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About St. Anthony Park Neighbors for Peace
Who We Are
- St. Anthony Park is a neighborhood in the northwest corner of St. Paul, Minnesota 55108. With a small town feel in the middle of the city, it's located right between the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul, next to the University of Minnesota's St. Paul Campus and the State Fair Grounds. St. Anthony Park is the proud home of a Carnegie Library and an old fashioned neighborhood corner grocery store, Tim & Tom's. Our 4th of July Parade is the last remaining neighborhood parade in St. Paul, and attracts visitors from around the area. Neighbors for Peace members and supporters have marched in it for years.
St. Anthony Park Neighbors for Peace has been an active presence in the area for more than 25 years. As the drums of war were heard again in the fall of 2002, a meeting announcement in the St. Anthony Park Bugle newspaper generated interest and a revitalization of the group. Weekly Peace Presence vigils at neighborhood churches and the St. Anthony Park Library, and a monthly ad in the Bugle increased visibility and membership.
Activities such as Peace Potlucks with speakers, a Peace Picnic and concert at Langford Park, and various speakers' presentations are always well attended. Every June we have a table at the Park Arts Festival, engage people in some kind of activity (like voting on how to get out of Iraq), and hand out "Peace Pencils" promoting this website. Every 4th of July more people march with us in the neighborhood parade, and the crowds cheer their support.
Learn more about Neighbors for Peace by reading our Vision & Mission . We are a very informal group. To become a member, email Tim Wulling at info@parkpeace.org or call Kathy Magnuson at 651-645-2475. If you provide an email address, you will receive an occasional message from Tim to update you about our activities and the website. Download a flier (PDF).
We buy an ad in the Bugle every month, sometimes listing members names (if they gave permission, and if there's enough money). There are no formal dues, but we do need donations for the Bugle ads, and to pay honorarium to speakers and expenses for activities. Watch for info about planning meetings and activity announcements in the Bugle ad and on our home page.
Make suggestions for website announcements and readings by emailing Karen at web@parkpeace.org The website is updated about once a week, so stay in touch by checking www.ParkPeace.org regularly. The web editor is Karen Lilley. The web advisors (who review the Readings in the home page right column) are: Dorothee Aeppli, Ev Hanson, Barbara Murdock, Gordon Murdock, Elaine Tarone, and Kathy Wellington. Numerous other members send suggestions for posting on the web. If you'd like to be a reviewer or have some other involvement with the website, please contact Karen.
A History, by Joan Jones, a founding member
Written May, 2003
- This is what I remember about the early days of the SAP Neighbors. It began, if I remember correctly, in 1980, when I read something in a publication at the Newman Center (which is no more) in Minneapolis, about ICBMs. I read that one of these could reach the USA in fifteen minutes. This was news to me.
I also read that a group in Massachusetts called "Women for Survival" was working on this. I was alarmed enough to write to this group and I got a call from them telling me I should organize a Mothers' Day March for May. I had no idea how to do this, so I called Northern Sun Alliance (which I somehow knew of, and which no longer exists).
I talked to Sharon Collins. She immediately started planning a march. This really took off and about 300 persons showed up for a march down Franklin Avenue. A meeting came out of this march, which was held at the Northern Sun Alliance office. We had a number of meetings at the Northern Sun office, which we outgrew and we met at other places, which I don't remember.
Helen Caldicott came to town and spoke at one of the meetings. There was standing room only. People were sitting on the floor. What we were concerned about was the nuclear buildup of the Reagan administration.
This Minneapolis group called itself "People for Survival." It was all pretty ad hoc. A chairman was appointed at each meeting, someone took notes, and someone passed the hat for donations. Paul Wellstone came to speak at one of the meetings. The meetings were held at night. There was no voting. All decisions were arrived at by consensus, so the meetings often lasted far into the night. The meetings were getting very large, and a decision was made to establish neighborhood groups throughout the city.
One group met in St. Anthony Park. We met at various houses. People active at that time included Betty Ellis, Marge Grahn-Bowman, Ann Liv Bacon, Paul Bloom, Meg Layese, D. Perry Kidder, Regula Russelle, Michael Russelle, Tim Wulling, Joan Jones, and Larry Jones.
The nuclear freeze became very big at the time. Ann Liv Bacon organized a petition drive, and Neighbors for Peace collected 3,475 signatures. Congressional District 4 collected 21,000 signatures and 120,000 signatures were collected in Minnesota.
It must have been about this time that Jan Nicodemus and Ann Liv Bacon made the banner. In June some members went to New York City for the UN Conference on Disarmament.
I have the minutes for some of the meetings and I am amazed at the number of activities the Neighbors for Peace carried on. We raffled off a beautiful wreath donated by Roxanne Freeze (Bibelot owner).
