25 Facts About Lesser-Known Protests and Activists to Get You Blaring Some Rage Against the Machine and Drawing Up Some Hilarious Picket Signs

Hit the facts then hit the streets!
25 Facts About Lesser-Known Protests and Activists to Get You Blaring Some Rage Against the Machine and Drawing Up Some Hilarious Picket Signs
Add Cracked to Google

Seeing something and saying something takes a lot of courage and is just downright commendable. Good on these folks who didn’t lay down without a fight, ya know? It gets these cowardly fact-finders amped up to talk a big game but most likely not do anything about it.

Can using our platform to help spread the word count as “doing our part”? Please! From the looks of these, it’s a lot safer behind this keyboard.

The 1960 Bloody Wade-In

CRACKED.COM 1960 Bloody Wade-In You (hopefully) learned about the sit-ins and bus boycotts of the Civil Rights Movement, but there were several wade-ins in Biloxi, Mississippi, to protest segregated beaches. In one, police stood by while a white mob violently attacked the 125 Black protestors with pipes and chains. Five years later in federal court, the beach would become more accessible to Black people.

Bayard Rustin

Civil Rights Leader CRACKED.COM Bayard Rustin The organizer behind the 1963 March on Washington, Rustin was a master strategist behind the scenes of the civil rights movement and a mentor to Martin Luther King.

Sylvia Rivera

LGBT Activist CRACKED.COM Sylvia Rivera Rivera was an active participant in the Stonewall Riots. Along with her good friend Marsha P. Johnson, she started Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) which provided housing and food for trans people in need. At only 19, she became a mother to many residents.

Barbara Gittings

LGBT Activist CRACKED.COM Barbara Gittings In the 1950s, Gittings started a NY chapter of the lesbian organization Daughters of Bilitis. Within her lifetime of activism, she was essential to getting the APA to stop classifying homosexuality as a disorder and made huge strides in the ongoing battle to end workplace discrimination against LGBTQ people.

Lesbia Harford

Poet, Activist CRACKED.COM Lesbia Harford LESBIA VENNER HARFORD DIED of 071927 RIP The bisexual woman was one of the first women at Melbourne University to receive a law degree but chose to worked at a clothing factory, where she became Vice President of the Clothing Workers Union. She was an adamant supporter of women liberation through workers' rights and open relationships. She campaigned with IWW, even during WWI when the union was banned.

David Kato

LGBT Activist CRACKED.COM David Kato Considered by some the father of the Ugandan LGBT rights movement, Kato was a founding member of Integrity Uganda, which provided support to victims of anti-gay hate. Не became the first gay man to speak out in the Uganda press, distressed by the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which was fueled by US missionaries and called for the execution of gay people.

Jackie Shane

Singer CRACKED.COM Jackie Shane The Black trans R&B singer had a Canadian hit with her 1963 cover of Any Other Way which included the lyric: Tell her that I'm happy/tell her that I'm gay. Her anthology was released in 2017 and received a Grammy nomination.

Karl Ulrichs

Lawyer CRACKED.COM Karl Ulrichs Ulrichs was a German legal advisor who was dismissed on the basis of his sexuality. In 1867, he was the first openly gay man to speak out in defense of homosexuality to the Congress of German Jurists. His 1870 book Araxes: a Call to Free the Nature Penal Law laid groundwork for future LGB literature, saying Sexual orientation is... established by nature. Legislators have no right to persecute.

The 1938 Hilo Massacre

CRACKED.COM 1938 Hilo Massacre In Hawai'i, 200 union workers protested the arrival of the SS Waialeale. 70 police officers tear gassed, hosed, and fired riot guns into the unarmed crowd, injuring 50 women, men, and children.

The 1933 Anti-Nazi Boycott

CRACKED.COM 1933 Anti-Nazi Boycott CO. Only months after Hitler was appointed Chancellor, American Jewish people organized an anti-Nazi rally. Over 55,000 people flooded Madison Square Garden, calling for an end to the brutal treatment of Jewish Germans.

The 1917 Silent Parade

CRACKED.COM 1917 Silent Parade WE MOLO THEM AMOUNT Tom MAR THAT ALL MEN AM cer ATEM COUNC THAT ٢٠٢٠ AUS CRE ATOM WHTW ENDOWED .. MIGHTS THAT - CORTAIN FRESE UNALIE AREAU MABLE EIGEHTY AND twi POW OF AFRICAN YEAR NAPPINESS - THIS - In the first large New York demonstration for Black lives, 10,000 Black Americans marched silently to protest recent lynchings and the 39 murders of Black people during the St. Louis Riots. After the protest, the organizers went to a planned meeting with President Eisenhower and were stood up.

The 1913 Suffrage Parade

CRACKED.COM 1913 Suffrage Parade Before the innarguration of Woodrow Wilson, 8000 people joined in D.C. to march for women's suffrage. The parade included a performance watched by over 20,000 spectators. A New York Times journalist saidit was one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged inthis country. Angry spectators hospitalized over 100 marchers as police watched.

The 1902 Kosher Meat Boycott

CRACKED.COM 1902 Kosher Meat Boycott WOMEN RESUME RIOTS AGAINST MEAT SHOPS Brooklyn Police Take Twenty-two Prisoners in Street Fight. Jewish women on NYC's Lower East Side took to streets to protest the drastic, monopolistic price increase of kosher meat. 20,000 people attacked butcher shops, breaking windows and lighting meat on fire. RESULTS: Prices were dropped to 14 cents a pound, making kosher meat more affordable again.

The 1739 Stono Rebellion

CRACKED.COM 1739 Stono Rebellion 1 2 20 enslaved people raided a warehouse, where they put the decapitated heads of the white owners on the storefront for all to see. They marched towards the freedom of a Spanish colony, burning houses and killing white people along the way. Other enslaved people joined them, totaling around 100. They marched for over a week until English colonists killed many of them.

The 1688 Germantown Protest

CRACKED.COM 1688 Germantown Protest an why H F there and flavor a Cl A. i the to many Fp time when How fearful being a Go for Slaves Any on Mey the Now Jus There what and we They is This the it facedo A from vaffel De Jun QA, life and it rudnes and is Junior for yea carfee H were hear their That drid yes mop heid part that Segars many of are and Ohem brought jay are They Holl New the Black Can li Meres is the for servive more not C. One of the earliest actions

Lois Jenson

Lois Jenson filed (and won) America's first-ever class-action sexual harassment lawsuit: Jenson v. Eveleth Mines. Jenson's 14-year legal battle was fueled by the horrendous degree of physical and verbal abuse that she and her female co-miners endured at work on a daily basis. Her well-deserved victory caused other companies to create sexual harassment policies and paved the way for career women to own and defend their rights. CRACKED.COM

Beate Sirota Gordon

CRACKED.COM Beate Sirota Gordon secretly introduced equal rights and women's civil rights to post-WWII Japan - and got away with it. As a part of the subcommittee tasked to write Japan's new constitution, she included a few articles that denounced gender and racial discrimination without telling anyone about it, altering Japan's civil rights forever.

Jeanette Rankin

CRACKED.COM Jeannette Rankin was elected as the first woman member of Congress in 1916, four years before American women were allowed to vote. I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won't be the last. -Jeannette Rankin As a determined pacifist, she voted against the participation of the US in both world wars, despite knowing that it would damage her career. After her retirement, she continued to advocate for peace, denouncing the Vietnam War.

Yu Gwan-sun

In 1919, at the age of 16, Yu Gwan-sun fought for Korean independence, protesting Japanese colonial rule. She was sent to prison, where she organized a large-scale protest a year later. She kept fighting for independence despite torture which eventually led to her death. EXP She's been called 4111 the Korean Joan of Arc. CRACKED.COM

Belva Ann Lockwood

In 1876, Belva Ann Lockwood was forbidden from arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court because she was a woman. She then spent years lobbying for a law to fix that - submitting briefs, organizing petitions, and persuading senators. In 1879, she succeeded, and became the first woman lawyer heard by the Supreme Court. CRACKED.COM

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker

CRACKED COM Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was the first woman awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for her work as a surgeon during the Civil War. She was also arrested for wearing men's clothing because she found women's garments too oppressive.

Luisa Capetillo

Luisa Capetillo organized one of the biggest labor strikes in Puerto Rican history After winning the right to wear pants in public, she became an organizer, leading the Sugar Strike of 1916, in which over 40,000 workers protested for nearly half a year. She also wrote a book, My Opinion, which became the first feminist thesis written in Pureto Rico to get major critical praise. CRACKED.COM

Gertrude Boyarski

Young Pole Gertrude Boyarski saw her whole family murdered by the Germans. She then joined the Jewish partisans and mercilessly hunted down soldiers. Gertrude and a friend once volunteered to burn down a bridge frequently used by the Germans, all in honor of International Women's Day. CRACKED.COM

Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Mott was an outspoken abolitionist back in the 1800s. She actively participated in public speeches against slavery despite her exclusion from the American Anti-Slavery Society due to her gender. Instead of letting this stop her, she found another cause to fight for: women's civil rights. CRACKED.COM

Gladys Bentley

GLADYS get BENTLEY LE BON SHOPPE Gladys Bentley was a bawdy nightclub performer who unapologetically wore men's clothing, and was openly attracted to women... IN THE 1930s. A forgotten figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Bentley was a powerful singer and pianist who lived her life on her own terms, even when her lifestyle was illegal. CRACKED.COM

Tags:

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

VIRAL ON CRACKED

A WEEKLY
NEWSLETTER OF
JOKES + TRIVIA

Forgot Password?