Page 5 – Zinn Education Project

May 3, 1919: Pete Seeger Born

Activist folksinger Pete Seeger was born in New York.

May 3, 1913: California’s Alien Land Law Enacted

California enacted the Alien Land Law to bar Asian immigrants from owning or leasing land. These restrictions, and others imposed later, remained in place through both World Wars.

May 3, 1898: Septima Clark Born

Educator and civil rights organizer Septima Clark was born in South Carolina.

May 2, 1963: Children of Birmingham Fill the Jails

In disciplined groups and singing freedom songs, students “ditch” class to march for justice and fill the jails.

May 1, 1970: D.C. Sanitation Worker Strike Begins

Amidst a looming “garbage crisis” in Washington, D.C., on May 1, 1970, 1,700 sanitation workers went on strike to demand an end to racial discrimination, unsafe working conditions, low pay, and unequal pick-up routes.

May 1: International Workers Day

International Workers’ Day began as a commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket massacre in Chicago.

Scene from the Memphis, Tenn., massacre | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

May 1 – 3, 1866: Memphis Massacre

White civilians and police killed 46 African Americans and injured many more while burning houses, schools, and churches in Memphis, Tennessee.

April 30, 1975: End of U.S. War Against Vietnam

April 30 marks the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam — the capture by Vietnamese forces of Saigon in 1975.

April 30, 1967: “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam” Speech

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made a speech criticizing the Vietnam War and praising Muhammad Ali.

Bristol Bus Boycott | Zinn Education Project

April 30, 1963: Bristol Bus Boycott

The Bristol Bus Boycott began in England, inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

April 29, 1962: Paulings Protest Nuclear Testing

Nobel Prize-winner Linus Pauling and Ava Helen Pauling joined a march in front of the White House to protest the resumption of U.S. atmospheric nuclear testing.

April 29, 1945: Liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp, Except LGBTQ+ Prisoners

When U.S. forces liberated the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, some of those interned for homosexuality were not freed but rather were required to serve out the full term of the sentences they had received under the homophobic Nazi penal code.

April 28, 1987: Benjamin Linder Murdered in Nicaragua

Ben Linder, a volunteer U.S. engineer in Nicaragua, was killed by the U.S.-funded Contras.

April 28, 1977: Disability Rights Sit-Ins Force Enactment of Section 504

Between April 5 and April 28, 1977, hundreds of disabled and handicapped activists organized, protested, and occupied government buildings around the country to pressure the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph Califano, to enact Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and publish regulations to guide its enforcement.

April 27, 1860: Harriet Tubman Helped Rescue Charles Nalle

Harriet Tubman helped rescue Charles Nalle, a fugitive from slavery in Virginia, in Troy, New York.

late April 1821: U.S. Attack on Maroon Community at Angola

After becoming governor of Florida in 1821, Andrew Jackson attacked the native and Black maroon community at Angola.

April 26, 1968: Kiyoshi Kuromiya Led Protest of Vietnam War Napalm

Lifelong gay rights and anti-war activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya held a demonstration while in college against the use of napalm in Vietnam by announcing that a dog would be burned alive with napalm in front of the university library.

Bombing of Guernica | Zinn Education Project

April 26, 1937: The Bombing of Guernica

During the Spanish Civil War, the Nazis tested their new air force on the Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain.

April 26, 1937: Supreme Court Strikes Down Insurrection Statute

A Black labor organizer’s imprisoned for having “communist literature” was freed following a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

April 25, 1846: U.S. Mexico War Begins

Today’s border with Mexico is the product of invasion and war. Grasping some of the motives for that war and some of its immediate effects begins to provide students the kind of historical context that is crucial for thinking about the line that separates the United States and Mexico.

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