In 1964, just when the American involvement in the Vietnam conflict was about to explode over the American landscape, the city of Harrisburg, located in south central Pennsylvania, was conservative. In the national presidential election held that year five of the fifteen wards, including one black ward, voted for Republican Barry Goldwater, the more conservative candidate.' Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) vocally supported the American war effort, and HACC sent representatives to Washington, D.C. to protest in favor of American involvement in Vietnam during a 1964 war rally.2
However, a peace movement was burgeoning. It did not begin in 1964 but rather grew partially from people who supported President John Kennedy's test ban treaty of 1963. In 1963 the President of the United States supported disarmament, an action which gave the "ban the bomb" movement respectability for some American citizens. The Council for a Sane World, otherwise known as SANE, a national organization with a Harrisburg chapter, supported the test ban and, later, the end of American involvement in Vietnam.
The peace movement would also sprout from the church. Except for SANE, most of the peace organizations in the area had a religious nature. Both Pax Christi, a national Catholic pacifist organization, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a national multidenominational organization, had local chapters then. The religious pacifists and the secular pacifists, came together to form a coalition. Milton Lowenthal, an early member of SANE, and other local people including Betty Sue Lentz and Mary Douglas decided to start a Peace Center in Harrisburg. They had no trouble soliciting support from pacifist churches, and the Revered C. Wayne Zunkel of the Church of the Brethren and the Reverend Peter Posey from the Council of Churches were early supporters of the Peace Center. Also many from the Society of Friends or Quaker denomination, including Kay Pickering, became involved with the Center. The Peace Center had only a post office box for an address. Often, the Peace Center would meet in the Quaker Meeting House in Harrisburg. Secular organizations were also represented, and the Peace Center had representatives from the Boy Scouts of America and the International Ladies' Garment Worker's Union.3
Because most Harrisburg activists were members of several groups at once, most members of the Peace Center were also members of SANE. Incidents that affected national organizations like SANE affected local organizations too. In 1965 the peace movement received preciously needed momentum through a large antiwar demonstration by SANE, a group that achieved their goal with a test ban and then turned its efforts to ending the war in Vietnam. They organized a Washington D.C. march on 27 November 1965 said to be the largest anti-Vietnam march in the United States to that time. The local SANE urged people to "write President Johnson and U.S. Senators, Hugh Scott and Joseph Clark and speak out "before it would be too late. " C. Wayne Zunkel, pastor of the First Church of the Brethren, had been recognized as a supporter of the SANE peace march.4 Many members of the church were pacifists and had sons who were conscientious objectors, but Zunkel urged his congregation not to sit on their convictions but to take a stand for peace by marching for peace in Washington.
Jane Smead was the niece of my great-grandmother, Jane who married John Hays, and the daughter of Alexander Dallas Bache Smead. Far back into my youth I have memories of her fortress-like, solid brick house commanding the south -east corner of West and South Streets in Carlisle. On West Street the yard was extremely deep and guarded by a high wooden fence.
When Post Masters received letters, they listed the names in the newspapers of those to whom the letters were addressed. If the letters were not picked up by a specified date, they went to the Dead Letter Office.