(Sources: Peace Buttons, War Resisters League, and the Peace Center.)
June 12
In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was shot to death by a white supremacist. His murderer was not convicted until 1994.
Medgar Evers
1964
Nelson Mandela, a 46-year-old lawyer and a leader of the opposition to South Africa’s racially separatist apartheid system, was convicted of sabotage in the Rivonia Trial and sentenced to life imprisonment.
“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Nelson Mandela, 1963
1967
The Supreme Court struck down state miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriages as violations of the 14th amendment which guarantees equal protection under the law. In June of 1958, Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter had married in Washington D.C. Upon return to their home state of Virginia, the couple was arrested, convicted of a felony, and sentenced to a year in jail. Their appeal led to the decision.
Mildred and Richard Loving
“The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights
essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”
From Chief Justice Earl Warren’s majority opinion in Loving v. Virginia
1982
In the largest U.S. peace demonstration to date, one million rallied in Central Park to support the newly formed Nuclear Freeze Campaign which called for a halt to all nuclear weapons testing.
One million rally in Central Park for nuclear disarmament; largest US peace demonstration (1982
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Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 