Significant Events for Peace Activism in Orange County
Some important events in the history of peace activism in Orange County:
- 1950s--The aerospace industry comes to Orange County in the wake of World War II. Eventually 10% of the county’s economy, which was once based largely on agriculture, will be dependent on this industry, which includes defense manufacturing.
- 1960s--The Vietnam era brings anti-war demonstrations to the county, capped by the October, 1970, firebombing of a Bank of America branch near UC Irvine.
- 1977--In August, a group that eventually became the Laguna Beach chapter of the Alliance for Survival, holds its first Saturday vigil at Coast Highway and Ocean Avenue. The vigil, which has continued for the past nine years, is still held nearly every Saturday.
- 1978--In April, about 75 people--most of them contacted through the Saturday vigils--gather at Laguna Beach High School for their first meeting. The Alliance for Survival’s Laguna Beach chapter grew from this meeting.
- 1979--Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident sends concerned citizens to anti-nuclear groups nationwide. The Orange County Peace Conversion Project lobbies out of a donated house in Orange to get military industry converted to peaceful work.
- 1980--Proposition F, a Laguna Beach ballot initiative to get the nearby San Onofre nuclear power plant converted to non-nuclear fuel, is defeated. The Interfaith Peace Ministry forms.
- 1982--Proposition 12, the statewide Nuclear Freeze Initiative, passes in November. Although it does not get a majority of votes in Orange County, 100,000 local residents sign petitions to put it on the ballot, and Irvine, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa pass it.
- 1984--Two pro-peace candidates, Carol Ann Bradford and Mary Lou Brophy, run--unsuccessfully--for Congress.
- 1986--About 30 Orange County residents embark on the Great Peace March; 20 march the bulk of the way and end up in Washington in November.
- 1987--Laguna Beach city council considers a resolution making the city a nuclear-free zone.
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