What are the origins of this fun-filled festive custom?
The organization secretly printed and distributed more than 15,000 pamphlets across Germany, denouncing Hitler and the Nazi’s heinous acts and atrocities. Unfortunately, in 1943, the siblings were captured by the Gestapo and eventually beheaded. Their legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of Germans today.
Mahatma Gandhi, perhaps the most famous advocate for nonviolent civil disobedience, led the Salt March in India during the spring of 1930. After the English colonial government imposed a monopoly on all salt extraction, banning Indian citizens from collecting or selling salt, unrest broke out across the entire country.
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, an institution of the New York gay bar and club scene, and one of the few gay bars that allowed women, drag queens, and dancing. The police kicked every individual to the curb, but the crowd of around 200 patrons remained outside and grew quickly fed up with their mistreatment at the hands of the police.
One of the largest shared cultural moments ever televised was during the 1968 Summer Olympics, held in Mexico City. Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two African-American sprinters who placed first and third, respectively, in the 200-meter dash, after receiving their medals, lowered their heads and raised their black-gloved fists in the air as a sign of black power and their commitment to human rights.
The White Rose Movement was an underground German resistance movement that came about in 1942, largely as a result of Adolf Hitler's rise to power. The movement was spearheaded by two young students from the University of Munich: siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl.
According to eyewitness reports, once the bystanders saw a woman get bashed on the head by a policeman trying to put her in the back of a car, pandemonium ensued, and the legendary Stonewall Riots raged on for five days, garnering thousands upon thousands of supporters. The Stonewall uprising galvanized the LGBTQ+ resistance movement and has inspired annual pride parades around the world for decades.
Gandhi led tens of thousands of citizens on a 24-day march from Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea, where he and his followers extracted salt from the seawater en masse. Gandhi was eventually arrested, but the salt protests continued while he was incarcerated.
The pair made headlines across the world, and were met with both praise and anger from different segments of the public. They were virtually excommunicated from the American professional sporting world upon their return to the US, and were permanently banned from the Olympics. But their bravery and quiet solidarity have inspired countless activists who have followed in their footsteps.
A powerful piece of protest performance art was put on by Emma Sulkowicz, a student at Columbia University in New York, during the spring semester of 2014. After the college failed to expel or even punish a student that Sulkowicz and two other students had filed sexual assault claims against, Sulkowicz brought nationwide attention to the scandal through her art.
Before Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin. The 15-year-old resident of Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger roughly nine months before Rosa Parks became the face of a movement for the same act.
Claudette Colvin, despite her young age, was arrested and tried as an adult. She was given probation for her disruptive act, and was later quoted as saying, “I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other—saying, 'Sit down girl!'”
Take Back the Night has become the rallying cry for some of the largest and most enduring women's’ rights protests in the world. The first was held in England in 1877, by women who were fed up with the fear they felt going into the night alone.
The performance consisted of Sulkowicz carrying around a 50-pound (23 kg) mattress, identical to the ones kept in the Columbia dorm rooms where the alleged assaults occurred, all around campus and to all classes until punitive action was taken against the accused male student. The school failed to take further action, and the performance ended once Sulkowicz graduated.
Al-Bashir was finally ousted by his own military on April 11, 2019. The public celebrated his deposition for weeks, until it became apparent that the military had no intention of giving up power, and the armed forces violently lashed out at the masses. A month of violence ensued, but eventually the military government and the people’s resistance signed an agreement that split the burden of power between the two groups.
What set Đức apart from other cases of self-immolation was his unwavering poise and stoicism while he sat engulfed in flames. One eyewitness was quoted as saying, “As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.”
Since then, countless more Take Back the Night marches and movements have manifested around the world. The United States saw a huge surge of these movements during the 1970s, with notable marches taking place in San Francisco and Boston.
After three decades of violent oppression under the tyrannical rule of Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese people rose up in 2019 against the dictatorship. In one of the most glorious victories for the principles of non-violent resistance, eight months of countrywide strikes forced the economy to a standstill and saw the closure of banks and businesses across the nation.
Finally, after a record-shattering 738 days, weathering the brutal winters of Northern California, enduring harassment from helicopters and sieges from the ground, an agreement was made and Hill won a 200-foot (61-meter) protective zone around Luna.
Julia “Butterfly” Hill had been involved in environmental activism for nearly all of her adult life, and became a renowned and widely respected tree-sitter, known for her unshakable commitment and endurance. In the 1990s, Hill was in California protesting the logging of the beautiful and gargantuan California redwood trees. Demanding a protective zone be established around at least a portion of the forest and the oldest of the massive trees, Hill climbed to the top of a 1,000-year-old redwood, nicknamed Luna.
One of the largest and most televised resistance movements of this century was the massive gilet jaune, or yellow vest movement, in France. Citizens across the country banded together en masse to protest rising gas prices.
The movements evolved and grew in scope, and eventually protesters were fighting not only for lower gas prices but all-around political reform on an institutional level, with some even calling for French President Emmanuel Macron to be removed from office. The protests lasted in varying intensity from 2018 into 2020.
When the members of the nearly 200 indigenous nations from 25 different states arrived in Washington, they occupied the main office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and didn’t budge for nearly a week while negotiations with the government went on.
In 1972, around 700 Native American activists made their way from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Washington, D.C., demanding the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and an increase in funding for essential infrastructure on reservations.
Protesting India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act that allowed military personnel the right to kill indiscriminately within zones deemed “disturbed areas,” Irom Sharmila had her last meal on November 4, 2000, and did not willfully eat again for 16 years.
In 1973, angered by what they saw as widespread corruption within the tribal government of the Pine Ridge Reservation, around 200 members of the American Indian Movement occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, widely known by their acronym ACT UP, started by Larry Kramer (pictured), was the leading AIDS rights and awareness activism group during the epidemic that devastated the world during the 1980s and '90s. They were known for grabbing the public’s attention through shocking public appearances and acts of civil disobedience.
Sharmila was swiftly arrested for attempting to end her own life, illegal in India at the time, and was fed essential nutrients through a tube in her nose until she ended her strike in 2016. Unfortunately, the law was never repealed, but Sharmila’s tenacity and dedication made her a widely respected figure in India and around the world.
Sources: (History) (Grunge) (ONE) (Everyday Feminism)
See also: Malala Yousafzai and other young activists changing the world
One of the most famous photographs in history is that of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức setting himself on fire in the middle of the busy streets of Saigon in 1963. Thích Quảng Đức committed this act of self-immolation in protest of the widespread prosecution of Buddhists by the hard-line Catholic then-president of Vietnam, Ngô Đình Diệm.
The 71-day siege the followed often turned violent, with the movement members frequently exchanging gunfire with the U.S. Marshals and FBI agents that surrounded the town. By the end of the siege, none of the American Indian Movement’s demands were met, and two Native Americans had lost their lives.
One of the most famous of these was the ‘Ashes Action.’ In October of 1992, scores of ACT UP members marched through Washington, D.C. towards the White House. Once they arrived, they took the ashes of their loved ones who had died from AIDS and spread them across the lawn of the White House in an act of rebellion and of healing. One organizer was quoted as saying, “I remember when the ashes went over the fence of the White House. I just don’t remember convulsive grief like the grief I felt in that moment.”
Nothing brings about change more than people taking matters into their own hands. Activism, popular uprisings, labor strikes, and protests have always been the most direct and effective methods of bringing about a better and more just world. The eight-hour work day, the right for all to marry, the independence of numerous nations across the world, and so much more all started with activism and popular movements. The right to organize is one of our most important rights, and learning more about how it's been implemented in the past is essential to making good use of it in the future.
Intrigued? Read on to learn more about some of the most memorable feats of activism from history.
History's most admirable feats of activism
When everyday people take fate into their own hands
LIFESTYLE History
Nothing brings about change more than people taking matters into their own hands. Activism, popular uprisings, labor strikes, and protests have always been the most direct and effective methods of bringing about a better and more just world. The eight-hour work day, the right for all to marry, the independence of numerous nations across the world, and so much more all started with activism and popular movements. The right to organize is one of our most important rights, and learning more about how it's been implemented in the past is essential to making good use of it in the future.
Intrigued? Read on to learn more about some of the most memorable feats of activism from history.