Susan Smith of WILPF Pittsburgh, reading the letter to the County Executive at the City/County Building, January 22, 2022.

By Susan Smith
Pittsburgh Branch

March 2022

Pittsburgh WILPF partnered with other organizations to celebrate the first anniversary of the Entry Into Force (EIF) of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). On Saturday, January 22, about 20 people from Stop Banking the Bomb (SBTB), Remembering Hiroshima/Imagining Peace (RHIP), the Green Party, WILPF rallied in frigid weather outside PNC headquarters to continue the demand that they not invest in companies involved with nuclear weapons.

Everyone marched and chanted their way to the City/County Building, where they publicly read letters that had been sent to the newly elected Mayor, Ed Gainey, and County Executive, Rich Fitzgerald, asking them to continue the previous mayor’s support of Mayors for Peace. There is hope to schedule follow-up meetings in the near future. County Councilwoman, Anita Prizio explained the ordinance against nuclear weapons that she will introduce in early February.
Photo: Protesters rallying before PNC headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh, January 22, 2022.

Several days later, WILPF Pittsburgh and SBTB presented the webinar, “Nuclear Weapons: Abolish Them or Be Abolished.” Susan Smith a WILPF representative, a physicist, a lawyer, and an activist, shared information about the five-year long campaign to get PNC Bank to stop investments related to nuclear weapons. In addition, she discussed a partial history of the development of nuclear weapons, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and advancements since it entered into effect in 2021, and strategies against nuclear weapons. Photo: The flyer with information about the January 25 webinar, Nuclear Weapons: Abolish them or Be Abolished. Click here to view full flyer.

During the last half an hour of the program, participants divided into groups to share ideas of what they could do to help abolish nuclear weapons so that the world not be abolished.