10 Protests That Shaped The History Of The United States

The tradition of protesting in the United States is older than the country itself. This tradition has been a way for Americans to express outrage against hate, inequality, and violence and to enact change. An example is the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 successfully pressured the Kennedy administration to pass civil rights bills. In 2020, we saw how the Black Lives Matter protests prompted widespread dialogue about racial injustice and the political and cultural systems that support it. Taking a dive into the archives, we compiled a list of protests that shaped the history of the United States.

1. The Germantown Quaker petition against slavery in 1688

A group of Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1688 created the “first written protest against slavery in the new world,” according to the Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust. The group saw the enslavement of others as a contradiction to its religious values and its history of fleeing oppression from the British. Sadly, the petition was not formally accepted by the higher governing bodies of the Quakers, but enslavement was eventually banned within the Quaker community in 1776.

2. The Whiskey Rebellion in 1791

The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as the Whiskey Insurrection) was a violent tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called “whiskey tax” was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. Enraged by this new duty, farmers in Pennsylvania and Virginia used violence and acts of intimidation in attempts to stop the collection of the tax. They justified their tactics with the belief that they were fighting against taxation without representation. President George Washington and his troops headed to the area with the protests to demonstrate the government’s authority to enforce laws.

3. The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848

The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women’s rights convention. It is one of the notable protests that shaped the history of the United States.  It was Held in the Wesleyan Chapel of the town of Seneca Falls, New York, and it spanned two days July 19–20, 1848.  Around 300 people assembled at the convention, to protest the government’s unequal treatment of women and to call for women to be granted all the rights and freedoms outlined in the Declaration of Independence. The convention attracted widespread attention and gave birth to other women’s rights conventions, It also gave the women’s rights movement the momentum it needed to pursue suffrage.

4. New York City draft riots in 1863

The New York City draft riots is a series of violent demonstrations and disturbances that erupted in Lower Manhattan from July 13–16, 1863, in response to a decision by Congress to draft men into the ongoing Civil War. The protests which initially intended to express anger at the draft, the protests turned into a race riot, with white rioters (comprised largely of Irish immigrants) attacking black people, in violence throughout the city. The official death toll was listed at either 119 or 120 individuals. The riots remain the largest civil and most racially charged urban disturbance in American history.

5. Woman Suffrage Procession in 1913

An estimated 5,000–8,000 protesters gathered to march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., ahead of President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in 1913 to call for women’s suffrage. It was the was the first suffragist parade in Washington, D.C. and organized march on Washington for political purposes. The procession was organized by the suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). People in opposition to the protest assaulted many of the demonstrators, sparking public outrage that ultimately helped increase support for women’s right to vote. It was one of many protests for the women’s suffrage movement that decade. The 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, was finally passed in 1920.

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6. March on Washington in 1963

More than 250,000 protesters gathered for a peaceful demonstration outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans, in August 1963.  At the march,  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech in which he called for an end to racism. The march was organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, who built an alliance of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations that came together under the banner of “jobs and freedom.” The march was  recorded as one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history. It put pressure on President John F. Kennedy to push forward civil rights policies. It also helped get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed.

7. Selma to Montgomery march in 1965

Thousands of peaceful activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. trekked from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital of Montgomery in March 1965 to call for an end to the suppression of Black voters.  The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression. Protesters were met with violence from white supremacist groups and local authorities throughout the five-day, 54-mile journey.  President Lyndon B. Johnson would sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965 just a few months later.

8. Stonewall Inn riots in  1969

The Stonewall riots is a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States and around the world

9. Vietnam War protests in 1969

The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969, followed a month later, on November 15, 1969, by a large Moratorium March in Washington, D.C. It was “the first time the anti-war movement reached the level of a full-fledged mass movement. The streets of Washington D.C., were flooded with more than half a million demonstrators calling for the end of the Vietnam War. The protest was part of a string of rallies that erupted across the world that year. The war wouldn’t end for another six years.

10  Solidarity Day march in 1981

Around 260,000 people took to the streets of Washington D.C., on Sept. 19, 1981, for the Solidarity Day march against union-busting. The protest was sparked after President Ronald Reagan fired more than 12,000 air traffic controllers who were  members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization PATCO ). PATCO  who had been stirke demanded wage increases, safer working conditions, a 32-hour week, and an end to long shift patterns. . The solidarity march was even bigger than the great 1968 march, attracting people from different union. It was the first major demonstration to have been organized for decades by the AFL–CIO.