May 1
1830
Mother Jones (born Mary Harris), Irish-American anti-war activist & labor radical, born in Cork, Ireland.
1886
May Day also became known as International Workers’ Day in 1886 when 340,000 went on strike for the 8-hour work day. May 1, 1890 May Day labor demonstrations spread to thirteen other countries; 30,000 marched in Chicago as the newly prominent American Federation of Labor threw its weight behind the 8-hour day campaign.
1933
The Catholic Worker newspaper was founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.
“God meant things to be much easier than we have made them.” -Dorothy Day
“God meant things to be much easier than we have made them.” -Dorothy Day
Peter Maurin wanted to build a society “where it is easier for people to be good”
1948
Glenn Taylor, Idaho Senator, arrested in� Birmingham, Alabama for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked “for Negroes”.
1962
“Educational television Act”, P.L. 87-447, is signed into law.
1965
Second Factory for Peace opens, Onllwyn, Dulais Valley, Wales.
1966
500,000 Vietnamese march for end of war.
1967
Soviet youths openly defied police & danced the twist in Moscow’s Red Square during May Day celebrations.
In the early 60s the Twist had been banned in Buffalo, NY and Tampa, FL
The religious right claimed the Twist was actually a pagan fertility dance.
Are you old enough to remember Chubby Checker?
1971
Beginning of five days of anti-war May Day protests in Washington, D.C., resulting in over 14,000 arrests–the largest mass civil disobedience in U.S. history.
1977
Following a 24-hour occupation at the site of two proposed nuclear power plants in Seabrook, New Hampshire, 1,414 people were arrested. The non-violent civil disobedience, organized by the Clamshell Alliance, became a model for anti-nuclear direct actions across the country. National and international news coverage brought the issue of nuclear power into public focus and no nuclear reactors were ordered after that time.
The ones in the pipeline eventually went online, including Seabrook Unit I, but Unit 2 was never built.
There is still no permanent method for long-term safe storage of highly radioactive waste generated by these plants. Most of the radioactive isotopes in high-level waste emit large amounts of radiation and have extremely long half-lives (some longer than 100,000 years). Currently, it is stored on-site at nuclear plants around the country.
1982
Day of resistance & protest against Falklands War.
1986
One million South Africans demonstrated their opposition to apartheid in a strike organized by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).
1993
Marchers in Quito protest “disappeared people”.
1999
Rally to Save Ancient Forests in Eugene, Oregon as logging season begins.
2003
President George W. Bush landed in a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast and, in a speech to the nation, declared major combat in Iraq over. The banner his staff posted on the ship read “Mission Accomplished.”
Since that presidential declaration more than 2000 Americans and more than 30,000 Iraqis have lost their lives, in addition to the tens of thousand of others injured in the hostilities.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 