On this day in vegan history · March 20, 1985
FARM Launches the Great American Meatout
A Senate resolution praising meat got under one activist's skin, and a living-room brainstorm turned it into an annual dare: skip meat for one day, the first day of spring.
The facts
- Date
- March 20, 1985
- Founded by
- Alex Hershaft and FARM (Farm Animal Rights Movement)
- Modeled on
- The Great American Smokeout
- Response to
- A U.S. Senate resolution proclaiming National Meat Week
In January 1985, Alex Hershaft, founder of the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), gathered a handful of activists in his living room to figure out how to respond to a U.S. Senate resolution proclaiming a National Meat Week. Walter Rave, a local activist, suggested countering it with something modeled on the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout. The group settled on March 20, the first day of spring, and asked people to pledge to go without meat for that one day. It has run every year since, with governors and mayors across the country issuing their own MeatOut proclamations.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
A bunch of us were sitting in my living room on a cold January evening in 1985, trying to figure out what to do about a recently announced US Senate resolution declaring a National Meat Week.
Alex Hershaft, in a 2012 interview about the Meatout's origins
Source: VegNews -
Playing off the 'Great American Smokeout', the Great American MeatOut was launched in 1985 to protest a U.S. Senate resolution proclaiming National Meat Week.
Wikipedia, Farm Animal Rights Movement entry
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
It was one of the first times the animal rights movement stopped just arguing and started asking for something small and doable, one day, and that low bar is exactly why forty governors and forty-seven mayors eventually felt comfortable proclaiming it too.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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