On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration announced a series of measures to phase out eight artificial food dyes and colorings from America’s food supply by the end of next year. Get ready for boring Cheetos.
RFK Jr, the nation’s laughingstock of a Health Secretary, said, to a crowd of “Make America Health Again” supporters (that’s a thing?), “I just want to urge all of you, it’s not the time to stop; it’s the time to redouble your efforts, because we have them on the run now, and we are going to win this battle.” Who do we have on the run? Food colorers? The Easter Bunny? He also said, “And four years from now, we’re going to have most of these products off the market, or you will know about them when you go to the grocery store.”
Are they sure that brain worm is dead?
FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said the agencies are looking to revoke authorization for two synthetic food colorings and to work with the food industry to eliminate six remaining synthetic dyes used in cereal, ice cream, snacks, yogurts, and more. They’re going to fuck up ice cream.
He said, “Today, the FDA is taking action to remove petroleum-based food dyes from the U.S. food supply and medications. For the last 50 years, American children have increasingly been living in a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals.”
Now get this. These bans will be voluntary with the food companies. RFK Jr. said, “We don’t have an agreement; we have an understanding.” Good luck with that, Mr. Wormy Bear Killer.
The food companies would like an agreement, and that is for there to be one federal regulation on food dyes, and regulations from every state. Remember state rights? That will be the case for abortions but not for the color in Cheetos. (Snip-MORE + Chicago trip stuff)
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The three branches of government, 2025 by Ann Telnaes
April 23, 1968 Students at Columbia University in New York City occupied campus buildings to protest military research and the razing of part of the neighboring Morningside Heights section of Harlem to make way for a new student gymnasium. Perspective from 40 years on by Mark Rudd, one of the Columbia leaders
April 23, 1971 In the final event of Operation Dewey Canyon III, nearly 1,000 Vietnam War veterans threw their combat ribbons, helmets, and uniforms on the U.S. Capitol steps along with toy weapons. Read more about Operation Dewey Canyon III
April 23, 1996 Chernobyl veterans Nineteen Ukrainian demonstrators were arrested in the capital, Kiev, during an illegal anti-nuclear protest marking the 10th anniversary of the nuclear reactor explosion and fire at Chernobyl, Ukraine, until then the largest and deadliest nuclear accident in history, now exceeded by Fukushima. [see April 26, 1986].
April 22, 1963 The Mothers for Peace, a group made up of Catholic Workers, members of PAX (which became Pax Christi in 1972), Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and others, met with Pope John XXIII to plead for a condemnation of nuclear war and the development of nonviolent resistance. About Women Strike for Peace
April 22, 1970 Banner at the first Earth Day On the first Earth Day observance, an estimated 20 million participated in peaceful demonstrations of concern for the environment across the U.S. including ten thousand grade schools and high schools, two thousand colleges across one thousand communities. 1st Earth Day, 1970 Beginnings of Earth Day from then Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) One on the 1st buttons
April 22, 1992 50,000 attended “Don’t Count On Us,” an anti-war rock concert in Belgrade, Serbia. It was to the nationalist regime of President Slobodan Milosevic an expression of the resistance within society to the military aggression he had been pursuing in the name of Serbian nationalism. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the various constituent republics of the former Yugoslavia—Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina—had declared their independence. Following a military draft call-up, fewer than 10% had reported for duty, and there was considerable dissension within what was then still called the Yugoslav People’s Army.
April 22, 1997 On Earth Day, Plowshares activists Donna and Tom Howard-Hastings used handsaws to cut down three poles in northern Wisconsin supporting the ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) transmitter for communication with submerged Trident nuclear submarines. After the poles were cut they were decorated with photos of children and posted with documents about international law and treaties outlawing nuclear weapons. They also placed stakes to mark tree seedlings under the transmission lines that they said were “doomed to the cutting bar.” They cut a section of one of the downed poles, carrying it to the nearby transmitter site where they turned themselves in to security personnel. They were then taken into custody by county sheriffs. An ABC-TV news affiliate, along with reporters from two public radio stations, were on hand to observe what happened. During the three-day jury trial on charges of sabotage and property destruction in Ashland County District Court, the defense was allowed to present several expert witnesses, including a retired Navy captain, Trident missile designer Bob Aldridge, and international law expert Francis Boyle. Both Howard-Hastings defendants were acquitted of the sabotage charge, which carried ten years and a $10,000 fine, but were convicted of destruction of property. At sentencing, they claimed the court had no jurisdiction over them, seeing that a jury had determined that their action was reasonable, and that they did not damage the national defense. They also made a passionate appeal to the judge to heed international law and the World Court decision to outlaw nuclear weapons. Donna was sentenced to 114 days she had already served, with a three-year period of probation and restitution. Tom was sentenced to one year in prison, with credit for time served and three years of intensive probation, including electronic home monitoring, and restitution. The name Laurentian Shield refers the granite geological formation at the ELF site. More Plowshares actions
April 21, 1856 Stonemasons and other construction workers on building sites around Melbourne, Australia, stopped work and marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House. They advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest. Their direct action protest was a success, becoming the first organized workers in the world to achieve an eight-hour workday, inspiring the celebration of Labor Day and May Day.
April 21, 1989 Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students from more than 40 universities gathered at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu prior to his funeral.They voiced their discontent with China’s authoritarian communist government, and called for greater democracy. Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, the students were joined by workers, academics, and civil servants. Pro-democracy student protesters face-to-face with policemen outside the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square the day of Hu Yaobang’s funeral.
April 20, 1853 Harriet Tubman began her Underground Railroad, a network of people and places that aided in the escape of slaves to the north. Story of a liberator of her people from bondage Harriet Tubman
April 20, 1914 Troops from the Colorado state militia attacked strikers, killing 25 (half women and children), at Ludlow. Having struck the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company the previous September for improved conditions, better wages, and union recognition, the workers established a tent camp which was fired upon and ultimately torched during a 14-hour siege. The Ludlow Massacre
April 20, 1964 In his closing statement at the Rivonia Trial, African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela addressed the court: “We want a just share in the whole of South Africa . . . We want security and a stake in society. Above all, my lord, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent.” He was in Pretoria Supreme Court in South Africa where he and eight co-defendants were charged with 221 acts of sabotage designed to “ferment violent revolution,” and were facing the death penalty. At the time, black South Africans had no civil or political rights whatsoever, though they composed over 80% of the population. He concluded: “During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. “ I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live and to see realised. But, my lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Mandela in 1958 The trial that changed South Africa
April 20, 1969 On the site of a parking lot owned by the University of California, Berkeley, a diverse group of people came together, each freely contributing their skills and resources to create People’s Park. People’s Park history
April 20, 1982 Seven women were arrested in an anti-nuclear protest outside Mather Air Force Base, near Sacramento, California, in what had become a weekly vigil. Speaking after her arrest, Barbara Weidner, 72, said, “As a mother and grandmother, I could no longer remain silent as our world rushes on its collision course with disaster which threatens the lives and futures of all children, everywhere, and the future of this beautiful planet itself.” She later said, “I hope people will not think we are encouraging people to break the law,” she said. “But our actions should teach people, and children, to scrutinize laws against human life, and they should be broken to prove a point.”
April 20, 2002 More than 75,000 marched in Washington, D.C. to protest U.S. policies in the Middle East, specifically regarding Palestine and the threatened war in Iraq. The demonstration was organized by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) and included members of the Arab-American, Muslim and South Asian communities.
I want to thank brucedesertrat who sent me the link to this substack article. I enjoy learning about history but sadly this hits home too deeply. It is so close it is scary. Hugs.
Today President Trump is threatening to pull funds if Harvard does not comply with his demands for the school to shape it’s curricula to favor Trumpism. Harvard has refused to caved to Trump’s fascist demands which clearly violate free speech.
“The University will not surrender its independence or its constitutional rights,” Harvard President Alan M. Garber
The seizure of power by the MAGA Republicans in 2025, led by Donald Trump, brought far-reaching changes to American Universities. Some caved, some obeyed in advance.
The seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933, led by Adolph Hitler, brought far-reaching changes to German Universities. All caved. All obeyed in advance.
There is a parallel in German history for this American moment when books are banned, educational institutions are battered and a brutal and barbaric anti-intellectual ethos is on the rise.
A timeline of the Nazification of Munich University
1933
Hitler demands The University of Munich restructure its curriculum in accordance with the new ruling ideology of Nazism.
Trump demands Harvard University restructure its curriculum in accordance with the new ruling ideology of Trumpism. Abandon DEI. Police your students and faculty for viewpoint “diversity”.
Those faculty members who are not Nazi sympathizers are dismissed.
Trump’s letter calls for political undesirables to be gone.
The numbers of Jews admitted to university are restricted.
Munich University is the site of book burnings led by pro-Nazi students.
With the passage of these laws, the Nazis attempted to root out any opposition to their ideology that remain in German higher education.
Trump wants all of America’s Universities to root out anti-Trumpist thought, to be citadels of Trumpism, to employ MAGA professors who will teach American students how Trumpism will make America and her institutions of higher learning great again.
1941
Munich University appoints of Walther Wüst, an Aryan ideologue, Führer-Rektor of the University. By this time the Nazification of Munich University is complete. The once prestigious Munich University employs an all Nazi faculty.
1943
Sophie Scholl, a student attending Munich University, is guillotined for distributing anti-Nazi broadsides on campus.
Under President Trump students are deported or “disappeared”. I can safely assume an American student will be martyred for resisting fascism here in our nation in t he months ahead.
Hitler visiting the University of Munich
Here is a harrowing account of the Nazification of Frankfurt University witnessed by young Austrian economist named Peter Drucker:
Frankfurt was the first university the Nazis tackled, precisely because it was the most self-confidently liberal of major German universities, with a faculty that prided itself on its allegiance to scholarship, freedom of conscience, and democracy. The Nazis knew that control of Frankfurt University would mean control of German academia. And so did everyone at the university.
Above all, Frankfurt had a science faculty distinguished both by its scholarship and by its liberal convictions; and outstanding among the Frankfurt scientists was a biochemist-physiologist of Nobel-Prize caliber and impeccable liberal credentials. When the appointment of a Nazi commissar was announced . . . and every teacher and graduate assistant at the university was summoned to a faculty meeting to hear this new master, everybody knew that a trial of strength was at hand. I had never before attended a faculty meeting, but I did attend this one.
The new Nazi commissar wasted no time on the amenities. He immediately announced that Jews would be forbidden to enter university premises and would be dismissed without salary on March 15; this was something that no one had thought possible despite the Nazis’ loud antisemitism. Then he launched into a tirade of abuse, filth, and four-letter words such as had been heard rarely even in the barracks and never before in academia. . . . [He] pointed his finger at one department chairman after another and said, “You either do what I tell you or we’ll put you into a concentration camp.” There was silence when he finished; everybody waited for the distinguished biochemist-physiologist. The great liberal got up, cleared his throat, and said, “Very interesting, Mr. Commissar, and in some respects very illuminating: but one point I didn’t get too clearly. Will there be more money for research in physiology?”
The meeting broke up shortly thereafter with the commissar assuring the scholars that indeed there would be plenty of money for “racially pure science.” A few of the professors had the courage to walk out with their Jewish colleagues, but most kept a safe distance from these who only a few hours earlier had been their close friends. I went out sick unto death—and I knew that I was going to leave Germany within forty-eight hours.
The Nazis attacked academic dissent with lethal cruelty
Some went to nearby Dachau. Some, such as our heroic young student Sophie, were beheaded.
Sophie Scholl, photographed by the Gestapo
Here is the text of the pamphlet that cost Munich University student Sophie Scholl her life. Her haunting critique of Hitler resonates eerily with the familiar critiques of our current leader:
Fellow Students!
Shaken, our people faces the downfall of our men of Stalingrad. Three hundred thirty thousand German men have been senselessly and irresponsibly rushed into death and ruin by the brilliant strategy of the man who served as a private in the Great War. Führer, we thank you!
It is festering in the German people: Do we want to continue entrusting the fate of our armies to a dilettante? Do we want to sacrifice the rest of our young Germans to the base, power-seeking instincts of a Party clique? Nevermore.
The day of reckoning has come, our German youth’s reckoning with the most abhorrent tyranny that our people has ever endured. In the name of all young Germans, we demand that Adolf Hitler’s State return to us our personal freedom, the German’s most valuable possession, which he has cheated us out of in the most disgraceful way.
We have grown up in a State where every free expression of opinion has been ruthlessly gagged. The HJ, SA, and SS have tried to make us uniform, to revolutionize us, to narcotize us in the most fruitful educational years of our lives. “Ideological training” was the name given to the despicable method of stifling our budding independent thought and self-esteem in a haze of empty phrases. A “Führerauslese”1 of a kind as fiendish and at the same time as narrow-minded as one can possibly imagine, grooming its future Party bosses at Ordensburgen [special educational centers for Party cadres] to become godless, shameless, and unscrupulous exploiters and cutthroats, to become blind, mindless followers of the Führer. We “brain-workers” were exactly right for becoming the cudgel of this new ruling class. Front-line soldiers are disciplined like schoolboys by student leaders and would-be Gauleiter; Gauleiter, with prurient jests, assault the honor of female students. German female students at the university in Munich have given a dignified reply to the insult to their honor, and German male students have intervened and stood their ground on behalf of their female classmates. That is a first step toward gaining our right to free self-determination, without which intellectual values cannot be created. We are grateful to our brave fellow students, female and male, who have led the way by setting this shining example!
For us, there is only one watchword: Fight against the Party! Get out of the Party formations, in which the goal is to keep us politically muzzled! Get out of the lecture rooms of the SS Unter- or Oberführer and the Party bootlickers! True scholarly activities and genuine intellectual freedom are at stake! No threat of any kind can frighten us, not even the closing of our universities. Each of us must fight for our future, our freedom and honor in a body politic that is aware of its moral responsibility.
Freedom and honor! For ten long years, Hitler and his comrades have squeezed these two magnificent German words and made them loathsome, have banged on them and twisted them as only dilettantes can, dilettantes who cast the highest values of a nation before swine. They have sufficiently demonstrated what freedom and honor mean to them during ten years of the destruction of all physical and intellectual freedom, of all moral substance in the German people. Even the dumbest German’s eyes have been opened by the dreadful blood bath which they have brought about everywhere in Europe and continue to bring about each day. The German name will remain forever disgraced unless German youth stand up at last, engage simultaneously in revenge and expiation, smash their tormentors, and bring about a new intellectual and spiritual Europe.
Students! The German people is watching us! It expects us, as in 1813 with the breaking of Napoleon’s domination, now also in 1943 to break the domination of National Socialist terror through the power of the mind.
Berezina and Stalingrad blaze in the East; the dead of Stalingrad implore us!
“Fresh on, my people, the flame signals are smoking!”2
Our people is rising up against the enslavement of Europe by National Socialism, in a new, trustful breakthrough of freedom and honor!
As you read her courageous words consider how and why a regime would loathe and fear such a voice for liberty.
Now is the time to stand with all who see Trump for the terrifying tyrant he is.
Now is the time to stand with all educators and students who courageously stand against this tyranny.
Now is the time to join Thomas Jefferson in swearing “upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
Now is the time to stand with Harvard University.
Now is the time to stand with all educators and educational institutions threatened by MAGA fascism.
David Fitzsimmons: Arizona’s Progressive Voice is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
April 19, 1911 More than 6,000 Grand Rapids, Michigan, furniture workers—Germans, Dutch, Lithuanians, and Poles—put down their tools and struck 59 factories in what became known as the Great Furniture Strike. For four months they campaigned and picketed for higher pay, shorter hours, and an end to the piecework pay system that was common in the plants of America’s “Furniture City.” Although the strike ended after four months without a resolution, Gordon Olson, Grand Rapids city historian emeritus, said once employees returned to work, most owners did increase pay and reduce hours.
April 19, 1943 On the eve of Passover, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began when Nazi forces attempted to clear out the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, to send them to concentration camps. The Germans were met by unexpected gunfire from Jewish resistance fighters. The destruction of the ghetto had been ordered in February by SS Chief Heinrich Himmler: “An overall plan for the razing of the ghetto is to be submitted to me. In any case we must achieve the disappearance from sight of the living-space for 500,000 sub-humans (Untermenschen) that has existed up to now, but could never be suitable for Germans, and reduce the size of this city of millions—Warsaw—which has always been a center of corruption and revolt.”
These two women, soon to be executed, were members of the Jewish resistance. ” …Jews and Jewesses shot from two pistols at the same time… The Jewesses carried loaded pistols in their clothing with the safety catches off… At the last moment, they would pull hand grenades out…and throw them at the soldiers….” Captured Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Learn more about The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (it’s the search page for the national Holocaust Museum.)
April 19, 1971 As a prelude to a massive anti-war protest, Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) began a five-day demonstration in Washington, D.C. The generally peaceful protest was called Dewey Canyon III in honor of the operation of the same name conducted in Laos. They lobbied their congressmen, laid wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery, and staged mock “search-and-destroy” missions. Read more about this action
April 19, 1997 Two Swedish Plowshares peace activists, Cecelia Redner, a priest in the Church of Sweden, and Marija Fischer, a student, entered the Bufors Arms factory in Karlskoga, Sweden, planted an apple tree and attempted to disarm a naval cannon being exported to Indonesia. Cecelia was charged with attempt to commit malicious damage and Marija with assisting in what was called the Choose Life Disarmament Action. Both were also charged with violating a law which protects facilities “important to society.” Both women were convicted, arguing over repeated interruptions by the judge, that, in Redner’s words, “When my country is arming a dictator I am not allowed to be passive and obedient, since it would make me guilty to the crime of genocide in East Timor. I know what is going on and I cannot only blame the Indonesian dictatorship or my own government.” Fischer added, “We tried to prevent a crime, and that is an obligation according to our law.” Redner was sentenced to fines and three years of correctional education. Fischer was sentenced to fines and two years’ suspended sentence. Both the prosecutor and defendants appealed the case. No jail sentences were imposed.
April 18, 1912 Members of the United Mine Workers of America on Paint Creek in Kanawha County, West Virginia, demanded wages equal to those of other area mines. The operators rejected the wage increase and miners walked off the job. Miners along nearby Cabin Creek, having previously lost their union, joined the Paint Creek strikers and demanded: • the right to organize • recognition of their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly • an end to blacklisting union organizers • alternatives to company stores • an end to the practice of using mine guards • prohibition of cribbing • installation of scales at all mines for accurately weighing coal • unions be allowed to hire their own checkweighmen to make sure the companies’ checkweighmen were not cheating the miners.When the strike began, operators brought in mine guards from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to evict miners and their families from company houses. The evicted miners set up tent colonies and lived in other makeshift housing. The mine guards’ primary responsibility was to break the strike by making the lives of the miners as uncomfortable as possible. Striking miners and their families being evicted from company houses. Deep background on the W. Virginia coal business and the strike
April 18, 1941 Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Bus companies in New York City agreed to hire 200 black drivers and mechanics after a four-week boycott by riders led by Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. of Harlem’s Abysinnian Baptist Church, the largest Protestant congregation in the U.S. Powell ran and won a City Council seat later that year and became a member of Congress four years later. A Bus Boycott Before Its Time
April 18, 1955 Sukarno hosts Bandung conference A conference bringing together government representatives from 29 Asian and African countries began in Bandung, Indonesia. The intention was to promote economic and cultural cooperation, and to oppose Western colonialism, then still prevalent on both continents. At the same time, many countries were worried about communism and the power of the Soviet Union. The principal actors were Sukarno of Indonesia, one of the countries that organized the meeting; Jawahrlal Nehru, prime minister of recently independent India; Kwame Nkrumah, prime minister of the Gold Coast (now Ghana); Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt; Chou En Lai, premier of China; and Ho Chi Minh, prime minister of Vietnam. Chou En-Lai and Jawaharlal Nehru at the Bandung Conference Many concepts of international cooperation and mutual interest were discussed at the week-long conference, including Pan-Islam, Pan-Arabism, Pan-Asianism, and Pan-Africanism. The meeting was a precursor to what became known as the Non-Aligned Movement (aligned neither with Washington nor Moscow). Bandung Conference background info
April 18, 1958 The first march against nuclear arms in West Germany took place.
April 18, 1960 Tens of thousands of people marked the end of the Aldermaston “ban the bomb” march at a rally with at least 60,000 gathering in Trafalgar Square, the largest demonstration London had seen to date. Read more
April 18, 1989 Thousands of Chinese students from several universities took to the streets to protest government policies and issue a call for greater democracy in the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC). Mourning over the death of Hu Yaobang began on the 15th in Tiananmen Square. As Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party, he had called for rapid reform in the PRC, but had been pushed out of office over the Democracy Wall protests. Students in the Square demanded response from government officials, and began a sit-in and other activities that persisted for weeks. Timeline of the Beijing democracy protests
April 17, 1959 22 were arrested in New York City for refusing to take shelter during a civil defense drill.
April 17, 1960 Inspired by the Greensboro sit-in of four black college students at an all-white lunch counter, nearly 150 black students from nine states formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, with Ella Baker, James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., the founders set SNCC’s initial goals as overturning segregation in the South. They also considered it important to give young blacks a stronger voice in the civil rights movement, as many had participated in sit-ins that had proliferated to dozens of cities over the previous three months. At the Raleigh conference Guy Carawan sang a new version of “We Shall Overcome,” an adaptation of an old labor song. This song would become the national anthem of the civil rights movement. People joined hands and gently swayed in time singing “black and white together,” repeating over and over, “Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day.” History of SNCC (It’s a Stanford.edu page, which “cannot be reached.” Take from that what you will. I’ve decided to note these things when they happen.) What SNCC did to make change happen (This page is good.)
April 17, 1961 Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs invasion. An army of 1500 anti-Castro Cuban exiles, mercenaries equipped and trained at a secret Guatemala base by the CIA, landed at Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) in an attempt to “liberate” Cuba from Communist rule. Within three days, the invasion proved disastrous with nearly 1200 members of Brigade 2506 (who had been trained in the U.S.) taken prisoner. Known as Operation Zapata, it was conceived by Vice President Nixon, planned and approved by the Eisenhower administration, and executed shortly after President John Kennedy’s inauguration. President Kennedy receives the Brigade 2506 flag in Miami in 1962 and declares: “I promise to return this flag in a free Havana.”
Soviet General Secretary Nikita Kruschev sent a telegram to President Kennedy: “Mr. President, I send you this message in an hour of alarm, fraught with danger for the peace of the whole world. Armed aggression has begun against Cuba. It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America. The planes which are bombing Cuban cities belong to the United States of America, the bombs they are dropping are being supplied by the American Government . . . .” What actually happened
April 17, 1965 The first national demonstration against the Vietnam War took place in the nation’s capital. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the organizers, had expected about 2000 marchers; the actual count was 15,000–25,000. This was the largest anti-war protest ever to have been held in Washington, D.C. up to that time. The number of marchers approximately equaled the number of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Several hundred students in the protest broke away from the main march and conducted a brief sit-in at the U.S. Capitol’s door. An exam prepared by SDS about the Vietnam War (answers available)
April 17, 1965 Gay rights advocate Jack Nichols The first demonstration promoting equal treatment of homosexuals, Jack Nichols, Barbara Gittings and others picketed in front of the White House. There were no media present.. Read more
April 17, 1986 Reverend Jesse Jackson, future congresswoman Maxine Waters and others co-founded the Rainbow Coalition, initially intended as a progressive public-policy think tank within the Democratic Party. Representative Maxine Waters, Harry Belafonte, John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Willie Nelson August 6, 2005-Atlanta, Georgia. Brief history of Rainbow Push Coalition
April 17, 1992 On Good Friday morning, about 50 people accompanied Fr. Carl Kabat and Carol Carson to Missile Silo Site N5 at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the same silo that Carl and other members of the Silo Pruning Hooks (see below) disarmed in 1984. They cut through a fence and, once inside, Carol used a sledgehammer on the concrete lid of the silo while Carl performed a rite of exorcism. Eventually, the police arrived and arrested Carl and Carol. They were jailed and held until their court appearance. At that time, they made a preliminary agreement with federal prosecutors wherein they would plead “no contest” to trespass in exchange for the property destruction charge being dropped; they were sentenced to six and three months, respectively, in a halfway house. Carl Kabat A History of Direct Disarmament Actions About the Silo Pruning Hooks action
Scottie's Playtime 