Category: Death

Peace & Justice History for 2/21

February 21, 1848
“The Communist Manifesto,” written by 29-year-old Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, was published in London (in German) by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League.

Friedrich Engels Karl Marx
The political pamphlet — arguably one of the most influential in history — proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever.
Read the Manifesto 
February 21, 1965
Malcolm X, an African-American nationalist and religious leader, was shot and killed in New York City by Black Muslims with whom he had broken the year before, as he began to address his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City’s Washington Heights. His home had been firebombed just a few days earlier. He was 39.

Radio story on the late Manning Marable’s biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention 
More on on Malcolm’s assassination
MalcolmX.com 
“In 1964, after his break with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, and following his trips to Africa and to Mecca, Malcolm was seriously questioning black nationalism. He was also beginning to recognize that MLK’s non-violent methods, far from being passive, were actually creating more change than the separatism of the Nation of Islam.
In this same period MLK was beginning to recognize that Malcolm was advocating self-defense, not violence.
In March Malcolm and Martin encountered one another by chance at a news conference in Washington, D.C. Subsequently Malcolm spoke at several rallies in support of the civil rights movement, and in February 1965, two weeks before his assassination, he went to Selma to meet with King.” –Grace Lee Boggs

” You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”–“Prospects for Freedom in 1965,” speech, January 7 1965.
February 21, 1972
The trial began for Father Philip Berrigan and six other activists (the “Harrisburg Seven”) in Pennsylvania. They were charged with conspiring in an alleged plot to kidnap Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Proceedings later ended in a mistrial.

Daniel Berrigan, above, and his brother Philip in the documentary, “Investigation of a Flame.” The film focuses on the Catonsville action.
Remembering Fr. Philip Berrigan 
February 21, 1975
Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, Mitchell aide Robert Mardian, and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 21⁄2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up. They were variously convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, fraud, and perjury.
See the new film, Frost/Nixon, for perspective on some of
the issues behind Watergate
 Charlie Rose interview with Peter Morgan, the screenwriter (and author of what was originally a play) and Michael Sheen and Frank Langella, the lead actors
February 21, 2011
Two Libyan Air Force fighter pilots defected to the Mediterranean island of Malta rather than carry out orders they had received to bomb civilian countrymen. Two helicopters with seven others landed in Malta to escape the violence. Colonel Muammar Qadaffi had ordered the attacks in attempt to quell the growing protests against his 42-year dictatorship.
Libya’s ambassadors to China, India, Indonesia and Poland, as well as Libya’s representative to the Arab League and most, if not all, of its mission at the United Nations resigned the same day.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryfebruary.htm#february21

Trump Administration Is Now Providing PrEP Abroad, But Not for LGBTQ+ People

The goal is to erase gay people because super Christian Rubio agrees with the hateful that LGBTQ+ need to die or go away.  They are not human people like good straight cis people are.   So lets protect the straight people and hope the icky gays get the aids virus.  That is their view, not mine, yours, or real Christians who follow Jesus’s command to love and care for people.   Hugs

But Rubio’s waiver itself stated that “gender or DEI ideology programs” and “transgender surgeries” — e.g., any overseas programs or organizations that support trans people — should not receive aid during the “pause,” and that any programs not specifically named in the waiver “may not be resumed without express approval.”

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The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is still barred from providing PrEP to LGBTQ+ people around the world, according to recent State Department documents, placing millions of people at elevated risk of HIV exposure.

Shortly after President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign aid in January, Rubio issued an additional “emergency humanitarian waiver” on February 6 which appeared to allow HIV medications to be distributed abroad during that time. That waiver ostensibly meant that pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP — the antiretroviral drug that prevents the transmission of HIV — would be distributed through PEPFAR. But Rubio’s waiver itself stated that “gender or DEI ideology programs” and “transgender surgeries” — e.g., any overseas programs or organizations that support trans people — should not receive aid during the “pause,” and that any programs not specifically named in the waiver “may not be resumed without express approval.”

Now, a new State Department document, dated February 6 and published online by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) confirms that PrEP “should be offered only to pregnant and breastfeeding women,” whereas anyone else “who may be at high risk of HIV infection or were previously initiated on a PrEP option can not be offered PEPFAR-funded PrEP” (emphases in original) during the aid freeze.

Among the “high risk” populations currently blocked from receiving PrEP through PEPFAR is LGBTQ+ people — particularly men who have sex with men (MSM) and trans people, two demographics with an increased risk of exposure to HIV. UNAIDS estimated this week that more than 3,000 new HIV infections have occurred worldwide as a result of the Trump administration’s aid freeze.

Founded in 2003 to combat the international spread of HIV, PEPFAR reported distributing antiretroviral treatments to over 20 million people worldwide in 2024, including 2.5 million new PrEP users. In 2022, PEPFAR spent 8.9% of its budget, or approximately $20.1 million, on services for MSM and trans people, according to an analysis by the health policy research organization KFF. A further $28 million went to provide HIV prevention and treatment services for sex workers.

Trump and Rubio’s aid freeze has also already resulted in PEPFAR-assisted programs shutting their doors. The Kenyan “Fahari ya Jamii” initiative, a five-year HIV prevention project founded in 2022, shut down more than 150 clinics and placed more than 700 workers on unpaid leave following the freeze last month, as the Washington Blade reported February 5.

The freeze is part of Trump’s larger war against the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal agency which distributes civilian foreign aid and partially funds PEPFAR. Amid the administration’s purge of “woke” terminology — including the terms “gender” and “LGBTQ” — from government websites, the USAID site was still entirely offline at time of writing. The agency was also the subject of a House committee hearing on February 5, during which Rep. Nancy Mace repeatedly used a transphobic slur to denigrate U.S. support for LGBTQ+ programs abroad.

Global health organizations have condemned the Trump aid freeze particularly as it relates to HIV prevention, warning of dire consequences already taking place. The international watchdog group Human Rights Watch wrote this week that even a temporary pause on PEPFAR programs “could be devastating” for countless people around the world. The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) and Journalism Development Network, Inc. filed a joint lawsuit against Trump, Rubio, and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought on February 10, alleging the administration’s aid freeze is illegal and unconstitutional. On February 11, a group of USAID contractors and non-governmental organizations filed another such lawsuit, alleging that the freeze had already caused “irreparable damage.” The administration is already fighting a third lawsuit brought by a group of USAID employees last week, which led a federal judge to issue an injunction against the furloughing of USAID workers on February 7.

“[W]ith this new guidance, the Trump Administration is choosing politics over science, discrimination over compassion, and ultimately, death over life,” AVAC representatives wrote in a statement last week. “The February 6th guidance […] is not only a dangerous deviation from sound public health policy — it is a death sentence for thousands of people at risk of HIV globally,” the organization wrote, adding, “This decision appears to be less about public health and more about an ideological agenda that seeks to police morality rather than protect lives.”

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Samantha Riedel is a writer and editor whose work on transgender culture and politics has previously appeared in VICE, Bitch Magazine, and The Establishment. She lives in Massachusetts, where she is presently at work on her first manuscript. … Read more
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Image may contain: Banner, Text, Clothing, Footwear, Shoe, Glove, Hat, Adult, Person, Light, and Traffic Light
HIV/AIDS Activists Halt Traffic Outside State Department Protesting Trump’s PEPFAR Freeze
The civil disobedience draws attention to a federal program credited with saving 25 million lives in over 50 countries.

Peace & Justice History for 2/20

The Republican President has been in office one month today, and we’ve seen some of today’s history repeat itself already. Republicans are working very rapidly.

February 20, 1942
The vast majority of teachers in German-occupied Norway refused to comply with the forced Nazification of the school system. The government had ordered display of the portrait of German-installed Minister President Vidkun Quisling (formerly head of Nasjonal Samling, the Norwegian fascist party) in all classrooms, revision of the curriculum and textbooks to reflect Nazi ideology, and teaching of German to replace English as their second language.The teachers organized and 12,000 of 14,000 nationwide wrote the same letter on this day to the education department refusing membership in the newly formed Nazi teachers’ association. Two days later clergy throughout the country read a manifesto against Nazi control of the schools.

Vidkun Quisling (on right), Germany’s puppet leader in Norway,
allowed Germany to invade his country and declared himself Prime Minister. In Norway his name has become synonymous with traitor.
How the teachers pushed back 
Norwegian teachers prevent the Nazification of education 
February 20, 1956
The U.S. rejected a Soviet proposal to ban nuclear weapons tests and deployment. The U.S. continued atmospheric nuclear testing in the South Pacific and Nevada until 1963.
February 20, 2011
Nearly 40,000 pro-Democracy Moroccans demonstrated peacefully in
57 towns and cities across the country. Though there was sporadic
violence later that night, Interior minister Taeib Cherqaoui called the earlier efforts “the healthy practice of the freedom of expression.”

Responding to Ben Shapiro and other videos on LGBTQ+ sex and the bible

More Black History

(However, it’s not well-known, it’s chilling, and it could be upsetting, so take only what you can take. It’s like Rosewood+Greenwood, plus yet more. -A)

You Heard of the Tulsa Massacre, But I Bet Nobody Told You About Red Summer of 1919.

From May of that year to December, over 25 race massacres took place on American soil.

By Lawrence Ware Published Monday 12:02AM

Image for article titled You Heard of the Tulsa Massacre, But I Bet Nobody Told You About Red Summer of 1919.
Photo: Unidentified Photographer, June 1921 (Getty Images)

Most Black Americans have never heard of the Red Summer of 1919…but it is an element of Black history that we need to pay attention to. This country specializes in committing monstrous atrocities and then ignoring the consequences of their actions. It happened with Native Americans and the Trail of Tears. And, of course, it happened with Black folks. This truth is best captured when we consider what happened in the year 1919.

https://www.theroot.com/embed/inset/iframe?id=twitter-1694318618585010504&autosize=1

When Austrian Archduke Franz was assassinated on 28 June 1914, it set off a chain of events that led to what we now call World War 1. Working age white men were drafted and sent to fight, so that left many job vacancies in northern cities that Black men were happy to fill. See, Black folks were feeing the racist South hoping to find less racism in northern cites. The population of Black Chicagoans increased by more than 100% while the number of Black folks in Philadelphia grew by 500%.

While that was happening, 367,000 Black Americans either enlisted or were drafted into service to fight in the war that had just popped off. Black men were eager to prove to white America that Black people deserved dignity. They hoped they would see that by fighting in what white folks were calling ‘The Great War.’ But once the war ended, Black soldiers returned to an ungrateful nation. Thinking about these men, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote on May of 1919 in the NAACP’s Crisis newsletter, “We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.”

Du Bois had no idea how prophetic his words would be. From May of that year to December, over 25 race massacres took place on American soil. More than 250 Black men, women and children’s lives were violently cut short. Black folks discovered that the racial violence they thought they escaped when they left places like Alabama and Mississippi was not a feature of Southern living. Instead, it was part of being Black in America.

https://www.theroot.com/embed/inset/iframe?id=twitter-1830630233768395050&autosize=1

Those white soldiers who came home and discovered that scores of Black people had moved to the north. They also found Black soldiers who felt that they had earned their place in American life by serving their country. An official put it like this: “one of the principle elements causing concern is the returned negro soldier who is not readily fitting back into his prior status of pre-war times.” Therefore, white soldiers became white terrorists to put these soldiers and anyone who looked like them back in their place. There were race massacres in Washington D.C., Omaha, Knoxville, and a massive race riot in Chicago where 38 people were killed and 537 injured. Few white people were arrested for these crimes, fewer were prosecuted. Two years later was the Tulsa race riot where the Greenwood district, what we now call Black Wallstreet, was burned to the ground.

As we celebrate Black History Month, we need to tell the entire truth of our history. Not just the accomplishments of men and women who embody Black excellence, but also the way that America has wronged us. The Red Summer of 1919 is one of those stories that we would like to forget. Yet don’t our accomplishments shine even more brightly considering the darkness we had to endure? No doubt we have endured days when hope unborn had died. But, somehow, against all odds, we came to the place for which our fathers sighed.

Sad, angering news:

Say Her Name – Elisa Rae Shupe

Peace & Justice History for 2/15

February 15, 1898
The man-of-war (battleship) USS Maine was sunk in Cuba’s Havana Harbor as the result of an explosion, 260 American naval personnel dying as a result, another 58 wounded. An insurrection against Spanish colonial rule in Cuba had persisted for years, and brutal Spanish tactics had engendered strong American reaction. That is why Consul General Fitzhugh Lee had asked President William McKinley to send the Maine “for the moral effect it might have.”
Spain’s Governor-General Weyler had forced 300,000 Cubans into towns and cities to insulate them from the insurgents but had made no preparations for their food, housing or health care. Half of the reconcentrados, as they were called, died as a result. Pres. McKinley had tried since coming into office to reach a settlement through negotiation but Spain rejected his efforts. Following the sinking of the Maine, popular opinion in the U.S. moved toward war with Spain, partially in response to inflammatory press coverage. Congress then voted McKinley $50,000,000 to be used for the national defense at his discretion, and provided for a contingent increase of the army to 100,000 men.
The cause of the explosion ???
February 15, 1998
About 2,000 people – including a tractor convoy consisting of over 100 farmers – staged a demonstration in the north German town of Ahaus in protest against the planned shipment of nuclear waste to a storage facility in the town.
A consignment of full CASTOR (Casks for Storage and Transport of Radioactive Material) containers was expected at the Ahaus interim nuclear storage site within the next two weeks.
February 15, 2002
President George W. Bush approved Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the site for long-term disposal of 70,000 metric tons (77,000 tons) of highly radioactive nuclear power plant waste.
12 years and $6.8 billion worth of study and construction had gone into the site 90 miles from Las Vegas.

It is officially estimated that, by the time it is completed in 2017, the total construction cost will be $23 billion.
2000 additional metric tons of such waste are generated by U.S. nuclear power plants each year, leading to concerns that the facility would be full shortly after its opening. All such waste is currently stored onsite at individual nuclear power plants.

Problems with the Yucca Mountain site
What are the alternatives 
FAQs on Yucca Mountain 
February 15, 2003
The world said NO to war…
In the single largest day of protest in world history, millions on 6 continents demonstrated against the U.S./U.K. plans to invade Iraq. Reported totals included 1 to 2 million in London and Rome; 1.3 million in Barcelona, Spain (a city of 1.5 million); 500,000 each in Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and New York. Smaller demonstrations were held in over 600 cities and towns across the U.S., including tens of thousands in several cities, and 150,000 the following day in San Francisco.
Total participation is estimated at 25 million in more than 100 countries.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryfebruary.htm#february15

Peace & Justice History for 2/14

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.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend 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.

Reverend Ralph David Abernathy and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference history 
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  
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. for and used by the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels.
Just over one year later, elections were held (with international observers including former President Jimmy Carter) though the nation was threatened with a continuing U.S. economic boycott, and was experiencing ongoing Contra violence. The Sandanista Front candidate was defeated 55% to 41%.

Some TizzyEnt clips. They are mostly short with the longest a few seconds over 5 minutes.

Peace & Justice History for 2/1

February 1, 1960

Greensboro first day: Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960.

Four black college students sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and were refused service because of their race. To protest the segregation of the eating facilities, they remained and sat-in at the lunch counter until the store closed.
Four students returned the next day, and the same thing happened. Similar protests subsequently took place all over the South and in some northern communities.
By September 1961, more than 70,000 students, both white and black, had participated, with many arrested, during sit-ins.

On the second day of the Greensboro sit-in, Joseph A. McNeil and Franklin E. McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“Segregation makes me feel that I’m unwanted,” Joseph McNeil, one of the four, said later in an interview, “I don’t want my children exposed to it.”

Listen to Franklin McCain’s account of what happened 
February 1, 1961
On the first anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in, there were demonstrations all across the south, including a Nashville movie theater desegregation campaign (which sparked similar tactics in 10 other cities). Nine students were arrested at a lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and chose to take 30 days hard labor on a road gang. The next week, four other students repeated the sit-in, also chose jail.
February 1, 1968

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes Nguyen Van Lem a NLF officer.

Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan summarily executed Nguyen Van Lem, suspected leader of a National Liberation Front (NLF aka Viet Cong) assassination platoon, with a pistol shot to the head on the street. AP photojournalist Eddie Adams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of the incident became one of the most famous, ubiquitous and lasting images of the war in Vietnam, affecting international and American public opinion regarding the war.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryfebruary.htm#february1