Clamshell Alliance

The Clamshell Alliance is an anti-nuclear organization co-founded by Paul Gunter, Howie Hawkins, Howard Morland, Harvey Wasserman, Guy Chichester, Renny Cushing, Jeff Brummer, Anna Gyorgy, Kristie Conrad, Kate Walker, Robin Read, and other activists in 1976.

The Granite State Alliance, a NH social-change organization, had launched PEP, the People's Energy Project, several years earlier, in opposition to the proposed Seabrook nuclear power plant. PEP had opposed investment in the plant and had helped gather petitions and organize town meeting votes against its construction. The Clamshell Alliance's coalescence began in 1975 as New England activists and organizations began to respond to U.S. President Richard Nixon's "Project Independence" which sought to build 1000 nuclear power plants by 2000.

The group conducted non-violent demonstrations against nuclear power in New England in the late 1970s and 1980s. In May, 1977 over 2,000 Clamshell protesters occupied the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant construction site. 1,414 of these activists were arrested and held in jails and National Guard armories for up to two weeks after refusing bail.

In 2007, veterans of the Clamshell Alliance marked the 30th anniversary of its founding with the creation of a website called, "To the Village Square: Nukes, Clams and Democracy", which relates the story of the Clamshell Alliance and why it matters today. The Clamshell Alliance opposes all nuclear power in New England.

In July 1976 the Clamshell Alliance adopted a Declaration of Nuclear Resistance as a guiding set of principles in a meeting of 60-75 activists.

The alliance conducted non-violent demonstrations in the late 1970s and 1980s. On August 1, 1976, 18 New Hampshire residents were arrested for criminal trespass and disorderly conduct in Clamshell's first civil disobedience action on the Seabrook site. Three weeks later, a second occupation involved 180 New England residents who were arrested and held in a local armory overnight. In May, 1977 over 2,000 protesters occupied the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant construction site. 1,414 of these activists were arrested and held in jails and National Guard armories for up to two weeks after refusing bail. Clamshell activists used this detention for training and networking, and long considered the detention a blunder on the part of Republican Governor Meldrim Thomson, Jr.

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