Today in history

May 17

1838
First women’s anti-slavery convention in Philadelphia, PA
1896
Supreme Court endorsed “separate but equal” racial segregation with its Plessy vs Ferguson decision, a ruling that was overturned 58 years later.
1900
Following the relief of Mafeking, in South Africa, 26,000 Boer women & children die in the world’s first concentration camps.
1919
17-May Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom formally established, Zurich, Switzerland.
1954
In a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling “separate but equal” public education to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment which guaranteed equal treatment under the law. The historic decision, bringing an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically dealt with Linda Brown, a young African American girl denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

Nettie Hunt and her daughter Nickie on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1954

George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall and James M. Nabrit (left to right), the successful legal team, celebrate the Brown decision.

1957
Martin Luther King, Jr. leads 30,00 on a Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington D.C.to mark the third anniversary of Brown vs. Bd of Education decision.
1968
A group of anti-war activists who came to be known as the “Catonsville Nine,” including Philip and Daniel Berrigan, broke into the Catonsville, Maryland, draft board center and burned over 600 draft files.

The Catonsville Nine in a picture taken in the police station minutes after the action.
From left to right (standing) George Mische, Philip Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan, Tom Lewis. From left to right (seated) David Darst, Mary Moylan, John Hogan, Marjorie Melville, Tom Melville. photo Jean Walsh

1970
100 protesters staged a silent “die-in” at Fifth Avenue and Pine Street in downtown Seattle to protest shipment through their city of Army nerve gas being transported from Okinawa, Japan, to the Umatilla Army Depot in eastern Oregon.

1994
Malawi, Africa holds first elections. (1994)