by Joanne M. Dufour
I have oftten said, “If twenty years ago, someone asked me what I might be doing in 20 years – should I be living that long…” I am quite confident that the last thing I would ever have said would’ve been, “why I’ll be involved with efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.” Turns out that interest did in fact develop in 2017 and has been a time consuming fact of life since then. “How? Why? What happened?” you ask. So here goes.
I could say that seeds began when I first started teaching in Sleepy Hollow High School in Tarrytown, New York in 1968. It was my second year of teaching Social Studies and the first year in SHHS. One afternoon, I received an unexpected visit from a community member named Ruth who introduced herself as a former teacher and current local librarian and proclaimed: “Any Social Studies teacher worth her salt knows about the United Nations!” I remember that message to this day. She was actually inviting me to attend occasional briefings and programs at the UN Church Center office of the Unitarian Universalists (UUUNO) in Manhattan. It certainly sounded like a wonderful opportunity and I agreed. The subsequent programs were highly informative and eventually prompted me to organize a group of students to take part in the Model United Nations programs.
One thing I did not realize at the time was that Ruth was an NGO representative (aka “NGO”), a member of an organization affiliated with the UN’s Non Governmental Organization community, whose role it was to share their expertise with UN staff when appropriate and in turn advise their organization of the work of the UN. Among other tasks she became a volunteer for the UU minister by the name of Homer Jack, administrator of the UUUNO, who ultimately became a main organizer of the Second UN Special Session on Disarmament which was to bring a million people to Manhattan to promote the elimination of Nuclear Weapons in 1982.
By that time I had left Sleepy Hollow to go into the Peace Corps in El Salvador with my husband, Jim, had worked for an Hispanic Center upon return and eventually began teaching for the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry in 1974. The contact with Ruth continued during this period – I had even asked her for a recommendation to join Peace Corps not really understanding her NGO role. Our local Social Studies organization had begun to teach about nuclear weapons and the nuclear freeze movement at the time in anticipation of the event in New York which occurred after our school year was over. I found it very scary to approach this topic to students as the global arsenal at the time was 80,000 weapons and the reality of the total destruction of our planet should they ever be used was devastating.
But I vividly recall that day of the demonstration June 12th 1982 when Jim and I headed into the City from our home in White Plains. The streets were seriously mobbed with a very friendly crowd of supporters of all shapes, sizes, ages and races. The police could not be more supportive as we worked our way to First Avenue from Grand Central Station and the area around the United Nations. There was a stage there around 46th Street with an array of stars supporting the event speaking and singing. Signs and banners filled the air. The energy and enthusiasm were glorious.
Upwards of one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park June 12, 1982 against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest in American history. (Photo: WagingNonViolence.org)
Over the course of the decade I continued teaching and had the honor of becoming an NGO myself as the first representative of the National Council for the Social Studies. That meant weekly briefings at the UN on a wide array of topics on the UN agenda. My school kindly arranged my teaching schedule to accommodate heading to those meetings in Manhattan on Thursday mornings and my students would readily identify my enthusiasm meeting with them back in the classroom. I couldn’t wait to share with them what I’d just learned. (My Thai student actually worked for the UN in Bangkok, Thailand when she returned home.)
The topic of nuclear weapons receded over the course of the nineties and the first decade of the millennium, as Jim and I decided to move to Seattle with his company in 1988 and I arrived for the State’s hundredth anniversary in 1989. I was able to utilize this knowledge from the UN when I got a job with the Newsweek Education Program, developing curriculum materials on their international topics. At the turn of the century I was invited to help develop curriculum for the Department of Public Information at the UN in support of the Millennium Development Goals. In retrospect, I’m pleased that I did not truly realize at the time that those lessons would be viewed by the four million teachers and students worldwide who at that time subscribed to their website. However, one does become conscious of writing for a very diverse readership.
My teaching continued with both Social Studies and English for International Students at the high school level along with college teaching as an Adjunct Professor for Departments of Education in what became five local colleges or Seattle branches of universities in other parts of the state. My demo lesson to them was always about the United Nations.
In 2012 we moved to Louisiana to be with Jim’s family as my role became care giver until he passed in 2015. In 2017, however I decided to volunteer with that same UU Office that Ruth had introduced me to. I helped with their annual conference with the theme of Disarmament as the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons had opened for signing. And with that, the bug had bitten. I volunteered to work in their office at the Church Center across the street from the Secretariat Building for a month in January 2018, sat in on meetings at the UN, met staff engaged in United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), and a range of NGOs interested in disarmament, and developed a blog entitled, DISARMING OUR PLANET which led to 52 entries over 100 weeks for the Unitarian Universalist Association. (https://www.uua.org/global/news/intro-global-disarmament). That was certainly a highlight of my life.
That same year I returned to live in Washington State, this time in Lacey WA at Panorama, a retirement community. I was advised to connect with Glen Anderson who had founded the Olympia Coalition for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons and joined the organization. In time we developed a course on nuclear weapons taught by Glen, Mark Fleming of Veterans for Peace, Rachel Corrie chapter, Jim Manista, Cleveland Peace Activist (the new Jim in my life) and me entitled, NUCLEAR WEAPONS NOWADAYS: What you can know and do. The course was 8 hours, a weekly 2 hour class for four weeks. We taught it 20 times and reached over 200 participants from 26 states and 3 countries, learning of more and more resources in the process. It was a truly enriching experience learning from my colleagues and sharing what I’d learned. It’s been a privilege to see the leadership roles our former “students” have taken in continuing the work of disarmament. That bug just keeps biting away…
The classes led to further connections with the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons (now known as the Pacific Northwest Against Nuclear Weapons) and their Rebuilding the Anti-Nuclear Weapons Together Conference in April 2025, a Rotary Satellite Club of International Peace WORLD which focused efforts on the TPNW working to gain Treaty support of Rotary International and their 4000 clubs worldwide, various speaking engagements including training of International Humanitarian Law instructors of the American Red Cross, MICAH, Fellowship of Reconciliation programs, Ground Zero, City and County Council presentations, World Affairs Council, book discussion groups, high school classes , local Nagasaki events, and three United Nations Conferences on Nuclear Weapons Treaties (where I never presented but loved those who did). Those UN Conferences were truly special… hearing the voices of so many Ambassadors and NGOs (over a thousand representing hundreds of thousands more) speak with a unitary voice of support for the NPT and TPNW and its enforcement. There is so much to learn and share and wonderful individuals who have dedicated their lives and skills to disarmament.
It has been an honor to have gotten to know them. I feel very lucky indeed to have followed this path during these senior years. For me there is no more important, consistent issue we face. So be it. We need your help to change the projectory we are facing and give thanks and blessings to all those who are trying.
February 5, 2026