Tag: Peace

Peace & Justice History for 3/12

The very first execution of a Conscientious Objector, and more in today’s items.

March 12, 295
Maximilian of Thebeste (near Carthage in North Africa) was beheaded by Romans after refusing military service because he said his Christian beliefs did not permit him to become a soldier.
March 12, 1912
Workers led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) won the Lawrence, Massachusetts, “Bread & Roses” textile strike after 32,000 workers (mostly young female immigrants who spoke 25 different languages, half between the ages of 14 and 18) stayed out for nine weeks. They were striking for a wage increase, double time for overtime and safer working conditions: the equipment was dangerous and the air quality caused lung disease in about one-third of the workers before the age of twenty-five.

IWW organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn addresses a strike rally
Background 
“Bread and Roses” became the strikers slogan and inspired a poem by by the same name.
 
Bread & Roses victory parade
March 12, 1930
Gandhi’s Salt March began from Ahmadabad, India, with 76 followers to protest the salt tax. Great Britain’s Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple of the Indian diet.

Gandhi leading the Salt March
Citizens were forced to buy it from the British, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Defying the Salt Acts, Gandhi reasoned, would be a simple way for many Indians to break an unjust law nonviolently (civil disobedience), increasing the pressure for independence from the British Empire.
By the time Gandhi had covered the 241 miles to the coastal city of Dandi on the Arabian Sea, the number of marchers had grown into the thousands.
More on the Salt March 
March 12, 1978
150,000 demonstrated against construction of a nuclear power plant in Lemoniz, Spain, part of the Basque region. No fewer than a dozen plants were planned in a relatively small, densely populated area, Lemoniz being only 12 km (5 miles) from Bilbao, a city of a million.
The opposition was concerned about the possibility of accidents.
Lemoniz protest
March 12, 1990
Sixteen disability-rights activists from ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit)were arrested at the U.S. Capitol demanding passage of what would become the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The Capitol Crawl

More on the status of the disabled: 
The Capitol Crawl Zinn project

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march12

Peace & Justice History for 3/11

March 11, 1988

Ten days of protest and direct action ensued demanding an end to nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. The site, larger than the state of Rhode Island, is an outdoor laboratory and national experimental center for testing nuclear weapons. The actions resulted in over 2,200 arrests, the largest number of arrests in U.S. history for a political protest outside Washington, D.C.
March 11, 2011
More than 85,000 Wisconsin citizens rallied outside the Capitol in Madison to welcome the return to the state of fourteen Democratic state senators. Known as the Wisconsin 14, they had left the state to deny the senate a quorum, thus delaying passage of legislation which took away public employees right to collectively bargain and restricting other rights of union members.
State Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller remarked about the gathering, “This is what democracy looks like!”
The Wisconsin 14

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march11

Yup. Just Like, “Look What You Made Me Do.”

Grok … ?

Peace & Justice History for 3/10

March 10, 1968
Cesar Chavez ended a 23-day fast for U.S. farm workers in a Delano, California, public park with 4000 supporters at his side, including Senator Robert Kennedy (D-New York). Cesar Chavez led the effort to organize farm workers into a union for better pay, working and living conditions.

The story of Cesar Chavez 
March 10, 1969
James Earl Ray was sentenced to prison for 99 years by a court in Memphis, Tennessee, after admitting he murdered American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King, who preached and practiced nonviolence, was shot dead by a sniper in Memphis as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
The building now houses the National Civil Rights Museum.
Witnesses pointing toward the source of the shot that killed King.
National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel 
March 10, 2006
Turkish conscientious objector (CO) Mehmet Tarhan was released unexpectedly from a military prison after being held for having refused service in the army. A court decided that he had already been held longer (23 months) than any possible sentence for the crime. 
 Mehmet TarhanMehmet Tarhan’s supporters
He was ordered, however, to present himself again for military service and thus be subject to re-arrest for the same offense.

War Resisters’ International(WRI) led an international support campaign for him along with other CO activists in Turkey.
More on Mehmet Tarhan and other Turkish COs 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march10

Lots Of Good Ones This Morning,

this one made me lol!

Sherman’s Lagoon by Jim Toomey for March 09, 2025

Sherman's Lagoon Comic Strip for March 09, 2025

Sunday Poetry, and Related Good News!

(Good news below the poetry. The poetry is more beautifully written.)

Elegy for the winter garden

Readers may or may not recall I’ve been undergoing some major work around our house. Back in December was the first of the foundation work, in which piers were placed at strategic points around the house to raise it after drought and earthquakes caused major dirt shifting on our block (and others surrounding.) Anyway, some or maybe all of you may be aware of the amount and depth of digging required for the work. There were great trenches around the house, including the front flower bed (mostly dedicated to wildflowers for birds and bees; nothing at all formal, just nice in a simple way.) But there were a few daffodil plants, to which DH was quite partial. I figured the entire bed’s plants were gone after the work, but this past Tuesday I pulled into the driveway after an errand, and there are the daffodil plants (not yet blooming) out drinking in sunlight, in pretty close to the same spots they used to be! I’ve just been amazed by that, and it’s a really nice thing to see out front. Thanks for reading! ⚘

Peace & Justice History for 3/9

March 9, 1839
The U.S. Supreme Court, with only one dissent, freed the slaves who had seized the Spanish slave ship Amistad, ruling that they had been illegally forced into slavery, and thus were free under American law.
 
Slave ship
They had mutinied and taken control of the ship off the shore of Cuba (then a colony of Spain) and demanded to be taken back to Africa but wound up in U.S. waters off the coast of Long Island, New York.
More on the Amistad mutiny 
March 9, 1945
Phyllis Daley became the first African-American commissioned nurse in the U.S. Navy. Though more than 500 black nurses served in the Army during World War II, the Navy had only dropped its color ban a few weeks before.
March 9, 1964
Five Sioux Indians, led by Richard McKenzie, claimed the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay as Indian land. The island had recently been abandoned, and the action was based on an 1868 treaty which entitled Indians to take possession of surplus federal land. The native Americans advocated turning it into a cultural center and Indian university, but their occupation lasted only four hours.
March 9, 1965
Two days after Bloody Sunday [see March 7, 1965] Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led 1500 outraged people gathered from around the country back to the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma, Alabama.
They were attempting for a second time to march to the state capital of Montgomery in support of voting rights for black Americans. Confronted once again by state troopers blocking passage to the bridge, King knelt in prayer, then led his followers back, avoiding further violence.
Later that evening three white ministers were attacked by local whites as they left a soul food restaurant in Selma. Reverend James Reeb was struck on the head with a club and died two days later.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march9

“Handsome Hudwit”

Hudsonian Godwit

Peace & Justice History for 3/8

Please enjoy International Women’s Day, and give respect and your compliments to all the women with whom you interact (I know that you do!) A history bit for the day is below. -A

March 8, 1908
Thousands of workers in the New York needle trades (primarily women) demonstrated and began a strike for higher wages, a shorter workday and an end to child labor.

This event became the basis for International Women’s Day celebrated all over the world since March 8, 1945.
IWD 2025 campaign theme is ‘Accelerate Action’
Searchable list of events for IWD planned around the world
March 8, 1965
About 3,500 U. S. Marines became the first American combat troops in Vietnam, landing near the coastal city of Da Nang. The ships USS Henrico, Union, and Vancouver, carrying the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade under Brigadier General Frederick J. Karch, took up stations 4,000 yards off Red Beach Two, north of Da Nang.
March 8, 1983
40,000 in Tel Aviv, Israel, organized by Peace Now, rallied against the war in Lebanon.
March 8, 1995
Women in Black demonstrated in the center of Belgrade, Serbia, on International Women’s Day, expressing solidarity with Kosovar women: “The Albanian women from Kosovo are our sisters.”The women were both spit at and kicked, but didn’t give up, and stood there to the end of the usual hour. 
Though Kosovo is overwhelmingly (90%) ethnically Albanian, it is considered the national and religious birthplace of Serbians. Both Kosovo and Serbia had been part of the former Yugoslavia, which had granted partial autonomy to Kosovo in 1974. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic (later tried for war crimes) in 1989 withdrew that autonomy and revoked the official status of the Albanian language in Kosovo.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march8

Friday Poetry

Rx for Fascism (Sonnet) – Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets (Final Cover)