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Twenty Years Ago:
When a Million Marched Against the Bomb

Photos by Dorothy Marder (except as noted)

On June 12, 1982, one million people marched and rallied for disarmament in New York City. Labor unions joined peace groups, other organizations and concerned individuals from across the country in the largest demonstration ever held in the nation’s largest city, in protest against the Reagan administration’s nuclear weapons buildup.

photo: WRL Archives

Two days later, on June 14, there were 1,665 arrests at WRL-organized civil disobedience actions at the U.N. missions of the five then-declared nuclear weapons powers: the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and China.

This past June 12, several hundred people marked the 20th anniversary of the events with a New York City rally against the Bush administration’s nuclear buildup. Veterans of the 1982 actions—including author Jonathan Schell, long-time activist Leslie Cagan, Cora Weiss of the Hague Appeal for Peace and WRL’s Grace Paley—remembered those demonstrations and looked forward to new ones.