Julia Ward Howe, Women in Black, & More, in Peace & Justice History for 6/9

June 9, 1872
Julia Ward Howe, an abolitionist and the composer of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” tried to establish the Mothers’ Peace Day Observance on the second Sunday in June. In 1872 the first such celebration was held and the meetings continued for several years. Her idea was widely accepted, but she was never able to get the day recognized as an official holiday. Mothers’ Peace Day was the predecessor of the Mothers’ Day holiday in the United States now celebrated on the third Sunday of May.

Julia Ward Howe ca.1898
Her proclamation read in part:
“As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace….”
June 9, 1954
Special Counsel for the U.S. Army Joseph N. Welch confronted Senator Joseph P. McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) during hearings into alleged communist infiltration of the Army Signal Corps.McCarthy had attacked a member of Welch’s law firm, Frederick G. Fischer, among many others, as a communist. This was alleged due to Fischer’s prior membership in the National Lawyers Guild.
The Guild was the nation’s first racially integrated bar association.

Army counsel Joseph N. Welch (l) confronts Senator Joseph McCarthy (r)
Welch was outraged by the attempt to destroy the reputation and career of someone of whose integrity he had no doubt: “Until this moment, senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness . . . . Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
The entire hearings and this encounter were seen live on television, the first congressional committee hearings ever to be broadcast. McCarthy’s ability to make such accusations was soon greatly diminished.

Watch the confrontation 
National Lawyers Guild, since 1937 and today 
June 9, 1984
150,000 marched in London, England, for nuclear disarmament, protesting the presence of U.S. cruise missiles on British soil.
June 9, 1993
Police banned a vigil by Women in Black (Zene u Crnom) in Belgrade, Serbia.
 
Who are the Women in Black?
 
Women in Black demonstrations combine art & politics

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjune.htm#june9

Peace & Justice History for 1/23

The 1970 entry reminded me of how, during the W admin in 2001 before and after the plane crashes and USA PATRIOT, Bartcop used to mention and link Paul Krassner’s site (now gone, of course. A great deal about him is gone online, but I found a link to something still up. Anyway.) Anyway, he was hilarious for his time, and wrote a great resistance blog during a few years back then. It was cheering. So here’s the 23rd’s history:

January 23, 1890
The United Mine Workers of America was formed through the amalgamation of the National Progressive Union (organized 1888) and the mine locals under the Knights of Labor, including all workers in the coal industry. The workers faced unstable employment, the prevalence of company towns (where the mine owners controlled all housing and commerce), and extremely hazardous working conditions.
UMWA history 
January 23, 1962

Fifteen members of the Committee of 100, the non-violent direct action wing of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), sat in at the British House of Commons demanding a halt to nuclear weapons testing.

CND history 
January 23, 1970
Called as witnesses, folksingers Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe McDonald, Phil Ochs, and Pete Seeger were denied permission to sing as part of their testimony for the defense at the trial of “The Chicago Seven.”
Seven leaders of demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago were being tried for conspiring to incite a riot as they protested the Vietnam war.


Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe McDonald, Phil Ochs, and Pete Seeger
More on the Chicago 7 
Paul Krassner’s quite irreverent recollection of testifying at the trial 
January 23, 1973
President Richard Nixon announced a Vietnam peace deal. The president appeared on national television and said that National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger and North Vietnam’s chief negotiator, Le Duc Tho, had initialed an agreement in Paris “to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.”
The agreement had actually been initialed six days beforehand.

Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho initial the agreement.
Read more 
Listen to Nixon’s announcement 
January 23, 1976
The Continental Walk for Disarmament & Social Justice began in Ukiah, California, heading for Washington, D.C. Its purposes were “to raise the issue of disarmament through unilateral action . . . to educate about nonviolent resistance as a means superior to armament . . . and to demonstrate how global and domestic and economic problems are interconnected with militarism and the causes of war . . . .”

Initiated by the War Resisters League, and co-sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, American Friends Service Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Catholic Peace Fellowship, Clergy and Laity Concerned, SANE, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the walk took 10 months and covered 8,000 miles through 34 states.
Comprehensive archive of the walk: 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january23

Peace & Justice History for 10/24:

October 24, 1935
Langston Hughes’s first play, “Mulatto,” opened on Broadway. It was the longest-running play (373 performances) by an African-American until Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” which premiered in 1959.
Langston Hughes
First-rate bio of Langston Hughes 
October 24, 1940
The 40-hour workweek went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, requiring employers to pay overtime and restricting the use of child labor.
Decades of labor agitation and a considerable number of lives made this change possible.


More on The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: 
October 24, 1945

The United Nations World Security Organization came into being when the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR) in mid-afternoon deposited its instrument of ratification of the U.N. Charter.
The USSR became the last of the five major powers and the 29th of 51 nations, the minimum necessary to bring this about. James F. Byrnes, U.S. Secretary of State, then signed the protocol formally attesting that the Charter of the United Nations had come into force.This is now considered United Nations Day.

Read more  (no paywall.)
October 24, 1970
Salvador Allende Gossens, an avowed Marxist and head of the Unidad Popular Party, became the president of Chile after being elected and confirmed by the Chilean Congress.For the next three years, the United States exerted tremendous pressure to destabilize and unseat the Allende government. In 1958, and again in 1964, Allende had run on a socialist /communist platform. In both elections, the United States government (as well as U.S. businesses such as International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), which had significant investments in Chile) worked to defeat Allende by sending millions of dollars of assistance to his political opponents.

Allende and supporters
More on Allende 
October 24, 1981

More than 250,000 people, organized by the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), marched through London to protest the siting of American nuclear missiles in the United Kingdom.
More background and video

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october24