June 14
1816
The Society for the Promotion of Universal and Permanent Peace, often known as the London Peace Society, was founded. Nearly all of the members of the Society came from Protestant denominations, and Quaker influence was strong.
1943
The U.S. Supreme Court decided a West Virginia case, Barnette v. Board of Education, upholding the constitutional right of children in public schools to refuse to salute the American flag. A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses had objected to the mandatory salute as a violation of the third commandment (Exodus 20:4) which prohibits worshipping a graven image.
School children, in this undated Library of Congress photo, are saluting the flag during the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. This type of salute was changed to the “hand over the heart” salute in the Flag Code of 1942. This change came about because of the similarity of this salute with the Nazi salute
In “Taylor v. Mississippi”, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that school children need not salute the U.S. flag if it is against their religion to do so (1946)
1964
Members of Women Against the Bomb called for complete nuclear disarmament during a visit to Moscow, U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)
1968
Dr. Spock, the pediatrician, author and peace activist, was found guilty of aiding draft resisters during the Vietnam War. A Federal District Court jury in Boston convicted Dr. Benjamin Spock and three others, including Yale University Chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr., of conspiring to “aid, abet, and counsel draft registrants to violate the Selective Service Act.”
read A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority
co-authored by Dr. Spock (1967)
1986
60,000 marched to Central Park demanding economic sanctions against South Africa for their apartheid regime.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 