(Sources: Peace Buttons, War Resisters League, and the Peace Center.)
June 24
1929
Mrs. Herbert Hoover invited Mrs. DePriest, wife of the first African-American congressman from a northern state, to tea at the White House, creating a stir in Southern society.
1948
President Truman signed the Selective Service Act, creating a system for registering all men ages 18-25, and drafting them into the armed forces as the nation’s military needs required.
1970
U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed in August, 1964 following a provocation by the U.S. destroyer Maddox, but portrayed as aggressive military action by North Vietnamese PT boats. The resolution, authorizing the president “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States” was used by President Lyndon Johnson, absent a formal congressional, and constitutional, declaration of war, to justify open-ended pursuit of war in Vietnam.
1980
A general strike was held in El Salvador against the Death Squads. These Death Squads were “private” groups supported by the government, its various “security” forces as a way to control civilian society.
a Salvadoran death squad at work
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 