Thirty(three) years ago today, one million people marched in the streets of New York City to protest the nuclear arms race in general and the policies of Ronald Reagan in particular.
Organized around a “nuclear freeze” proposal, the demonstration was a watershed for a movement that seemed to come out of nowhere, not just in the United States, but throughout what was then called Western Europe.
Of course, movements have deeper roots. Relatively small groups of people have been protesting against nuclear weapons since the idea of nuclear bombs first appeared. On occasion, they’re able to spread their concerns beyond the few to a larger public. Such was the case in 1982, when Europeans rallied against new intermediate range missiles planned for West Europe, and when Americans protested against the extraordinary military build-up/ spend-up of Ronald Reagan’s first term in office.
The freeze proposal, imagined by Randall Forsberg as a reasonable first step in reversing the arms race, was the core of organizing efforts in the United States, which included out-of-power arms control advocates and radical pacifists. Local governments passed resolutions supporting the freeze, while several states passed referenda. People demonstrated and held vigils, while community groups in churches and neighborhoods organized freeze groups to discuss–and advocate–on the nuclear arms race.
The freeze figured in large Democratic gains in the 1982 election, and Ronald Reagan ran for reelection as a born-again arms controller. Most activists didn’t buy it, but after Reagan won in a landslide, to the horror of his advisers and many of his supporters, he negotiated large reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and what used to be called the Soviet Union.
US/ Russia nuclear warheads
The arms control agreements created the space in the East for reforms, reforms that spun out of control and eventually unraveled the cold war and the Eastern bloc.
The world changed.
It was both less and more than what most activists imagined possible.
Do you want to call it a victory?
she participated in a Class Day graduation ceremony. This day, several friends helped Sulkowicz carry the mattress across the stages, but mostly she’s been hauling it on her own since September.
protest movements organize and sometimes matter. Jay Caspian King offers some help in a fine old-style piece of journalism in the
death of Freddie Gray, she may have been responding only to the evidence of criminal conduct by law enforcement. Her office found that police lacked probable cause to arrest Gray, and that they abused him when he was in custody.
only a few months, and most of her electoral campaign occurred in the wake of the Ferguson protests. She ran for office while tens of thousands of people marched for justice in Ferguson Missouri, and more generally, against police violence in cities across the United States. 
more than anyone else, has been the architect of the legal strategy for the movement. Bonuato worked to craft civil union statutes before marriage seemed possible, then crafted the legal arguments in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the 2003 case in which Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found a right to same sex marriage. She also spent a great deal of time arguing others out of pursuing court cases with less favorable facts and/or judges. In US v. Windsor, she coordinated the 
at Harvard Law School. He worked to craft legal arguments, and spoke to publicize those arguments and the cause to much larger audiences. More than a decade ago, he founded 
Politics Outdoors 