| May 3, 1808 Civilians were executed by Napoleonic forces putting down a rebellion by the citizens of Madrid, Spain on Principe Pio Hill. The event was memorialized in the painting by Francisco de Goya, “The Third of May 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid.” Aspects of the painting inspired the design of the peace symbol by Gerald Holtom in 1958.  |
May 3, 1886 At Haymarket Square in Chicago, a rally was being held because of a strike at the McCormick Harvester plant, just two days after an enormous May Day turnout. Though the mass meeting was peaceful, a force of 176 police officers arrived, demanding that the meeting disperse. Someone, unknown to this day, then threw a bomb at the police. In their confusion, the police began firing their weapons in the dark, killing at least three in the crowd and wounding many more. Seven police died (only one by the bomb), the rest probably by police fire. Read more |
| May 3, 1963 In Birmingham, Alabama, Public Safety Commissioner and recently failed mayoral candidate Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor used fire hoses and police dogs on children near the 16th Street Baptist Church to keep them from marching out of the “Negro section” of town.  With no room left to jail them (after arresting nearly 1000 the day before), Connor brought firefighters out and ordered them to turn hoses on the children. Most ran away, but one group refused to budge. The firefighters turned more hoses on them, powerful enough to break bones. The force of the water rolled the protesters down the street. In addition, Connor had mobilized K-9 (police dog) forces who attacked protesters trying to re-enter the church. Pictures of the confrontation between the children and the police were televised across the nation. Read more about the Birmingham Campaign |
| May 3, 1968 More than 100 black students took over a building at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. They were demanding attention to their advocacy for inclusion of African-American history, literature and art in the curriculum. Their efforts led to the establishment of an African-American studies department which now offers a doctoral program. How it happened |
| May 3, 1971 The Nixon administration ordered the arrest of nearly 13,000 anti-war protesters calling themselves the Mayday Tribe who had begun four days of demonstrations in Washington, D.C. on the first. They aimed to shut down the nation’s capital by disrupting morning rush-hour traffic and other forms of nonviolent direct action, skirmishing with metropolitan police and Federal troops throughout large areas of the capital. The slogan of the Mayday tribe: “If the government won’t stop the [Vietnam] war, we’ll stop the government.“ Read more |
| May 3, 1971 The first broadcast of National Public Radio’s evening news and public affairs program, “All Things Considered,” was aired on about 90 public radio affiliates around the country. The main story was the disruptive anti-Vietnam protests in Washington.It is now the fourth most listened-to radio program in the U.S.  More about that first program |
| May 3, 1980 Sixty thousand marched on the Pentagon to urge the end of U.S. military involvement in El Salvador. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may3
Scottie's Playtime 
We dropped the ball, my generation. We stopped Nixon and The War. Our War: VietNam ~ whoopie! the war is over! Let’s cut our hair, finish our law degrees and become the establishment! But we didn’t stop War. We stopped Our War, cut our hair and bought beemers and mcmansions but we didn’t stop War, and we left the machinations in place, notably Dick Cheney et al, to become what we have become
We dropped the ball. We should sit down and shut up …
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… and give our support to the younger ones who are working hard to make things better. There are enough of us to make them more than able if we just stay back and quietly help. IMO.
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