Earth Day History

Senator Gaylord Nelson is considered the founder of Earth Day. In the early 60′s It had been troubling him that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, he had the idea to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. The President began a five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda.

Senator Nelson continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. What he found was the people were concerned, but the politicians were not. Six years passed before the idea came while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969 – why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment? Why not tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause?

It was announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and everyone was invited to participate. The response was electric. Concern about the environmental crisis swept the nation’s campuses with an intensity that eclipsed student discontent over the war in Vietnam. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air – and they did so with spectacular exuberance.