How the U.S. Turns Peaceful Protest into State Violence
Introduction
Throughout American history, peaceful protest has been met not with respect or reform—but with violence, suppression, and erasure. This isn’t an isolated pattern. It is a systemic response, designed to preserve power and control. This timeline doesn’t list every protest. Instead, it remembers moments of national shame, exposing how the United States has handled dissent—with fear, brutality, and, too often, a deliberate rewriting of history.
We present this not as a complete record (which might no longer exist) but as a few threads, exposing patterns and asking what—if anything—we've learned.
The Timeline
1917 — Night of Terror (Women’s Suffrage Movement)
Peaceful women picketing the White House are arrested, beaten, chained to cell bars, and force-fed. Their crime: demanding the vote.
1921 — Tulsa Massacre (Greenwood)
A prosperous Black neighborhood is firebombed by air and razed by a white mob, with law enforcement support. Hundreds are killed. The event is buried—omitted from curricula for nearly a century.
1932 — Bonus Army Massacre
WWI veterans and families peacefully demand promised compensation. They are attacked with tear gas, tanks, and sabers by the U.S. military. No reparations. No accountability.
1963–1965 — Civil Rights Brutality (Birmingham, Selma)
Wikipedia - Birmingham campaign | Wikipedia - Selma to Montgomery marches
Peaceful protestors face fire hoses, dogs, and beatings. Bloody Sunday in Selma becomes a televised wake-up call. But brutality persists.
1970 — Kent State & Jackson State Shootings
Wikipedia - Kent State | Wikipedia - Jackson State
Unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War (Kent) and civil rights (Jackson) are shot by National Guard and police. The former gets headlines; the latter is buried.
1979 — Greensboro Massacre
KKK and Nazis gun down anti-racism protestors. Police stand by. Killers walk free. Event erased from national consciousness.
1985 — MOVE Bombing
Philadelphia drops a bomb on a Black liberation group. 11 dead, including 5 children. 60 homes destroyed. Officials call it justified.
1999 — WTO Protests (Seattle)
Peaceful demonstrators face militarized police, tear gas, and mass arrests. Branded as anarchists, their concerns are dismissed.
2016–2017 — Standing Rock / NoDAPL
Indigenous-led water protectors face rubber bullets, water cannons, and surveillance. Mainstream media largely ignores the crackdown.
2020 — George Floyd Uprising & Lafayette Square
Wikipedia - George Floyd protests | Wikipedia - Lafayette Square incident
Peaceful protestors nationwide are kettled, gassed, and beaten. In D.C., Lafayette Square is violently cleared for a presidential photo op. Surveillance and disinformation follow.
Patterns of Repression
- Escalation by Design: Peaceful actions are framed as threats, justifying excessive force.
- Narrative Control: Language shifts blame—"unrest," "clashes," and "riots" replace truth.
- Erasure: Events are omitted from textbooks, downplayed in media, and forgotten.
- Surveillance and Infiltration: Inspired by the FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), modern tactics digitally monitor, discredit, and preempt protest through predictive policing and social media surveillance.
Buried Not Once — But Thrice (and Sometimes More)
How did we manage to rewrite and bury history so thoroughly, so swiftly? Instead of heading the warnings of Orwell, Butler, and countless others, we used their words as our blueprint.
Physical Burial: The bodies. The ashes. The neighborhoods. Evidence is destroyed. Mass graves are left unmarked. Firebombed homes are bulldozed. The physical landscape is scrubbed of resistance.
Narrative Burial: The media reframes massacres as riots. Peaceful protest becomes provocation. Victims become suspects. The passive voice—"violence broke out"—erases the actor entirely.
Educational Burial: The next generation learns nothing. Textbooks skip over it. Teachers are told not to dwell. Even local survivors are gaslit into silence. The memory dies in the classroom.
Algorithmic Burial: In the age of AI, if a human doesn’t know to ask, the system won’t tell. These events are not top results. Not autocompleted. Not highlighted unless pushed. What’s left out by history can now be left out by default.
Postscript: In Gratitude
We do not claim ownership of these truths. This article stands on the shoulders of historians, activists, journalists, teachers, and survivors who have fought—often alone—to keep memory alive. From the scholars at the Zinn Education Project to the organizers behind the Algorithmic Justice League, to every parent (including my mother who got into trouble with Mother Superior for teaching me long division before everyone else) who taught their child what the textbook omitted—thank you.
Let this be our contribution to the echo. Let others make it thunder.
This is part of a developing Red Hat Creative series. If it made you uneasy, good—it was supposed to.