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.
Feb 8
•Algeria for the Algerians
•Orange-
burg
Massacre
•Registration resumes in U.S.
Tuesday Feb 9
• Taxation and representation
•Senator sows suspicion and fear
•Escalation in Vietnam
•Israelis support Palestinians
•Diplomat scorns diplomacy
Wednesday
Feb 10
•Pirate radio for peace
•Times a-changin’
•Iraq under surveillance
Thursday
Feb 11
•Abolitionist Pennsylvanians
•Birth control advocate arrested
•44-day sit-down wins
•First step of Longest Walk
•Freedom leader freed
Friday
Feb 12
•Darwin day
•Birth of NAACP
•Veterans oppose draft
•Prince of Peace Plowshares
Saturday Feb 13
•Mother Jones arrested
•Women Strike for Peace
•Vietnam-era pray-in
•Civilian victims in Iraq
Sunday Feb 14 •Southern leadership coalesces
•Nixon bugs himself
•Sandanistas agree to elections
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February
is Black History Month
February
8, 1962
More
than 20,000 attended a demonstration in Paris against the
Secret Army Organization (Organisation
de l'Armée Secrète or OAS), a group of European-Algerians
which used terrorist methods to keep Algeria a French colony.
They
set off bombs in Metropolitan France and made multiple
attempts on President Charles DeGaulle’s life.
DeGaulle had chosen a referendum among Algerians to decide
their independence; Europeans were outnumbered 9:1 by
the native population of Sunni Muslim Arabs and Berbers.
The demonstration was held in violation of a declared state
of emergency (because of OAS actions) and, in the subsequent
rioting, at least eight people were killed and 240 injured
(half of them police officers).
The
terrorist crimes of the OAS
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February
8, 1968
The
Orangeburg Masssacre
Three
black students were killed and 50 wounded in a confrontation
with highway patrolmen at a South Carolina State rally
supporting arrested civil rights protesters. Orangeburg’s
only bowling alley, the All Star, was still segregated
years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had outlawed discrimination
based on race in such public accommodations.
On the previous two days, college students had entered the
bowling alley, refusing to leave after they were not allowed
to bowl. Fifteen of the second group were arrested.
The
Orangeburg Massacre
Peace quote . . .
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
-Howard Zinn
1922-2010 see more quotes
February
8, 1980
President Jimmy Carter
unveiled a plan to re-introduce draft registration.
February
9, 1780
Capt. Paul Cuffe, his brother John, two free negroes,
and other residents of Massachusetts petitioned the state
legislature for the right to vote. A few years earlier,
Cuffe and his brother had refused to pay local taxes,
reasoning that there was a connection between an obligation
to pay taxes to a government and the right to vote for
that government.
Captain
Paul Cuffee
Cuffe’s
memoir available
Cuffe’s
career as ship captain, shipowner, African colonizer
and generous citizen
Peace quote . . .
"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds
to bury the dead."
- Arundhati Roy see more quotes
February
9, 1950
United
States Senator Joseph P. McCarthy (D-Wisconsin) accused more
than 200 staff members in the State Department of being Communists,
launching his anti-red crusade.
He
made the allegation in a public speech in Wheeling, West
Virginia, saying that State was infested with communists,
and brandished a sheet of paper which he said contained
the alleged traitors' names. "I have here in my hand," he
said, "the names of 205 men that were known to the
Secretary of State [Dean Acheson] as being members of the
Communist party and who nevertheless are still working
and shaping the policy of the State Department." The
number changed repeatedly over the following months. Some
years later, he confided the paper was actually just a
laundry list.
Anti-Communist
fear ran high in the U.S. at the time. Federal civil servant
and Soviet spy Alger Hiss had been recently convicted,
and a communist government had just come into power in
China. Those accused by McCarthy and others often lost
their jobs, regardless of the validity of the accusation
of their connection to the Communist Party.
McCarthy’s
career of irresponsible accusation
E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post
sees MacCarthy echoes in Karl Rove-inspired politics
Released 50 years
later, transcripts of closed committee hearings reveal more
abuse
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"As a teacher, I can say with great certitude, that your Peace History has enriched my students' lives by preserving the collective memories of those people either not found in history textbooks or slighted- the peace makers. Blessed are they and you for remembering them and thus honoring them."
- Ed Juillard, Chicago, IL see more quotes
February
9, 1965
President
Lyndon Johnson ordered a U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense
missile battalion deployed to Da Nang, South Vietnam, to
provide protection for the key U.S. air base there. American
military advisers had been in country since the defeat and
withdrawal of the French in 1954, but this was the first
commitment of combat troops to South Vietnam.
There
was considerable reaction around the world to this new level
of U.S. involvement. Both the People’s Republic of
China and the Soviet Union threatened to intervene if the
United States continued its military support of the South
Vietnamese government.
In Moscow, some 2,000 demonstrators,
led by Vietnamese and Chinese students and clearly supported
by the authorities, attacked the U.S. Embassy. Britain and
Australia supported the U.S. action, but France called for
negotiations.
A
Marine HAWK missile launcher is in position at the Danang
Airfield.
Ten
thousand, organized by Gush Shalom (peace bloc in Hebrew),
a coalition of Israeli
peace groups, marched in Tel Aviv against the Ariel Sharon
government's increasingly brutal attacks on Palestinian
civilians. The harsh tactics were part of Israel’s
continuing occupation of the West Bank (of the Jordan River)
and the Gaza Strip, territory beyond Israel’s internationally
recognized 1967 borders.
February
9, 2003
Six
weeks before the Iraq War began, Secretary of State Colin
Powell on ABC-TV's “This
Week” dismissed the need for U.N. weapons inspectors
to continue searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.
He
said the administration saw no further need for ''inspectors
to play detectives or Inspector Clouseau running all
over Iraq.'' Clouseau was the bumbling detective played
originally by Peter Sellers (and lately Steve Martin)
in the Pink Panther films.
Peter
Sellers as Inspector Clouseau
U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell presenting evidence at
the United Nations
U.N.
weapons inspectors, left, and Iraqi National Monitoring
Directorate members visit a Baghdad storage facility
in this photo taken Feb. 5, 2003, just hours before
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared at the
U.N. Security Council to offer evidence of alleged
Iraqi attempts to hide banned weapons.
Peace quote . . .
"All wars are wars among thieves who are too cowardly to fight and who therefore induce the young manhood to do the fighting for them." - Emma Goldman, 1917 see more quotes
February
10, 1961
The
Voice of Nuclear Disarmament, a pirate radio station, began
operation offshore of Great Britain. It was run by John
Hasted, a physicist, a musician, and a radio expert in
World War II. He was active with mathematician and philosopher
Bertrand Russell in the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament,
a group that practiced Gandhian an nonviolent civil disobedience.
Pirate
radio ship
visit
recommended
February
10, 1964
Bob
Dylan’s ''The Times
They Are A-Changin’'' was released. The album’s
title song captured the emerging, principally generational
gap in American culture concerning war and racism.
Come
mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
the lyrics
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-K P Hometown, IL see more comments
February
10, 2003
Iraq
acceded to U-2 surveillance flights over its territory,
meeting a key demand by U.N. inspectors searching for banned
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) there. The 60 weapons
inspectors in Baghdad and Mosul were under the U.N. Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), led by
Hans Blix, and the International Atomic Energy Agency under
Mohamed El Baradei.
U-2
spy plane
The
U.N. had destroyed all of Iraq’s banned weapons
by 1994, as well as production and development facilities
later, though Saddam
Hussein expelled the U.N. representatives in 1998. The
economic and trade embargo during the inter-war period
prevented resumption of the weapons programs. CIA and other
intelligence estimates, however, insisted upon the existence
of WMDs in Iraq. None have ever been
found.
Hans
Blix gives his report at the UN as Mohamed ElBaradei listens.
The Pennsylvania Society
for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, composed mostly
of Quakers and Mennonites, petitioned Congress for emancipation
of all slaves. Benjamin Franklin had become vocal as
an abolitionist and in 1787 began to serve as President
of the Society which not only advocated the abolition
of slavery, but made efforts to integrate freed slaves
into American society.
The proposed resolution was immediately denounced by pro-slavery
congressmen and sparked a heated debate in both the House
and the Senate.
more
on early Abolitionist and Anti-Slavery Movements
Readers comment
"I’ve been receiving your newsletter for a little over a year and enjoy it very much. Thank you for the work you do. I’ve been thinking about you and just wanted to share some thoughts.
My children attend a school where we have a Peace Night every year. ...The purpose is to bring not only our school community together, but also to involve more of the public community as well...continued
-from Lakewood, CO
February
11, 1916
Emma
Goldman was arrested for lecturing on birth control, presumed
a violation of the 1873 Comstock Law which prohibited distribution
of literature on birth control, considered obscene under
the act.
Goldman considered such knowledge essential to women's reproductive
and economic freedom; she had worked as a nurse and midwife
among poor immigrant workers on New York’s Lower East
Side in the 1890s. She also organized for womens’ suffrage,
later opposed U.S. involvement in World War I, and was imprisoned
for allegedly obstructing military conscription.
“.
. . those like myself who are disseminating knowledge [of
birth control] are not doing so because of personal gain
or because we consider it obscene or lewd. We do it because
we know the desperate condition among the masses of workers
and even professional people, when they cannot meet the
demands of numerous children.”
– Goldman
letter to the press following her arrest
Emma
Goldman’s courageous efforts
Emma
Goldman speaking on Birth Control -Union
Square, New York City May 20, 1916
Readers comment
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-Green Bay, Wisconsin see more comments
February
11, 1937
Forty-eight
thousand General Motors workers won their 44-day sit-down
strike in Flint, Michigan. On December 30 workers at
Fisher Plants 1 & 2 sat down and refused to leave,
forcing workers around them to stop work and preventing
the next shift from starting.
The
sit-down strike ended when the company agreed to recognize
the United Automobile Workers union as the representative
bargaining agent for the striking hourly employees.
Other automakers gradually accepted the legitimacy
of the union. The success of the sit-down was an inspiration
to workers in other industries to organize their own
unions.
Nearly
100 images on the Flint sit-down from
Detroit’s Wayne State University Walter Reuther
Archive
There's more peace and justice history to see for this week For a more complete listing for this week or to visit another month Jan • Feb • March April • May • June July • Aug • Sept Oct • Nov • Dec
February
11, 1978
Native Americans began
The Longest Walk, a march from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco
Bay to Washington, D.C.
The Walk was intended
to be a reminder of the forced removal of American Indians
from their homelands across the continent, and drew attention
to the continuing problems plaguing the Indian community,
particularly joblessness, lack of health care, education
and adequate housing.
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February
11, 1990
Nelson
Mandela was freed after 27 years in a South African prison
following months of secret negotiations with South African
President F.W. (Frederik Willem) de Klerk.
In 1952, Mandela became deputy national president of the
African National Congress (ANC), the oldest black political
organization in South Africa, having joined as a young lawyer
in 1944.
He advocated nonviolent resistance to apartheid – South
Africa's institutionalized system of white supremacy, black
disenfranchisement and rigid racial segregation.
However,
after the massacre of peaceful black demonstrators at Sharpeville
in 1960, Mandela helped organize a paramilitary branch
of the ANC to engage in guerrilla warfare against the white
minority government.
He and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace prize
in 1993 "for their work for the peaceful termination
of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for
a new democratic South Africa.”
read
more
Peace quote . . .
"Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify." - Charlie Chaplin see more quotes
peace key rings
February
12, 1809
Charles
Robert Darwin, who first described the process of evolution
of species in the plant and animal kingdoms through natural
selection, was born.
It is now celebrated as Darwin Day,
when the common language of science, bridging language and
culture, is recognized and appreciated.
Darwin
Day ideas
Peace quote . . .
“In time of war, the loudest patriots are the greatest profiteers.” - August Bebel, 1870 see more quotes
February
12, 1909
The National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by
sixty Americans, both black and white, in a call to safeguard
civil, legal, economic, human, and political rights of black
Americans.
The
call was partly in reaction to a race riot in 1908 in
Springfield, Illinois, home of Abraham Lincoln. The call
was issued on the centennial of his birth, and principally
written by Oswald Garrison Villard, president of the
N.Y. Evening Post Company: "If Mr. Lincoln could
revisit this country in the flesh, he would be disheartened
and discouraged.”
Oswald
Garrison Villard
NAACP’s
beginnings:
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February
12, 1947
An
estimated 400-500 veterans and conscientious objectors
from World
Wars I and II burned their draft cards during two demonstrations,
in front of the White House and at New York City’s
Labor Temple, in protest of a proposed universal conscription
law.
This was the first peacetime draft-card burning.
In "Prince
of Peace Plowshares," six activists poured blood
and symbolically disarmed U.S.S. The Sullivans, a nuclear-capable
Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, at the Bath Iron Works
in Bath, Maine. All were eventually convicted of destruction
of government property and conspiracy.
read
more
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February
13, 1912
Labor
leader Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was placed under
house arrest at Pratt (Kanawha Co.), Colorado, for inciting
to riot. An
organizer for the the United Mine Workers, she had come to
the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek mines where a long and nasty
struggle had escalated. Jones was known for her fiery (and
often obscene) verbal attacks on coal operators and politicians.
A native of Ireland, she had been organizing for more than
15 years.
The
coal operators had hired mine guards to intimidate the
workers and discourage formation of a union. Besides asking
to be paid what other area miners were making, the union
demanded
• the right to organize
• recognition of their rights to free speech and assembly
• an end to blacklisting of union organizers
• alternatives to company stores
• an end to the practice of using mine guards
• prohibition of cribbing
• installation of scales at all mines for accurately weighing coal
unions be allowed to hire their own checkweighmen to make sure the companies'
checkweighmen were not cheating the miners who were not paid hourly, but by the
ton.
68 years old (though claiming to be over 80) and suffering from pneumonia, Jones
was never charged with a crime (martial law had been declared). A few weeks later,
the new governor, Henry Hatfield, was sworn in and examined Mother Jones (he
was also a doctor) but refused to release her from house arrest for two months.
Peace quote . . .
"What does it matter to the dead, the orphans,
and the homeless whether the mad destruction
is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" - Mohandas K. Gandhi see more quotes
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February
13, 1967
Carrying
huge photos of Vietnamese children who had been victims
of Napalm (a flammable defoliant
used extensively in the war there), 2,500 members of the
group Women Strike for Peace stormed the Pentagon, demanding
to see "the generals who send our sons to Vietnam." When
Pentagon guards locked the main entrance doors, the women
took off their shoes and banged on the doors with their
heels.
They
were eventually allowed inside, but Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara would not meet with them.
Sen. Jacob Javits (R-New York) agreed to meet a few hundred
of the women, but he was booed by the women when he denied
the U.S. was using toxic gas in Vietnam.
Five
soldiers were arrested at a pray-in for peace in Vietnam
at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Two were court-martialed
for refusing to stop praying. The pray-in was repeated
a year later.
February
13, 1991
Two
precision-guided missiles destroyed the Amiriyah subterranean
bunker in Baghdad while
being used as an air-raid shelter by 408 Iraqi civilians
during the first Gulf War. The resulting deaths of all inside
made it the single most lethal incident for non-combatants
in modern air warfare.
The
U.S. had detected signals coming from the bunker and considered
it a military command
and control center.
There
was an antenna atop the bunker but it was connected by
cable to the actual command center
300 yards away, which was not hit by the 2000 lb. bombs which
landed precisely on their intended target, penetrating ten
feet of hardened concrete. Only 3% of the 250,000 bombs and
missiles fired during that conflict were considered such “smart
bombs.”
Visitors tour
the Amiriyah Bunker.
The Iraqi government has preserved
the bunker as a public memorial.
Constellation
Peace shirt
long and short sleeve
tank tops
February
14, 1957
The organization that would shortly
be called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
chose its leadership at a meeting in New Orleans.
Rev.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Ralph David Abernathy
led the group which sought to coordinate civil rights protests
throughout the South.
Organizers of bus boycotts, inspired by the one in Montgomery,
Alabama, had met in Atlanta a month earlier. During that meeting
Dr. Abernathy’s home and church were bombed.
Rev.
Ralph David Abernathy and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Peace quote . . .
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King, Jr see more quotes
February
14, 1971
President
Richard Nixon ordered a secret taping system to be installed
for his offices in the White House.
Listen
in on the presidents
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February
14, 1989
At
a meeting of the presidents of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala,
Costa Rica, and El Salvador, the Sandinista government of
Nicaragua agreed to release a number of political prisoners
and hold free elections within a year. In return, Honduras
promised to close bases established by the U.S. and used
by and for the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels. Just over one
year later, elections were held, and the results recognized
(the SAndanista party won) by all sides despite millions
of U.S. dollars used to organized and influence the elections.
“Imagine ‘This American Life’ except with nothing but wall to wall liberal politics. Each week we choose a (political) theme and bring a variety of stories on that theme...”
Now application available for iphone and ipod touch
Jeff Farias
Phoenix, AZ
Peter
Werbe
Detroit, MI
Thom Hartmann
Portland, OR
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