Anti-Nuclear March

On March 28th 1979, one of the worst accidents in US History regarding Nuclear Power happened, the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania failed and released roughly 2.5 million curies of radioactive noble gases into the surrounding areas. It has been examined that the 2 million people in the surrounding areas around the reactor would have came in contact with the radiation. This mishap would create the largest number of Anti-Nuclear protest across the country in recent history, the following week there were protest across 9 cities in the United States. This incident would tap into several Americans fears of a nuclear arms race. On May 6th 1979, roughly 125,000 protestors gathered in Washington and marched from the White House to the capital to end the use of nuclear power. These protestors would march on Washington propose the closing of several of these nuclear reactor. They would also chant different slogans including "Hell no, we won't glow". The protestors also heard speeches from the likes of Ralph Nader and California Governor Edmund Brown. These marches and protest lead to shutdowns of upward of 7 different nuclear power plants along the east coast.

Sources:

Boissoneault, L. (2017, January 17). Eleven Times When Americans Have Marched in Protest on Washington. Retrieved September 13, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/suffrage-civil-rights-war-and-puppets-when-and-why-americans-have-marched-washington-180961809/

Global Nonviolent Action Database. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2020, from https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/us-anti-nuclear-activists-campaign-against-restarting-three-mile-island-nuclear-generator-19