Taking it to Wall Street 1979 - Protesting Nuclear Investments

In the fall of 1979, New England activists joined with New York activists to “Take It To Wall Street” and protest nuclear investments on the 50th anniversary of Black Tuesday (the date of the stock market crash that plummeted the world into the Great Depression in 1929).

This action was organized to draw the connections between finance and profit in the nuclear industry that was making money by manufacturing weapons and building nuclear power plants.

I was part of an affinity group from Worcester that included some of my college friends as well as the legendary Joe and Izzy (Isabel) Hines, an older couple, from Holliston, Massachusetts. We all stayed at my parent’s apartment in Washington Heights, sleeping on the floor.

We arose at daybreak and headed for the subway. On the subway down to Wall Street, we met other affinity groups going to the protest. Someone handed me a little copy of a Get Out of Jail Free card from the game Monopoly. I still have it.

When we got down to the protest site, Joe Hines, who had dressed in a navy blue pin-stripe business suit, separated himself from our group. He tucked a Wall Street Journal under his arm and took off. He had a plan but had not told us what it was.

The next day, a photograph of him was published in the New York Daily News with the caption: Joe Hines, a stockbroker on his way to work, instead joins the sit-in. It was a well-done piece of street theater.

I went limp when I was arrested, which meant that although I did not resist arrest, I was not walking to the bus voluntarily. I told my arresting officer that I was there to protect him from nuclear disaster. He told me I was giving him a hernia, as he dragged me off to the bus. We were given pink slips for a misdemeanor on the bus and told to come back to court.

One thousand forty-five people were arrested in the “Take It To Wall Street” action.