11 Peaceful Protests and Their Historic Results

Let’s look through the past 200 years of peaceful protests—from tragic to triumphant to just plain weird—and remember their historic impacts.

1. Cherokee Resistance to Forced Relocation // 1838
2. Salt March // 1930
3. White Rose Resistance // 1942–1943
4. Montgomery Bus Boycott // 1955–1956
5. Kent State Demonstrations // 1970
6. Pureora Forest Protest // 1978
7. The Singing Revolution // 1987-1991
8. Tiananmen Square Protest // 1989
9. Lusty Lady Strike // 1997
10. Nurse-In at Applebee’s // 2007
11. Wisconsin Public Employees’ Strike // 2011

Cherokee Resistance to Forced Relocation // 1838

Objective: To defend Cherokee homelands in the southeastern U.S. against seizure by the federal government.

Method of Protest: Cherokee people stood their ground.

What Happened: The 1830 Indian Removal Act gave President Andrew Jackson the authority to make treaties with five tribes—the Seminole, Muscogee (Creek), Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee—and relocate them to “Indian Territory” (present-day Oklahoma) so white settlers could take over the land. According to the National Park Service, the Cherokee allied behind Principal Chief John Ross and held out against the U.S.’s overtures until another Cherokee leader, Major Ridge, convinced many of the people that relocating their community was the only way to preserve their culture and traditions. His followers signed the controversial Treaty of New Echota in 1835, giving up all of the Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for land in Indian Territory. To convince them to go, U.S. troops destroyed Cherokee homes and property. About 4000 people died of disease and starvation on the months-long march from western North Carolina and Georgia to eastern Oklahoma in 1838.

Was the Protest a Success? The paths the Cherokee and the other four tribes took from their homelands are still known as the Trail of Tears. They gave up their ancestral territories but not their culture. Today, the Cherokee Nation is the largest tribe in the U.S. and has 450,000 citizens, mostly in eastern Oklahoma, who maintain strong ties to their language, arts, and history.

Salt March // 1930

Objective: To protest the British monopoly on salt and to secure Indian independence.

Method of Protest: Mahatma Gandhi walked 240 miles over the course of 24 days, joined by a growing number of followers, to collect his own salt.

What Happened: Gandhi encouraged civil disobedience (or satyagraha) against the Salt Act, which prevented Indian citizens from collecting and selling salt to forcing them to buy expensive salt from colonial British merchants because he felt it was an issue that would unite all social classes and religions against India’s colonizers. Gandhi was arrested and jailed upon reaching his destination, but the protest drew national attention to his cause.

Was the Protest a Success? Gandhi was released from prison in 1931 and promised an end to satyagraha in exchange for a significant role in negotiations for Britain to give up control of India. The Salt March is considered a milestone in India’s struggle for independence, which was finally obtained two decades later.

White Rose Resistance // 1942–1943

Objective: To undermine Nazi control of Germany in the midst of World War II.

Method of Protest: German students distributed leaflets in Munich that challenged the philosophy of the Nazis.

What Happened: After being conscripted into the German military and serving on the Eastern Front, medical students returned to Munich completely opposed to Nazi ideology. They protested in a series of anonymous leaflets released to the public. More young people joined the movement and distributed leaflets in other German cities under the “White Rose” signifier, which attracted attention from the Gestapo. In 1943, two of the members were seen distributing the leaflets. They were immediately arrested, and the Gestapo apprehended other resistance fighters and their families. Three founding members of the group, including siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, were convicted of treason and executed by guillotine on the same day of their trials.

Was the Protest a Success? The White Rose group was dismantled and Nazi ideology continued to permeate Germany, but the deaths of the activists inspired further resistance.

Montgomery Bus Boycott // 1955–1956

Objective: To protest racial segregation and achieve equal accommodation for Black citizens in the American South.

Method of Protest: Black civil rights activists in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to use public transportation.

What Happened: On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks got on a public bus to go home from work. She refused to give up her seat at the front when a white passenger boarded, a violation of local law, for which she was arrested. The NAACP called on Black residents to boycott the bus system for one day. The protest ended up being so successful that it went on for a total of 381 days while Parks’s case wound through the courts. An Alabama district court ruled that the racial segregation was unlawful; the decision was appealed but upheld by the Supreme Court.

Was the Protest a Success? The Montgomery Bus Boycott not only helped strike down a racist law, it also served as the impetus for the larger civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Kent State Demonstrations // 1970

Objective: To convince President Richard Nixon to stop the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and end the Vietnam War.

Method of Protest: Students held four days of nonviolent protests and marches.

What Happened: On April 30, 1970, Nixon announced on TV that the U.S. was not winding down the war in Vietnam, as he had promised in his presidential campaign, but actually widening it to include a military invasion of Cambodia. The next day, students at Kent State University in Ohio protested the decision with marches and rallies at the center of the campus. The mayor asked Ohio’s governor to send in the National Guard, while students refused to back down and called for a rally on May 4, which the college attempted to ban. About 3000 people were gathered for the event when National Guard troops fired 67 rounds into the demonstration, killing four and injuring nine people.

Was the Protest a Success? While there were no immediate changes in U.S. foreign policy, the demonstration and its tragic conclusion sparked additional, sustained protests across the country.

Pureora Forest Protest // 1978

Objective: To stop loggers from cutting down old-growth trees in New Zealand’s Pureora Forest.

Method of Protest: Activists built tree houses, hid under logs, and refused to leave the forest.

What Happened: Members of the Native Forests Action Council and other groups protested logging companies’ attempts to harvest 1000-year-old native trees. Activists sat in front of trees to block chainsaws, distributed themselves around the forest, and built platforms above targeted areas to monitor the loggers. They refused to leave until the government met their demands. Officials agreed to permanently stop logging operations, and the area became a protected park.

Was the Protest a Success? Not only did the protest save the Pureora trees; the activists’ tactics inspired many other tree-sitting protests around the world.

The Singing Revolution // 1987-1991

Objective: For Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to regain independence from the Soviet Union.

Method of Protest: Protesters gathered in the streets where they sang songs of national pride.

What Happened: For much of the Cold War era, expressions of national pride were banned in the Baltic states, then under the thumb of the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced a policy of glasnost (“openness”) that allowed for greater personal freedoms, and, coupled with more access to the West by the mid-1980s, revolutions began to simmer. Thousands of protestors in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania gathered in public to sing national songs like “The Baltics Are Waking Up!” and “Eestlane olen ja eestlaseks jään” (“Estonian I Am and Estonian I Will Be”). After four years of demonstrations, many involving song, all three countries declared independence and regained sovereignty.

Was the Protest a Success? The Baltics’ pro-democracy demonstrations inspired other Soviet republics to declare independence from the USSR, which ultimately dissolved in 1991.

Tiananmen Square Protest // 1989

Objective: To achieve political reform and a free press in China’s authoritarian government.

Method of Protest: Seven weeks of peaceful marches and demonstrations in Beijing.

What Happened: At the height of the pro-democracy demonstrations, about 1 million people gathered in the square to call for anti-corruption measures, equitable economic policies, and individual rights. China’s leaders enacted martial law in late May 1989. When the protestors did not disperse, the People’s Liberation Army of China opened fire on the demonstrators. The exact death toll of the incident is still unknown. The Chinese government cites 241 deaths and about 7000 injured, but others estimate many more casualties.

Was the Protest a Success? The current Chinese government suppresses mention of the demonstrations and the massacre.

Lusty Lady Strike // 1997

Objective: For the workers at the Lusty Lady, a San Francisco strip club, to form a union.

Method of Protest: Strippers went on strike, protesting with signs outside the club and asking patrons not to enter.

What Happened: Workers at the club were unhappy with management for discriminating against dancers of color and installing one-way mirrors that allowed patrons to take photos and videos without the dancers’ consent, among other grievances. After a lengthy legal battle, the dancers were permitted to form a union and became an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

Was the Protest a Success? Workers gained job protections, but the club closed in 2013.

Nurse-In at Applebee’s // 2007

Objective: To prevent Applebee’s Restaurants from illegally discriminating against public breastfeeding.

Method of Protest: Activists mounted a “nurse-in” across the country in which breastfeeding mothers would nurse their infants in plain view of Applebee’s.

What Happened: When an Applebee’s restaurant in Kentucky told a breastfeeding mom to cover up to avoid indecent exposure, activists across the country accused the restaurant chain of breaking state laws explicitly allowing public breastfeeding. As moms protested outside the restaurants, Applebee’s put out a statement, saying, “This situation has provided an opportunity for us to work with our associates to ensure we’re making nursing mothers feel welcome ... we will also accommodate other guests who would be more comfortable moving to another area of the restaurant.”

Was the Protest a Success? The nurse-in forced Applebee’s to change its tune and highlighted the lawfulness of public breastfeeding across most U.S. states.

Wisconsin Public Employees’ Strike // 2011

Objective: To keep collective bargaining rights and other benefits for unions in Wisconsin.

Method of Protest: As many as 10,000 teachers and allies occupied the Wisconsin Capitol over three weeks, with tens of thousands more gathering outside the building.

What Happened: Republican Governor Scott Walker was poised to sign the state’s Budget Repair Bill, which would have stripped collective bargaining rights from teachers, doubled their health care contributions, and eliminated other rights. The bill passed the legislature without public comment, but before Walker signed it, activists inside the capitol were permitted to testify. The protest sparked similar actions in support of public employees in other states.

Was the Protest a Success? Walker eventually signed the bill into law, but the protest laid the foundations for later recall elections against legislators who had supported the bill and the governor, and exposed a multi-state plan to chip away at public employees’ bargaining power.

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A version of this story was published in 2011; it has been updated for 2025.