Tag: Birth Control

Peace & Justice History for 5/20

May 20, 1916
Emma Goldman spoke to garment workers in Union Square about the benefits of birth control.

Goldman speaking to a crowd of garment workers about birth control in New York City’s Union Square
Read more about Emma Goldman: Birth Control Pioneer 
May 20, 1961
A mob of 300 white segregationists, with the tacit assent of the local police, attacked a busload of both black and white “Freedom Riders” in Montgomery, Alabama’s bus depot.
Among those beaten was Justice Department official John Seigenthaler who had tried to negotiate their safety.

Freedom Riders challenged racial segregation at Montgomery bus depot.
Attention to the violence forced Attorney General Robert Kennedy to send in U.S. Marshals to protect the Riders. They had been seeking to guarantee equal access to interstate transportation by riding the bus but had been met by violence elsewhere in Alabama as well as South Carolina.
The Freedom Rides discussed NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross
(with transcript)

Robert Kennedy and John Seigenthaler
The Freedom Rider story
50 Years After Their Mug Shots, Portraits of Mississippi’s Freedom Riders 
May 20, 1968
In the first such instance during the Vietnam War, Arlington Street Unitarian-Universalist Church in Boston offered sanctuary to Robert Talmanson and William Chase, both of whom had refused to participate in the war.
Talmanson had been convicted of refusing induction, and Chase had gone AWOL (absent without leave) as an army private after having served nine months at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.
Church leaders had declared theirs a “liberated zone” on the first day of the trial of Dr. Benjamin Spock and four others in federal court for counseling draft resistance. They believed that individuals had a right to decide not to kill as nonviolent persons, most especially in a war they considered unjust.
May 20, 1971
A delegation of U.S. pacifists traveled to Cuba to exchange children’s art.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may20

Peace & Justice History for 12/12

December 12, 1870

Joseph H. Rainey (R-South Carolina) took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first African-American Member of Congress.
More about Rainey 
December 12, 1916
Dr. Ben Reitman was arrested in Cleveland for organizing volunteers to distribute birth control information at an Emma Goldman lecture on birth control. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine plus court costs.

Dr. Ben Reitman
December 12, 1947
The United Mine Workers union withdrew from the American Federation of Labor over the AFL’s failure to organize workers in mass production industries such as textiles, automobiles, steel and rubber.
December 12, 1969
The Philippine Civic Action Group, a 1350-man contingent from the Army of the Philippines, left South Vietnam. The contingent had been part of the Free World Military Forces, an effort by President Lyndon Johnson to enlist allies for the United States and South Vietnam, similar to President George Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing,” the multi-national force in Iraq.
December 12, 1983
Seventy people were arrested in Boston outside a hotel where a “New Trends in Missiles” trade conference was being held.

Inside the hotel, over 1,000 cockroaches were released to symbolize the likely survivors of nuclear war. 
 
December 12, 1986

From a pershing plowshares action 1984
Plowshares activists disarmed a Pershing missile launcher in West Germany. In a statement of intent the four said, “With awareness of our responsibility we understand that we are the ones who make the arms race possible by not trying to stop it.” 
Details of their action in Pershing to Plowshares 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december12