Tag: Human Rights

A Couple From Clay Jones

Stafford Tax Hike by Clay Jones

I thought Republicans didn’t raise taxes. Read on Substack

This was drawn for the FXBG Advance.

It seems Stafford County has always been staunchly conservative, but Joe Biden won the county in 2020 and 2024, barely…but he won. Blue Northern Virginia stopped at Stafford, but maybe that’s changing.

Yet, the Board of Supervisors is majority Republican, but it wasn’t that long ago when they held all the seats. But despite the board being majority GOP, taxes are still going up.

Hell, taxes aren’t just going up in Stafford. Donald Trump is raising our taxes while trying to cute them for billionaire assholes, such as himself. Trump is raising taxes while denying they’re taxes. They’re called tariffs, and Trump claims other nations pay them, not US taxpayers. If you’re not an idiot, you know that’s true.

The Board of Supervisors voted to advertise a one percent increase to the meals tax and a two percent increase to the transient occupancy tax. The three percent tax increase isn’t a bad thing, though, as it’s going to public schools. At least Republicans in Stafford are trying to help public schools, while Trump is trying to destroy them. Well, most of them. Not every member voted for the tax increase.

This three percent increase is a lower hike than the recent hikes to my Cox WiFi service, Netflix, Disney Plus, Peacock, Prime, and the giant increase in YouTube TV.

The County Administrator requested a five percent increase, but he only got three. To keep the increase low, the Board is cutting other things like new cars for the sheriffs department, delaying raises, and cutting $5,000 from the Christmas lights budget. Governments shouldn’t have Christmas budgets. We need more separation of church and state.

Creative note: I usually draw my cartoons for the Advance on Friday evenings or Saturday afternoons. I drew this one Thursday night.

Drawn in 30 seconds (turn up your volume): (Go see and listen!)

===============

Bluto by Clay Jones

The regime wants to make Harvard more like Trump University Read on Substack

Trump has been pushing everyone around, from the courts to law offices to corporations to governors to media outlets to fellow Republicans to world leaders to universities. Many of those, like The Washington Post, CBS, and Facebook, obeyed before he even started pushing. But two that pushed back are Janet Mills, the Governor of Maine, and Harvard.

During a meeting with governors in the White House, Trump asked, “Is Maine here?” He probably forgot her name.

Trump’s memory for grievances was calling back to a moment during the pandemic in 2020 when he referred to Mills as a “dictator,” and she replied, “I have spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weakness.” She’s got his number.

Back to the White House (sic) meeting, Trump bullied Mills to ignore an anti-discrimination law in her state that allows transgender athletes to participate in girls’ and women’s sports. Trump threatened to cut off funding for Maine at the White House event with governors if the law persisted. Mills replied, “See you in court.”

When you listen to Republicans, you would believe that men are intentionally cutting their nuts off to play women’s volleyball.

Later, Trump claimed her talking back to him was…wait for it…”illegal.” This is probably the “nastiest” a woman has talked to him since that time a woman wouldn’t sell him Greenland, or that other time a woman in Puerto Rico told him, “No, you’re doing a shitty job with hurricane recovery, you bloviating fartknocker,” or that time a female Speaker out-negotiated him, or that time a woman said his penis looked like a cartoon mushroom, or that time a woman dared to run against him, or that other time a woman dared to run against him.

Since then, the federal government has barraged the state with investigations, declared its education system to be in violation of federal law, and frozen some of its funding. Maine sued the Trump administration on April 7, doubling down on its defiance as it began the legal fight that Governor Mills promised at the White House.

Governor Janet Mills has bigger balls than every male governor in this nation combined, and she cracked Trump’s little nuts like it was a Maine Lobster.

Trump is also waging war with universities, especially Ivy League schools. He’s demanding that schools ban “woke,” and the regime is revoking student visas and has sent goons to kidnap foreign students without pressing criminal charges, and holding them in detention facilities in the Deep South.

The Trump regime is accusing Harvard of violating students’ civil rights (which is ironic, coming from the regime that violates students’ civil and constitutional rights). The regime is also accusing its leaders of breaching Title VI, the federal law that bars federal funding to any school found to violate civil rights.

The regime claims that Harvard was failing to keep Jewish and pro-Israel students safe by allowing antisemitism on campus.

Most of the claims of antisemitism during the protests from last year are not true. I’m sure hatred and harassment happened here and there, and from both sides, but it wasn’t widespread or condoned by any university. I don’t believe Muslim students were beating up Jewish students outside a dean’s window at any university, and he said, “Eh, kids will be kids.”

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, an independent non-profit that tracks political violence and political protests around the world, found that 97 percent of campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza have been peaceful. It analyzed 553 US campus demonstrations nationwide and found that fewer than 20 resulted in any serious interpersonal violence or property damage.

Republicans lie about the Gaza protests like they lie about Black Lives Matter protests (who was that who brought a gun to a BLM protest and shot people? Oh, yeah. Kyle Fucking Rittenhouse).

The non-profit also documented at least 70 instances of forceful police intervention against students, including the arrest of demonstrators and the use of physical dispersal tactics, including the deployment of chemical agents, batons, and other kinds of physical force.

Last Monday, Harvard refused to submit to extensive government oversight while overhauling its governance, admissions, and hiring practices, calling the orders illegal and unconstitutional.

According to Harvard’s President, Alan Garber, those demands include requirements to ‘audit’ the viewpoints of the student body, faculty, staff, and to “reduce the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views.”

The Trump regime retaliated by freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.

This is bullshit. The Trump regime doesn’t care about antisemitism on college campuses any more than they care about it coming from within the Trump regime. When Trump was elected in 2016 (sic), hate crimes increased substantially. We never heard Trump express outrage about that. Instead, he defended it. When tiki-torch Nazis chanted “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil” shortly before they murdered Heather Heyer, an anti-racism protester in Charlottesville, Trump defended the Nazis (they had a permit!) Maybe he got a free tiki torch out of it. Who knows?

Trump doesn’t hate antisemites. Instead of condemning them, he invites them to lunch at MAGA-Lardo. Trump dined with racists and antisemites Ye and Nick Fuentas at one of his shitty golf resorts. That kinda sets a bad example for Harvard to follow, doesn’t it?

Republicans have always pushed the narrative that education is bad somehow, and people who went to college should be spited, condemned, spit on, and treated like polo-loving foie gras eaters. They push the narrative that people with higher education look down on the rest of America. They often talk about the “East Coast Elite,” or “elitists.”

Some people do act like that.

I was recently kinda seeing a woman who is as liberal as I am, and during a conversation about how members of both of our families are Trumpers, she mentioned that some of her family members, who live in the Midwest, considered her to be among the “East Coast Elite.” You know, a snob who looks down on people. When I told her I kinda get the same thing, she became quickly annoyed, and said I couldn’t be considered a member of the “East Coast Elite” because I didn’t have a PhD, which she has. I was just some bum who dropped out of college to go surfing and draw cartoons, and it wasn’t even a snooty college I dropped out of. She started off criticizing the notion that there is an “East Coast Elite,” and then started acting as if she were a bona fide member of it. Later, she took me to a party and was “called out,” as she put it, that it was only for “serious people,” and I haven’t seen her since. As you can tell, I still have a little attitude about that.

Maybe it is all my fault. Someone at the party told me they had season tickets to the orchestra, and I told them that was awesome and to let me know if they make the playoffs. See? I’m not a serious person.

While I don’t like stuck-up obnoxious boring assholes who look down on people as if they’re better than them, I also don’t like hypocrites. Who am I talking about?

The vice president (sic), JD CouchFucker Vance, is all in on this attack on Ivy League schools, but it should be noted that he’s a graduate of Yale, an Ivy League school. Another Yale man is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Harvard. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum didn’t go to an Ivy League school, but he did go to Stanford, which is private and snooty enough. Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, also went to a private school, Haverford College. RFK Jr, secretary of health and weird conspiracy theories, also went to Harvard and three other universities. The Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, went to MIT and Berkeley, which is a hippy school. Right? John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA, went to Notre Dame. Jamieson Greer, Trump’s trade rep, went to Brigham Young, which is another private school (and founded by a guy with 56 wives and 52 more kids than Donald Trump has).

Where did Donald Trump matriculate? Trump went to the Wharton School, which is not a daycare but the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, and the last time I checked, it is an Ivy League school.

Trump is like one of those people who travels the world and somehow fails to take any of it in, and returns home still a knuckle-dragging moron with an inability to comprehend simple thoughts. Donald Trump went to an Ivy League school and came out still behaving like Donald Trump. That gives me the impression he only “went” there. It’s like that guy who visits France and complains that the croissants aren’t croissandwiches.

Turning a croissant into a croissandwich would be like turning Harvard into Trump University.

Creative note: This cartoon is dedicated to John Belushi. I believe his work is an influence on my cartoons.

This was interesting: Last night, I ran into an ex (of sorts) who is involved in the local theater scene. She invited me to audition for a part in an upcoming play, saying she thinks I would be a good fit for it. I haven’t acted since the sixth grade, but I was the lead (there hasn’t been a better Pecos Bill since). I was intrigued and wanted to audition this morning, but not to get the part, but just to see if I could do it. I didn’t go because I had to draw this cartoon.

I just want you readers to know that I gave up being the next Brad Pitt for you.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go see)

Peace & Justice History for 4/20

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.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april20

Reblogging, and Joining in This Message

Holy Saturday Message For Those Troubled, Oppressed and Suffering

Peace & Justice History for 4/19

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.


The Spirit of Solidarity — a $1.3 million granite sculpture, plaza and fountain — sits on the land of the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum on the banks of the Grand River near the Indian mound.
The Strike’s history from the APWU 
On the 100th anniversary of the strike
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.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april19

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The Biggest Union …

Good morning, Scottie’s Playtime!

From jeff tiedrich:

In The Republican War On Libraries

This came in email a few days ago. The email has a few stories in it that are pertinent to our interests. This was going to be a snippet post of those, but as I read this, I realized everyone needs to read it all, because there’s not much opinionating in it, but/and the actual information does not stop.

The Institute for Museum and Library Services Was Just Gutted


The Institute for Museum and Library Services Was Just Gutted

Kelly Jensen Mar 31, 2025

Today, members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gutted the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). As of this afternoon, all staff members have been placed on administrative leave. They received a letter from the Director of Human Resources that the leave would be paid for 90 days and that no one will be allowed on IMLS property during that time.

Image of the letter all IMLS staff received about administrative leave.

The union representing IMLS staff, AFGE Local 3403, indicated that the decision to fire staff came after a short meeting between DOGE and IMLS leadership. Everyone working at IMLS was required to return government property before exiting the workplace.

Email addresses for all IMLS staff were being disabled today. Those with questions or concerns over IMLS funding will no longer be able to reach the individual or individuals with whom they’d been working.

Letter from AFGE Local 3403 stating that IMLS staff were no longer in the building and their emails were being shut down.

Further, all processing work on 2025 funding applications is over and there is no information about the status of awards that have already been granted for the year. The union believes most grants will simply be terminated.

IMLS makes up .0046% of the federal budget.

Two weeks ago, President Trump issued an Executive Order targeting funds allocated to libraries and museums nationwide. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is a federal agency that distributes fund approved by Congress to state libraries, as well as library, museum, and archival grant programs. IMLS is the only federal agency that provides funds to libraries. The Executive Order states that the functions of the IMLS have to be reduced to “statutory functions” and that in places that are not statutory, expenses must be cut as much as possible.

One week later, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) entered the IMLS offices. Many at IMLS were prepared to see their jobs disappear, but that didn’t quite happen. Instead, DOGE installed a new Acting Director of the agency, Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith E. Sonderling.

It wasn’t just a new Acting Director, though. The IMLS took on a new direction thanks to the Executive Order and DOGE. It would now operate “in lockstep with this Administration to enhance efficiency and foster innovation. We will revitalize IMLS and restore focus on patriotism, ensuring we preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations.”

The new goal of the administration with the IMLS is for it to function as a propaganda machine. This wouldn’t be the first nor the last federal cultural institution to see its mission shift from serving the needs and interests of all of America. On March 28, the administration would issue another Executive Order, this time demanding that the Smithsonian, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and other federal museums stop the “revisionist movement” through displays and installations that showcase American history and culture as “racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

Such institutions are now to engage in “igniting the imagination of young minds, honoring the richness of American history and innovation, and instilling pride in the hearts of all Americans.” The Executive Order specifically notes that the Independence National History Park see time and energy poured into these pro-patriotic efforts in order to be prepared for the 250th American anniversary events in 2026.

The defunding and gutting of the IMLS did not happen without strong support shown for public library and museum resources across the country, both on the ground and in congress.

On March 24, the board of the Institution of Museum and Library Services drafted a letter that went to Sonderling as their new Acting Director. The letter outlines the essential functions of the agency, making it clear that any cuts to the IMLS would have a direct and long-lasting impact on public museums and libraries nationwide. It emphasized that an Executive Order alone is not enough to change the functions or services provided by the IMLS.

From the letter:

All such statutory obligations may not be discontinued or delayed under an Executive Order or other executive action. Sections 9133 and 9176 of the Act affirm IMLS’s duty to obligate and disburse funds to grantees, subject only to the availability of appropriations, not to executive discretion. Any failure to fulfill these legal obligations or to reduce staffing or program operations below the minimum required to meet statutory mandates would place the agency in noncompliance with Congressional intent.

Several members of Congress also pushed back against the Executive Order. On March 26, a bipartisan coalition consisting of Senators Jack Reed, Kirsten Gillibrand, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski sent a letter to Sonderling as well. The letter again defines the role of the IMLS and its obligation when it comes to funding institutions across the US.

From their letter:

Libraries and museums play a vital role in our communities. Libraries offer access for all to essential information and engagement on a wide range of topics, including skills and career training, broadband, and computing services. IMLS grants enable libraries to develop services in every community throughout the nation, including people of diverse geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, individuals with disabilities, residents of rural and urban areas, Native Americans, military families, veterans, and caregivers. Museums serve not only as centers for education but also as drivers of local economic development. The IMLS Office of Museum Services is the largest dedicated source of investment in our nation’s museums, which typically support more than 700,000 jobs and contribute $50 billion annually to the U.S. economy. IMLS funding plays a significant role in this economic impact by helping museums reach more visitors and spur community development.

While that letter circulated, another was passed around the House of Representatives. Led by Representatives Dina Titus (NV-01) and Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), the letter was shared among House members. It urged them to sign on in asking for the administration to reconsider its Executive Order related to IMLS funding and structure.

Public libraries and public library associations nationwide have spoken loudly about how potential cuts to IMLS could impact state and local level services. Among the services that could most quickly and directly impact library users would be the end of digital resource availability through apps like Libby.

It is worth noting that despite some viral claims made online in the wake over fears of IMLS funding cuts, OverDrive’s Libby app and other similar digital resource programs are not funded by IMLS directly. They are, however, sometimes made available in individual states via funding received via IMLS. This is a crucial distinction. Libby and other eresources are not creations of libraries themselves by third-party systems that license access to materials. Libraries pay for that access.

Ebook and digital audiobook services are not funded by IMLS money in every state, and because of how many different types of ebook and digital audiobooks are available–indicative of how many different audiences and needs are being met–essential services without the Libby name recognition are being overlooked. In states where such services are made available through IMLS money, many times the apps and resources are not explicitly named by state funding, making it difficult to determine where such impact would be felt immediately. For example, Indiana libraries use IMLS funding for the Indiana Digital Library, which among its many databases and services provides access to Libby.

Find below a roundup of state library associations, local-level libraries, social media library workers/advocates, and/or local/regional news sources who have identified where and how IMLS cuts would directly impact their state libraries. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but you’ll see within the states here, many rely on IMLS funds to help acquire, fund, and maintain essential digital resources:

The future of IMLS remains uncertain, and with ongoing efforts to rewrite the truth of America via Executive Orders and whitewashing cultural institutions funded and respected by American taxpayers, it’s essential to continue speaking up on behalf of your local library, as well as one of your local library’s most crucial federal agencies.

Those which stand to be most devastated by potential cuts are rural and small libraries, who are also most impacted by the administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education and the United States Postal Service.

Whether or not Trump and his DOGE team have the legal authority to shut down the IMLS completely remains to be seen. Eliminating all staff and pausing all funding certainly defies the administration’s own order that only activities outside of “statutory requirements” be touched. Expect a lawsuit to be filed in the courts, much as we’ve seen with the other slash-and-burn efforts taken by an executive branch overstepping its constitutional authority.

Peace & Justice History for 4/18

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 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april18

A Timely Resource from Janet

Supporting Trans Rights: A Guide for Allies

Peace & Justice History for 4/17

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 

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