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Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice 1976

Newspaper insert advertising a demonstration being held by the Continental Walk for Disarmament & Social Justice.
A group of walkers on a sidewalk in a city. They are marching behind a white banner that is partially obscured but appears to say "Continental Walk." Walkers include Buddhist monks and people in street clothes. They are walking close to storefronts and passing by people sitting on benches.
Walkers on a city sidewalk. This is a slide from a presentation made to report on the Walk.
Background paper that argues Money spend on war and the military creates far fewer jobs than money spent in the civilian sector. Also, military spending produces nothing useful, thus promoting inflation, not to mention the catastrophic danger if weapons were actually to be used.

What’s the story?

Before the bicentennial celebrations began in 1976, activists in the United States were organizing. In 1974, the War Resister League met and formed a taskforce to create a major protest action during the bicentennial year that would focus on disarmament. The Vietnam War was ending, and many felt it was the moment to turn the focus of the country towards peace and social justice. The taskforce conceived of a nationwide protest that would become the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice.

The Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice (or just “The Continental Walk” or “The Walk”) drew inspiration from prior calls for disarmament and the end to the war, but it specifically focused on militarism as an economic injustice. The organizers published a series of background papers on topics like inflation, sexism, racism, and health care in the context of military spending. They prepared posters, flyers, buttons, and bumper stickers and put out a call for participants.

The first walkers left Ukiah, California, on January 23, 1976 to join others in San Francisco. 800 people began the main cross-country route. Their numbers ebbed and flowed as the walkers progressed across the country. Including feeder walks, the Walk covered a total of 8,000 miles and passed through 34 states. They joined bicentennial protests in July in Philadelphia, and on October 18th, the final day of the Walk, 700 made their way to the Pentagon where 53 were arrested for failing to disperse. A contingent went on to the White House, where they met with President Gerald Ford’s national security advisor. The President refused to meet with the walkers, and, in a speech the next day, denounced those who urged cutting military expenditures. Afterwards, David McReynolds wrote: “We never believed that by walking from Ukiah to Washington we could end the arms race…The Walk was the beginning of confronting the issue of the arms race — and of the massive social injustice in our world.”


More details

theme: Unfinished Revolutions
subjects: Disarmament, Peace Movements, Peace walks and marches
contributing repository: Swarthmore College Special Collections
submitted by: Laura Melbourne
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