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.
Tuesday May
13
•Brazil ends slavery
•Nixon Stoned
•Chicano Students Organize
•Workers Back Students
•Movement for a New Congress
•Ecuador Grants Land Rights
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.
"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.
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Phillip
Lafayette Gibbs 
James
Earl 
read
more about the Catonsville Nine 
Karen
Silkwood
