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Our History and Roots
While Peace Action of New York State is a new creation,
Peace Action has a long and fruitful history in New York and around the country.
Ban the Bomb
Peace Action has its roots in the "ban the bomb"
movement of the 1950s. Citizens, alarmed by the spiraling nuclear
arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, formed
the Committee for a SANE nuclear policy "to develop public
support for a boldly conceived and executed policy which will lead
mankind away from war and toward peace and justice."
Beginning with a full page advertisement in the
New York Times, SANE spokespeople like Schweitzer, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Norman Thomas, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Bertrand Russell,
Pablo Casals, Roger Baldwin, Paul Tillich and Erich Fromm helped
SANE became an effective national voice for nuclear disarmament.
From the beginning, SANE saw peace and justice as linked; supporters
like Dr. Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, Harry Belafonte,
Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis connected SANE with civil and human rights
movements across the nation. As its reputation grew, artists and
entertainers like Steve Allen, Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda, Marilyn
Monroe and Arthur Miller joined Harry Belafonte and Ossie Davis
to form Hollywood's Stars for SANE.
Our First Victory
and Confronting the Vietnam War
In 1963, members led the effort for our first major
victory, the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. SANE was an early
leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement. Ben Spock and Seymour Melman,
as well as current Board members David Cortright, Marcus Raskin,
Robert Schwartz and President Emeritus William Sloane Coffin were
all deeply involved in this movement. SANE's public education campaigns
linked Vietnam with nuclear spending--for example, through its anti-ABM
(anti-ballistic missile) campaign slogan: "From the people
who brought you Vietnam!" In 1978, SANE led the successful
fight against MX mobile missile deployment--avoiding massive environmental
damage in Utah and Nevada. New alliances with labor were formed
through work with the International Association of Machinists, whose
President, William Winpisinger, served as Board Co-Chair.
The Freeze
In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan's nuclear
war-fighting policies reignited public outrage once again, and the
Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign was born--initiated by Randall Forsberg's
call to "freeze and reverse the nuclear arms race." The
Freeze was a grassroots-based confederation of groups with offices
in St. Louis and Washington, D.C. Their 1982 ballot initiatives
in towns and cities across the nation gave voice to a public desire
for nuclear sanity--a voice that eventually attracted attention
from the great nuclear warrior himself. Throughout the 1980s Freeze
leaders Randall Forsberg, Pam Solo and Randy Kehler worked tirelessly
with SANE Director David Cortright to push for nuclear reductions.
Elected officials such as Rep. Patricia Schroeder and Sen. Ted Kennedy
joined us to lead the fight in Congress. And when the U.S. government
began to hold the line on nuclear weapons, Vice President Bush felt
compelled to remind voters that it was not "those Freeze folks"
who brought about this change ... handing us a backhanded (if thoroughly
unintentional) compliment.
In 1987, leadership from the two groups initiated
negotiations for a merger. With great effort, in a political context
dominated by right-wing Republicanism and increased militarism,
SANE and The Freeze joined to become SANE/FREEZE, and in 1993, Peace
Action.
Peace Action Today
Today, Peace Action has broadened its origional nuclear
disarmament mission to include the elimination of the trade in conventional
weapons at home and abroad, support for a peace economy that funds
human rather than corporate/military needs, and advocacy for peacemaking
in local communities as well as foreign conflicts. Of course, we
still work for the globabl abolition of nuclear weapons.
Most recently Peace Action's Peace Voter issue advocacy
campaign reaches millions of voters in Congressional Districts across
the nation. Peace Action members have worked successfully for the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
the World Court ruling against nuclear weapons, military budget
cuts and landmine legislation. Peace Action members serve as NGO
representatives at the United Nations, advocating for peace and
justice with citizens from around the world. Coalitions with labor
as well as with community anti-violence groups and the Congressional
Black Caucus, have strengthened the connections between disarmament
and social justice.
After more than 40 years of struggle and success,
Peace Action continues to educate, lobby, mobilize and act. We began
with a call to help lead the world "away from war and toward
peace and justice." Now we build a campaign for a new century.
We know that people in communities around the world can help abolish
nuclear and conventional war--just as they ended slavery in the
United States and apartheid in South Africa. And we plan to do exactly
that, with programs that honor our history, and build a future worthy
of our children.
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