International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Women Strike for Peace (WSP) emerged on November 1, 1961 in an unexpected protest against atmospheric nuclear testing by an estimated 50,000 women in more than sixty locations across the United States. With the slogan “Ban the arms race, not the human race,” WSP mobilized women to lobby Congress on behalf of nuclear test ban treaties. WSP has been credited with aiding ratification of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Underwater. WSP was initiated by a concerned group of women, led by Dagmar Wilson, wife of a staff member at the British embassy in Washington, DC. WSP became a national grassroots organization of mostly middle-class, well-educated white women with independent chapters around the country, all loosely affiliated with a national office headquartered in Washington, DC. WSP gained notoriety when 14 members received subpoenas from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). While most antinuclear groups at the time refused to allow communists in their group, WSP accepted members of all political backgrounds as long as they supported multilateral disarmament. With a combination of humor, school teacher sternness and at times condescension, the members of WSP disarmed HUAC in their testimony from December 11–13, 1962. Scholars have credited WSP with contributing to the decline of HUAC's credibility. The rhetoric of ... log in or subscribe to read full text