Tag: Peace

Gary Tyler and More in Peace & Justice History for 4/29

April 29, 1942
Exclusion Order No. 20 affected 660 people living in the area bounded by Sutter and California streets and Presidio and Van Ness Avenues in San Francisco. The Japanese Americans living in those neighborhoods were ordered to report to 2031 Bush St. for registration, and then, on this day, for removal to internment camps for the duration of the Second World War, and faced loss of their homes and businesses.
Presentation on what happened  (Check it out! Some of Dorothea Lange’s work.)
April 29, 1962
Nobel Prize-winner (for chemistry in 1954) Linus Pauling picketed the White House with others protesting the resumption of nuclear weapons testing. He had been invited there by President John Kennedy, to be honored at a dinner along with other Nobelists.

April 29, 1968

Peace message, Vanessa Redgrave, 1968 photo: Frank Habicht
Actress Vanessa Redgrave was among 826 British anti-nuclear protesters arrested during a London demonstration protesting the Vietnam War.
Film from the BBC and their take on the demonstration that day
April 29, 1970
U.S. and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia and began a bombing campaign, known as Arclight, that widened the Vietnam War. They were after North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops and supplies that had been moved into Cambodia. By the time the bombing ceased in 1973, the U.S. had dropped more than half a million tons of ordnance on Cambodia, three and a half times that dropped on Japan in World War II.
Background on the Cambodia “incursion” 
April 29, 1992
Deadly rioting erupted in Los Angeles after an all-white jury in Simi Valley acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of almost all state charges in the beating of Rodney King, an African-American motorist who had been stopped for a traffic offense.Videotape of the abuse had been seen around the world. 17 other officers, who had been present and had not intervened, were never charged. The National Guard was called out to help restore civil order.
By the time schools were able to re-open on May 4, more than 50 had been killed, over 4000 injured, 12,000 people arrested, and $1 billion in property damage.

The Riot 
The trial  (The original link to the trial news on History.com is no longer present. This link will take you to more about the rioting. Again, noting the loss of the info, this time, also again, that an all white jury acquitted police of battery of a Black man.)
April 29, 2016
Gary Tyler was released from Angola penitentiary in Louisiana.
He was just 16 years old when charged with shooting a
white student in 1974.
Gary was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury and became  the youngest person on death row.
His case sparked a movement to gain his release which persisted for 40 years.

FreeGaryTyler.com 
Read more about the case and the movement to free him
Listen/watch more about the case Democracy Now

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april29

Peace & Justice History for 4/28

April 28, 1915
The International Conference of Women for a Permanent Peace convened on this day in 1915 at The Hague in the Netherlands. More than 1,200 delegates from 12 countries—Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Poland, Belgium and the United States—were all dedicated to the cause of peace and a resolution of the great international conflict that is now referred to as World War I.

The conference selected a delegation of women that spent May and June meeting with government officials of the belligerent nations to demand an end to the war.
Often called the Women’s Peace Congress, the meeting was the result of an invitation by a Dutch women’s suffrage organization, led by Aletta Jacobs, to women’s rights activists around the world. Jacobs believed that a peaceful international assemblage of women would “have its moral effect upon the belligerent countries,” as she put it.


Aletta Jacobs, Dutch suffragist and an organizer of the Women’s Peace Congress
This was the origin of the organization known today as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
 WILPF history  
April 28, 1965
U.S. troops landed in the Dominican Republic. In an effort to forestall what he claimed would be a “communist dictatorship” in the Dominican Republic, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent more than 22,000 U.S. troops to restore order on the island nation and to support the military junta.

U.S. troops in the Dominican Republic, 1965
Learn more about the history 
April 28, 1978

Demonstrators blocking the rail line into the Rocky Flats weapons facility
At the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility, near Denver, over 5,000 protested and nearly 300 were arrested over the following eight months for blocking railroad tracks entering the plant where plutonium bombs used as detonators in hydrogen bombs were produced.

Concert at the Rocky Flats demonstration in 1979
April 28, 1979
A few weeks after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania [see March 28, 1979], a crowd of close to 15,000 assembled at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production plant near Denver, Colorado. Singers Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt took the stage along with various speakers including Dr. Helen Caldicott. The following day, 286 protesters, including Pentagon Papers source Daniel Ellsberg, were arrested for trespassing in their civil disobedience at the Rocky Flats facility.
April 28, 1987
Benjamin Linder, a volunteer engineer from Seattle, was murdered in Nicaragua by the U.S.-sponsored insurgents known as the contras (characterized by then-President Ronald Reagan as “the moral equivalent of our founding fathers”). Linder had been working on a hydroelectric project in rural Nicaragua.
April 28, 1996
Sixty-one were arrested for dismantling railroad tracks leading out of the Gundremmingen nuclear power station in Bavaria, Germany.
April 28, 2004
The first photos of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal were shown on CBS’s ”60 Minutes II.” The photos had been taken by U.S. military personnel responsible for detaining and interrogating Iraqi prisoners arrested following the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who helped break the story

About Standard Operating Procedure, a new documentary by Erroll Morris on Abu Ghraib

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april28

Posting In Order To Comment-

Chop Wood Carry Water …

Stop by here whenever you feel; there’ll be a light on, I bet! And I get what you’re saying, I believe. It does seem a good time to look around oneself locally, take stock, and be surrounded with the little things.

Peace & Justice History for 4/27

April 27, 1936
The UAW (United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America), gained autonomy from the AFL (American Federation of Labor), becoming the first democratic, independent labor union concerned with the rights of unskilled and semi-skilled laborers.
April 27, 1937
The Social Security Administration began operation by making its first payment to an American protected under the law, principally the elderly, and children who’ve lost their parents. 
April 27, 1942
Sixteen pacifists, including Evan Thomas and A.J. Muste, refused to register for the World War II draft. Muste was a Quaker activist, founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and author of two pamphlets that same year, War is the Enemy and Wage Peace Now.

A.J. Muste still working for peace 25 years later with Dorothy Day, leader of the Catholic Worker movement.
Read about War is the Enemy 
April 27, 1974
Ten thousand marched in Washington, D.C., calling for impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon.
April 27, 1987
Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, was blockaded by people protesting U.S. policies in Central America and Southern Africa. 700 were arrested.
April 27, 1989
Thousands of Chinese students took to the streets in Beijing to protest government policies and issued a call for greater democracy in the communist People’s Republic of China.
The protests grew until the Chinese government ruthlessly suppressed them in June during what came to be known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, students from more than 40 universities began a march to Tiananmen this day.

The students were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants and, by mid-May, more than a million people filled the square.
April 27, 1994

Nelson Mandela casting his first vote
South Africa held its first multiracial elections and chose anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela (with more than 62% of the vote) to head a new coalition government that included his African National Congress Party.
More on that historic election 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april27

This Is Beautiful-

go see the entire post! 🐙

Octopus – enshrouded

“Mighty Monarch”

Western Kingbird

Peace & Justice History For 4/26

April 26, 1954
The Geneva Conference began for the purpose of bringing to an end the conflicts in Korea and Indochina. This followed the defeat of the French in Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu. France had been trying to reassert colonial control over Indochina following World War II.
The conferees included Cambodia, France, Laos, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
As a result, Vietnam was temporarily partitioned pending elections on reunification to be held in 1956; those elections were never held.
April 26, 1966

Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales founded the Crusade for Justice, a Chicano activist group, in Denver, Colorado, and marked his departure from the Democratic Party. It was the beginning of a nationalist strategy for the attainment of Chicano civil rights.
Read more
video  Democracy Now
April 26, 1968
A national student strike against the Vietnam war enlisted as many as one million high school and college students across the U.S.
April 26, 1986
A major accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine near the border with Belarus, both then part of the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). An explosion and fire in the No. 4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere. Only after Swedish authorities reported the fallout over their country 1385 km away (860 miles), did Soviet authorities reluctantly admit that an accident had occurred.
During a fire that burned for 10 days, 190 tons of toxic materials were expelled into the atmosphere (3% of the reactor core). Winds blew 70% of the radioactive material into neighboring Belarus.

The explosion at Chernobyl was the world’s largest-scale nuclear accident. Approximately 134 power-station workers were exposed to extremely high doses of radiation directly after the accident. About 31 of these people died within 3 months. Another 25,000 “liquidators”—Soviet soldiers and firefighters who were involved in clean-up operations — have died since the incident of diseases such as lung cancer, leukemia, and cardiovascular disease.
400,000 were evacuated and over 2,000 towns and villages were bulldozed to the ground in areas considered permanently contaminated.
Deaths and illnesses directly attributable to radiation exposure continue.
“Chernobyl is a global environment event of a new kind. It is characterized by the presence of thousands of environmental refugees, long-term contamination of land, water and air, and possibly irreparable damage to ecosystems.”
– Christine K. Durbak, Chairwoman of the World Information Transfer, New York
Chernobyl for Kids
April 26, 1998

Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera
Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, a leading human rights activist in Guatemala, was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he had compiled was made public. The report blamed the U.S.-backed Guatemalan military government and its agencies for atrocities committed during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war.
About Bishop Gerardi’s murder  (Democracy Now)

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april26

Recent Yet Historic Marches, & More, in Peace & Justice History for 4/25

April 25, 1945
Delegates from some 50 countries met in San Francisco for the United Nations Conference on International Organization. Over the next two months they would negotiate the principles and structure of the United Nations.
Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt had just died and had been working on his speech to the conference: “The work, my friends, is peace; more than an end of this war—an end to the beginning of all wars . . . As we go forward toward the greatest contribution that any generation of human beings can make in this world—the contribution of lasting peace—I ask you to keep up your faith . . . .”
April 25, 1969

The Reverend Ralph David Abernathy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and 100 others were arrested while picketing a Charleston, South Carolina, hospital to support unionization by its workers.
Read more about Reverend Ralph David Abernathy 
April 25, 1974
A peaceful uprising by both the army and civilians, known as the Carnation Revolution (Revolução dos Cravos), ended 48 years of fascism in Portugal. People holding red carnations urged soldiers not to resist the overthrow and many placed the flowers in the muzzles of their rifles. The regime killed four before giving in to the popular resistance.
 
Lisbon demonstration ’74
Read more about the Carnation Revolution 
April 25, 1983
Women in Canberra, Australia, laid a wreath to remember women of all countries raped during wartime.
April 25, 1987
Tens of thousands marched on Washington, D.C. to demand an end to U.S.-sponsored and -supported wars in Central America.
April 25, 1993
Nearly one million marched for homosexual rights and liberation in Washington, D.C.

Health Care Rally at April 25, 1993

The AIDS quilt on display as part of the event.

April 25, 2004

The March for Women’s Lives drew a record 1.15 million people to Washington, D.C. The marchers wanted to protect legal and safe access to reproductive services including abortion, birth control and emergency contraception.
Organized by a coalition that included the National Organization for Women (NOW), Black Women’s Health Imperative, Feminist Majority, National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and Planned Parenthood, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The March for Women’s Lives was the largest protest in U.S. history.
Read more 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april25

Observing April 25th

Cantare è resistere. Il 25 aprile non può essere messo a tacere

This blogger visits us here; I’ve seen likes on our posts. I checked out the blog and subscribed. I admit, I read with the Translate turned on, so I’ve copy-pasted a snippet here, in English. It’s not too long to read, so please do! It’s motivating.

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

Singing is resisting. April 25th cannot be silenced

April 24, 2025

The government’s instructions on the “sobriety” to be maintained in the celebrations of April 25 have led to the cancellation of celebrations and concerts, even in municipalities administered by left-wing councils. An indication is not a ban, but many mayors have preferred to avoid being accused of having violated the sobriety required during the five days of national mourning proclaimed for the death of the Pope. As in the case of Foligno, they even cancelled the performance of the philharmonic that was supposed to play the national anthem.

In Lastra a Signa, on the outskirts of Florence, the municipal council has decided to cancel the concert of Quarto Podere , a historic Tuscan band that has always combined commitment, tradition and irony in its long artistic career. In response to this absurd decision, the members of the group wrote a letter in which they expressed deep dismay and asked for a reconsideration. Here is a significant passage:

“ April 25, Liberation Day from Nazi-fascism, is a cornerstone of our Republic. We therefore consider it unacceptable that a left-wing government, in a secular State (as established by Article 1 of the Constitution), chooses to deny the possibility of adequately commemorating such a significant day, outraging the memory of those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom.
This choice appears even more serious at a time in history when our dignity, workers’ rights and the founding values ​​of the Republic are under attack by a far-right government, clearly of neo-fascist origin; a government that, since it has been in office, has undertaken a systematic demolition of political rights, limiting the possibility of dissent and resistance, as demonstrated by the latest Security Decree. The
proclamation of five days of national mourning represents yet another opportunity to exploit a contingent event and silence any form of dissent.
We are convinced that Pope Francis – a figure we deeply respect – would have been opposed to a cancellation that betrays the inclusive and profound spirit of a celebration that, for our country, is sacred .”

Music, singing, artistic expression have always been perceived as dangerous by totalitarian regimes. (snip-MORE)

World Day of Lab Animals, and More, in Peace & Justice History for 4/24

April 24, 1915
The Ottoman Turkish government arrested 200 of the most prominent political and intellectual leaders of the Armenian community in the capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul). These men and hundreds more were then imprisoned from throughout Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and, shortly thereafter, most were summarily executed.
This is the day on which the genocide of more than a million Armenians is commemorated: when the intention of the Turkish government to eliminate the Armenian people became clear. Already Armenian recruits in the Ottoman Turkish army had been disarmed and organized as laborers working under slave-like conditions.
The plan for Armenian genocide from University of Michigan-Dearborn
April 24, 1916
The Easter Uprising began when between 1,000 and 1,500 members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood attempted to seize Dublin and issued the declaration of Irish independence from Britain.
The seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation
Read about the Proclamation 
Read more 
April 24, 1934
This editorial cartoon appeared in New Masses magazine. It refers to the attempt of anti-radical vigilantes and repressive college administrators to disrupt the first national student strike against war.
April 24, 1962
President John F. Kennedy authorized high-altitude atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons to determine whether missile-borne warheads could be used to black out military communications.
April 24, 1967
At a news conference in Washington, D.C., General William Westmoreland, senior U.S. commander in South Vietnam, said that the enemy (considered to be North Vietnam and the Viet Cong southern insurgents) had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”Though he said that ninety-five percent of the people were behind the United States effort in Vietnam, he asserted that the American soldiers in Vietnam were “dismayed, and so am I, by recent unpatriotic acts at home.” This criticism of the anti-war movement was not received well by many in and out of the movement, who believed it was both their right and responsibility to speak out against the war.
General Westmoreland meeting President Lyndon Johnson later in 1967, Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam
April 24, 1971
500,000 demonstrated against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. It was the largest-ever demonstration opposing U.S. war; 150,000 marched at a simultaneous rally in San Francisco.
April 24, 1987
On the World Day for Laboratory Animals, nationally coordinated demonstrations occurred in California, Arizona, Florida, New York, Minnesota, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Tennessee, and other states. It was the largest display of civil disobedience for animal rights ever. Hundreds of activists across the country blocked access to university laboratories and more than 150 were arrested nationwide.
The day was designated to bring attention to the treatment of lab animals used in testing of medical and other products, sponsored in Congress by the late Tom Lantos (D-California).
World Day Laboratory Animals 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april24