This Date in Peace History
September 16, 1837
William Whipper, and ex-slave from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, published “An Address on Non-resistance to Offensive Aggression” in the The Colored American. This landmark essay predated Thoreau’s on “Civil Disobedience” by 12 years.
“…fatal error arises from the belief that the only method of maintaining peace, is always to be ready for war.”
September 16, 1939
August Dickmann, a German and a Jehovah’s Witness, became the first conscientious objector (CO) to be executed by the Nazis during World War II.
The execution by firing squad took place in Sachsenhausen concentration camp before all prisoners, including 400 Jehovah’s Witness inmates. Threatened by Commandant Hermann Baranowsky with the same fate, none of the remaining 400 Witnesses renounced their CO position. Later, the Nazis commonly executed Witnesses by guillotine or hanging, not wanting to spend bullets on COs. German military courts sentenced and executed 270 Jehovah’s Witnesses, the largest number of COs executed from any victim group during World War II.
September 16, 1974
A federal judge dismissed all charges against American Indian Movement (AIM) leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means stemming from the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. On Feb. 27, 1973, AIM and supporters seized control of Wounded Knee to draw attention to corruption and conditions on the Pine Ridge (Lakota Sioux) reservation. Wounded Knee was the site where, on December 29, 1890, over 200 Sioux men, women and children were mercilessly gunned down by U.S. cavalry.
September 16, 1991
The Philippine Senate defeated a treaty allowing continued operation of U.S. military bases in the Philippines. The Americans had occupied the Philippines since 1898 (except after surrendering control to the Japanese in 1942 until the end of WWII), though on a “temporary” basis. More than two dozen U.S. military installations were established in the country, even after Philippine independence in 1945, notably Clark Air Base and the naval installation at Subic Bay.
Note: this date in peace history is adapted from This Week in History, a publication of www.peacebuttons.info