The First Earth Day Was 50 Years Ago, But These Photos Feel Timeless
Fifty years ago, before the environment was seen as a political cause, it united everyone.
Students march through the business district of suburban St. Louis on April 22, 1970, protesting against smog caused by automobiles.
On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, millions of Americans around the country went outside for teach-ins and community cleanup events, in addition to marches protesting the mistreatment of the planet.
Compared to protests about racial inequality or the Vietnam War, the environment at the time was seen as a neutral cause that everyone could get behind — so much so that the original Earth Day was proposed by a US senator (Gaylord Nelson, from Wisconsin of all places) who worked with ecology professor Morton Hilbert and activist Denis Hayes to put it all together.
There hadn't been a concerted public effort to undermine science yet, so the main counterargument to Earth Day at the time was that because it fell on the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birthday, the movement was somehow communist. In actuality, the date had been chosen at random because it suited college break schedules.
There wasn't another Earth Day celebration until 1990, and it didn't become an annual event until 2000. While climate change was not yet a major topic at the original Earth Day, some of the demands for sustainable energy and more careful consumption are in line with the student-led climate marches of 2019, which drew millions of schoolchildren to the streets.
Kenneth Opat is squirted with oil pistols by Dorothy Goldsmith (left) and Rita Webb at Tulane University in New Orleans as students tagged Louisiana's oil industry with the "polluter of the month" award, April 22, 1970.
Memorial High students in Houston left their cars at home on the first Earth Day.
The first Earth Day in New York City.
Left: Kurt Amuedo displays a poster about air pollution for Earth Day at his school. Right: Demonstrators in Boston wore masks to remind people of the perils of air pollution.
Earth Day in New York City.
Thousands of people form a mile-long procession during an Earth Walk in Philadelphia, April 22, 1970.
An estimated 7,000 people gather at the Independence Mall in Philadelphia, on the first Earth Day.
Earth Day on the Boston Common, April 22, 1970.
Alameda High School students stack up recyclable waste material they had collected in scavenger hunts in connection with an Earth Day observance/teach-in Denver, April 22, 1970.
Children use push brooms to sweep a city park during the first Earth Day in New York City.
Left: Students build a "world" of tin cans at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts for Earth Day, April 21, 1970. Right, Denis Hayes, head of the Environment Teach-In, the Washington organization coordinating activities for Earth Day, on April 22, 1970.
Union Square Park in New York City, April 22, 1970.
Members of Beta Sigma Phi fraternity at what was then Boise State College remove old cars from the foothills above the city on April 22, 1970.
Left: Judy Moody coordinates school activities in the office of the Environment Teach-In in Washington, DC, before the nationwide observance of Earth Day on April 22. Right: A protest sign for Earth Day is seen in Denver.
Bicyclists ride in Denver on the first Earth Day.
A Pace College student in a gas mask "smells" a magnolia blossom on the first Earth Day in New York City.
Students paddle down the Milwaukee River on homemade rafts on the first Earth Day to protest water pollution.
The Clearwater, a sloop built to promote the antipollution cause, sails down the Hudson River past a junkyard on its way during Earth Day activities, April 22, 1970.
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Kate Bubacz is the Photo Director for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Kate Bubacz at kate.bubacz@buzzfeed.com.
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