Peaceful protests can bring about change. The Three Mile Island protest march was instrumental in helping to close the nuclear power plant. Anti-nuclear protests had occurred in Germany and the U. K. in the 1960s and 1970s which spread eventually to the U. S. The movie The China Syndrome opened about 10 days before the accident at Three Mile Island. How coincidental. This protest in Washington, D. C. took place about five weeks later.

In June 1983 I covered a demonstration at the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant on Long Island. What had begun as a $500 million bond issue for the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) in 1973 ended as a $6 billion overrun disaster years later. LILCO was unable to provide an approved evacuation plan for Long Island in case of a meltdown. The plant was eventually decommissioned. The meltdown of Chernobyl in 1986 was the final straw for Shoreham.

This photo essay comes to DPI by way of New Hampshire. While the photographer is unknown to us I would argue that the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire most likely inspired one or more New Hampshirites to join the protest in Washington on that day in May.

See the essay @ “Three Mile Island Protest March“; Washington, D. C. (May 6, 1979)