Table of Contents
- Introduction
- News, and Other Relevant Links
- Related Organizations and Resources
- Featured Resolutions
The City of Bloomington has a long history of involvement in anti-nuclear movements, beginning in the late 1970s.
Bloomington, located southwest of Indianapolis in south-central Indiana, is the state’s seventh most populous city and is best known as the home of Indiana University (IU) Bloomington and Big Ten sports. The City of Bloomington has a long history of involvement in anti-nuclear movements. The anti-nuclear movement in Bloomington first began in the late 1970s. This movement started with opposition to the proposed nearby Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Indiana; construction of Marble Hill began in 1977 but was inevitably abandoned in 1984 due to rising costs and funding shortages. Throughout the 1970s, IU Bloomington students protested against the Vietnam War and held “student strikes.” In the 1980s and 1990s, peace activism shifted its attention to the arms race and US intervention in Central America, advocating for peace and self-determination for the region. Student organizations at IU Bloomington have played significant roles in anti-nuclear activism over the years. Students for Nuclear Disarmament (SND) is an active, nonpartisan student group led by the student leaders at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies that focuses on raising awareness and advocacy for nuclear non-proliferation. IU students have also participated in downtown Bloomington’s annual vigils to commemorate the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, organized by local groups such as the Bloomington Peace Action Coalition, the Just Peace Task Force, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington Peace and Social Concerns Committee, and the Bloomington Friends Meeting. The Bloomington Peace Action Coalition was founded in 2001 to unite individuals and organizations seeking universal peace and justice, and it continues to press for an end to violent conflict through non-violent means. Not too long after, in 2013, in unity with other peace action groups, Bloomington and other Indiana cities, including Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Lafayette, Noblesville, Columbus, and Muncie, joined Food Not Bombs. This grassroots organization recovers and shares free vegan and vegetarian food with the public as a form of protest against war, poverty, and environmental destruction. Food Not Bombs, in its first thirty years, was the first to provide food and supplies to many survivors after disasters caused by wars, environmental destruction, etc. These actions demonstrate the continued commitment by the citizens of Bloomington towards peace.
IU Bloomington has historical ties to the Manhattan Project through two of its physics professors, Emil Konopinski and Lawrence Langer, who served as scientists in the race to build the first atomic bomb. After the outbreak of World War II, Konopinski joined Enrico Fermi’s group at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory. There, he was a member of a theoretical study group set up by Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley, in the summer of 1942. While in this group, they examined the principles of atomic bomb design and determined that a fission bomb was feasible, an important step in the progression of the Manhattan Project. Additionally, Konopinski worked at the Los Alamos lab from 1942 to 1946 during the Project and co-wrote a paper with Cloyd Marvin and Edward Teller. Both made groundbreaking contributions to the nuclear era, with Marvin playing a pivotal role in supporting Teller’s nuclear research and discoveries. Moreover, Langer served as a group leader of the Manhattan Project, where he oversaw the final assembly of the first atomic bomb, notably sleeping on the bomb itself the night before it was dropped on the Pacific Island of Tinian. During World War II, he worked on the ‘gun’ mechanism used to detonate the Uranium-235 bomb used on Hiroshima. Today, IU continues to preserve the personal papers of these physicists and holds rare recordings of oral historical interviews about their time at the Los Alamos laboratory in the Indiana University Archives.
In alignment with Bloomington’s history of anti-nuclear activism, on September 1, 2021, the Bloomington City Council passed Resolution 21-26, recognizing the substantial danger that nuclear weapons pose both locally and globally, supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and urging the U.S. to actively work towards preventing a nuclear war.
News, and Other Relevant Links
Nobel Peace Prize recipient speaks in Bloomington on preventing nuclear war
Indiana Public Media (2025)
Standing for Peace: The quiet persistence of Bloomington’s locals
Indiana Daily Student (2025)
Memorial vigil in downtown Bloomington marks Hiroshima, Nagasaki nuclear bombings by U.S.
B Square Bulletin (2023)
Activists recall turbulent era of 1960s and 1970s
The Herald-Times (2013)
Related Organizations and Resources
Featured Resolutions
Public Meeting Summaries
RESOLUTIONS
RESOLUTION 21-26: TO DECLARE SUPPORT FOR THE GLOBAL ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND
THE BACK FROM THE BRINK CAMPAIGN
SEPTEMBER 2, 2021
Resolution 21-26, To Declare Support For The Global Abolition of Nuclear Weapons and the Back from the Brink Campaign, aims to urge the Federal government to revisit the dangers of nuclear war and its existential threat to humanity. It urges the Federal government to envisage a world where nuclear weapons are not only used for nuclear deterrence but also as an aggressive military threat.
Uniquely, Resolution 21-26 features numerous warnings from individuals such as the former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who spoke at IU in 2019 stating that the “danger of nuclear war is at the highest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.” Additional remarks include from former US Senator Richard Lugar and other senior officials previously outspoken against nuclear weaponry. Their statements particularly note the catastrophic effects and lack of control of nuclear warfare. The resolution additionally highlights the financial burden of maintaining and developing a nuclear arsenal, emphasizing dangerous actions taken by the current and former administrations, such as the $140 billion increase in funding for new nuclear weapon programs for the period 2021-2030. Ultimately, the Resolution emphasizes that “nuclear war may be initiated not by intention, but by accident or miscalculation;” and like Bloomington’s Mayor, John Hamilton, a member of U.S. Mayors for Peace, we should work towards “the attainment of lasting world peace by arousing concern among citizens of the world for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.”
In alignment with BftB resolutions, it proposes five actions to the Federal government:
“ 1. Sign a legally binding No First Use treaty;
2. End the sole, unchecked authority of any United States president to launch a nuclear attack;
3. Take the United States nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert;
4. Cancel the plan to replace its entire nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons; and
5. Actively pursue a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear
Arsenals.”
The City of Bloomington asserts “public funds will not be directly invested in corporations involved in the design or manufacture of nuclear weapons,” ensuring there are no contracts with those involved in the design or manufacture of nuclear weapons or the delivery systems of nuclear weapons, “unless there is no alternative.” Through eliminating direct investments in corporations involved with nuclear development, Bloomington actively attempts to limit the risks and harms from nuclear weapons.
City Council members Flaherty, Piedmont-Smith, and Rollo sponsored the resolution. City council members were greatly influenced by organizations such as Back From the Brink, the Bloomington Peace Action Coalition, and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Additionally, Bloomington’s Mayor John Hamilton’s membership in U.S. Mayors for Peace encourages work towards achieving lasting world peace by raising public concern and support for the total abolition of nuclear weapons. During the City Council meeting, Council member Piedmont-Smith introduced Resolution 21-26 with a PowerPoint presentation, summarizing its support for the abolition of nuclear weapons and for the BftB campaign. Council member Piedmont-Smith emphasized the importance and threat of nuclear weapons, citing the Doomsday Clock. She also provided a list of problems that will affect future nuclear relations, such as investment in new nuclear weapon systems. She then explained the BftB demands and former President John F. Kennedy’s warning about the threat of nuclear weapons. She finished the presentation by stressing the importance and responsibility of elected officials to advocate for the safety of their citizens, and how grassroots acts such as this one can lead to change in US policies. Throughout the rest of the meeting, other Council members such as Council member Smith chimed in, sharing his support and urgency for nuclear abolition as nuclear weapons overseas have become worrisome. Once the floor was open to the public, David Keppel, spokesperson for the Bloomington Peace Action Coalition, asserted the threat of nuclear weapons to humanity and shared his utter support for the BtfB campaign and Resolution 21-26. Ultimately, Council members voted to pass Resolution 21- 26 with a 9-0 vote, emphasizing the importance and value of supporting BtfB as well as Resolution 21-26.
The city council meeting discussing Resolution 21-26 can be viewed here, with the resolution discussion beginning at 30:25.