June 11, 1962 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held its founding convention in Michigan and issued The Port Huron Statement, laying out its principles and program. “In social change or interchange, we find violence to be abhorrent because it requires generally the transformation of the target, be it a human being or a community of people, into a depersonalized object of hate. It is imperative that the means of violence be abolished and the institutions—local, national, international—that encourage non-violence as a condition of conflict be developed.” Complete text of the Port Huron Statement (it’s a .pdf, in case you’re on a phone) Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History: Paul Buhle, Editor |
| June 11, 1963 Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from the Linh-Mu Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam, burned himself to death (self-immolation) in front of the U.S. embassy in downtown Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) to protest the the South Vietnamese regime the U.S. supported, and the war the Americans were waging.  A painting of the scene on the street as Thich Quang Duc self-immolates in protest of the government and war in Vietnam |
June 11, 1963 Vivian Malone (later Jones) preparing to enroll at Alabama with Deputy Attorney Gen, Nicholas Katzenbach (L) at her side. Alabama Governor George C. Wallace stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama in order to prevent the admission of two negro students in a failed attempt to maintain segregation in educational opportunities. He was forced to step aside later in the day when Vivian Malone and James Hood were registered as students. |
| June 11, 1968 Daniel Cohn-Bendit, known as Danny the Red, arrived in Britain, stirring up fears of campus unrest. The 23-year-old Paris law student had been given permission to remain in the U.K. just 24 hours, but immediately threatened to defy the authorities and out-stay his official welcome [his visit was later legally extended to 14 days]. Cohn-Bendit, a German citizen, had been expelled from France in May for being an organizer of the French student and worker demonstrations which almost brought that country to a standstill the previous month.  Daniel Cohn-Bendit and a Paris policeman in 1968. “I don’t know how long I will stay. I think it’s a free country” -Daniel Cohn-Bendit He currently sits as a Green Party deputy in the European Parliament. The news at the time Daniel Cohn-Bendit today |
| June 11, 1970 Representative Martha Griffiths (D-Michigan) filed a discharge petition signed by a majority of all members of the U.S. House of Representatives, a seldom used parliamentary move, to bring the Equal Rights amendment to the House floor for consideration. She saw this as the only way to get the constitutional amendment out of the Judiciary Committee where it had been held by its chairman, Emmanuel Cellar (D-New York), who had refused to even hold hearings on the matter. Representative Griffiths had introduced the amendment every year since 1948.  Representative Martha Griffiths from Detroit’s west side |
| June 11, 1988 100,000 marched from United Nations headquarters in New York City to Central Park during the 3rd U.N. Special Session on Disarmament. Though there had been progress in recent years on disarmament, the U.N. meeting yielded nothing but stalemate. Read more |
| June 11, 2010 Scientists studying the scale of the then-ongoing BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico doubled the previous estimate of the scale of the flow of oil into the Gulf. Initially, BP and the government had said that no more than 1000 barrels (42 U.S. gallons per barrel) per day were leaking, later raised to 5000. The fine for oil spills was $4300 per barrel.  The new estimate was between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels per day. If the spill had been stopped that day (the well was not capped until early August), it would have exceeded the Exxon Valdez spill by a factor of eight. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjune.htm#june11
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