An ENVIRONMENTAL Awakening
Before the first Earth Day there were not many environmental organizations or formal protests. So even though there were some groups of people trying to fight for the right to a clean environment there was no big impact.
"The lack of antecedents reveals much about the significance of Earth Day. Earth Day did not just mobilize activists to demonstrate the growing power of their cause. In several ways Earth Day helped to create the movement. Earth Day gave environmental activism a name."(Rome,2013)
"1970: The first Earth Day in Philadelphia"(CBS, 2011)
"At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity."(Earth Day Network, 2013)
There was a lot of air pollution in the 1960's because there were no air quality standards set by the government. There were no standards or rules for emissions from automobiles. In big industrial cities like Gary, Indiana and Birmingham, Alabama the sky would often be brown.