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The Burning of Paper, Not Children: A Look at the Catonsville Nine

The Burning of Paper, Not Children: A Look at the Catonsville Nine

06/29/2022 in Maryland by Jenna Furtado

In 1968, nine members of the Catholic Faith entered a Selective Services office in the sleepy town of Catonsville, Maryland. They grabbed hundreds of draft files from the office and took them to the parking lot below, where they burned the files with homemade napalm. These people, known as the Catonsville Nine, represented one small part of the Catholic Left movement, yet became known nationwide for their action and commitment to their beliefs. 

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DC
"Dow Shalt Not Kill": The Story of the D.C. Nine

"Dow Shalt Not Kill": The Story of the D.C. Nine

01/23/2020 in DC by Frank Carroll

“Nine persons broke into the Washington offices of Dow Chemical Co. at 15th and L Streets nw. yesterday, poured what they said was human blood on furniture and equipment and threw files out a fourth floor window,” read the front page of the Washington Post on Sunday, March 23, 1969.  The images which accompanied the article showed a chaotic scene: one protestor heaving files out of a broken window; papers scattered, as if struck by a tornado, across the pavement below. But these were not your ordinary criminals. 

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DC
The Fire of Norman Morrison

The Fire of Norman Morrison

10/25/2018 in DC by Mark Jones

Dusk was approaching when Norman Morrison pulled into the Pentagon parking lot on November 2, 1965. Parking his two-tone Cadillac in the lot, he walked toward the north entrance, carrying his 11-month old daughter, Emily, and a wicker picnic basket with a jug of kerosene inside. Reaching a retaining wall at the building’s perimeter, the 31-year-old Quaker from Baltimore climbed up and began pacing back and forth. Around 5:20 pm, he yelled to Defense Department workers who were leaving the building.

Then, the unthinkable.

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DC
The Silent Majority Storm The National Mall

The Silent Majority Storm The National Mall

03/02/2017 in DC by Avi Mednick

The Vietnam era was marked by student anti-war protests and the counterculture movement. But in 1970 the "silent majority" organized the era's largest pro-war demonstration, simultaneously protesting against President Nixon's Vietnam War policies and "hippies and yippies everywhere."

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DC
The Jeannette Rankin Brigade

The Jeannette Rankin Brigade

08/24/2016 in DC by Lafayette Matthews

In 1916, Jeannette Rankin made history as the first woman elected to Congress. A renowned pacifist, Rankin was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. involvement in World War II. At age 87, Rankin made one final push for peace by leading an anti-Vietnam march: the Jeannette Rankin Brigade.

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Maryland
May 1970: College Park Explodes

May 1970: College Park Explodes

04/27/2015 in Maryland by Patrick Kiger

The May 4, 1970 antiwar protest at Kent State University in Ohio, in which National Guard troops fired into a crowd of demonstrators protesting the Nixon Administration's invasion of Cambodia and shot four of them dead, was a traumatic event that burned itself into the American collective memory. A photo of a teenage girl crying out in shock over the body of one of the slain students became, for many, the iconic image that captured a frighteningly turbulent time.

But it's almost forgotten that the University of Maryland's flagship campus in College Park was rocked by a protest that was bigger and possibly more raucous than the one at Kent State.

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DC
As the Thunder Rolls into DC

As the Thunder Rolls into DC

05/24/2013 in DC by Ariel Veroske

You can hear the rumble from miles away, a deep roar of engines joined together for a cause. This Memorial Day weekend, thousands of motorcyclists will ride in unison across Memorial Bridge, a moving force of memory and action for POW's and soldiers listed as Missing in Action. Rolling Thunder, as the demonstration is called, has been a Washington Memorial Day tradition since 1988. But do you know the history behind it?

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Boundary Stones explores local history in Washington, D.C., suburban Maryland and northern Virginia. This project is a service of WETA and is supported by contributions from readers like you.

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