Major funding for backstories provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

From Virginia Humanities, this is Backstory.

Welcome to Backstory, a show that looks at the history behind the headlines. I'm Brian Bello, and I'm Ed Ayers.

If you're new to the podcast, each week, along with our colleagues, Nathan Connolly and Joe Anfreyman, we explore a different aspect of American history.

And just a note, this show was recorded remotely as per the realities of making podcasts during COVID-19. Because of that, the audio quality isn't always the best.

But we hope you'll bear with us nevertheless.

Okay, now on to the show.

50 years ago, in April 1970, millions of people in the United States took part in a day of activism that quickly spread around the world, or perhaps more appropriately around the Earth.

Earth Day demonstrations began in practically every city and town in the United States this morning, the first massive nationwide protest against the pollution of the environment.

The outcry took innumerable forms. Some students went to school wearing gas masks. The automobile was banned in parts of some cities including New York.

Miami planned a dead orange parade. Skywriting planes were ordered out to inscribe the word air over Los Angeles. In Jamestown, New York, the Kawana's Club.

It was amazing. We had aspired to do something that was relatively modest at its beginnings.

This is Dennis Hayes. I'm the founder of The Earth Day Network.

Dennis was the national organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970. And back then, organizing a big event like this looked a lot different.

There was no internet or social media to get the word out.

We didn't have the ability to reach out through Facebook and Twitter or even have email or even have computers or even.

So Dennis and his team turned to other ways to generate some momentum.

We did a lot of what you could call broadcast outreach. We figured out some way to get a news twist, hold a press conference or hold an event.

But he says the biggest and riskiest thing they did was shell out about half their money for a full-page ad in the New York Times.

It's across the top of it. It says April 22nd, Earth Day. And then in bold letters, a disease has infected our country.

It has brought smog to your somebody, dumped garbage in the Hudson, sprayed DDT in our food and left our cities in decay.

Its carrier is man. And then bam, bam, bam, bam, ran through the ad.

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