The first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970. Some 20 million Americans participated in protests, demonstrations, teach-ins, and celebrations across the nation—far more people than in any national mobilization against the Vietnam War or any other cause in that highly political time. Conceived by a U.S. Senator—Gaylord Nelson, a Wisconsin Democrat—Earth Day was largely organized at the grassroots and engaged people in dramatically various ways; footage and photos of the day show radical hippies making speeches calling for the abolition of all cars and Girl Scouts picking trash out of the Potomac River. Part of the success of Earth Day was that it was both radical and mainstream, and no movement can succeed without being both. This is perhaps the most lasting lesson of Earth Day, and why we need to keep its legacy alive.
The massive turnout reflected a broader movement and a shift in public consciousness, and politicians went with it. Republican president Richard Nixon, despite famously hating hippies and liberals (he practically pioneered that particular culture-war politics of resentment) became arguably the best environmental president in history—an incredible testament to the way movements can change political reality. Nixon expressed hope that protecting the environment was a cause that could bring Americans together across the political spectrum.
That notion now seems certifiable. But at the time, environmental legislation had bipartisan support. In 1970, the year of that first Earth Day, Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency and extended the Clean Air Act to require the EPA to regulate air pollution harmful to humans. Two years later, he signed laws to protect marine mammals and oceans for the first time in American history. Before leaving office Nixon also signed the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. He ran for reelection on his environmental successes and the Republican Party boasted about them in its 1972 platform, chiding the Democrats for not doing enough. In fact, it’s a remarkable document, in which the Republicans called for cracking down on corporate polluters, cleaning up the air, and bringing more green space to the people—and boasted about their considerable accomplishments on all these fronts (although even then, not all conservatives embraced environmentalism. Some pointed out that Earth Day fell on Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, and therefore almost certainly had to be a communist plot).