Preceding Immolations
On June 11, 1963 Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection. Thích Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Diệm administration. Photos of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm regime.
On March 16, 1965 Alice Herz, an 82 year old pacifist, immolated herself on a Detroit street corner in protest of the escalating Vietnam War. A man and his two boys were driving by and saw her burning and put out the flames. She died of her wounds ten days later.
On November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison doused himself in kerosene and set himself on fire below Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's Pentagon office.
Read more about this topic: Roger Allen LaPorte
Famous quotes containing the word preceding:
“Very few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization. We call these millions men; but they are not yet men. Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disengage him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)