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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Over the past decade, there’s been a lot of talk about “ideological extremism” on both the left and right, and the government has often claimed that warped political beliefs are encouraging Americans to commit violent acts. However, under the new Trump administration, the government now seems prepared to go after people who don’t believe in anything at all.
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein writes that the government has a new target in its war on extremism: nihilists—more specifically, Nihilist Violent Extremists, or NVEs. The government has reportedly come up with this designation as a kind of catchall for the culprits behind various violent incidents, and the term has shown up in several recent court cases.
Who is a true NVE? That’s a good question, and the answer is: anybody. Klippenstein aptly notes that the term has a conveniently loose definition that could be applied to all sorts of different groups that the government considers undesirable. He writes that the NVE term…
…has the beauty of being elastic enough to apply to individuals and groups who are the focus of the administration’s war on all kinds of Americans. Nihilism also avoids all of the rusty and problematic words of the past: subversive, dissident, insurrectionist, revolutionary, or even “anti-government” (the Biden term).
Klippenstein writes that the term was recently used in the legal proceedings of Nikita Casap, a teen from Wisconsin who was arrested in February and charged with murdering his parents. Law enforcement claims Casap also planned to assassinate President Trump to spur a civil war in the U.S. But there are plenty of people who have been accused of committing violent crimes for vaguely anarchistic reasons, be it people like Luigi Mangione, or the gaggle of people of who have recently been arrested for vandalizing and firebombing Teslas, or the Zizians.
The road to this new low in law enforcement terminology has been long. While “ideological extremism” has always existed in the U.S., it became a political (and, eventually, policy) issue in the modern era during the Clinton years, when incidents like Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing brought fears of the rightwing militia movement into the mainstream. During the Bush years, 9/11 spurred a war on Islamist extremism—both in the U.S. and all over the world. Then, during the Biden years, the specter of January 6th encouraged the government to declare a war on “domestic terrorism.”
In short, the government has always found reasons to justify its federal police powers, though few of them have ever been as sloppily constructed as the current government’s newest fearmongering buzzword. (snip)
