| June 18, 1571 King Sebastian of Portugal enacted penalties for violation of censorship legislation. The fines could be as much as a quarter or half of the violator’s legal possessions, plus the threat of exile to Brazil or an African colony. Death sentences were also not uncommon. Seized books were burned and burnings were supervised by Roman Catholic priests. |
| June 18, 1840 The Oberlin Non-Resistance Society was formed at the Ohio college by students who believed “that the Gospel of Jesus Christ inculcates the duty of peace and good-will.” They were inspired by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s New England group of similar name. They rejected all use of violence even in the name of duty to country. “We must submit to the ‘powers that be,’ and ‘obey magistrates,’ except when their requirements conflict with God’s laws; when we are meekly to endure the penalty of disobedience ‘threatening them not.’ ” Though denounced by the faculty and ignored by the student newspaper, the group was among the first in a succession of peace- and justice-oriented organizations begun at Oberlin. Oberlin’s peaceful tradition |
| June 18, 1941 Less than two weeks before a scheduled march on Washington, its chief organizer, (Asa) A. Philip Randolph, was invited to the White House by President Franklin Roosevelt. Randolph was the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful black trade union. He, along with activist and singer Bayard Rustin, had issued a “Call to Negro America to March on Washington for Jobs and Equal Participation in National Defense on July 1, 1941.”  Roosevelt was wary of the prospect of such a demonstration and desirous of developing support for a war effort. Randolph told Roosevelt he would abandon the march plans only if the president would stop job discrimination in both the defense industry and the government. Before the end of the month, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which barred government contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of race, color, creed or national origin.  A. Philip Randolph and Eleanor Roosevelt The order, sometimes called a second emancipation proclamation, was the federal government’s most significant action on behalf of the rights of African Americans since post-Civil War reconstruction of the 1870s. |
| June 18, 1948 A United Nations commission approved and recommended to the General Assembly an International Declaration of Human Rights, recognizing that “the inherent dignity and . . . the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world . . . .” Text of the Declaration: . . . |
| June 18, 1970 The U.S. Congress passed the 26th amendment to the constitution, lowering the voting age to 18 for all elections—federal, state and local. The amendment went into effect just 100 days later after 38 state legislatures had ratified the amendment. |
| June 18, 1979 SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty), an agreement to put limits on both America’s and the Soviet Union’s long-range missiles and bombers, was signed by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev. This was the first arms-reduction treaty between the two superpowers. It was signed despite the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the previous year.  Read more on SALT II’s control of weapons of mass destruction |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjune.htm#june18
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