Today in history

January 12

1957
SCLC founded by Martin Luther King and other Black clergymen

1962
Federal workers were guaranteed the the right to join unions and bargain collectively after President Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988.

Executive Order 10988 being signed

1971
Reverend Philip F. Berrigan, founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship anti-Vietnam War organization, is indicted along with five others on charges of conspiring to kidnap national security advisor Henry Kissinger and to bomb the heating systems of federal buildings in Washington, D.C. At the time, Berrigan was serving a six-year sentence at a federal prison in Connecticut with his brother Daniel for their destruction of military draft records in Maryland during 1967-68. Berrigan’s ethic of nonviolence towards others made the charges very suspicious and eventually all six were acquitted of conspiracy to kidnap and bomb federal buildings.

1971
“All in the Family” premiered on CBS TV. The sitcom focused on the major social and political issues of the day such as racism and war.

1987
Twenty West German judges were arrested for blockading the U.S. Air Force base at Mutlangen, West Germany where Pershing missiles were being deployed.
Judge Ulf Panzer stated:
“Fifty years ago, during the time of Nazi fascism, we judges and prosecutors allegedly
‘did not know anything.’ By closing our eyes and ears, our hearts and minds, we became a docile instrument of suppression, and many judges committed cruel crimes under the cloak of the law. We have been guilty of complicity. Today we are on the way to becoming guilty again, to being abused again.
By our passivity, but also by applying laws, we legitimize terror: nuclear terror.
Today we do know…”

2002
“Refusenik” movement begins; 53 Israeli soliders publicly refuse to serve in Occupied Territories.