Women at the tables of power for
25 years of action! A snapshot
November 2006
The story of the chair | Timeline | Narrative history

A TIMELINE

1979-80 – Dr. Helen Caldicott begins years of criss-crossing the country, waking up tens of thousands to the dangers of nuclear weapons.

1981 – The Women’s Party for Survival becomes WAND, Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament. The first Mother’s Day march is held in Washington and one on the Boston Common.

1982 – Caldicott appears on the Phil Donahue and Merv Griffin TV shows. 25,000 letters pour into WAND’s Arlington office. WAND chapters spring up wherever Caldicott speaks. Nuclear Freeze demonstration in New York City draws 1,000,000 where Dr. Caldicott is a featured speaker.

1983 – WAND celebrates Mother’s Day as Julia Ward Howe’s “Mother’s Peace Day.” Millions of Moms grassroots campaign increases chapter membership. First Helen Caldicott Leadership Award presented to Sally Field and Margot Kidder at the WAND Mother’s Day Ball in Boston.

1984 – WAND runs “Women Vote for Survival” voter registration campaigns and forms WAND PAC to support candidates for nuclear disarmament. Caldicott and WAND chapters work tirelessly on behalf of Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro presidential campaign.

1985 – WAND has chapters in all 50 states and opens office in Washington DC. Meryl Streep and Jane Alexander are honored at the WAND Mother's Day Ball. WAND helps organize “the Downey Breakfasts,” informal weekly briefings to members of Congress favoring nuclear arms control and reduced military spending.

WAND commissions Lance Hidy to design a Children Ask the World of Us poster. Renowned psychologists Jean Baker Miller and Jan Surrey develop speakers training program, “Our Voices, Our Visions.” The first national WAND conference is held in Denver, CO.

1986 – WAND works for US-Soviet exchanges and goes to international conferences in Moscow and Nairobi. At the national conference in Charlotte, NC -- where James Taylor performs benefit concert -- Ted Turner receives award, and Helen Caldicott gives public speech with surprise announcement she will retire indefinitely to Australia.

1987 – WAND publishes and promotes Turnabout, an in-depth polling study based on interviews with top Congressional leaders & national security reporters assessing the arms control and disarmament movement, and recommendations for future strategies.

1988 – WAND convenes national conference, “Women, Disarmament and Democracy” in Los Angeles with benefit concert by Judy Collins. The Caldicott Award goes to Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan at the Mother's Day Ball.

1989 - WAND Education Fund’s national billboard campaign features a photograph of a missile and the words, “Help Our Children. Stop Spending Billions on These Babies!”

1990 – WAND launches exciting new program, the Women Legislators Lobby (WiLL), which grows rapidly to 200 members from 44 states in its first year.

1991 – The WAND and WAND Education Fund boards of directors vote at their October meeting to recommend changing the organization’s name to Women’s Action for New Directions in response to the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War. WAND keeps its anti-nuclear stance and expands focus on excessive military spending, the federal budget process, and involving more women in electoral politics.
WAND Education Fund’s “Mums for Moms” campaign endorsed by 100 women, peace and social justice organizations. Thousands of grassroots activists participate in the Mums for Mom’s 80 city satellite television link-up.
WAND Family Award goes to Jean Baker Miller, recently deceased author of Toward a New Psychology of Women.

1992 – The first “WiLL Conference and Lobby Days” takes place in Washington, DC in May. Columnist Mary McGrory accompanies a nine-person Georgia delegation on Hill visits and writes a Washington Post column about the experience. WAND Ed Fund produces a video, “New Voices, New Visions,” narrated by Jane Alexander and taped on location at the WiLL conference.

1993 – WAND continues to lobby for lower defense budgets and more funding for social and environmental needs. Tipper Gore (wife of Vice President Al Gore) and Attorney General Janet Reno are the keynote speakers at the WiLL/WAND National Conference in Washington.

1994 – WAND and Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney draft Code of Conduct legislation to end arms sales to countries that abuse human rights.

1995 – WAND attains NGO status at the United Nations. President Emerita Sayre Sheldon represents WAND at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Conference and UN Conference on Women in Beijing.

1996 – WAND launches Women Take Action ’96 – Let us slice the pie! Through organizational partnerships, the campaign reaches 10,000 women. WAND’s national field office opens in Atlanta.

1997 – WAND maintains its strong presence in Washington and at the grassroots level, joining efforts to ban landmines and stop nuclear waste transportation. The Chemical Weapons Convention, The Code of Conduct on Arms Sales legislation, spearheaded by WAND and WiLL passes in the U.S. Senate.

1998 – WAND continues its work to reduce bloated post-Cold War military budgets. Joins coalition committed to preventing NATO expansion. WiLL members around the country introduce the Better Budget Resolution, which calls on the federal government to reduce military spending and redirect funds to the states for social and environmental programs.

1999 – Young activists attending the national WAND/WiLL conference found Students Take Action for New Directions (STAND). STAND begins organizing and outreach efforts around its mission to inspire young women leaders to work towards eradicating poverty, racism and violence against women.

2000 – WAND co-leads Project Abolition with US Senator Alan Cranston.

2001 – The national WiLL/WAND conference is held in Washington, DC just 10 days after the attacks of September 11th. WAND is one of the first to offer a constructive message to Congress in those dark days about the non-military ways the U.S. should respond to the attacks.

2002 - WAND co-founds and co-leads Win Without War, a coalition of several organizations dedicated to opposing and stopping the Iraq war.

2003 – WAND promotes Vote 2004! to educate and motivate increased voter turnout in the coming election year, and continues to work closely with field chapters and associates on projects of importance to their regions and states. The biennial WiLL/WAND conference -- featuring columnist Helen Thomas -- launches Trailblazers to capture the energy and expertise of term-limited and other women no longer in elected office.

2004 – WAND establishes an online presence with a new web site and new online lobbying tools. Email lists grow dramatically, and WAND and WiLL begin sending regular email action alerts. WAND collaborates with Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation on SMART Security legislation that addresses the root causes of terrorism and violent conflict.

2005 – WiLL/WAND National Conference features keynote speakers Marian Wright Edelman and Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun. WAND launches national Speakers Bureau, getting more WAND women on the road sharing their expertise on vital national issues.

2006 – WAND endorses the Common Sense Budget Act and partners with Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities to generate support for the bill in Congress. WAND and WAND Education Fund mark 25th anniversaries with A Seat at the Table of Power, a year-long effort to bring women together to celebrate and talk about what it means to have women at the tables of power -- and how to multiply the seats.

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A Brief History of WAND
by Sayre Sheldon

The early ‘80s were a time of Cold War nuclear sabre-rattling and threats. Dr. Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician from Australia and an expert in the effects of radiation, was traveling the U.S., alerting its citizens to the dangers of the rapidly escalating nuclear arms race. Everywhere she spoke, women came up afterwards, demanding a way to put their fears into constructive action.

WAND-- like so many women’s organizations--began around a kitchen table. A few women in Cambridge, MA, began the Women’s Party for Survival in order to give citizens a chance to organize against this “nuclear madness.” Helen Caldicott would return from time to time with the names of new converts and organizing ideas. An Academy-award winning documentary “Eight Minutes to Midnight”, showing Helen’s travels, inspired many more to sign up.

A larger organization quickly was needed and the name WAND—Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament was chosen, modeled on the nuclear disarmament organizations of Europe: END and CND. By 1982, there were two sister organizations: one educational and supported by tax-deductible contributions, the other political and supported by dues from its members. Soon, a third relative—WAND PAC—was added when the Board of Directors decided to endorse candidates and raise money for their campaigns. Chapters sprang up around the country, each addressing issues of disarmament in their own communities.

When Helen appeared on major TV programs with concerned celebrities such as Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep, letters poured in by the thousands. Women, frightened for the lives of all children, asked Helen and WAND to stop our government from continuing on its present path. Women were outraged not only by the futility of a nuclear arms race but by the money being wasted on weapons that could never be used and whose manufacture and testing threatened our environment. The nuclear freeze movement swept the country—a true grassroots movement that strengthened and increased the growth of WAND. In 1985, WAND opened its Washington, DC office, thereby forging a link between the grassroots and Congress.

More changes were in store for WAND because our mission had moved beyond nuclear disarmament to addressing the continuing militarization of our economy, even after the Cold War ended. A new program, the Women Legislators’ Lobby (WiLL) was started in 1992 (check date?) coming out of the need to connect the grassroots with state and federal policies. The WAND-PAC, began giving money only to WAND and WiLL members running for Congress. There are now 35 women in Congress who have been supported by WAND and continue to work with us to achieve WAND’s goals.

Today WAND is a major presence on Capitol Hill, firmly established in both the peace and women’s communities. Grassroots pressure for WAND’s mission to reduce military spending and give greater attention to human and environmental needs continues along with WAND actions to oppose the use of military force abroad, to counteract moves to build new nuclear weapons, and to support an end to violence against women at home. The 21st century with its “war on terrorism” brings new challenges. Helen Caldicott could not have foreseen that the results of her “Johnny Appleseed” travels through the U.S.in the 1980’s would grow and flourish into the dynamic organization WAND is as it nears its 25th anniversary.