Women Strike for Peace End the Arms Race, Not the Human Race
1961 -Berlin Wall
Duck and Cover
1961-Atmospheric Nuclear Testing
1961- Bertrand Russell
Dagmar Wilson I decided that there are some things the individual citizen can do, she told The New York Times in 1962. At least we can make some noise and see. If we are going to have to go under, I don t want to have to go under without a shout.
Carol Urner Human Dynamos Portland, OR Women for Peace I learned from other Portland women the importance of taking individual responsibility and seeking to answer with my life the question "What can one woman do?" I also learned that a mother whose children are threatened is like a bear with cubs -- nothing can stop her, she forgets herself and acts with a courage she didn't know she possessed -- she becomes a human dynamo. Our movement started on August 29 when the Portland Reporter -- a small progressive paper -- printed a letter of mine under a five column heading A Mother's View of our Troubled World. The next day dozens of women, most of them strangers to me, called saying, We must do something! I had not written to organize but out of love for my children, my family and the human race -- and in despair. Portland women did the rest. Their first meeting was on September 7 with about seventy women, their next was on September 21, and their third on November 1 in answer to the call from those wonderful women in Washington D.C. Portland women decided not to become an organization but to be a loose collective with each woman acting openly in her own name, trying to answer the question "What can one woman do."
Ethel Barol Taylor We Made A Difference - Philadelphia When I received the letter from Dagmar asking me to organize a Strike for Peace in the Philadelphia area on November 1, I immediately went into action. Her view that radioactive fallout was an emergency, not merely an issue, expressed my feelings exactly. In the beginning of October, I called a meeting at my home and invited women from the peace movement, friends and neighbors. I told them what I knew of Dagmar s motivation for calling a strike: simply put, nuclear weapons testing was dangerous to our children s health and it could only escalate the nuclear arms race. I warned my friends that the project Dagmar was proposing would be time-consuming, and we would have to fund it ourselves. To a woman, they were undeterred.
You know how men are "You know how men are. They talk in abstractions and the technicalities of the bomb, almost as if this were all a game of chess. Well, it isn't," Wilson said shortly after the protest. "There are times, it seems to me, when the only thing to do is let out a loud scream... Just women raising a hue and cry against nuclear weapons for all of them to cut it out."
Nuclear Testing
1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty Jerome Wiesner, Kennedy's White House Science adviser, gave the major credit for the treaty to SANE and Women Strike for Peace.
Vietnam Ethel Taylor WSP had to make decision. Should we continue campaigning for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or should we devote ourselves completely to the struggle to stop U.S. involvement in Indochina? In reality we had no choice. The war threatened lives here and now. We knew we could not take on both effectively. But the administration had the capacity to engage in a war, and at the same time continue to escalate our nuclear weapons stockpile.
Emerging Leaders - Cora Weiss Did you know that WSP nearly split apart over the decision to move from disarmament to anti Vietnam war work? Did you know that we also separated over working on domestic issues of racism and poverty and had to form the Jeannette Rankin Brigade...WSP was the training ground where we invented ways of educating and mobilizing, learned to work globally...and took unique initiatives, never before done in war time, e. g. the Committee of Liaison with Prisoners of War in Vietnam. When the war as over many women went back to school, got degrees, taught, went to business, very few of us stayed with the movement, but we became more engaged with efforts to bring women to all tables, drafted what became 1325...it's a remarkable history.
Emerging Leaders Coretta Scott King In 1962, she served as a delegate for the Women s Strike for Peace at the 17- nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Later in 1968, she was part of the Jeanette Rankin Peace Brigade (JRPB)
Emerging Leaders Bella Abzug WSP s very own legislative and political action chairperson was elected to Congress in June 1970. The fact that I am legislative chair of WSP contributed greatly to my credibility with voters and made them believe in my leadership. My role in WSP was an important aspect of my campaign and was prominently featured in all my materials WSP played a major role in my victory.
HUAC Which was it that was Un-American Women or Peace? In 1962, 14 WSP women were subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. They arrived with hundreds of friends with their children and with flowers thus befuddling and embarrassing the Committee. They made the scary committee look silly. Some headlines: Peace Gals Make Red Hunters Look Silly Peace Ladies Tangle with Baffled Congress
HUAC Which was it that was Un-American Women or Peace? Blanche Posner from New York WSP: I don t know, sir, why I am here, but I do know why you are here: because you don t understand the nature of the movement. This movement was motivated by mothers love for children. When they were putting their breakfast on the table they saw not only Wheaties and milk, but they also saw strontium-90 and iodine-131. They feared for the life of their children. This is the only motivation.
Two Books to Recommend
A Personal Debt of Gratitude Edith Villastrigo National Legislative Office Seattle Women Act for Peace Anci Koppel
Share the Stories Continue the Work If you have WSP stories to share, please send them to us. We hope to have several blogs posted on our website. The CTBT is still unfinished business, budget priorities are still funding war and excessive Pentagon spending. Children Ask the World of Us www.wandactioncenter.org
Share the Stories Continue the Work Kathy Crandall Robinson Public Policy Director Women's Action for New Directions Cell: (202) 577-9875 Office: (202) 544-5055 ext. 2601 krobinson@wand.org www.wand.org Women. Power. Peace.