Student Peace Union

The Student Peace Union was founded in 1959 at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) assisted in organizing the meeting. The AFSC would continue to support the Student Peace Union (SPU) throughout its life. The Fellowship of Reconciliation and Socialist Party also supported the SPU.

The SPU is the first US group to use the peace symbol, a symbol which SPU borrowed from the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

In 1960, SANE, under pressure from the Senate Internal Security Subcommitee, began purging communists from its organization. Many people who left SANE's student groups during this time, due to communist affiliation or just unhappiness over the purges, joined the SPU. In the same year, the College Peace Union merged with SPU and became the Northeast region of SPU.

In February 1962, the SPU sponsored a demonstration in Washington DC with thousands protesting the resumption of nuclear atmospheric testing.

On August 1963, during the annual commemoration of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, SPU members in Philadelphia protested in front of the Federal building regarding US government policy towards Vietnam. At the same time, Catholic Worker members were protesting Vietnam in New York City. This was the first organized demonstration against the war in Vietnam.

In 1964, the majority of SPU chapters voted to dissolve the organization and work in other organizations. While these chapters left, the SPU did not dissolve, it was reformed and continued on until 1966.

Bibliography

Student Politics in America: A Historical Analysis by Philip G. Altbach ; McGraw Hill Text (January, 1974); ISBN 0070012717