History of American Peace Test
American Peace Test grew out of the Freeze movement in 1986. A group of activists who believed that it was going to take civil resistance in order to stop the detonations of nuclear weapons in Nevada.
The Freeze movement was the national campaign to freeze the nuclear arsenal as a step toward disarmament. They merged with the SANE (the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy) and are now Peace Action.
With staff in Las Vegas and Washington, DC, there were regular demonstrations and encampments.
The first big demonstration in 1987 was the February 5th demonstration, where the Peace Caucus of the American Public Health Association raised money to pay for buses from across the country to bring people to what was then the largest demonstration at the Nevada Test Site in history.
There were demonstrations through 1987, including the Grandmothers for Peace demonstration in September, and the Local Elected Officials demonstration in December.
In 1988, there was a ten-day action called Reclaim the Test Site. Over 10,000 people from around the world camped on the Bureau of Land Management land across the highway from the NTS entrance. On March 12, 1988 over 2000 people were arrested and transported to Tonapah, NV, over 150 miles away.
In 1989, the second Reclaim the Test Site took place in April.
…. This entry is under construction and more information will be added soon.