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Passing of an anti-nuclear women’s leader

In September of that year, [1961], philosopher Bertrand Russell, then 89, was arrested for his part in an anti-nuclear bomb demonstration at London’s Trafalgar Square. The night of the arrest Wilson and her husband were hosting a cocktail party at which she expressed her anger at Russell’s jailing…..The next day she began calling every woman she knew…………..Wilson’s high visibility in the protest made her a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee,

Dagmar Wilson dies at 94; organizer of women’s disarmament protesters Dagmar Wilson obituary: Dagmar Wilson, who organized 50,000 women to protest against nuclear weapons, dies at 94 By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times January 30, 2011 At the height of the Cold War, the illustrator and mother of three organized 50,000 women to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. Foes tried to paint her as a Communist, but failed miserably.

A self-described “non-joiner,” Wilson sparked a movement that on Nov. 1, 1961, drew an estimated 50,000 women across the country out of their homes and offices and into the streets to demonstrate for disarmament. Women Strike for Peace, the loose network of activists she founded, mounted the largest national women’s peace protest of the 20th century and helped push the United States and the Soviet Union into signing a nuclear test-ban treaty two years later.

The protesters were not radicals, although Red hunters tried to portray them as such — and failed miserably. They were, like Wilson, well educated, middle-class women in white gloves and tasteful hats who were impelled by fears of radioactive milk and impatience with the men who ran peace groups and governments.
……………In September of that year, [1961], philosopher Bertrand Russell, then 89, was arrested for his part in an anti-nuclear bomb demonstration at London’s Trafalgar Square. The night of the arrest Wilson and her husband were hosting a cocktail party at which she expressed her anger at Russell’s jailing. “I felt like chartering a plane and going over to picket the jail,” she said, but none of her guests seemed to share her alarm.

The next day she began calling every woman she knew…………..
Wilson’s high visibility in the protest made her a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which subpoenaed her in 1962 along with other Women Strike for Peace members. Dozens of women packed the hearing, turning a somber inquisition into brilliant guerrilla theater…………Dagmar Wilson obituary: Dagmar Wilson, who organized 50,000 women to protest against nuclear weapons, dies at 94 – latimes.com

January 31, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA