| |
| March |
 |
|
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| 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. |
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|
|
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 the radioactive aftermath.
In addition to the 67 U.S. tests at Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, France tested
193 weapons in French Polynesia, 46 in the atmosphere. 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. |
Indigenous
People and Nuclear Weapons
 |
The
proposed South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty
|
|
|
|
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.
read
more
|
|
| 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 (none
of whom were disciplined) and others. 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.
|
|
|
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.
|
|
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
|
 |
|
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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
|
|
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.
Claudette Colvin
later in life
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|
|
|
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,
raising the objection, "rich man's war, but poor
man's fight." Black Americans were also not eligible
because they weren’t considered citizens.
|
|
Bounties
for New York military "volunteers" during
the Civil War |
|
| 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. |
Short
video about Alice Paul |
|
|
The
village council in the Inupiat Eskimo town of Point Hope,
Alaska, formally protested, in a letter to President
Kennedy, the 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 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.
|
 |
Edward
Teller "Father of the hydrogen bomb" arrives
to promote plans for Project Chariot
|
read
more |
|
|
In
the first-ever worldwide theatrical act of dissent,
there were at least 1,029 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 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 |
More
about how it happened |
|
|
|
Montana elected Republican Jeanette
Rankin as the first woman to sit in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Rankin voted against American entry into both world wars,
and later led marches against the Vietnam war.
more
about Jeanette Rankin
|
|
|
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.” |
Audio
and video of the speech |
|
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...
|
|
| 40,000 demonstrated
against a uranium enrichment plant in Almelo, Netherlands. |
 |
|
| 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.
|
 |
Read
about the non-proliferation treaty
|
|
|
|
Ukraine,
having voluntarily agreed to give up its nuclear weapons
following the collapse
of the Soviet Union, began transfer of its nuclear stockpile
to Russia. Ukraine, which had the world’s third
largest weapons stockpile, 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
|
|
| The
U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision (Sanford
v. Dred Scott) which declared
that an escaped slave, Scott, could not sue for his freedom
in federal court because those of African descent could never
be considered citizens but “as a subordinate and inferior
class of beings.” |
|
 Dred
Scott
|
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."
|
Chief Justice Roger Taney
|
read
more read
the decision
|
|
 |
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
|
|
 |
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 |
|
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.
|
|
 |
The
United Nations University for Peace near San Jose, Costa
Rica, was founded. The University 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.
|
|
|
| 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
head of 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 them in Woodmere
Cemetery on Detroit’s West Side. |
| Dave
Moore, one of the leaders of the Ford Hunger March. |
|
| 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 congressman),
suffered a fractured skull.
read
more
|
| 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
|
|
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!
|
 |
|
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
|
 |
|
|
About
3,500 U. S. Marines became the first American combat
troops in Vietnam, landing near the coastal city of Da
Nang. The 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.
|
|
|
40,000
in Tel Aviv, Israel, organized by Peace Now, rallied
against the war in Lebanon.
|
|
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.
Kosovo, whose population is overwhelmingly (90%) ethnically
Albanian, 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. |
|
| 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.
read
more
|
|
|
| The
slaves’ leader,
Joseph Cinque, returned to Africa to become a slaver himself. |
|
Two
days after Bloody Sunday [see March 7, 1965] Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr. led 1500 outraged people from around the
country back to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
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. |
|
| CBS
cancelled “The
Smothers Brothers' Comedy Hour," a television show which
featured edgy political satire and such rock bands as the Beatles,
the Who, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. |
|
Smothers
brothers
|
The
brothers had refused to censor a comment made by Joan
Baez. She wanted to dedicate a song to her husband, David,
who was about to go to jail for objecting to the draft
during the Vietnam War.
|
David
Harris and Joan Baez
|
more about
the show
|
Video of Joan Baez performing
with the Smothers Brothers |
|
James
Earl Ray was jailed 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 |
|
Turkish
conscientious objector (CO) Mehmet Tarhan was released
unexpectedly from a military prison 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 CO activists in Turkey.
|
More
on Mehmet Tarhan and other Turkish COs |
|
|
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 Senator Robert Kennedy (D-New York). Cesar Chavez
led the effort to organize farm workers into a union for
better working conditions.
The
story of Cesar Chavez
|
|
|
|
|
10
days of protest and direct action demanded 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 at a political protest outside Washington,
D.C. in U.S. history.
|
|
Maximilian
was beheaded by Romans for refusing military service due
to his Christian beliefs in Thevesta, North Africa.
|
|
Worker
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) 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 nearly
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
|
Hear
Judy Collins sing “Bread and Roses” from her
album of the same title
(free
Rhapsody software installation required)
|
|
| Gandhi's
Salt March began from Ahmadabad with 76 followers to protest
the salt tax. 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 |
|
|
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 5 miles
(12 km) from Bilbao, a city of a million. The opposition
was concerned about the possibility of accidents.
|
|
The
term “rat” first appeared in print referring to
a worker who betrays the interests of fellow workers. The New
York Daily Sentinel, reporting 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.” |
|
|
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. More died
after they arrived at the barren reservation. The
forced march, led by Kit Carson, 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
|
|
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
|
|
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 . . . . |
|
|
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
|
|
|
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 70 years.
|
 |
More background
|
The
organization today
|
|
|
Sixteen disability-rights
activists were arrested at the U.S. Capitol demanding passage
of what would become the Americans With Disabilities Act.
read
more
disability
rights demonstration
|
 |
|
| 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. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his
party, Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) had
opposed the Iraq War and Spain’s involvement. |
|
| The
first proposed amendment to the constitution guaranteeing
women’s suffrage was
introduced in the U.S. Congress. |
|
| Over
1300 Norwegian teachers were arrested by the 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.
Quisling is now considered a synonym for traitor. |
 |
Vidkun
Quisling (left) rides with SS head Heinrich Himmler
|
|
| 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 |
|
|
During
a second attempt by Native American activists to occupy
Seattle’s Fort Lawton, 78 protesters were arrested.
They were demanding the city give the unused facility back
to Native Americans.
read
more
Indians
demonstrating at Fort Lawton
|
|
|
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“
|
|
| The
entire Jewish community of York, England, perished while
observing Shabbat ha-Gadol, the last sabbath before
Passover. Gathered together inside Clifford’s Tower
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!" |
|
| 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. |
|
|
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
America. |
WRI
No More War demonstration in Berlin 1922 |
 |
Their
symbol: a broken gun.
Their
slogan: "The
right to refuse to kill." read
more |
|
|
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.
| | |
