(Sources: Peace Buttons, War Resisters League, and the Peace Center.)
1880
Birthday of Jeanette Rankin, pacifist, 1st US Congresswoman. (1880)
1962
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held its founding convention in Michigan and issued The Port Huron Statement, laying out its principles and program.
“Making values explicit–an initial task in establishing alternatives–is an activity that has been devalued and corrupted. The conventional moral terms of the age, the politician moralities–“free world,” “people’s democracies”–reflect realities poorly, if at all, and seem to function more as ruling myths than as descriptive principles.”
1963
Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from the Linh-Mu Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam, burned himself to death (self-immolation) in front of U.S. embassy in downtown Saigon to protest the the South Vietnamese regime and the war.
1963
University of Alabama desegregated when Governor George Wallace, facing federalized Alabama National Guard troops, ended his blockade of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and allowed two African-American students to enroll.
1968
Daniel Cohn-Bendit arrived in Britain, stirring up fears of campus unrest. The 23-year-old Paris law student had been given permission to remain in the UK just 24 hours, but immediately threatened to defy the authorities and out-stay his welcome. Mr Cohn-Bendit — a German citizen — had been expelled from France in May for being an organizer of the French student and worker demonstrations which almost brought the country to a standstill the previous month.
“I don’t know how long I will stay. I think it’s a free country”
1988
100,000 marched from United Nations headquarters to Central Park during the 3rd U.N. Special Session on Disarmament.
1988
100,000 march from U.N. to Central Park during 3rd U.N. Special Session on Disarmament
1994
Prairie Peace Park & Maze opens at Interstate 80 exit of Pleasant Dale, Nebraska.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 