On April 22, 1971, former President Richard Nixon planted a tree at the White House, commemorating the one-year anniversary of Earth Day.
Nixon was one of America’s “greenest” presidents, signing 14 pieces of environmental legislation into law while he was in office. He signed laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“The tasks that need doing … call for fundamentally new philosophies of land, air, and water use, for stricter regulation, for expanded government action, for greater citizen involvement, and for new programs to ensure that government, industry, and individuals all are called on to do their share of the job and to pay their share of the cost,” Nixon said.
How did Earth Day get on Nixon’s radar? With passion from a college student and an environmentally focused Wisconsin senator, Earth Day became a reality and continues to be celebrated each April 22, now 54 years later.
It was Democratic Sen. Gaylord Nelson, who had long been concerned about the environment, who thought of the idea of Earth Day. Nelson visited a large offshore oil spill in Southern California in 1969, which gave him the idea of hosting “teach-ins” across college campuses. The teach-ins mirrored those that were being held across the United States in opposition to the Vietnam War.
Denis Hayes, a 25-year-old enrolled at Harvard Kennedy School, dropped out to organize a nationwide rally, now known as Earth Day. He said his upbringing in Washington state near a paper mill is what got him originally thinking about environmental concerns. He was inspired by Nelson’s teach-ins and wanted to organize one at Harvard.
“There was a senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, who had an intuitive, political belief that the time was right for environmental issues to start achieving a higher degree of political traction in the country,” Hayes said in 2020.
He said Nelson was interested in Hayes organizing on a national level, which prompted him to drop out of Harvard. He later finished his degree at Stanford University.
“I flew down to Washington, D.C., for a 15-minute courtesy interview with the senator,” Hayes said. “It turned into a more than two-hour talk about how to try to get such a campaign organized.
“A couple of days later, I had a call from his chief of staff asking whether I would drop out and come down to organize the United States,” Hayes said. “Within a week of my conversation with the senator, I was packing up and leaving for Washington, D.C.”
Nelson and Hayes identified the week of April 19 to 25 as an ideal time for college schedules, with the possibility of warm, spring weather. They determined that Wednesdays were the days most students were on campus, thus Wednesday, April 22, 1970 became the first Earth Day.
“I congratulate you, who, by your presence here today, demonstrate your concern and commitment to an issue that is more than just a matter of survival,” Nelson said in a speech in Denver on the first Earth Day. “How we survive is the critical question.
“Earth Day is dramatic evidence of a broad new national concern that cuts across generations and ideologies,” Nelson said. “It may be symbolic of a new communication between young and old about our values and priorities. Take advantage of this broad new agreement. Don’t drop out of it.”
The first Earth Day in 1970 was also unique in that it encompassed a rare political alignment from people of various beliefs. Prior to that, Hayes said there was very little activism surrounding the environment. The timing was just right — it is estimated that 20 million people participated in the first Earth Day, making it the largest organized event in U.S. history.
A year later, Nixon declared the time as Earth Week.
“Few concerns facing America and the world today are more compelling than the quality of our physical environment,” Nixon said. “All that we do, all that we hope to achieve for ourselves, all that we hope to create for our children will go for nothing if the world itself is made unfit to live in.
“We have made a beginning in this, but we have only begun,” Nixon continued. “Now, there must be a conscious, sustained effort by every American and, we might hope, by every citizen of the world if our posterity are not to look back in sorrow and wonder why, when God had created the Earth and seen that it was good, man did not agree and leave it that way. Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the period of April 18 through April 24, 1971, as Earth Week.”
Earth Day became a global holiday 20 years later. Hayes said he was proud of what Earth Day has become, looking back on the misfortunes of his Washington paper mill town.
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“That paper mill that stunk beyond belief, that sent out those acids that ate through the roofs of houses and pitted the roofs of automobiles whenever it rained,” Hayes said. “Today, something like that would be literally inconceivable in any place in the United States. What was normal in 1969 became unthinkable in the early 1970s, and it has retained that.”
“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard,” Nelson said.
