Specific History of Protests

This section is a bit different from the others, because instead of talking about the history that lead up to this inclusion, I’m going to talk about some of the biggest and most influential protests in the history of the United States. (This is oversimplifying the events involved, but for the sake of this section being digestible, the information is historically correct and succinct.) 

The Boston Tea Party was an organized act of defiance of the British Parliamentary tax on tea, as they felt it was unfair that they were being taxed without having and representation in parliament. The Sons of Liberty dressed in Native American disguises and snuck on board ships in the Boston Harbor. They threw 342 crates of tea into the harbor. Parliament’s retaliation, while not achieving what Parliament hoped, pushed the colonies closer to Revolution. 

March 11, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire and a combination of locked stairwell doors, rusted fire hoses, and overall lack of fire safety, 146 workers, mostly immigrant women, died. Many protests were held by workers and labor unions and lead to the investigation of the fire and legislation was later passed to prevent such violations from occurring again. 

 March 13, 1913, thousands of women marched along Pennsylvania, demanding the right to vote. The procession was blocked by a crowd 250,00 strong of jeering men, until the U.S. Army troops came an hour later to allow the procession forward. An example of how the government is supposed to protect protesters. This was not the first or the largest protest for women’s suffrage, but it is deemed the one that gave the movement the energy to push the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment. 

 In July of 1936, there were hundreds of deaths in General Motors factories thought to result from bad working conditions. On November 12th, the workers started their sit-down strike inside of the General Motors factory, where they played board games, gave lectures and organized concerts to prevent work from being done and violence from occurring. A second plant joined the strike on January 1st, 1937 and the largest plant was taken by strike on February 1st. After 44 days of strike, the President of the company announced a pay raise and recognized the union. This was the first major win for unions, leading to 87 other sit-down strikes in the next two weeks. This eventually lead to major union action in the next decade. 

A black woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a segregated bus to a white man. She was arrested and fined, sparking outrage in the black community. A boycott of the Montgomery bus system was organized and lasted for 381 days, with many people walking, carpooling, or taking taxis to their jobs or destinations. After 381 days, Montgomery Alabama was forced to integrate the busses.  

 200,000 people marched on Washington to address the issues the black community were facing across the country. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech and the crowds put pressure on Congress and the President to do something for the Civil Rights Movement. While the result was not immediate, this pressure eventually pushed the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

This is a good example of how a small protest can have a large effect. During the medal ceremony of the 1968 Summer Olympics, two African American track runners stood on the podium with their heads bowed and their fists raised while the national anthem played, as a sign of respect to the country and as a way to bring awareness to issue in the United States. There was a lot of backlash when they returned to the states, but their protest inspired many people around the world to use their platforms to spread awareness. 

In the 60s, there were constant raids on gay bars by police, as a gathering of LGBTQ people was considered automatically “disorderly”. While run by the mafia and lacking many safety features, the Stonewall Inn was a large part of the community at the time, giving night refuge to gay runaways and allowing drag queens and dancing, both of which were not allowed at other gay clubs. On June 28, 1969, police entered the bar with a search warrant, arresting and assaulting patrons and employees and even forcibly checking the sexes of cross dressers. Instead of dispersing, the neighborhood residents and patrons started a full blown riot, breaching the police barricade and attempting to set the inn on fire with police still inside. That riot was dispersed that night, but it was followed by five days of protests and riots which inspired the founding of many LGBTQ organizations and, one year later, the United States first pride parade.