A SELECTIVE LIST OF Historic Actions

here have been 1917 U.S. countless acts of civil WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE Tdisobedience through- Inspired by similar actions in Britain, out history in virtually every Alice Paul and 217 others (including ) are arrested for picketing country by people opposed to the White House, considered by some oppressive laws, governments, to be the first nonviolent civil disobedi- corporations, institutions, and ence campaign in U.S. history; many go cultures. Below is a listing of just on hunger strikes while in prison and are brutally force-fed a few notable — because sheer size or subsequent impact — and Gandhi during the “Salt March,” at the start disparate examples (mostly in of the massive civil disobedience campaign in the ) since Tho- , 1930. Photo via Wikipedia. reau’s “Civil Disobedience” essay. 1936-1937 U.S. In bold are names of just a few LABOR Autoworkers (CIO) organized 900 sit- of the organizers or participants, down strikes — including 44-day sit- each of whom could merit a down in Flint, MI — to establish the right separate study by students. to unionize (UAW), seeking better pay and working conditions Suggragist pickets arrested at the White House, 1917. Photo: Harris & Ewing 1940-1944 India 1846 U.S. INDEPENDENCE / WORLD WAR II WAR / SLAVERY The Quit India campaign led by Gandhi Henry David Thoreau refuses to pay 1918-1919 U.S. defied the British ban on antiwar taxes that support the Mexican-American propaganda and sought to fill the jails War and slavery Draft resisters and conscientious objectors (over 60,000 jailed) imprisoned for agitating against the war 1850s-1860s U.S. (Eugene Debs, Evan Thomas, Julius 1940-1945 U.S. SLAVERY Eichel, , Max Sandin) WORLD WAR II Underground railroad leads thousands of Pacifists oppose the war by not slaves to freedom; the one run by Harriet 1930-1931 India registering for the draft, refusing Tubman frees 300 slaves INDEPENDENCE induction, or walking out of camps Gandhi’s Salt March to the sea initiates a set up for COs (Dave Dellinger, , , Larry 1906-1914 South Africa year-long campaign promoting nonpay- ment of taxes, sedition, and nonviolent Gara, Jim Peck, Ralph DiGia, Walter HUMAN RIGHTS Gormly, , Corbett South African campaign for Indian rights overthrow of the government (over organized by Mohandas Gandhi (5,000 100,000 arrested in what is probably the TOP PHOTO: CNVA protest (Dennis Weeks, Charlotte arrested during the campaign) largest civil disobedience in history) Keyes pictured) at armory missile display, Dec. 1961 (photo by Troy Mayr via Gene Keyes) Bishop, Julius Eichel, Evan Thomas, Sailing of Golden Rule, Phoenix, Everyman A.J. Muste, Max Sandin) I, II, III into nuclear test zones (, Jim Peck, Earle 1942 Reynolds, Barbara Reynolds, Norway George Willoughby) OPPRESSION / WORLD WAR II About 75 percent of the country’s 1955-1961 U.S. teachers refuse Quisling’s orders to NUCLEAR WAR join the Nazi teachers’ union (1,000 Hundreds arrested for refusal to take are jailed) shelter during the annual compulsory air raid drills in NYC and other places 1943 across the U.S. (Dorothy Day, Jim Police dogs used to against demonstrators in Birmingham, AL, 1963. Photo: Bill Hudson/AP. U.S. Peck, A.J. Muste, Ralph DiGia, SEGREGATION Bayard Rustin, Ammon Hennacy, David McReynolds, Eileen Egan 1964 U.S. Imprisoned conscientious objectors strike ) CIVIL RIGHTS to protest segregated dining halls at Danbury Prison (Ralph DiGia, Jim Peck) 1957ff U.S. Organized by the NAACP, sit-ins at auto NUCLEAR WAR dealerships in San Francisco to protest discrimination led to hundreds of arrests 1947 U.S. Trespassing onto military bases (e.g., Omaha, NE, Cheyenne, WY, Nevada over a two-month period including 226 CIVIL RIGHTS in one day (4/11/64) Journey of Reconciliation “freedom ride” test site), boarding of Polaris nuclear submarines, engaging in long distance through the upper South (Jim Peck, 1964 U.S. , Igal Roodenko, Bayard marches organized by Committee for FREE SPEECH Rustin, Ernest Bromley, George Nonviolent Action among other groups A.J. Muste, , Marj Houser) ( Free Speech Movement occupation of Swann, Erica Enzer, Karl Meyer) administration building at UC Berkeley, where almost 800 were arrested, at the 1940s-1950s U.S. 1960 U.S. time the largest single-day mass civil WAR CIVIL RIGHTS disobedience in U.S. history (Mario Refusal to pay for World War II, Korean Savio) War, and subsequent military spending Lunch counter sit-ins beginning in Greensboro, NC, spread throughout (A.J. Muste, Wally Nelson, Juanita 1964ff U.S. Nelson, James Otsuka, Maurice the South, and led to the formation McCrackin, Ernest Bromley, Marion of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Bromley, Eroseanna Robinson, Committee (3,600 arrests across the Draft card burnings (David Miller, Tom Walter Gormly, Marj Swann, Ammon country) Cornell, David McReynolds); first done Hennacy) in 1947 to protest -time draft 1961 Britain 1955-1956 U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS 1965 U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS against nuclear weapons CIVIL RIGHTS Rosa Parks arrest for refusal to move was spearheaded by the Committee of Selma to Montgomery marches for voting from the white section of a bus touches 100; 17,000 participated in a sit-down rights result in arrests and beatings (M.L. off the year-long Montgomery bus in Trafalgar Square, where 1,300 were King, James Bevel, Hosea Williams) boycott arrested ( ) 1960s-70s U.S. 1961 U.S. VIETNAM WAR CIVIL RIGHTS Widespread draft resistance as well Freedom Rides to desegregate interstate as counseling violation of draft laws; bus travel throughout the South resulting estimates of draft resistance range from in beatings and the arrests of hundreds a 500,000 to two million men, 3,000 of (Jim Peck, Albert Bigelow, John whom were ultimately jailed (David Lewis) Harris, Randy Kehler, , William Sloan Coffin) 1963 U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS 1967 U.S. Southern Christian Leadership VIETNAM WAR Conference campaign to desegregate Stop the Draft Week actions held across downtown Birmingham, AL, by filling the the country, with 123 arrests in Oakland, Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after her 1955 arrest in Montgomery, AL. Photo: Wide World jails resulted in 3,500 arrests during the CA, and 264 in New York (Joan Baez, 2-month campaign, as well as beatings, Benjamin Spock, Jim Peck, Kay Boyle, 1958-1962 Pacifi c Ocean attacks by police dogs, and fire hoses David Harris, Randy Kehler, David (M.L. King, Fred Shuttlesworth) McReynolds, Igal Roodenko)

2 • HISTORIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ACTIONS VIETNAM WAR Spock, David McReynolds) Release of the “Pentagon Papers” to press by 1980 to present U.S. WAR / MILITARISM 1976-circa 1982 U.S. “Plowshares actions” committed by small NUCLEAR POWER groups of mostly Christian activists who Nuclear power stations across the enter military (and other) installations country are occupied by demonstrators to damage military hardware, then (1,415 arrested at Seabrook, NH, 1977, await arrest; more than 100 such actions and 1,953 arrested at Diablo Canyon, worldwide (, Phillip CA, 1981), inspired by similar actions in Berrigan) Europe (Sam Lovejoy) Burning of draft cards in NYC to protest 1980 and 1981 U.S. Vietnam War, 1965. Photo: Neil Haworth. WAR / MILITARISM Approximately 2,000 women in 1980 1967 U.S. and 3,500 in 1981 surround, blockade, VIETNAM WAR and stretch yarn across the entrances to Confront the Warmakers action at the the Pentagon as part of the Women’s Pentagon (683 arrested, including David Pentagon Action (145 and 65 arrested, Dellinger, Jim Peck) including )

1967-1972 U.S. 1981ff Europe / U.S. VIETNAM WAR NUCLEAR WEAPONS Destruction of draft board files as well Part of 1971 May Day actions in Washington, Beginning with Greenham Common in as property of war corporations (Phillip DC. Photo: Ed Hedemann. Britain, peace encampments — many Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan) women-only — were established outside 1977 South Africa all Euromissile bases as well as in the 1968 U.S. REPRESSION U.S. with the intent to disrupt military VIETNAM WAR Protests opposing apartheid and the exercises and war games The Presidio 27 — military prisoners murder of Stephen Biko spread from in San Francisco stockade — protest Univ. of Fort Hare (more than 1,200 1982 U.S. inhuman conditions (charged with arrested) NUCLEAR WEAPONS mutiny and given 2-year sentences) Blockade the Bombmakers human 1978 U.S. obstructions at five nuclear missions 1968 Czechoslovakia NUCLEAR WEAPONS / POWER to the UN during the second Special REPRESSION Sit-in for Survival blockade of the U.S. Session on Disarmament (1,691 arrested — largest single-day CD action in NYC Lightening Warsaw Pact invasion Mission during the first UN Special history) undermined by eight months of Session on Disarmament in NYC (400 spontaneous nonviolent noncooperation arrests) and resistance by students and others 1982-1987 Europe / U.S. 1978-1979 U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS 1960s-70s U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS Demonstrators block European VIETNAM WAR Rocky Flats Truth Force year-long installations of U.S. “Euromissiles” (Pershing/cruise missiles) precipitating A half million people participate in blockade of the railroad tracks supplying more than 5,000 arrests annually until telephone and/or income tax refusal to the Rocky Flats plutonium bomb factory the 1987 INF Treaty (Petra Kelly, Daniel protest Vietnam War (Joan Baez, Karl in Colorado (Daniel Ellsberg, Allen Ellsberg Meyer, Martha Tranquilli, Brad Lyttle, Ginsberg) ) Gloria Steinem, Dave Dellinger, Barbara Deming) 1979 U.S. 1983-1985 U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS / POWER NUCLEAR WEAPONS 1971 U.S. Wall Street Action during which activists The White Train campaign, initiated VIETNAM WAR block the streets to the NY Stock by Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (near ) blocked rail May Day actions were designed to shut Exchange (1,045 arrested) shipments of nuclear weapons across the down in Washington, DC, by blocking U.S. and forced the Dept. of Energy to traffic and key facilities throughout the 1980 U.S. switch to trucks (Jim Douglass, Shelley city (13,500 arrested in the largest civil WAR / MILITARISM Douglass) disobedience in U.S. history, including The Pentagon is blockaded by activists Benjamin Spock, Barbara Deming, after a march of 1,500 organized by the 1985-1990ff U.S. Grace Paley, , Ralph Coalition for a Non-Nuclear World (600 CENTRAL AMERICA DiGia, David McReynolds, Jim Peck) arrested, including Dan Ellsberg, Grace Paley, Jim Peck, Dave Dellinger, Ben Pledge of Resistance organized civil 1971 U.S. disobedience actions in response to U.S.

HISTORIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ACTIONS • 3 military intrusion in Central American; food, and humanitarian aid into by individuals and civil disobedience actions: 1,000 were arrested at Federal buildings groups such as Voices in the Wilderness, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau, A.J. Muste Memorial Inst., protesting the embargo of , among many others; activists “The Theory, Practice & Influence of Thoreau’s Civil (May 1985); protesting U.S. El Salvador were arrested and Voices was fined Disobedience,” Lawrence Rosenwald, http:// policies 240 were arrested at the Pen- thousands of dollars by U.S. government thoreau.eserver.org/theory.html, a detailed tagon (Oct. 1988); 1,100 were arrested for violating U.S. sanctions (, analysis of Thoreau’s essay and its influence occupying Congressional offices, military ) The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp, Porter/ bases, and the White House to protest the Sargent, 1973 The Power of the People, Robert Cooney & Helen San Salvador Jesuit murders (Nov. 1989); 2004 U.S. Michalowski, Library Company of Philadelphia, 620 were arrested at the White House on IRAQ & AFGANISTAN WARS 1987 the 10th anniversary of Oscar Romero’s Among the many actions against the My Experiments with Truth, Mohandas Gandhi, assassination (Mar. 24, 1990) Republican National Convention in Beacon, 1993 Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of NYC was a day of civil disobedience Conflict, Joan Bondurant, Princeton, 1988 1989 West Bank coordinated by the A31 Coalition where Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant OPPRESSION streets and intersections were blocked , Erik Erikson, W.W. Norton, 1993 The residents of Beit Sahour refused their (1,781 arrested, the most ever at a U.S. The Power of Nonviolence, Richard Gregg, Pierides, taxes to protest the Israeli occupation; political convention) 2008 responded with arrests, property The Quiet Battle: Writings on the Theory and Practice of Nonviolent Resistance, Mulford Sibley, seizure, cutting phone lines, putting the 2011-2012 U.S. Doubleday, 1963 town under curfew for 42 days OCCUPY WALL STREET Shoulder to Shoulder, Midge Mackenzie, Vintage, Begun in Sept. 2017 as an occupation 1988 1987ff U.S. of Zuccotti Park (near Wall Street) to The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day, HarperOne, 1996 AIDS / HOMOPHOBIA protest economic and social inequality, Nonviolence in America, Alice Lynd and Staughton the movement emphasized consensus Lynd, Orbis, 1995 ACT UP, among others, organize actions Stride Toward Freedom, M.L. King, Beacon, 2010 decision making and direct action, across the country at which hundreds are Letter from Birmingham Jail, M.L. King, arrested, including 600 on Oct. 13, 1987, resulting in dozens of marches and HarperCollins, 1994 at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC hundreds of arrests. The movement, Why We Can’t Wait, M.L. King, Signet Classics, 2000 which popularized the slogan “We are Freedom Ride, , Simon & Schuster, 1962 1980s-present U.S. the 99%,” spread to 1,000 cities around Do It!: Scenarios of the Revolution, Jerry Rubin, WAR / MILITARISM the world and resulted in thousands of Touchstone, 1970 We Won’t Go!, Alice Lynd, Beacon, 1968 Hundreds of antiwar activists refuse to arrests Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer, Plume, 1995 pay some or all of income tax to protest 2013ff U.S. A Manual for Direct Action, Martin Oppenheimer & U.S. wars and military spending, esp. George Lakey, Quadrangle Books, 1965 , , Iraq (Archbishop MORAL MONDAYS The Czech Black Book, Robert Littell, Avon, 1969 Raymond Hunthausen, Randy Kehler, religious activists, upset Civilian Resistance as a National Defence: Nonviolent Betsy Corner, J. Tony Serra, Julia by discrimination and cutbacks in key Action Against Aggression, Adam Roberts, Pelican, Butterfly Hill) social programs, began conducting civil 1969 disobedience actions, such as occupying We Won’t Pay!: A Reader, Dave M. the state legislature building, resulting Gross, 2008 1990s U.S. / Canada War Tax Resistance, Ed Hedemann and Ruth Benn, FOREST DEFENSE in the arrest of 1,000 people in 2013. The , 2003 Many nonviolent direct actions, including protests spread to other states, notably “A Matter of Freedom,” Juanita Nelson, NWTRCC, tree-sits (Julia Butterfly Hill) and Georgia, South Carolina, , and New “Bodies Upon the Gears” speech, Mario Savio, 1964 sit-ins, roadblocks, and the largest civil Mexico (Rev. William Barber) “Draft and Military Resistance to the Vietnam disobedience in Canadian history of 900 War,” Andy Mager, The Nonviolent Activist, War 2016ff U.S. Resisters League, Mar.-Apr. 2000 people opposed to old growth logging of “10 Cases of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience,” Clayoquot Sound in 1993 PIPELINE PROTESTS The Book of Lists #3, Amy Wallace, David The Standing Rock Sioux tribe Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace, Morrow, 1983 1999 U.S. blockaded the Keystone XL oil pipeline, “The Pledge of Resistance,” by Ken Butigan in Peace which threatens water sources and Movements Worldwide (ed.: Michael Nagler and ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION Marc Pilisuk), Praeger, 2010 Over 40,000 demonstrators gathered burial grounds in their South Dakota in Seattle to protest the World Trade reservation. The addition of other tribes MAGAZINES/NEWSLETTERS: Organization meeting in Seattle; a loose made this the largest Native American The (1939-1946) coalition of groups — the Direct Action assembly in over 100 years. Protests of WRL News, War Resisters League (1945-1984) Network — formed human blockades in gas and oil pipelines continue from the The Peacemaker, (1949-1992) Liberation Magazine (1956-1977) streets and intersections to disrupt the Dakotas to Massachusetts to Georgia resulting in hundreds of CD arrests WIN Magazine, War Resisters League (1966-1984, meetings (157 arrested); the success of 2006-2015) this protest encouraged many subsequent SOURCES The Nuclear Resister (1980-present) actions at WTO events around the world The Nonviolent Activist, War Resisters League (1985- Besides Wikipedia and other online sources as well 2006) as the Peace Collection at Swarthmore College, 1995-2005ff IRAQ the following books and magazines (many out of Network News, NWTRCC (1985-1993) print but available in some libraries) provide more More Than a Paycheck, NWTRCC (1994-present) Illegal shipments of medical supplies, in depth information on the above mentioned July 2017 National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee 4 • HISTORIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ACTIONS PO Box 150553 • Brooklyn, NY 11215 • [email protected] • www.nwtrcc.org