dozens of strategic
bombers, rid itself of all 1300 warheads within about two
years.
read
more
Schoolchildren
preparing to turn the keys to destroy the last missile
silo in the Ukraine. October 30, 2001
March
6, 1857
The
U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision (Dred
Scott v. Sandford) which declared that an escaped slave,
Scott, could not sue for his freedom in federal court because
he was not a citizen. Those of African descent could never
be considered citizens but “as a subordinate and inferior
class of beings,” according to the Court.
Chief
Justice Roger Taney stated in his opinion that the “unhappy
Black Race . . . had no rights which the white man was
bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and
lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was
bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of
merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made
by it.”
Dred
Scott
Chief
Justice Roger Taney
Dred
Scott's fight for freedom
read
the decision
March
6, 1884
Susan
B. Anthony and more than 100 delegates from the National
Woman Suffrage Association
met with Pres. Chester Alan Arthur concerning women's right
to vote. Anthony asked him, "Ought not women have full
equality and political rights?" He responded, "We
should probably differ on the details of that question."
Susan
B. Anthony
Pres.
Chester Alan Arthur
March
6, 1957
Ghana
became the first black African country to become independent
from colonial rule.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah became independent Ghana's first leader.
read
more
Ghana's
flag
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
March
6, 1967
Muhammad
Ali was ordered by the Selective Service to be inducted
into military service. He refused, citing his religious
beliefs that precluded him from killing others.
"I
ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong."
< Top
Black athletes gather to hear Muhammad Ali (formerly
Cassius Clay) give his reasons for rejecting the draft,
United States, June 4, 1967.
March
6, 1982
The
University for Peace near San Jose, Costa Rica, was founded.
UPeace, the U.N.-mandated graduate school of peace and
conflict studies had been chartered by the General Assembly
for research and the dissemination of knowledge specifically
aimed at training and education for peace.
visit
the University for Peace
The
monument on campus sculpted by Cuban artist Thelvia Marín
in 1987, is
the world's largest peace monument.
March
7, 1932
The
Ford Hunger March began on Detroit’s east side and
proceeded 10 miles seeking relief during the Great Depression.
Facing hunger and evictions, workers had formed neighborhood
Unemployed Councils. Along the route, the marchers were given
good wishes from Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy as well as two
motorcycle escorts, and thousands joined the marchers along
the route.
At
the Detroit city limit, the marchers were met by Dearborn
police and doused by fire hoses.
Despite
the cold weather, they continued to the Employment Office of
the Ford River Rouge plant,
from which there had been massive
layoffs.
Five workers were killed and nineteen wounded by police
and company “security” armed with pistols, rifles
and a machine gun.
According
to Dave Moore, one of the marchers, “That
blood was black blood and white blood. One of the photos
that was
published in the Detroit Times, but never seen since,
shows a black woman, Mattie Woodson, wiping the blood off the
headof
Joe DiBlasio, a white man who lay there dying . . .
It’s been 75 years, but when you drive down Miller
Road today, your car tires will be moistened with the blood
that those five shed.” Grave markers with the words “His
Life for the Union” pay tribute to the fallen hunger
marchers in Woodmere Cemetery on Detroit’s west side.
Dave Moore this February, still active in the
union movement at age 96.
March
7, 1965
525 civil rights advocates
began a 54-mile march on a Sunday morning from Selma, Alabama,
to the capital of Montgomery, to promote voting rights for
blacks. Just after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the
outskirts of Selma, the marchers were attacked in what became
known as Bloody Sunday.
Enforcing
an order by Gov. George Wallace, the group was broken
up by state troopers and volunteer officers of the Dallas
County sheriff who used tear gas, nightsticks, bullwhips
and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. John Lewis,
then head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
and a leader of the march (and now a member of Congress
from Georgia), suffered a fractured skull.
ABC
television interrupted a Nazi war crimes documentary, “Judgment
at Nuremberg,” to show footage of the violence in
Selma, confusing some viewers about who was beating whom.
Injured in Selma
Selma
1965 - Edmund Pettus Bridge, video excerpt from a PBS documentary
with Rep. John Lewis and others who were there
read
more
March
7, 1988
A Federal
Court ruled in Atlanta, Georgia, that a peace group must
have the same access to students at high school career
days as military recruiters.
the
anti-recruitment movement today:
LEAVE
MY CHILD ALONE!
March 8, 1908
Thousands
of workers in the New York needle trades (primarily women)
demonstrated and began a strike for higher wages, a shorter
workday and
an end to child labor.
This event became the basis for International
Women's Day celebrated all over the world since March
8, 1945.
read
more
2009 theme for International
Women’s
Day: Women and men united to end violence against women and girls
Images
from last year’s celebrations
March
8, 1965
About
3,500 U. S. Marines became the first American combat
troops in Vietnam, landing near the coastal city of Da
Nang. The ships USS Henrico, Union, and Vancouver, carrying
the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade under Brig. Gen.
Frederick J. Karch, took up stations 4,000 yards off
Red Beach Two, north of Da Nang.
March
8, 1983
40,000
in Tel Aviv, Israel, organized by Peace Now, rallied against
the war in Lebanon.
March
8, 1995
Women
in Black demonstrated in the center of Belgrade, Serbia,
on International Women's Day, expressing solidarity with
Kosovar women: "The Albanian women from Kosovo are our
sisters." The women were both spit at and kicked, but
didn't give up, and stood there to the end of the usual hour.
Though Kosovo is overwhelmingly (90%) ethnically Albanian,
it is considered the national and religious birthplace of Serbians.
Both Kosovo and Serbia had been part of the former Yugoslavia,
which had granted partial autonomy to Kosovo in 1974. Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic (later tried for war crimes) in
1989 withdrew that autonomy and revoked the official status
of the Albanian language in Kosovo.
March
9, 1839
The
U.S. Supreme Court, with only one dissent, freed the slaves
who had seized the Spanish slave ship Amistad, ruling that
they had been illegally forced into slavery, and thus were
free under American law.
Slave
ship
They
had mutinied and taken control of the ship off the shore
of Cuba (then a colony of Spain) and demanded to be taken
back to Africa but wound up in U.S. waters off the coast
of Long Island, New York.
Amazing resources
on the Amistad including original documents
March
9, 1945
Phyllis
Daley became the first African-American commissioned nurse
in the U.S. Navy. Though more than 500 black nurses served
in the Army during World War II, the Navy had only dropped
its color ban a few weeks before.
March
9, 1964
Five
Sioux Indians, led by Richard McKenzie, claimed the island
of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay as Indian land. The island
had recently been abandoned, and the action was based on an
1868 treaty which entitled Inidans to take possession of surplus
federal land. The native Americans advocated turning it into
a cultural center and Indian university, but their occupation
lasted only four hours.
March
9, 1965
Two
days after Bloody Sunday [see March 7, 1965] Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr. led 1500 outraged people gathered from around
the country back to the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts
of Selma, Alabama. They were attempting for a second time
to march to the state capital of Montgomery in support of
voting rights for black Americans. Confronted once again
by state troopers blocking passage to the bridge, King knealt
in prayer, then led his followers back, avoiding further
violence.
Later that evening three white ministers were attacked by locals
as they left a soul food restaurant in Selma. Rev. James Reeb
was struck on the head with a club and died two days later.
"Deputy
Lineup." Alabama Sheriff's deputies block
the progress
of marchers in Selma, Alabama.
March
10, 1969
James Earl Ray was sentenced
to prison for 99 years by a court in Memphis, Tennessee,
after admitting he murdered American civil rights leader
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King, who preached and practiced
nonviolence, was shot dead by a sniper in Memphis as he
stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
The building
now houses the National Civil Rights Museum.
Witnesses pointing toward the source of
the shot that killed King
National
Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel including a curriculum
guide
March
10, 2006
Turkish
conscientious objector (CO) Mehmet Tarhan was released unexpectedly
from a military prison after being held for having refused
service in the army.
A court
decided that he had already been held longer (23 months)
than any possible sentence for
the crime.
Mehmet
Tarhan
Mehmet Tarhan's supporters
He
was ordered, however, to present himself again for military
service and thus be subject to re-arrest for the same
offense.
War Resisters' International(WRI) led an international support campaign for
him along with other CO activists in Turkey.
More
on Mehmet Tarhan and other Turkish COs
March
11, 1968
Cesar
Chavez ended a 23-day fast for U.S. farm workers in a Delano,
California, public park with 4000 supporters at his side,
including Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-New York). Cesar Chavez
led the effort to organize farm workers into a union for
better pay, working and living conditions.
The
story of Cesar Chavez
March
11, 1988
10
days of protest and direct action ensued demanding an end
to nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. The site, larger
than the state of Rhode Island, is an outdoor laboratory
and national experimental center for testing nuclear weapons.
The actions resulted in over 2,200 arrests, the largest
number of arrests in U.S. history for a political protest
outside Washington, D.C.
March
12, 295
Maximilian
of Thebeste (near Carthage in North Africa) was beheaded
by Romans after refusing military service because he said
his Christian beliefs did not permit him to become a soldier.
March
12, 1912
Workers
led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) won the
Lawrence, Massachusetts, "Bread & Roses" textile
strike after 32,000 workers (mostly young female immigrants
who spoke 25 different languages, half between the ages
of 14 and 18) stayed out for nine weeks. They were striking
for a wage increase, double time for overtime and safer
working conditions: the equipment was dangerous and the
air quality caused lung disease in about one-third of the
workers before the age of twenty-five.
read
more
“Bread
and Roses” became the strikers slogan and inspired
a poem by by the same name.
read the
poem
<IWW
organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn addresses a strike rally
Bread & Roses
victory parade
The
strike from an IWW perspective
Hear
Judy Collins sing “Bread and Roses” from her
album of the same title
(free
Rhapsody software installation required)
March
12, 1930
Gandhi's Salt March
began from Ahmadabad with 76 followers to protest the salt
tax. Great Britain's Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting
or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet.
Citizens
were forced to buy it from the British, who, in addition
to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale
of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Defying the Salt
Acts, Gandhi reasoned, would be a simple way for many Indians
to break a British law nonviolently, increasing the pressure
for independence.
By the time Gandhi had covered the 241 miles to the coastal
city of Dandi on the Arabian Sea, the number of marchers had
grown into the thousands.
Gandhi leading the Salt March
More
on the Salt March
March
12, 1978
150,000
demonstrated against construction of a nuclear power
plant in Lemoniz, Spain, part of the Basque region. No
fewer than a dozen plants were planned in a relatively
small, densely populated area, Lemoniz being only 12
km (5 miles) from Bilbao, a city of a million.
The opposition
was concerned about the possibility of accidents.
Lemoniz
protest
March
13, 1830
The
term “rat,” referring to a worker who betrays
the interests of fellow workers, first appeared in print.
The New York Daily Sentinel reported on replacement workers
who had agreed to work for two-thirds of the going rate. “
. . . [many printers are out of work, others are being paid
about 2/3 the regular pay; they should join in cooperative
associations, ‘as we have done’]
“
[While] the master printers [fill] their offices with boys
and two-thirds men, alias ‘rats,’ it will be difficult
to find a remedy.”
March
13, 1864
The
first contingent of 14,030 Navajo reached Fort Sumner,
New Mexico. Men, women and children had been forced to
march almost 400 miles from northeastern Arizona and
northwestern New Mexico to Bosque Redondo, a desolate
tract on the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico. Traveling
in harsh winter conditions for almost two months, about
200 Navajo died of cold and starvation along the way. More
died after they arrived at the barren reservation. The
forced march, led by Kit Carson, an Indian agent and
military leader in both the Mexican and Civil Wars, became
known by the Navajos as the "Long Walk."
A
grueling 400-mile march to imprisonment in a sterile
land.
Resources on The
Long Walk
March
13, 1945
Pax
Christi, an international Catholic peace organization was
founded in France. From their website: “Pax Christi
is a ground up organization – it began with a few
committed people who spoke out, prayed and worked for reconciliation
at the end of the second world war, and is now active in
more than 60 countries and five continents, with more than
60,000 members worldwide.”
Pax
Christi history
March
13, 1968
Clouds of nerve gas drifted outside
the Army's Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, poisoning 6,400
sheep in nearby Skull Valley.
read
more about Dugway - the home of Amerian WMD
Sign
near Dugway: Warning Hazardous Area: This area may contain
Chemical, Biological and Radiological contaminated material
and explosives . . . .
March
14, 1879
Physicist
and peace activist Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany.
The Nobel Prize winner opposed militarism and became a
champion of nuclear disarmament. Though he supported the
development of the atomic bomb in fear that Germany would
develop it first, he warned in a 1944 letter to the Manhattan
Project’s Niels Bohr: "When the war is over,
then there will be in all countries a pursuit of secret
war preparations with technological means which will lead
inevitably to preventative wars and to destruction even
more terrible than the present destruction of life."
read
more
March
14, 1934
The
National Civil Liberties Council was founded in England,
principally to monitor the policing of protests. Renamed
Liberty in 1989, it has campaigned to protect and
promote rights and freedoms for over 75 years.
More background
The
organization today
March
14, 1970
During a second
attempt by Native American activists to claim Fort Lawton (about
50 miles south of Seattle, Washington), 78 were arrested for
entering the site. United Indians for All Tribes was demanding
the city give the unused facility to Native Americans for use
as a cultural center. One week earlier about the same number
had been arrested for occupying what had been declared federal
surplus property. The Daybreak Star Cultural Center is now
operating on the site.
Indians
demonstrating at Fort Lawton
March
14, 1990
Sixteen disability-rights
activists were arrested at the U.S. Capitol demanding passage
of what would become the Americans With Disabilities Act.
More on the status
of the disabled:
disability
rights demonstration
March
14, 2004
Opposition
Socialists scored an upset win in Spain's general election
three days following
the Madrid train bombings. The conservative government had
joined the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq the previous
year though Spanish public opinion was overwhelmingly opposed
to it. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his
party, Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), had
opposed the Iraq War and Spain’s involvement.
The coordinated bombings, which left 191 dead and 1600 injured,
were the worst terrorist attack in Europe aside from the downing
of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Thoughtful
article on the bombings and the political situation in
Spain
March
15, 1869
The
first proposed amendment to the constitution guaranteeing
women’s suffrage was
introduced in the U.S. Congress.
March
15, 1942
Over
1300 Norwegian teachers were arrested by the German Nazi-installed
government run by Vidkun Quisling after 12,000 of 14,000
nationwide had refused to join the new teachers’ association
and resisted nazification of the curriculum. Half were
held in a concentration camp outside the capital of Oslo.
The rest were shipped to the Arctic for forced labor alongside
Russian prisoners of war.
The
loss of the arrested teachers forced a school shutdown
for several weeks. Each day the imprisoned teachers were
marched
to their job of unloading supply ships, citizens stood respectfully
by as they passed. When the teachers returned home later in
the year, they were treated as heroes.
Following Germany’s defeat, Quisling was tried for treason,
convicted and sentenced to death. Quisling is now considered
a synonym for traitor.
Hitler
and Quisling
Vidkun
Quisling – ‘the Hitler of Norway’
March
15, 1963
Students
from South Carolina State and Claflin College organized to
integrate the lunch counter
at Kresge 5&10 in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Though their
efforts were disciplined and peaceful, 400 were attacked by
police then herded behind fences in the largest mass arrest
of the civil rights movement. Convicted of "Breach of
the Peace," the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned those
convictions because those arrested were petitioning for redress
of grievances within the protection of the 1st Amendment.
More than a 1000 students marched peacefully
to intergrate lunch counters in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
More
on the Orangeburg action
March
15, 1965
Less
than a week after the Bloody Sunday police attacks on peaceful
marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, President
Lyndon Johnson addressed the American people before a televised
Joint Session of Congress. He said, “There is no issue
of States rights or national rights. There is only the struggle
for human rights . . . We have already waited a hundred years
and more, and the time for waiting is gone . . . .”
Watch video or read the
text of his speech
March
15, 1993
The
United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador
concluded that most of the murder and human rights abuses
during its civil war had been committed by the U.S.-backed
Salvadoran government through its various military, security
and allied paramilitary organizations.
The
complete report, “From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year
War in El Salvador“
March
16, 1190
The
entire Jewish community of York, England, perished while
observing Shabbat ha-Gadol, the last sabbath before Passover.
Gathered together inside Clifford’s Tower, the keep
of York's medieval castle, for protection from the violent
mob outside, many of the Jews took their own lives; others
died in the flames they had lit, and those who finally surrendered
were massacred and murdered.
Clifford's
Tower
This
occurred just after the beginning of the Third Crusade. “Before
attempting to revenge ourselves upon the Moslem unbelievers,
let us first revenge ourselves upon the ‘killers of
Christ’ living in our midst!”
March
16, 1827
The first newspaper owned and edited
by and for African-Americans, Freedom's Journal, was published
in New York City.
It appeared the same year slavery was abolished
in New York state.
two
of the early founders
of
Freedom's
Journal
March
16, 1921
The
War Resisters International was founded with sections set
up in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.
By 1939 there were 54 WRI Sections in 24 countries, including
the U.S..
WRI
No More War demonstration in Berlin 1922
Their
symbol: a broken gun.
Their
slogan: "The
right to refuse to kill."
Their
founding statement
WRI
today
March
16, 1968
U.S.
troops in South Vietnam killed an estimated 350 unarmed
men, women and children in My Lai, a cluster of hamlets
in the coastal lowlands of Quang Ngai Province. Lt. William
L. Calley, Jr. commanded the men of Charlie Company, First
Battalion, Americal Division, and was the only one tried
out of 80 involved in what is called the My Lai Massacre.
The Army, including a young Major Colin Powell, at first
tried to cover it up and the media resisted reporting it.
Young
girls sheltering behind their mother during My Lai
Some
of Calley’s soldiers refused to participate, but
only 24-year-old helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his
crew stopped it by putting themselves between the villagers
and the troops pursuing them.
read
more
Lt.
William L. Calley Warrant
Officer Hugh Thompson
Chief
My Lai prosecutor William Eckhardt described how Thompson responded
to what he found when he put his helicopter down:"[Thompson]
put his guns on Americans, said he would shoot them if they
shot another Vietnamese, had his people wade in the ditch in
gore to their knees, to their hips, took out children, took
them to the hospital...flew back [to headquarters], standing
in front of people, tears rolling down his cheeks, pounding
on the table saying, 'Notice, notice, notice'...then had the
courage to testify time after time after time."
Hugh
Thompson’s
story
More
on My Lai
March
16, 1972
Reference
librarian Zoia Horn refused to testify against the Harrisburg
Seven who were on trial for an alleged conspiracy to kidnap
then-National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. Five of
the seven were current or former Catholic priests or nuns.
Horn
had been implicated by an ex-convict informer placed
in the Bucknell University library by the FBI. Though
given immunity
from self-incrimination, Zoia objected to the idea that libraries
could become places of infiltration and spying. Charged with
contempt of court, she was sent to jail for 20 days until a
mistrial was declared.
Judith Krug, longtime director of the American Library Association’s
Office of Intellectual Freedom, said that Horn was “the
first librarian who spent time in jail for a value of our profession.”
Reference
librarian Zoia Horn
At the trial she asked
to read a statement of explanation, but was led away in handcuffs
before she had begun her third sentence: “Your Honor, it is because I respect the function of this court
to protect the rights of the individual, that I must refuse
to testify. I cannot in my conscience lend myself to this black
charade. I love and respect this country too much to see a
farce made of the tenets upon which it stands. To me it stands
on freedom of thought—but government spying in homes,
in libraries and universities inhibits and destroys this freedom.
It stands on freedom of association—yet in this case
gatherings of friends, picnics and parties have been given
sinister implications, and made suspect. It stands on freedom
of speech—yet general discussions have been interpreted
by the government as advocacies of conspiracies.”
March
16, 1988
Iraqi
forces acting under orders from Pres. Saddam Hussein attacked
the Kurdish village of Halabja with a variety of poison gasses
including mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun, and
VX. About 5,000 non-combatant men but mostly women and children,
died from the chemical weapons. This was part of Saddam’s
al-Anfal campaign, a slow genocide of the Kurds in Iraq.
Kurdish
father Omar Osman and his infant son,
victims of Saddam
Hussein’s poison gas attack on Halabja, Kurdistan
(Iraq)
The
Human Rights Watch full report on
the al-Anfal Campaign
Conversation
with Peter Galbraith who alerted the U.S. to the Anfal campaign
Ambassador
Peter Galbraith explains the Kurdish situation before the
Iraq War to Charlie Rose (begin at 33:30)
March
16, 2003
Rachel
Corrie, an American college student in Gaza to protest Israeli
military and security operations, was killed when run over
by a bulldozer while trying to stop Israeli troops from demolishing
a Palestinian home.
The
23-year-old from Olympia, Washington, was a member of International
Solidarity Movement and was the first nonviolent western
protester to die in the occupied territories.
In Memoriam Rachel Corrie
1979-2003
March
16, 2003
Over
5000 coordinated candlelight vigils and demonstrations
took place, in more than 125 countries, in an eleventh-hour
protest against the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Knoxville,
Tennessee
Trafalgar
Square, London
March
17, 1966
Cesar Chavez
and the National Farm Workers Association left Delano for
Sacramento, the capital of California, a 340-mile march which
would take three weeks. They were calling public attention
to the plight of farm workers and for their struggle for
the right to organize a union.
Farm Worker
union beginnings
March
17, 1968
In
London’s Trafalgar Square, at the largest anti-Vietnam
War protest in Britain to date, 25,000 people marched.
They were demonstrating against American action in Vietnam
and British support for the United States policy.
Some then attempted to storm the U.S. Embassy, resulting
in 200 arrests and fifty taken to hospital, nearly half police
officers.
watch
footage of the demo
Actress
Vanessa Redgrave was allowed to enterthe
embassy to deliver a protest
March
17, 1978
The
oil supertanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground and, in the worst
oil spill ever,
lost its entire cargo of 1,619,048 barrels (223,000 tons).
A slick 18 miles wide and 80 miles long polluted approximately
200 miles of France’s Brittany coastline.
The
Amoco Cadiz disaster was the first marine environmental
catastrophe to be covered by the world's media in real
time.
one
of the victims
All
the details
March
17, 2003
Pres.
George W. Bush warned U.N. weapons inspectors to leave
the Iraq within 48 hours. They were in country searching
for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), conducting 900 inspections
at 500 locations in four months. Bush had given Saddam
Hussein the same amount of time to step down from power
or suffer the consequences of the planned invasion.
Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, and Mohamed El
Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and
the inspectors had found no WMDs, or any evidence of a renewed
Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Despite increasing cooperation
from Iraqi authorities relenting to international pressure,
the inspectors were unable to complete their work due to the
American threat of war.
U.N.
weapons inspectors in Iraq before they were forced to leave
by Pres. George W. Bush
Hans
Blix’s report to the UN Security Council just ten days
earlier
March
18, 1922
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi’s "Great
Trial" for writing seditious articles opposing British
colonial rule began in Ahmedabad, India. The accused, Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, aged 53, described himself as a farmer
and weaver by profession, and spoke in his own defense,
pleading guilty. "I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected
towards a government which, in its totality, has done more
harm to India than any other system . . . .
" . . . I do not ask for mercy. I am to invite and cheerfully
submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me
for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me
to be the highest duty of the citizen."
More
on the trial
March
18, 1962
Algeria
became a sovereign nation after 130 years of French colonial
rule. The struggle for independence inspired "The
Battle of Algiers," a movie by Gillo Pontecorvo. The
film was shown extensively in the Pentagon to help understand
the Iraqi insurgency.
French
army confront demonstrators for Algerian independence
in 1960
read
about the movie
The movie and
the Pentagon
March
18, 1970
The
first strike against the U.S. government and the first
mass work stoppage in the 195-year history of the Postal
Service began with a walkout of letter carriers in Brooklyn
and Manhattan who were demanding better wages. Ultimately,
210,000 (in 30 cities) of the nation's 750,000 postal employees
participated in the wildcat strike. With mail service virtually
paralyzed in New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia, Pres.
Nixon declared a state of national emergency and assigned
military units to New York City post offices. The stand-off
ended one week later.
Congress voted a six percent raise for the workers retroactive
to December.
More including
a video about the strike
March
18, 1970
Country
Joe McDonald
Country
Joe McDonald was convicted of obscenity and fined $500 for
leading a crowd in his infamous Fish Cheer
("Gimme an
F !") at a concert in Massachusetts.
It was the band’s
introduction to "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag,” a
Vietnam protest song.
The
lyrics:
Pete
Seeger’s version of the controversial song:
March
18, 1992
In a referendum,
the last whites-only election held in South Africa, voters
overwhelmingly gave the government authority to negotiate
a new constitution with the African National Congress and
other black political groups, and an end to the system of
racial separation know as apartheid.
When
white South African voted for change
March
19, 1911
The
first International Women’s Day was held in Germany,
Austria, Denmark and some other European countries. This date
was chosen by German women because, on that date in 1848, the
Prussian king, faced with an armed uprising, had promised many
reforms, including an unfulfilled one of votes for women. A
million leaflets calling for action on the right to vote were
distributed throughout Germany.
March
19, 1963
The
blacklisting of Pete Seeger (and other members of The Weavers)
from the
folk music television show "Hootenanny" prompted
a boycott by 50 folk artists (The Kingston Trio, Bob Dylan,
Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary, among others).
Seeger had become a cultural hero through his outspoken and
joyful commitment to the anti-war and civil rights movements,
and helped popularize the anthemic "We Shall Overcome."
read
about Pete Seeger
Pete
Seeger bio from Encyclopedia of the American Left
Pete
singing and talking about the music with Hugh Hefner on
TV in the early ‘60s
March
19, 1978
50,000 marched in Amsterdam
to protest U.S. deployment of the neutron bomb in Europe.
The neutron bomb was a tactical (artillery shell) enhanced-radiation
weapon. It killed people with a neutron flux that penetrated
armor but was effective over a limited area, leaving little
fallout or residual radiation. It did minimal damage to
physical structures.
Thorough
information in The Neutron Bomb by Michael Aquino
March
20, 1815
Switzerland was declared
neutral by the great powers of Europe at the Vienna Congress
following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. The confederation
of 22 cantons (member states) had its current borders established
with its neighbors France, Germany, Austria and Italy.
Switzerland’s
history
March
20, 1852
Harriet
Beecher Stowe's influential novel about slavery, Uncle
Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, was first published
in book form by J.P. Jewett of Boston. The text had previously
been serialized in the anti-slavery newspaper, the National
Era.
10,000 copies were sold in the first week, 300,000 within the
first year. The many different editions published in Europe
sold an aggregate of one million copies in the first year.
It was the second best-selling book of the 19th century after
the Bible.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was soon
published in dozens of languages
The
novel’s influence on American culture
March
20, 1983
In Australia 150,000 (1% of population) demonstrated
in anti-nuclear rallies.
Australia's anti-nuclear movement: a short history
Sydney
anti-uranium protest.April 7, 1979.
March
20, 1998
Despite the efforts of thousands
of anti-nuclear demonstrators, a train hauling 60 tons of nuclear
waste arrived in the north German town of Ahaus from Walheim
in the south. Twice the train was stopped by protestors chained
to the tracks; 300 were arrested with police using water cannon
in response to rocks and sticks being thrown at them.
The size of the security deployment, outnumbering the protestors
ten to one, necessitated the postponing of ten days of football
(soccer) matches. A similar shipment the previous year provoked
several days of rioting.
More
on X-Days in Ahaus
March
20, 2003
U.S.
and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets
in Iraq including a “decapitation attack” aimed
at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of
the country’s leadership.
Baghdad,
Iraq under attack
There were nearly 300,000 American,
British and other troops at the border.
President George W. Bush warned Americans that the conflict "could
be longer and more difficult than some predict." He assured
the nation that “this will not be a campaign of half-measures,
and we will accept no outcome except victory.”
read
about the cost of this war
March 20,
2009 11:44 GMT
The first day of spring (the vernal
equinox) is the day for celebrating NoRuz [no-rooz], the Persian
New Year.
More
on NoRuz and other Persian celebrations
March
21, 1937
On
Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter), the Nationalist Party
of Puerto Rico was to march in Ponce (city on the southern
coast of the island) in support of Puerto Rican independence.
They were also protesting the imprisonment of Albizu Campos,
leader of the Party and the lawyer for the sugarcane workers
who had led a general strike.
The colonial military governor, Blanton Winship (a Georgian
who had been Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army), revoked
the parade permit at the last minute. Nationalists insisted
on marching regardless and, surrounded by the well armed police,
were fired upon as they began. Whoever fired the first shot,
18 Nationalists and 2 policemen died. 200 others, Nationalists
and bystanders, were injured, 150 arrested. This incident is
known as Masacre de Ponce, or “The Ponce Massacre.”
Families
of those who died in the Ponce Massacre
A
history of Puerto Rico
The
Ponce massacre remembered
March
21, 1960
South
African police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators in
the black township of Sharpeville near Johannesburg. The
demonstrators were protesting the establishment of apartheid
pass laws which restricted movement of non-whites.
In Sharpeville itself, 69 were killed and 176 wounded when
police fired on the crowd, 63 of them shot in the back. In
the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, protests broke out
in Cape Town and elsewhere, and there were further casualties.
Overall, 13,000 were jailed.
The organizer, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, head of the Pan-Africanist
Congress, had written to the police commissioner, notifying
him of the plans, and had said at a press conference, “I
have appealed to the African people to make sure that this
campaign is conducted in a spirit of absolute nonviolence,
and I am quite certain they will heed my call.”
The
Sharpeville Massacre and its significance in South African
history
March
21, 1990
The
Plowshares Two damaged a U.S. F-111 bomber in Upper Heyford,
England. This was the first plowshares action in Britain.
The details
of this and other Plowshares actions of the time
March
21, 2003
The report
of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa
was released. The commission was led by the Rev. Desmond
Tutu, a bishop in the Anglican Church, the first black General
Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, and Nobel
Peace Prize winner for his efforts to bring peace and justice
to all South Africans.
Archbishop
Desmond Mpilo Tutu
The
Commission was charged with investigating and providing “as
complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and
extent of gross violations of human rights” under
the apartheid regime from 1960 until the inauguration of
Pres. Nelson Mandela in 1994. But they sought to to go
beyond truth-finding to promote national unity and reconciliation,
to facilitate the granting of amnesty to those who made
full factual disclosure, to restore the human and civil
dignity of victims by providing them an opportunity to
tell their own stories, and to make recommendations to
the president on measures to prevent future human rights
violations.
Rev. Tutu concluded in his foreword to the report, “Quite
improbably, we as South Africans have become a beacon of hope
to others locked in deadly conflict that peace, that a just
resolution, is possible. If it could happen in South Africa,
then it can certainly happen anywhere else. Such is the exquisite
divine sense of humour.”
The
complete report of the Commission
March
21, 2008
More
than 300 people participated in an annual Good Friday peace
action at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, organized by Tri-Valley Communities Against
a Radioactive Environment (CARES). The lab is a key participant
in the design of all weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The
Alameda County Sheriff arrested 91 of the protesters. CARES
executive director Marylia Kelley said, “The emphasis
is on nonviolence and rejecting violence.”
The
organization behind the action
March
22, 1933
The
Nazi German concentration camp at Dachau was opened, the
first
of many such camps built for the incarceration and extermination
of those considered unfit: Jews, Polish Catholics, Communists,
the Roma (frequently referred to as Gypsies), the “work-shy,” homosexuals,
the “hereditary asocial,” and those with mental
and/or physical handicaps. Over 200,000 prisoners were registered
at Dachau, nearly all of whom died there.
The
gate to Dachau "Work will make you free"
Comprehensive
information about Dachau
March
22, 1956
Civil rights leader Rev.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was convicted of organizing an allegedly
illegal boycott by black passengers of buses in Montgomery,
Alabama. He was fined $500 but when his lawyers indicated
his intent to appeal, the sentence was changed to 386 days
of imprisonment.
Story
of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
March
22, 1965
3,200
civil rights demonstrators, led by the Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr., and under protection of a federalized National
Guard, began a third attempt at a week-long march from
Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol at Montgomery in support
of voting rights for black Americans.
Marchers on their way to
Montgomery
A
week before, the march had been violently stopped before
leaving Selma. People from all over the country arrived
to support the effort for enfranchisement of African Americans
in the South.
Classroom
activities on the Selma-to-Montgomery March including
the regular reports of
Joseph Califano, Special Assistant to Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara, who accompanied
the marchers
March
22, 1974
The Equal
Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ERA) was passed
by both houses of Congress with two-thirds majorities.
The amendment, to give women full equality under law, was
ratified by the legislatures of only 35 states, short of
the required three-quarters of the 50 states, and thus
never became law.
Detailed history
of the Equal Rights Amendment
March
22, 1980
30,000
marched in Washington, DC against re-introduction of
draft registration.
Denise
Levertov's lines from her poem,
"A
Speech for Antidraft Rally, D.C., March 22, 1980”
"...Let
our different dream,
and more than dream, our acts
of constructive refusal generate
struggle. And love. We must dare to win
not wars, but a future
in which to live."
The
entire poem
March
23, 1918
The
trial of 101 Wobblies (members of the Industrial Workers
of the World or IWW) began in Chicago, for opposition
to World War I. In September 1917, 165 IWW members were
arrested for conspiring to hinder the draft, encourage
desertion, and intimidate others in connection with labor
disputes. The trial lasted five months, the longest criminal
trial in American history to date.
The jury found them all guilty. The judge sentenced IWW leader "Big
Bill" Haywood and 14 others to 20 years in prison; 33
were given 10 years, the rest shorter sentences. They were
fined a total of $2,500,000 and the IWW was shattered as
a result. Haywood jumped bail and fled to the Soviet Union,
where he remained until his death 10 years later.
Another
story of harassment of the IWW elsewhere in the country
"Big
Bill" Haywood
March
23, 1942
The
U.S. government began moving all those of Japanese ancestry,
including some native-born U.S. citizens (known as nisei),
from their west coast homes to imprisonment in detention
centers (concentration camps), beginning with Manzanar
in California which eventually held more than 10,000 Americans.
Located on 60,000 acres west of Los Angeles, it is now
a national historic site; only 3 of the original 800 buildings
remain.
Gallery
of photos and other materials about Manzanar
March
23, 1961
Army
Major Lawrence Robert Bailey was the first recorded American
to be held as a prisoner of war in Southeast Asia. One
of eight crew of a C-47 surveillance aircraft shot down
over Laos, Bailey was held by the Pathet Lao for 17 months,
losing one-third of his body weight (down to 53 kg, or
117 lbs) during that time. The other occupants of the
plane are presumed to have died in the crash; Bailey
always wore a parachute.
About
Major Bailey
One thousand boats, known informally as the Auckland Harbour Peace Squadron,
demonstrated against arrival of the nuclear submarine, U.S.S. Queenfish
in New Zealand.
USS Queenfish nuclear submarine student die-in outside US Consulate.
March
24, 1616
William
Leddra was executed by the Charter government of Massachusetts
for being a Quaker.
He was the fourth and last of his religion to be hanged with
the approval of Gov. John Endicott. Though the court did not
find him “evil,” he had sympathized with the Quakers
who were executed before him; he had refused to remove his
hat, and he used the words "thee" and "thou," which,
to Quakers, implied the equality of all people.
Check out the way the link works for this. Much better than
the terrible transcription I read the other day.
Contemporaneous
letter describing Leddra’s and other Quakers’ persecution
(starts
p.58)
March
24, 1918
Native-born
Canadian women over 21 (except native, or First Nations,
women) won the right to vote in federal elections, but not
to run for office for yet another year. Suffrage was not
granted to women in Quebec provincial elections until 1940.
What
Thérèse
Casgrain did to get the vote for women in Quebec
March
24, 1964
In a sit-down
against nuclear weapons at Parliament Square in London, England,
1,172 were arrested.
March
24, 1965
The
first Teach-In on the Vietnam War was held at the University
of Michigan a month after Pres. Lyndon Johnson ordered
bombing of North Vietnam. The U-M teach-in was among the
first of a new form of campus protest that was to spread
nationwide, a means of mobilizing students to examine policies
of their government that they previously had taken for
granted.
read
more about the 1st Teach-In
Very few Americans had ever heard of the country in southeast Asia, and
the event was intended to educate the participants in the history
of Vietnam and foreign aggression there.
Young protester in Chicago march
photo Jo Freeman
March
24, 1967
Rev.
Martin Luther King, Jr. led an anti-war march for the first
time in Chicago, opposing the Vietnam War by saying:
“ Our arrogance can be our doom. It can bring the curtains down on our
national drama . . . Ultimately, a great nation is a compassionate nation The
bombs in Vietnam explode at home—they destroy the dream and possibility
for a decent America . . . .”
Rev. King addresses
rally at the end of the Chicago march
photo: Jo Freeman
March
24, 1980
The Coalition of Labor Union Women
(CLUW) was founded, electing as their first president Olga
Madar, a vice president of the United Auto Workers. The convention
adopted four goals: organize the unorganized; promote affirmative
action; increase women's participation in their unions; and
increase women's participation in political and legislative
activities.
CLUW
today
March
24, 1980
The
archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez
was assassinated while consecrating the Eucharist during
mass. Monseñor Romero had become a well-known critic
of violence and injustice and, as such, was perceived in
the right-wing civilian and military circles of El Salvador
as an enemy, and criticized by the Roman Catholic church.
Romero had exhorted the police and soldiers to disobey orders
to kill innocent people, refusing to be silenced. Worshippers
had interrupted, with ovations, his homilies condemning the
terrorism of the state.
read
more about Monsignor Romero
March
24, 1989
The
most environmentally damaging oil spill to date began when
the supertanker Exxon Valdez,
owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, ran aground on
Bligh Reef in southern Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
An estimated 11 million gallons of oil (257,000 barrels or
38,800 metric tons) eventually leaked into the water.
Attempts to
contain the massive spill were unsuccessful, and wind and
currents spread the oil nearly 500 miles from its source,
eventually polluting more than 1300 miles of coastline. Hundreds
of thousands of birds and thousands of sea mammals were lost
in the disaster.
A
dead murrelet, one of the hardest-hit sea birds in the
Valdez spill.
Comprehensive
information from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council
March
25, 1807
Great Britain
abolished international trade in slaves. Emancipation of slaves
in the country, however, did not occur until 1834, and persisted
as unpaid apprenticeship for the technically emancipated for
years after that.
The
story of abolition in England
March
25, 1872
Toronto
printers went on strike for a 9-hour workday and a 54-hour
workweek—the
first major strike in Canada. When the editor of the Globe
newspaper had thirteen of them arrested, 10,000 turned out
to support them. Later that year unions were made legal in
Canada.
Daniel O'Donoghue,
leader of the Toronto printers
March
25, 1911
Coxey's "Army" heads
peacefully from Ohio for Washington, D.C., demanding economic
reform.
March
25, 1911
The
Triangle Shirt Waist Company, occupying the top floors
of a ten-story building on New York’s lower east
side, was consumed by fire. 147 people, mostly immigrant
women
and young girls working in sweatshop conditions, lost their
lives.
Approximately 50 died as they leapt from windows to
the street; the others were burned or trampled to death,
desperately trying to escape via stairway exits illegally
locked to prevent “ the interruption of work.”Company
owners were charged with seven counts of manslaughter—but
were found not guilty.
The
incident was a turning point in labor law, especially concerning
health and safety. For three
days prior, the company, along with other warehouse owners,
had grouped together to fight the Fire Commissioner's order
that fire sprinklers be installed.
Protests
in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire
button from the struggle
Comprehensive
collection of materials on the tragedy from Cornell University’s
labor school
March
25, 1915
The Sisterhood
of International Peace was founded in Melbourne, Australia,
by Eleanor May Moore and Dr. Charles Strong.
more
about Eleanor May Moore
March
25, 1965
Their
numbers having swelled to 25,000, the Selma-to-Montgomery
marchers arrived at the Alabama state capitol. Organized
by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),
the march was to bring attention to the denial of voting
rights to black Americans in the state and elsewhere in
the south. Twice the people had been turned back, denied
the right to leave Selma peacefully.
Martin
Luther King Jr. and wife Coretta lead march into Montgomery,
Alabama.
Dr.
King spoke to the crowd: “Yes, we are on the move
and no wave of racism can stop us. (Yes, sir) We are on
the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter
us. (Yes, sir) The bombing of our homes will not dissuade
us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The beating
and killing of our clergymen and young people will not
divert us. We are on the move now.”
The Federal Voting Rights Act was passed within two months.
Read
the full text of Rev. King’s speech
The
Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail
March
25, 1965
Anthony & Viola
Liuzzo
Viola
Gregg Liuzzo, a housewife and mother from Detroit, driving
marchers back to Selma from Montgomery, was shot and killed
by Ku Klux Klansmen from a passing car. She had driven down
to Alabama to join the march after seeing on television the
Bloody Sunday attacks at Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge
earlier in the month. It was later learned that riding with
the Klansmen was an FBI informant, Gary Rowe.
The
murder of Viola Liuzzo, a narrative with links to other
excellent sites
March
25, 1969
The
newly wed John Lennon and Yoko Ono-Lennon began their seven-day "bed-in for peace" against
the Vietnam War in the presidential suite of the the Amsterdam
Hilton in The Netherlands. Their doors were open to the media
from 10am to 10pm. They invited all to think about and talk
about creating peace.
“ Yoko
and I are quite willing to be the world's clowns, if
by so doing it will do some good.”
The
Wedding and “Ballad of John and Yoko”
Amsterdam
bed-in photo album
March
25, 1972
30,000 participated in the Children's
March for Survival, Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National
Welfare Rights Organization. They were supporting the Family
Assistance Program, then pending in Congress (but never passed),
which guaranteed a minimum income level for all families.
March
25, 1990
A
new community, Segundo Montes, was started by campesinos
in El Salvador who had lived for nine years as exiles in
Honduras following the El Mozote Massacre, when 1000 civilians
were killed by the U.S.-trained Salvadoran military. The
town was named after a priest who had helped them in the
Colomoncagua refugee camp on the border, and who was murdered
along with four other Jesuit priests by the Salvadoran military.
March
26, 1839
The
Cherokee Indians came to the end of the “Trail of Tears,” a
forced march from their ancestral home in the Smoky Mountains
to the Oklahoma Territory. Gen. Winfield Scott, under orders
from Pres. Andrew Jackson, arrested then drove the tribe’s
members through the winter, leaving 4000 dead along the route.
According to John Burnett, an interpreter with the U.S. Army, “.
. . covetousness on the part of the white race was the cause
of all that the Cherokees had to suffer . . . .” The
train of 645 wagons stretched for five km (three miles),
leaving behind as many as twenty graves in one day, principally
victims of exposure.
Listen to
This American Life’s Sarah Vowell as she follows
the Trail of
Tears
John
Burnett’s
Story of the Trail of Tears, a letter to his children written
late in life,
recalling his experiences as a young private involved in
the Cherokee removal (document
I)
March
26, 1966
Over
50,000 marched peacefully in the Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace
Parade in New York City.
They were part of the second International
Days of Protest with marches in several cities in North America.
Early
efforts opposing the war in Vietnam
Fifth
Avenue anti-Vietnam War demonstration
photo: Robert Parent
March
26, 1979
In
a ceremony at the White House, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat
and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a peace
agreement they had worked out with the assistance of Pres.
Jimmy Carter at Camp David, the U.S. president’s rural
retreat. The agreement ended three decades of hostilities
between Egypt and Israel, establishing diplomatic and commercial
ties. The two countries have remained at peace for 40 years.
Less than two years earlier, in
an unprecedented move for an Arab leader, Sadat had traveled
to Jerusalem to seek a permanent peace settlement with Egypt's
Jewish neighbor.
Video of the signing courtesy of
BBC
March
26, 1986
The Oklahoma Supreme
Court (Post v. State of Oklahoma) upheld a ruling that an Oklahoma
anti-sodomy law could not be constitutionally
applied to private, consensual activity.
March
26, 2003
Over one million students in Spain
went on strike in opposition to their government's support
of the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq.
The demonstration in Barcelona
March
27, 1867
Newly
freed negroes after the American Civil War staged ride-ins
on Charleston, South Carolina, streetcars. The railway company
integrated later the same year. Similar efforts were made
in Richmond, Virginia, and Mobile, Alabama.
March
27, 1966
20,000
Buddhists marched silently for peace in Hue, South
Vietnam.
March
27, 1969
The
first Chicano Youth Liberation Conference was held by the
Crusade for Justice.
The poet known as Alurista presented his poem, "Plan
Espiritual De Aztlán," on the concept of Aztlán,
a unifying spiritual and geographic homeland of the Chicanos.
He took the concept that the land belongs to those who work
it from Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. Aztlán
is a name for the home of the Aztecs.
Alurista
read
more about Alurista
in
search of Aztlan
March
28, 1799
The
New York state legislature enacted a law mandating the
gradual end of slavery. Children
of slaves would not be emancipated until they had served
their parent’s “holder” until they reached
their mid-twenties. It was not until 1827 that a subsequent
law declared: “every person born within this state,
whether white or colored, is free.”
March
28, 1918
2,000
in the city of Quebec, Canada, demonstrated in the culmination
of the Conscription Crisis during World War I.
High
casualty rates in the Great War forced the Ottawa government
to institute a draft. The Canadiens resisted military
service supporting Great Britain in. The protests continued
for five days over the Easter weekend. [see April 1]
read
more
Anti-Conscription
Parade in Victoria Square, Montreal, Quebec, May 24,
1917,
The
gathering in this photo looks calm. Riots nearly a
year later resulted in the death of four demonstrators
in Quebec City.
May
28, 1963
Black
and white civil rights advocates were attacked as they
sat-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson,
Mississippi. They were defying state laws against serving “colored” citizens
at “whites-only” public facilities.
According to John Salter, AKA Hunter Bear, one of those who sat
in: “This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things.”
Attacked
for trying to eat at Woolworth’s
(L to R): John Salter (Hunter Bear), Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), and Anne
Moody.
More
photos and the story of the struggle against segregation
A bibliography of the Civil Rights Movement
March
28, 1964
Three hundred were arrested
during a sit-down protest at U.S. Air Force headquarters
in Ruislip, England. The
protest was organized the the Committee of 100, a group using
non-violent direct action to campaign for British unilateral
nuclear disarmament.
Conceived
by the president of the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament,
Bertrand Russell
(he resigned this post soon after), and a young American
academic named Ralph Schoenman, they proposed mass civil
disobedience in resisting nuclear weapons, challenging
the authorities to “fill the jails,” with the
intention of causing prison overload and large-scale disorder.
They were committed to nonviolence, and on arrest would
go limp so as to create maximum disruption without conflict.
Police
in Ruislip arrested men and women demonstrators indiscriminately.
photo John 'Hoppy' Hopkins
March
28, 1968
Martin Luther
King, Jr., led a march in support of striking sanitation workers
in Memphis, Tennessee. Shortly after its start, violence broke
out followed by looting; one 16-year-old black boy was killed,
60 people were injured, and over 150 arrested. Police dispersed
the rioters with mace, batons and teargas. National Guard troops
are called in and sealed off black neighborhoods; martial law
was declared by nightfall.
Despite the violence, King insisted on returning to the city
and the sanitation workers’ side the following week.
Dr. King at a press conference after violence
during a march in support of striking sanitation workers
Two
alternative views of what happened that day in Memphis,
and what followed
March
28, 1979
In
the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, a cooling system
on the Unit Two reactor failed at Three Mile Island (TMI)
in Middletown, Pennsylvania. This led to a partial meltdown
that uncovered the reactor's core. Radioactive steam leaked
into the atmosphere, prompting fears for the safety of the
plant's 500 workers and the surrounding community.
Nearby Dickinson College’s
TMI virtual museum
Front-page
story in the New York Times
March
28, 2001
After being delayed by massive
anti-nuclear protests en route, 60 tons of nuclear waste arrived
by train at Dannenberg, Germany. Though the government had
agreed to phase out German reliance on nuclear power, some
plants will continue to operate until 2021.
The waste fuel rods sent to France for reprocessing had to
return to Germany for permanent long-term storage. Transported
through Germany by train, and then by truck to their permanent
site in Gorleben, movement of the 28 glass casks was considered
an unacceptable safety risk to residents. Protesters blocked
the tracks, sometimes chaining themselves in place, to stop
the shipment. 20,000 police were required to allow the train’s
passage.
Protester Jürgen Sattari said he considered the operation
a success.
"
We want to stop the convoy," he said. "Of course
we know we can't halt it indefinitely, but we can drive up
the political price."
More
on the broad-based struggle against nuclear waste in Germany
March
29, 1925
Black
leaders in Charleston, West Virginia, protested the showing
of D. W. Griffith's movie, Birth of a Nation, scheduled
to open at the Rialto Theatre on April 1. They said it
violated a 1919 state law prohibiting any entertainment
which demeaned another race. Mayor W.W. Wertz and the West
Virginia Supreme Court supported their argument and prevented
the showing of the film; efforts to ban the film met with
mixed results around the country.
Ku
Klux Klan "justice" as portrayed in Birth of
a Nation.
What
made this movie (after a book called The Clansmen) exceptional
in cinema history
The
effort to ban the film in Boston
March
29, 1925
Black
leaders in Charleston, West Virginia, protested the showing
of D. W. Griffith's movie, “Birth of a Nation,” scheduled
to open at the Rialto Theatre on April 1.
They said it violated a 1919 state law prohibiting any entertainment which
demeaned another race. Mayor W. W. Wertz and the West Virginia Supreme
Court supported their argument and prevented the showing of the film.
March
29, 1971
U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley was found guilty at a court martial
for his part in the My Lai massacre which claimed the lives of hundreds
of South Vietnamese civilians. Convicted for the premeditated murder
of at least 22 Vietnamese civilians, he was sentenced to three years
under house arrest.
How
the world learned of My Lai
March
29, 1973
The
last American combat troops left South Vietnam, ending direct
U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. Military advisors
to the South Vietnamese Army remained, as did Marines protecting
U.S. installations, and thousands of Defense Dept. civilians.
Of
the more than 3 million Americans who served in the war,
almost 58,000 had died, and more than 1,000 were missing
in action. Some 150,000 Americans had been seriously wounded.
The loss of Vietnamese killed and wounded was in the millions
and damage to the countryside persists to this day.
The 615th MP Company was inactivated in Vietnam on the last day of American
military combat presence.
Timeline on the war
in Vietnam
An overview of the American
military experience in Vietnam
March
29, 1987
Members
of Vietnam Veterans For Peace arrived in Wicuili at the end
of a march from Jinotega, Nicaragua. The veterans were actively
monitoring the U.S. attempts to destabilize the country by
providing aid to the insurgent contras.
More
than weapons may have been involved in the Contra supply
operation
visit
Veterans for Peace
March
30, 1891
"Sockless" Jerry
Simpson
Signaling
a growing movement toward direct political action among desperate
western farmers, "Sockless" Jerry Simpson called
on the Kansas Farmers' Alliance to work for a takeover of
the state government. Simpson was one of the most well-known
and influential leaders among Populist-minded western and
midwestern farmers of the late 19th century.
Angered over low crop prices, high-interest bank loans and
unaffordable shipping rates, farmers began to unite in self-help
groups like the Grange and the Farmers' Alliances. Initially,
these groups primarily provided mutual assistance to members
while agitating for the regulation of railroads and grain elevators.
Increasingly, though, they became centers of support for more
sweeping political change by uniting to help form the nationwide
third-party movement known as the Populists.
March
30, 1919
Shops
were closed and thousands demonstrated in protest against
Rowlatt Acts in New Delhi, Amritsar, and other Indian cities.
The hastily passed law permanently extended wartime civil
liberties restrictions such as trial without jury and internment
without trial.
March
30, 1948
Henry
Wallace, former vice-president (under Franklin D. Roosevelt)
and then Progressive Party presidential candidate, lashed
out at the Cold War policies of President Harry S. Truman.
Wallace and his supporters were among the few Americans
who actively voiced criticisms of America's Cold War mindset
during the late 1940s and 1950s.
read
more on his warnings about American fascists
March
30, 1980
80,000
demonstrated against construction of a commercial nuclear
reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf, Germany. The project
was ultimately abandoned.
March
31, 1492
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
ordered the expulsion from Spain before August of all Jews
who refused to convert to Christianity under penalty of death.
March
31, 1776
Abigail
Adams wrote to her husband, John (later to be the second
U.S. president): I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and
by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose
it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would
Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable
to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited
power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all
Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar
care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are
determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold
ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice,
or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical
is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of
no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly
give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender
and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out
of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use
us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of
Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us
only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as
Beings placed by providence under your protection and
in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that
power only for our happiness.
March
31, 1968
Pres. Lyndon Johnson
announced he would not seek re-election, ordered a partial
bombing halt in Vietnam, and appointed W. Averell Harriman
to seek peace negotiations with North Vietnam.
March
31, 1970
2,500
University of California-Berkeley students turned in their
draft cards at the Oakland Induction Center in protest of
the Vietnam war.
March
31, 1972
Protesters – singing, blowing
horns and carrying banners – launched the latest leg
of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's 56-mile Easter march
from London to Aldermaston, Berkshire, England.
The banner used in the 1960s Aldermaston marches.
March
31, 1985
Throughout Australia, 300,000 demonstrated
in peace and anti-nuclear rallies.
March
31, 1991
Before dawn on Easter, five Plowshares activists boarded
the USS Gettys-burg, an Aegis-equipped Cruiser docked at the
Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. They proceeded to hammer and
pour blood on covers of vertical launching systems for cruise
missiles.
"We witness against the American enslavement to war at
the Bath Iron Works, geographically near the President’s
home." They also left an in-dictment charging President
George H.W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, the National
Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff with war crimes
and violations of God’s law and international law, including
the kill-ing of thousands of Iraqis.
read more about Aegis Plowshares
March
31, 1997
Four
East Timorese were arrested in Warton, England, at the
British Aerospace factory where Hawk
fighter jets were built for the Indonesian military, who used
them in the ongoing occupation and genocide of their homeland.
March
31, 2004
Air America, intended as a liberal voice in network
talk radio, made its debut on five stations.
This
Week In History compiled by peacebuttons.info from various
sources
which are available upon request.
Submissions are always welcome. Please furnish sources. cb@peacebuttons.info
Reproduction
of this calendar for non-profit purposes
is permitted and encouraged. Please credit/link to www.peacebuttons.info
Claudette
Colvin later in life 
"I
ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong." 
Indians
demonstrating at Fort Lawton
Hitler
and Quisling
French
army confront demonstrators for Algerian independence
in 1960
Baghdad,
Iraq under attack 
Anthony & Viola
Liuzzo
Attacked
for trying to eat at Woolworth’s 
"Sockless" Jerry
Simpson 
