Earth Day, which takes place on
April 22nd, was born from an idea by
Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1962. Nelson observed that environmental
degradation was sweeping the nation and wanted to find a way to bring the issue to the nation's
attention. Nelson pitched the idea to then Attorney General
Robert Kennedy, who
took the idea to the President (at the time
JFK), from this idea President Kennedy launched an eleven state "
conservation tour" in September of 1963. This tour did not
succeed in putting environmental issues into the national
agenda.
Senator Nelson continued to speak out to people about environmental concerns, with the motive of thrusting environmental issues into the political
mainstream, conducting a 25
state tour. In 1969, when protests of the
Viet Nam war were in full swing. Nelson noticed the phenomenon of "teach-ins" taking place on
college campuses all over the nation. He used this example as a way to start a
grassroots campaign in promoting environmental awareness. The plan was to infuse the student's anti-war
energy into environmental issues as
well.
In September 1969 Senator Nelson announced that in the
Spring of 1970 there would be nationwide
demonstration on behalf of the environment. Five months later
the New York Times ran an article noticing the proliferation of environmental events. On April 22nd, 1970 twenty million people across the nation participated
in the first Earth Day demonstrations. Earth Day has waxed and waned with the prevailing environmental
attitude since then, but it remains a piece of
Americana for all time.
Noders Note: This writeup was being worked on while
Segnbora-t's wu was posted, it is not meant to correct her write-up in any way. The
information in this node comes from Senator Nelson's own
account on how
he helped create Earth Day.