Category: History
Peace & Justice History for 3/10
| March 10, 1968 Cesar Chavez ended a 23-day fast for U.S. farm workers in a Delano, California, public park with 4000 supporters at his side, including Senator Robert Kennedy (D-New York). Cesar Chavez led the effort to organize farm workers into a union for better pay, working and living conditions. The story of Cesar Chavez  |
| March 10, 1969 James Earl Ray was sentenced to prison for 99 years by a court in Memphis, Tennessee, after admitting he murdered American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King, who preached and practiced nonviolence, was shot dead by a sniper in Memphis as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. The building now houses the National Civil Rights Museum.  Witnesses pointing toward the source of the shot that killed King. National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel |
| March 10, 2006 Turkish conscientious objector (CO) Mehmet Tarhan was released unexpectedly from a military prison after being held for having refused service in the army. A court decided that he had already been held longer (23 months) than any possible sentence for the crime.  Mehmet Tarhan Mehmet Tarhan’s supportersHe was ordered, however, to present himself again for military service and thus be subject to re-arrest for the same offense. War Resisters’ International(WRI) led an international support campaign for him along with other CO activists in Turkey. More on Mehmet Tarhan and other Turkish COs |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march10
Peace & Justice History for 3/8
Please enjoy International Women’s Day, and give respect and your compliments to all the women with whom you interact (I know that you do!) A history bit for the day is below. -A
| March 8, 1908 Thousands of workers in the New York needle trades (primarily women) demonstrated and began a strike for higher wages, a shorter workday and an end to child labor.   This event became the basis for International Women’s Day celebrated all over the world since March 8, 1945. IWD 2025 campaign theme is ‘Accelerate Action’ Searchable list of events for IWD planned around the world |
| March 8, 1965 About 3,500 U. S. Marines became the first American combat troops in Vietnam, landing near the coastal city of Da Nang. The ships USS Henrico, Union, and Vancouver, carrying the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade under Brigadier General Frederick J. Karch, took up stations 4,000 yards off Red Beach Two, north of Da Nang.  |
| March 8, 1983 40,000 in Tel Aviv, Israel, organized by Peace Now, rallied against the war in Lebanon. |
| March 8, 1995 Women in Black demonstrated in the center of Belgrade, Serbia, on International Women’s Day, expressing solidarity with Kosovar women: “The Albanian women from Kosovo are our sisters.”The women were both spit at and kicked, but didn’t give up, and stood there to the end of the usual hour. Though Kosovo is overwhelmingly (90%) ethnically Albanian, it is considered the national and religious birthplace of Serbians. Both Kosovo and Serbia had been part of the former Yugoslavia, which had granted partial autonomy to Kosovo in 1974. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic (later tried for war crimes) in 1989 withdrew that autonomy and revoked the official status of the Albanian language in Kosovo.  |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march8
Peace & Justice History for 3/7
| March 7, 1932 The Ford Hunger March began on Detroit’s east side and proceeded 10 miles seeking relief during the Great Depression. Facing hunger and evictions, workers had formed neighborhood Unemployed Councils. Along the route, the marchers were given good wishes from Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy as well as two motorcycle escorts, and thousands joined the marchers along the route.  At the Detroit city limit, the marchers were met by Dearborn police and doused by fire hoses. Despite the cold weather, they continued to the Employment Office of the Ford River Rouge plant, from which there had been massive layoffs. Five workers were killed and nineteen wounded by police and company “security” armed with pistols, rifles and a machine gun.   Dave MooreAccording to Dave Moore, one of the marchers, “That blood was black blood and white blood. One of the photos that was published in the Detroit Times, but never seen since, shows a black woman, Mattie Woodson, wiping the blood off the head of Joe DiBlasio, a white man who lay there dying . . . It’s been 75 years, but when you drive down Miller Road today, your car tires will be moistened with the blood that those five shed.” Grave markers with the words “His Life for the Union” pay tribute to the fallen hunger marchers in Woodmere Cemetery on Detroit’s west side. |
| March 7, 1965 525 civil rights advocates began a 54-mile march on a Sunday morning from Selma, Alabama, to the capital of Montgomery, to promote voting rights for blacks. Just after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma, the marchers were attacked in what became known as Bloody Sunday.  Enforcing an order by Governor George Wallace, the group was broken up by state troopers and volunteer officers of the Dallas County sheriff who used tear gas, nightsticks, bullwhips and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. John Lewis, then head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a leader of the march, suffered a fractured skull.John Lewis was elected a member of Congress from Georgia in 1986 and served till his death in 2020.ABC television interrupted a Nazi war crimes documentary, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” to show footage of the violence in Selma, confusing some viewers about who was beating whom.  Injured in Selma Selma 1965 – Edmund Pettus Bridge, video excerpt from a PBS documentary with Rep. John Lewis and others who were there Read more |
| March 7, 1988 A Federal Court ruled in Atlanta, Georgia, that a peace group must have the same access to students at high school career days as military recruiters.  the anti-recruitment movement today: LEAVE MY CHILD ALONE! |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march7
First
First They Came For… by Public Servant
Updating German pastor Martin Niemöller’s 1946 poem for 2025 Read on Substack
My Fellow Democracy Defenders,
Martin Niemöller was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany. After Hitler seized power in 1933, the pastor became an outspoken critic. For defying a dictator, he spent the last eight years of Nazi rule (1937 to 1945) in prisons and concentration camps. Pastor Niemöller is best remembered for his 1946 poem, which I have updated for our current situation below.
First they came for the refugees, and I did not speak out—because I was not a refugee.
Then they came for the trans children, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trans child.
Then they came for the people of color, and I did not speak out—because I was not a person of color.
Then they came for the abortionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not an abortionist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the journalists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a journalist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the civil servants, and I am speaking out—my partner has lost her job, and I am fighting for mine.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Will you speak up for all those who are oppressed by fascists? (snip)
J.K. Rowling’s Anti-Trans Crusade Is Hurting All Women
Peace & Justice History for 3/5
I wonder how Ukraine feels about today’s anniversary. sigh
| March 5, 1970 The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect after ratification by 43 nations. The agreement sought to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament, as well as general and complete disarmament.  It has since been joined by 189 countries, and is enforced through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Part of the United Nations, IAEA is the principal intergovernmental organization working on safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technology. It has been involved in the repercussions of the Fukushima earthquake/tsunami disaster as well as the proliferation issues regarding Iran and North Korea. More on the Non-Proliferation Treaty |
March 5, 1994 Schoolchildren preparing to turn the keys to destroy the last missile silo in the Ukraine. October 30, 2001 Ukraine, having voluntarily agreed to give up its nuclear weapons following the collapse of the Soviet Union, began their transfer to Russia. Ukraine, which had the world’s third largest weapons stockpile, 130 SS-19 missiles, 46 SS-24 missiles and dozens of strategic bombers, rid itself of all 1300 warheads within about two years. Read more |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march5
Christopher Titus Armageddon clips
Peace & Justice History for 3/2
| March 2, 1807 The U.S. Congress sought to end international slave trade by passing an act to make it unlawful “to import or bring into the United States or the territories thereof from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of such negro, mulatto, or person of colour, as a slave, or to be held to service or labour.”  Domestic traffic in slaves, however, was still legal and unregulated. Article I, Sec. 9 of the Constitution had set 1808 as the end to the individual states’ control of immigration.. The first shipload of African captives to North America had arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, in August 1619, and the first American slave ship, named Desire, sailed from Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1637. In total, nearly 15 million Africans were transported as slaves to the Americas. The African continent, meanwhile, lost approximately 50 million human beings to slavery and related deaths. Despite the federal prohibition and because the slave trade was so profitable, an additional 250,000 slaves would be “imported” illegally by the time the Civil War began in 1861. African slave trade timeline |
| March 2, 1955 Nine months before Rosa Parks made headlines, teenager Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person. She was active in the Youth Council of the local NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Though the Montgomery Bus Boycott was begun after Ms. Parks’s arrest, Clovin’s legal case became part of the basis for a federal court challenge to Alabama’s segregation laws. Colvin became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, in which the Supreme Court ultimately struck down the law under which she was arrested for merely taking her seat on a bus.  Claudette Colvin More about Claudette Colvin |
| March 2, 2011 British, French and Tunisian planes began airlifting to Cairo some 85,000 mostly Egyptians who had been guest workers in Libya. Made refugees by the civil war being raged against the four-decade-long dictatorship of Muammar Qadaffi, they had fled to Djerba on the Libya-Tunisia border. Tunisia, just recently convulsed by the first stirrings of the so-called Arab Spring, was unable to deal with the potential humanitarian crisis at their border.  Iraqi security forces close a bridge leading to the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad. Photo: Khalid Mohammed/AP |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march1 (Note: if you click through from here, scroll down a bit for 3/2. P&J’s 3/2 link goes to 3/30.)
Scottie's Playtime 