September 7th

1897 -- US: Social activist Emma Goldman attempts to make a pro-worker’s rights speech at an open-air meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, but is arrested, in violation of her constitutional right to free speech. She is given 24-hours to leave town or face three months imprisonment. She leaves town, but continues to speak nationwide.

1908 -- US: Antiwar and pro-reproductive rights activist Doctor Ben Reitman delivers a speech on the meaning of Labor Day at Cooper Union.

1908 -- US: Esperanto Association of North America is organized in Chautauqua Lake, NY. “Esperanto” is an invented language whose creators hope will be adopted by everyone in the world, making possible universal communication and a more peaceful planet. Although it has yet to “catch on”, millions of people worldwide studied (and continue to study) the language.

1916 -- US: Federal employees win the right to receive Worker's Compensation insurance.

1931 -- England: Mohandas Gandhi attends the Second India Round-table Conference in London. He goes on to play an instrumental role in India’s successful nonviolent overthrow of centuries of British rule, defeating the most powerful empire on the planet.

1933 -- US: The first strike by cranberry pickers takes place in the bogs of Cape Cod. The strikers formed the Cranberry Pickers Union, but their strike was unsuccessful.

1948 -- Australia: 3,000 attend rally in public launch of Peace Council, Melbourne.

1954 -- US: In the wake of the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision, racial integration of public schools begins in Washington, D.C. & Baltimore, Maryland.

1958 -- US: First meeting of the New York Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian rights organization.

1963 -- Vietnam: Thousands of high school students demonstrate against President Ngo Dinh Diem's South Vietnamese government, which the US backs in the war against the Communist North Vietnamese. Diem’s troops arrest 800 high-school student protestors, and another 1,000 two days later.

1968 -- US: For the first time, feminist protesters successfully interrupt the Miss America beauty pageant in Atlantic City, N.J. They pantomime setting fires (although do not actually do so), which leads to the popular image of “bra-burning.”

1977 -- US: In Wisconsin's first judicial-recall election, outraged Dane County citizens successfully vote judge Archie Simonson from office. The judge had called rape “a normal male reaction” and refused to send rapists to jail, angering the citizenry. He was replaced by Moria Krueger, the first woman judge elected in Dane County history.

1977 -- India: 40,000 workers go on strike in Ghaziabad (some violence as well).

1977 -- Panama: President Omar Torrijos and US President Jimmy Carter successfully negotiate a treaty returning sovereignty of the Canal Zone to Panamá.

1990 -- England: Activists from Ploughshares Two are jailed 15 months for disabling an F-111 bomber in Oxford.

1990 -- Canada: RCMP police disrupt a First Nations encampment in southern Alberta, ending a month-long native attempt to protect what they call sacred land by diverting the Old Man River around a partially completed dam.

1992 -- South Africa: Large demonstrations by the ANC against Apartheid. Soldiers fire on the nonviolent demonstrators, murdering 28. Despite these and many other losses, the ANC eventually helps bring about the nonviolent overthrow of the Apartheid government two years later.

1996 -- US: Two women walk onto the Norfolk (Virginia) Naval Base with a banner reading, "Love Your Enemies." They are arrested.

1996 – US: Rapper and anti-violence activist Tupac Shakur is shot in Las Vegas and dies six days later.

2001 -- England: “The Giant Jump” - 1 million British students jump at the same time. This triggers seismographs all across Britain. The event is an attempt to demonstrate the power of “the people” when united.

2002 -- UN human-rights chief Mary Robinson accuses the USA, Russia and China of using “fighting terrorism” as an excuse to deny their citizens civil rights. Her statement provides a morale boost to civil rights activists in all three countries.

2010 - US: Billionaire philanthropist George Soros gives a multi-million dollar grant to Human Rights Watch to carry on their work in exposing and combatting human rights violations worldwide.