This Week in History is a collection designed to help us appreciate the fact that we are part of a rich history advocating peace and social justice. While the entries often focus on large and dramatic events there are so many smaller things done everyday to promote peace and justice.

To the real peace advocates - YOU!

Publisher, Carl Bunin • Editor, Al Frank
from detroit, michigan
view in web browser
 
This week at a glance.

Monday

May 12
•Resurrection City rises

Tuesday
May 13
•Brazil ends slavery
•Nixon Stoned
•Chicano Students Organize
•Workers Back Students
•Movement for a New Congress
•Ecuador Grants Land Rights

Wednesday

May 14
•COs report for duty
•Jackson State erupts

Thursday

May 15
•Mother’s Day
•Workers’ rights under law
•Washington picketing
•People’s Park melee
•Deaths at Jackson State
•COs get their day

Friday

May 16

•No slavery in Denmark
•Sedition Act
Warsaw ghetto
•Self-immolation
•Jubilee 2000

Saturday

May 17
•Separate but equal
•Women form peace group
•Brown v. Board
•Catonsville 9
•Watergate hearings
•Marriage in Massachusetts

Sunday

May 18
•Happy birthday, Sir Russell
•Gray Panthers
•Indian A-bomb
•Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee


The little button with a BIG message

70,396 distributed!
Order some and make peace more visible.
Nominate Pete Seeger for the Nobel Peace Prize...
  ... Sign the Petition!

Get ready for summer...Peace tank tops on sale!


May 12, 1968

 

The Poor People's Campaign, organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began when contingents of the poor, mainly from the south, began pitching tents in a "Resurrection City" near the Lincoln Memorial. It was dismantled by police on June 24.

 




Aerial view of Resurrection City, next to the Lincoln Memorial

May 13, 1888

Brazil, which had imported more African slaves than any other country (nearly 40% of the 11 million Africans shipped to the western hemisphere), abolished slavery.


May 13, 1954

Natives of the Marshall Islands pleaded for an end to atmospheric H-Bomb testing in the south Pacific.

National Cancer Institute’s study on excess incidence of cancer in the Marshall Islands


May 13, 1958

During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon's limousine was attacked with rocks and bottles by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The crowd was angered by U.S. Cold War policies and their effect on Latin America. Five days earlier in the trip, the Vice President had been shoved, stoned, booed, and spat upon by protesters in Peru.


Caracas demonstrators surround Nixon's limousine

May 13, 1967
250 Chicano students from Los Angeles colleges & universities met to form the United Mexican American Students (UMAS).

May 13, 1968


"We are the power"

Workers joined Paris students’ protest in a one-day general strike calling for the fall of the government and protesting police brutality. The protest by French students included occupation of The Sorbonne; by the end of the month over 10,000,000 French citizens had been involved in school and workplace occupations.

view and read about the great poster art from Paris ‘68



May 13, 1970
The Movement for a New Congress—to elect peace candidates—was founded at Princeton University.
May 1968, month of intense protest and political organizing around the country

May 13, 1992
Ecuador's government granted 148 native communities legal title to more than three million acres (slightly less than the size of the state of Washington) in the Amazon Basin.

May 14, 1941

The first groups of WWII conscientious objectors (COs) were ordered to report to camp at Patapsco, Maryland.  They and others formed the Civilian Public Service (CPS) during the war. They performed various duties, among others being trained as smoke jumpers dealing with forest fires.

 

World War II COs

Conscientious objection in America
More on the CPS

May 14, 1954

In the “Yankee” nuclear weapons test in the atmosphere above the South Pacific, a single detonation, expected to yield 9.5 megatons of force, actually yielded 13.5 megatons (equivalent to thirteen and a half million tons of TNT), the second largest ever by the U.S. The resultant mushroom cloud extended 25 miles up and spread 100 miles across.
"Yankee"

May 14, 1970

Phillip Lafayette Gibbs  

Two African-American students were shot to death and 30 others wounded by local police and state troopers and national guardsmen at primarily black Jackson State University in Mississippi. The two were watching demonstrators protesting the invasion of Cambodia and racial discrimination from a nearby dormitory tower. This happened shortly after the shooting of at students at Kent State University in Ohio. Two days of riots ensued in Jackson resulting in curfews and sealing off of the city.

James Earl

Green

read more   

May 15, 1870

 

Julia Ward Howe, suffragist, abolitionist and author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” proposed Mother's Day as a peace holiday.
She had seen firsthand some of the worst effects of war during the American Civil War—the death and disease which killed and maimed, and the widows and orphans left behind on both sides of the Civil War—and realized that the effects of the war go beyond the killing of soldiers in battle. Mother’s Day did not become a national holiday until declared by Pres. Woodrow Wilson in 1914.


Julia Ward Howe

"Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.”

read her Mother’s Day Proclamation


May 15, 1935


The National Labor Relations Act was passed, recognizing workers' rights to organize unions and bargain collectively with their employers.

read more  


May 15, 1966

The American Friends Service Committee, SANE (The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), and Women March for Peace, along with four other organizations, sponsored a 10,000+ person anti-war picket at the White House and a 60,000+ rally at the Washington Monument to oppose the Vietnam War.
. . . elsewhere the same day . . .
Buddhist altars were placed in streets to impede troops arresting dissidents in South Vietnam.

May 15, 1969

Governor Ronald Reagan sent in the National Guard to reclaim People's Park from 6,000 protesters in Berkeley, California, who had occupied the space and created the park.
Police gunfire killed a bystander, James Rector, blinded another, and injured dozens.

People's Park March, Friday May 30, 1969, at the intersection of Haste Street and Telegraph Avenue, in Berkeley.

May 15, 1970
The Native American Rights Fund filed suit on behalf of the Hopi tribe to prevent strip-mining on sacred Black Mesa in Arizona.

May 15, 1970

 

In response to the U.S. invasion of Cambodia (an expansion of the Vietnam War) and the killings at Kent State and Jackson State Universities, several million U.S. students held campus strikes to oppose the Vietnam War.


May 15 (since the 1980's)

International Conscientious Objectors Day, established to honor those who leave or refuse to enter their country’s armed forces for reasons of principle.

Are you a CO? For more info visit PEACE-OUT

Read the stories of 4 Conscientious Objectors


May 16, 1792
Denmark became the first country to outlaw the slave trade.

May 16, 1918

The U.S. Congress passed the Sedition Act, legislation designed to protect America’s participation in World War I. Along with the Espionage Act of the previous year, the Sedition Act was orchestrated largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson. The Espionage Act, passed shortly after the U.S. entrance into the war in early April 1917, made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces’ prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies.
Aimed at socialists, pacifists and other anti-war activists, the Sedition Act imposed harsh penalties on anyone found guilty of making false statements; insulting or abusing the U.S. government, conscription, the flag, the Constitution or the military; agitating against the production of necessary war materials; or advocating, teaching or defending any of these acts.

read more


May 16, 1943

The Nazis crushed the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto after a month of bloody fighting.
56,000 died in the struggle.
read more

May 16, 1967

Nhat Chi Mai immolates herself in Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, to protest the war.

"I offer my body as a torch / to dissipate the dark / to waken love among men / to give peace to Vietnam."

read more


The flower known as Nhat Chi Mai.

May 16, 1998
Tens of thousands of Britons supporting Jubilee 2000 formed a human chain around the meeting place of the G7 Summit (an annual meeting of the leaders of the largest industrial countries) in Birmingham, England. Jubilee 2000 urged the major international lending countries to relieve terms of and forgive the massive indebtedness of poor countries around the world.
Remembrance from the Director of Jubilee 2000, Ann Pettifor

May 17, 1896
Supreme Court endorsed “separate but equal'' facilities for those of different races with its Plessy v. Ferguson decision, a ruling that was overturned 58 years later.

May 17, 1919
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was formally established in Zurich, Switzerland.

May 17, 1954

In a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling "separate but equal" public education to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed equal treatment under the law. The historic decision, bringing an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically dealt with Linda Brown, a young African American girl denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

 

read more and more

Above: Nettie Hunt and her daughter Nickie on the

steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1954.

 

 

 

 

George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall and James M. Nabrit (left to right), the successful legal team, celebrate the Brown decision

. . . three years later . . .


May 17, 1957

Martin Luther King, Jr. led 30,00 on a Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. to mark the third anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education decision in which the Supreme Court declared racial segregation in education unconstitutional

May 17, 1968

A group of anti-war activists who came to be known as the "Catonsville Nine," including Philip and Daniel Berrigan, broke into the Catonsville, Maryland, draft board center and burned over 600 draft files.

The Catonsville Nine in a picture taken in the police station minutes after the action.

From left to right (standing) George Mische, Philip Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan, Tom Lewis. From left to right (seated) David Darst, Mary Moylan, John Hogan, Marjorie Melville, Tom Melville.  photo Jean Walsh

read more about the Catonsville Nine


May 17, 1973

In Washington, D.C., the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, began televised hearings on the escalating Watergate affair. One week later, Harvard Law Professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as Watergate special prosecutor.
Flashback: On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. with the intent to set up wiretaps. One of the suspects, James W. McCord, Jr., was revealed to be the salaried security coordinator for President Richard Nixon's reelection committee.

May 17, 2004

Marcia Kadish, 56, and Tanya McCloskey, 52, of Malden, Massachusetts, were married at Cambridge City Hall in Massachusetts, becoming the first legally married same-sex partners in the United States. Over the course of the day, 77 other such couples tied the knot across the state, and hundreds more applied for marriage licenses. The day was characterized by much celebration and only a few of the expected protests materialized.
read more

May 18, 1872

Bertrand Russell

Birthday of Sir Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, essayist, and social critic, a leading figure in his country’s anti-nuclear movement. In 1954 he delivered his famous "Man's Peril" broadcast on the BBC, condemning the Bikini H-bomb tests, and warning of the threat to humanity from the development of nuclear weapons. A year later, together with Albert Einstein, he released the Russell-Einstein Manifesto calling for the curtailment of nuclear weapons.
He became the founding president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958. He resigned in 1960, however, and formed the more militant Committee of 100 with the overt aim of inciting mass civil disobedience, and he himself with Lady Russell led mass sit-ins in 1961 that brought them a two-month prison sentence.


May 18, 1972

Maggie Kuhn

Margaret (Maggie) Kuhn founded the Gray Panthers (originally called the Consultation of Older and Younger Adults for Social Change) to consider the common problems faced by retirees — loss of income, loss of contact with associates and loss of one of society's most distinguishing social roles, one's job. They also discovered a new kind of freedom in their retirement — the freedom to speak personally and passionately about what they believed in, such as their collective opposition to the Vietnam War.

Gray Panther history


May 18, 1974

In the Rajasthan Desert in the state of Pokhran, India successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon, a fission bomb similar in explosive power to the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. 
The test fell on the traditional anniversary of the Buddha's enlightenment, and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi received the message "Buddha has smiled" from the exuberant test-site scientists after the detonation. The test, which made India the world's sixth nuclear power, broke the nuclear monopoly of the five members of the U.N. Security Council—the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China, and France.

May 18, 1979

The Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee decision established that corporations are responsible for the people they irradiate. Karen Silkwood worked for the Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation at their Cimmaron, Texas, plant that manufactured plutonium. She became the first female member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers bargaining committee, focusing on worker safety issues, and suffered radiation exposure in a series of unexplained incidents.

read more about Karen Silkwood

Karen Silkwood

For a more complete listing for this week or to see another month please visit

JanFebMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugSeptOctNovDec

Important video

"When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin.
With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate.
This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community
and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time.
Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system
to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens...
Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis
– the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope."
watch the trailer
Photo from readers
Young peace activists - Pittsburgh City Creative and Performing Arts High School
March 29, 2008



Celebrate the birth and life of the peace symbol
which will be 50 years old in 2008.*

Have a Party for the Peace Symbol's 50th birthday.
Invite friends & family and spend some time
discussing the need for peace and what we can do to better achieve it.

*Activist and artist Gerald Holtom came up with the design on February 21, 1958.
• Have a special dinner or a sing along or bake peace a birthday cake, watch a video, do some dancing, send in more party ideas to share.    
  • send photos of your Peace party to share with other newsletter readers.  
    • get some peace buttons and other peace items for decorations and giveaways.

Please support this newsletter
Click To Browse And Order The Following Peace Products

ButtonsMagnetsPostcardsPencilsSignsShirts
Lapel PinsStickersBookCoastersKey Ring

These items are also a great way to raise funds

for your group or organization.

Ask about our bulk/fundraising discounts.

NEW!

   
 
< negative


 
positive >
13" x 2.5" | 2 versions available | union printed
$2.00 each
One free bumper sticker for every order of $25 or more worth of peace items.
Media center...


 


Rachel Maddow
New York, NY


Peter Werbe
Detroit, MI


Thom Hartmann
Portland, OR

 

The Rational Radical

Facts + Logic to Kick Right Wing Butt

Nova M Radio

The Future of Progressive Talk

Please Support this Newsletter

If you are not already on our email list and would like to have this

free calendar delivered to your inbox weekly then please

Sign up for our peace history newsletter

and have it sent to your friends.

And please remember-If you change your email address let us know
so you won't miss a single issue!

This Week In History compiled by peacebuttons.info from various sources

which are available upon request.

Submissions are always welcome. Please furnish sources.

Reproduction of this calendar for non-profit purposes

is permitted and encouraged. Please credit/link to www.peacebuttons.info

peacebuttons.info is a member of the

If you do not wish to receive further mailings from peacebuttons.info,

respond to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line and you will be removed from our mail list.
It is important that you reply from the email address that you want removed.


©2008 peacebuttons.info


The little button with a BIG message