April 24
1916
The Easter Uprising began when between 1,000 and 1,500 members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood attempted to seize Dublin and issued the declaration of Irish independence from Britain.
The seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation
April 23
1953
Army-McCarthy Hearings Begin
1963
William Lewis Moore, a postman from Baltimore, was shot and killed in Attalla, Ala. during a one-man march against segregation. Moore had planned to deliver a letter to the governor of Mississippi urging an end to intolerance.
1968
Students at Columbia University in New York City occupied campus buildings to protest war research and the razing of part of the community in Harlem to make way for a new student gymnasium.
Continue reading
April 22
Happy Earth Day!
1970
On the First Earth Day observance, an estimated 20 million participated in anti-pollution demonstrations across the U.S.
Ron Cobb……………………………………………………….1st Earth Day, 1970
April 21
19889
Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students from more than 40 universities gathered at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu, voice their discontent with China’s authoritative communist government, and call for greater democracy. Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, the students were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants.
April 20
1853
Harriet Tubman began her Underground Railroad, a network of people and places that aided in the escape of slaves to the north.
(see my post on Harriet Tubman)
April 19
1775
The American Revolution Begins
1943
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began when Nazi forces attempted to clear out the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, and were met by unexpected gunfire from Jewish resistance fighters.
These two women, soon to be executed, were members of the Jewish resistance. “…Jews and Jewesses shot from two pistols at the same time… The Jewesses carried loaded pistols in their clothing with the safety catches off…At the last moment, they would pull hand grenades out…and throw them at the soldiers….”
April 18
1941
Bus companies in New York City agreed to hire black drivers and mechanics workers after a four-week boycott.
1958
First march against nuclear arms in West Germany took place.
1960
Tens of thousands of people marked the end of the Aldermaston “ban the bomb” march with a rally with at least 60,000 gathering in Trafalgar Square, the largest demonstration London had seen to date
April 17
1959
22 arrested in Times Square for refusing to take part in civil defense drill, New York City.
1960
As a response to the Greensboro sit-in, nearly 150 black students from nine states formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, with Ella Baker, James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., the founders set SNCC’s initial goals as overturning segregation in the South and giving young blacks a stronger voice in the civil rights movement. By that time, in mid-April 1960, over 50,000 students had participated in sit-ins over just the previous three months.
April 16
1818
US Senate ratifies Rush-Bagot amendment, disarming the US-Canadian border.
1967
Greek government bans Marathon Peace March, held yearly since 196t.
1971
Members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) threw medals they had earned in Vietnam on the U.S. Capitol steps in protest of the Vietnam War.
April 15
1947
Jackie Roosevelt Robinson became the first African-American to play in a major league baseball game. His stepping onto Ebbets field in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform broke the “color line,” segregation dating back 78 years to the nineteenth century. The game, until a franchise moved to Atlanta in the mid-’60s, had been played entirely in northern cities.
“Jackie (Robinson), we’ve got no army. There’s virtually nobody on our side. No owners, no umpires, very few newspapermen. And I’m afraid that many fans will be hostile. We’ll be in a tough position. We can win only if we can convince the world that I’m doing this because you’re a great ballplayer, a fine gentleman.”…
“There was never a man in the game who could put mind and muscle together quicker and with better judgment than (Jackie) Robinson.”
Branch Rickey, the courageous but canny Dodgers’ manager who hired Robinson
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 