Tag: Dissent

Peace & Justice History for 4/10

April 10, 1516
In what was the first ghetto, Jews in Venice, Italy, were forced to live in a specific, restricted area of the city known as Campo del Ghetto Nuovo. The word “ghetto” comes from the Venetian word “geto,” meaning foundry. Prior to becoming an exclusively Jewish neighborhood, the Venice ghetto was the site of a foundry.
After its establishment the city’s Jews, who were allowed to attend to their business during the day (though required to wear a yellow badge or scarf indicating their religion), were forced to return to the ghetto where gates were locked to keep them inside overnight.
Venice also restricted the living quarters of Germans and Turks, all to satisfy the demands of the Roman Catholic Church.

The site of the Ghetto Nouvo today
April 10, 1971
Ninety-year-old Jeannette Rankin, the first female member of Congress (R-Montana), and the only one to vote against U.S. entry into both World Wars, led 8000 in protest of the Vietnam War in a women’s peace march on the Pentagon.
 
April 10, 1972

Charlie Chaplin received an honorary Oscar for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.” The British native’s political views had previously been criticized, as had been his failure to apply for U.S. citizenship.
Pressed for back taxes and accused of supporting subversive causes during the McCarthy era, Chaplin left the United States in 1952.Informed that he would not be welcomed back, he retorted, “I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ were president.” He returned briefly from exile, however, to accept this award and received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full five minutes.
Charlie Chaplin, one of PBS’s American Masters 
April 10, 1981
The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention) started gathering signatures of nations willing to abide by its limitations.
Currently, 109 countries have agreed to ban or limit munitions that cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants, or affect civilians indiscriminately. So far the restrictions cover mines, booby traps, incendiary weapons (such as Napalm) and blinding laser weapons.
This Life photograph of a naked child running down a street in Vietnam screaming in agony captures the effects of Napalm. Nick Ut’s photograph of Kim Phuk, taken in 1972, won the Pulitzer Prize ( Associated Press).

Not all country signatories have agreed to all its provisions
How militaries think about incendiary weapons
April 10, 1994
France, Belgium, the U.S., among other countries airlifted their nationals out of Rwanda as the wholesale slaughter of Tutsis at the hands of the Hutu majority proceeded. Rwandan employees of Western governments were left behind.
The International Red Cross was already estimating the death toll in the tens of thousands.
April 10, 1998
The Northern Ireland peace talks ended with an historic accord—called the Good Friday Agreement—reached after nearly two years of talks and 30 years of conflict. Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) was chair of the talks which established a Northern Irish Assembly for both the Irish Catholic republicans and the British Anglican unionists.

Senator George Mitchell

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april10

Peace & Justice History for 12/26

December 26, 1862
38 members of the Santee Sioux tribe were hanged in a public mass execution in Minnesota. 300 members of the band had been convicted of participating the the Minnesota Uprising and ordered to hang. However, all sentences except the 38 had been commuted by President Abraham Lincoln.
For decades white settlers had been encroaching on Santee Sioux territory, and they had been victimized by corrupt federal Indian agents on the reservations.In July agents and contractors had withheld food when their demands for kickbacks had been refused. The Indians eventually struck back, killing Anglo settlers and taking some hostages. In two battles with the U.S. Army, they killed or wounded dozens of soldiers, but ultimately lost and were put on trial.

America’s only legal mass execution
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December 26, 1966
The first Kwanzaa was celebrated in Los Angeles, California. It was conceived and organized in the wake of the Watts riots by Dr. Maulana (Ron) Karenga, a professor and chairman of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach. Kwanzaa is a non-religious African-American holiday focusing on family, community, and culture.The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza,” which means “first fruits” in Swahili. The celebrations are expressed through song, dance, drumming, storytelling, poetry and the lighting of candles in a Kinara, all followed by a large traditional meal. The holiday is observed for seven days, each representing a different principle:

a Kwanzaa Kinara
• Umoja (oo-MO-jah) Unity
• Kujichagulia (koo-gee-cha-goo-LEE-yah) Self-Determination
• Ujima (oo-GEE-mah) Collective Work and Responsibility
• Ujamaa (oo-JAH-mah) Cooperative economics
• Nia (NEE-yah) Purpose
• Kuumba (koo-OOM-bah) Creativity
• Imani (ee-MAH-nee) Faith

Ron Karenga lighting the Kinara
History, Principles, and Symbols of Kwanzaa 
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December 26, 1971

Two dozen members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War “liberated” the Statue of Liberty with a sit-in to protest resumed U.S. aerial bombings in Vietnam. They flew an inverted U.S. flag from the crown as a signal of distress.
more on this action 
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December 26, 1992

photo: Simran Sachdev Belgrade, 7.2009
Women In Black began campaign against rape during war, Belgrade, Serbia.
WIB website 
Women in Black is a world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and
other forms of violence.
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December 26, 1999
Alfonso Portillo Cabrera scored a resounding victory (nearly 70% of the vote in the second round) in Guatemala’s first peacetime presidential elections following a 36-year civil war.

Alfonso Portillo Cabrera after his election
Some perspective 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december26

Peace & Justice History for 10/20:

October 20, 1947

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) opened public hearings into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. To counter what they claimed were reckless attacks by HUAC, a group of motion picture industry luminaries, led by actor Humphrey Bogart and his wife, Lauren Bacall, John Huston, William Wyler, Gene Kelly and others, established the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA).  Read more
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October 20, 1962
A folk music album, “Peter, Paul and Mary,” hit No. 1 on U.S. record sales charts. The group’s music addressed real issues – war, civil rights, poverty – and became popular across the United States.
The trio’s version of “If I Had A Hammer” (originally recorded by The Weavers, which included the song’s composers, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays) was not only a popular single, but was also embraced as an anthem by the civil rights movement.
About Peter, Paul and Mary

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October 20, 1967
The biggest demonstration to date against American involvement in the Vietnamese War took place in Oakland, California. An estimated 5,000-10,000 people poured onto the streets to demonstrate in a fifth day of massive protests against the conscription of soldiers to serve in the war. [see October 16, 1967] Read more 
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October 20, 1973
In what was immediately called the “Saturday Night Massacre,” President Richard Nixon’s Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler, announced that Special Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox had been dismissed. Cox had been investigating Nixon, his administration and re-election campaign. Nixon had demanded that he rescind his subpoena for White House recordings.
Archibald Cox Richard Nixon
Earlier in the day, Attorney General Elliot Richardson had resigned, and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus had been fired, both for refusing to dismiss Cox. Solicitor General Robert Bork, filling the vacuum left by the departure of his two Justice Department superiors, fired Cox at the president’s direction.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october20

Peace & Justice History for 9/24:

September 24, 1968

10,000 draft files were destroyed by fourteen anti-war activists with homemade napalm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Milwaukee 14 home 
Watch a video of the event 
September 24, 1969
The Chicago 8 trial opened in Chicago. It was the prosecution of eight anti-war activists charged with responsibility for the violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.The defendants included David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee (NMC); Rennie Davis and Thomas Hayden of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, founders of the Youth International Party (“Yippies”); Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party; and two lesser-known activists, Lee Weiner and John Froines.

The Chicago 8 minus Bobby Seale
Chicago 8 background

Bobby Seale, after repeatedly asserting his right to an attorney of his own choosing or to defend himself, was bound and gagged in the courtroom and his trial was severed from the rest on November 5th. The group then became known as the Chicago 7.
About Bobby Seale   
September 24, 1976
Ian Smith, leader of the whites-only government of Rhodesia, a former British colony, agreed to introduce black majority rule to the country within two years. He was under pressure from the United States through Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and from British Prime Minister James Callaghan.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september24

Peace & Justice History for 9/17:

September 17, 1924
Mohandas Gandhi began a purifying 21-day fast for Hindu-Muslim tolerance and unity following communal riots in Kohat on India’s northwest border in what is now Pakistan. A Hindu, Gandhi spent his fast at the home of Mahomed Ali.
September 17, 1961
Bertrand Russell at anti nuclear weapons March, 1961
1,314 anti-nuclear protesters were arrested during a sit-down in London’s Trafalgar Square by 12,000 (authorities had denied a permit). Philosopher and peace activist Bertrand Russell, aged 89, and 32 others were already in jail, having been arrested the previous month during a demonstration on Hiroshima Day in Hyde Park.
Russell’s Committee of 100 had organized the sit-down and other actions to resist nuclear weapons, challenging the authorities to ‘fill the jails’, with the intention of causing prison overload and large-scale disorder. On arrest members would go limp so as to create maximum disruption without conflict.
History gallery: The Committee of 100 
September 17, 1988
Haiti’s military government was overthrown by a group of non-commissioned officers who installed Lieutenant General Prosper Avril as the new head of state. The leaders of the coup were outraged by the attack the previous Sunday on St. Jean Bosco Church during which 13 parishioners were killed and nearly 80 injured. Fr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a persistent critic of the military regime, had been celebrating mass when the attack occurred.
From the report of the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, issued on September 7, 1988:

“ The Commission has come to the conclusion that the current military government in Haiti has perpetuated itself in power as a result of violence instigated by elements of the Haitian Armed forces resulting in the massacre of Haitian voters on November 29, 1987, the manipulation of the elections held on January 17, 1988, and the ouster of President Leslie Manigat on June 20, 1988.”

The full report 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september17

Peace & Justice History for 9/9:

September 9, 1862
Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey declared that “The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.”
The previous month the Dakota, or Santee, Sioux, long burdened by treaty violations and late or unfair payments from Indian agents, killed four settlers and decided to attack settlers throughout the Minnesota River valley. The number killed was estimated between 300 and 800, until 9/11 the largest civilian death toll in the U.S. The number of Indian deaths was not recorded.
September 9, 1944
Religious conscientious objector Corbett Bishop was arrested after walking out of a Civilian Public Service Camp. During subsequent trials and imprisonments, he refused any type of cooperation with the government until he was released 193 days later.
 
“I’m not going to cooperate in any way, shape or form.
I was carried in here.If you hold me, you’ll have to carry me out.War is wrong. I don’t want any part of it.” – Corbett Bishop, 1906-1961
September 9, 1963
Students at Chu Van An boys’ high school in Saigon tore down the government flag and raised a Buddhist flag to protest the corrupt Diem regime in South Vietnam; 1,000 were arrested.
September 9, 1971
The Attica (New York) State Penitentiary revolt began. The interracial revolt was led by blacks but featured cooperation between prisoners of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

It was finally brutally suppressed by the state five days later, upon orders from Governor Nelson Rockefeller who refused to become directly involved. 29 prisoners and 10 guards were shot and killed by attacking state troopers in the bloodiest prison confrontation in U.S. history.

The prisoners had been demanding improvements in their living and working conditions at the increasingly overcrowded facility.
September 9, 1980
Eight activists from the Atlantic Life Community were arrested after hammering the nose cones of two missiles at the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. 
Read about Plowshares 8
 
The Plowshares 8 (in alphabetical order):
Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Dean Hammer, Carl Kabat, Elmer Maas, Anne Montgomery, Molly Rush, and John Schuchardt.

This action would become the first of an international movement of dozens of “Plowshares” anti-nuclear direct actions.
 A chronology of Plowshares actions 
September 9, 1997
Sinn Fein (pronounced shin fayn), the Irish Republican Army’s allied political party, formally renounced violence by accepting the principles put forward by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine) who was mediating the talks between the Irish Republicans and the British Unionists on Northern Ireland’s future.
Senator George Mitchell
The Mitchell Principles:
• To democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues;
• To the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations;
• To agree that such disarmament must be verifiable to the satisfaction of an independent commission;
• To renounce for themselves, and to oppose any effort by others, to use force, or threaten to use force, to influence the course or the outcome of all-party negotiations;
• To agree to abide by the terms of any agreement reached in all-party negotiations and to resort to democratic and exclusively peaceful methods in trying to alter any aspect of that outcome with which they may disagree; and,
• To urge that “punishment” killings and beatings stop and to take effective steps to prevent such actions.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september9

Peace & Justice History for 9/4:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september4

September 4, 1949
Paul Robeson, scholar, athlete, musician and leader, defying a racist and red-baiting mob, sang to 15,000 at a Labor Day gathering in Peekskill, New York.
 
Paul Robeson (at microphone) singing to the Labor Day gathering in Peekskill, New York
The story and photographs of what happened 
Film from that day narrated by Sidney Poitier 
September 4, 1954
The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) organized a demonstration against the H-Bomb in London’s Trafalgar Square.
The PPU dates back to October 1934.
Young Peace Pledge Union members today.
The PPU today
September 4, 1957
Elizabeth Eckford and eight other young Negroes were blocked from becoming the first black student at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Governor Orval Faubus had called out the National Guard to prevent the court-ordered integration of the public schools in the state’s capital.
President Dwight Eisenhower eventually sent in federal troops to guarantee the law was enforced.
Elizabeth Eckford
Read more Elizabeth Eckford followed and taunted by mob, 1957.
A very interesting related story: 
September 4, 1970
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) began Operation RAW (Rapid American Withdrawal). Over the following three days more than 200 veterans, assisted by the Philadelphia Guerilla Theater, staged a march from Morristown, New Jersey, to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, reenacting the invasion of small rural hamlets along the way.

Operation Rapid American Withdrawal 1970-2005: An Exhibition: 
September 4, 1978
Simultaneous demonstrations in Moscow’s Red Square and in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. were organized by the War Resisters League, calling for nuclear disarmament.