Earth Pledge, by Carol T. Gaddy and Marianne Wolfman-Dawn (25 April 1981)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Marianne Wolfman-Dawn and Carol Talbot Gaddy Graywing

Shared on:

19 October 2025 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Categories:

Earth, our Collective Home & Life-Support System, 🌐 Earth Day (22 April)

Tags:

1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion, 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., Anti-nuclear movement in the United States, Cold War (1979-1985), earth pledges, eco-conscious, interconnectedness, universalist

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	We pledge allegiance to the Earth And to the life which she provides One planet Interconnected With beauty and peace for all.

This earth pledge by Carol T. Gaddy and Marianne Wolfman-Dawn is included in a short essay by Gaddy entitled “Our New Pledge of Allegiance.” The essay can be found in What Will It Take to Prevent Nuclear War: Grassroots Responses to Our Most Challenging Question (ed. Pat Farren 1983), p. 149. Carol Gaddy writes that the pledge “was composed spontaneously by me and Marianne Wolfman-Dawn as we marched on the road to Damascus, Arkansas, April 25, 1981, protesting the nuclear missile site where a Titan missile had exploded the previous November, endangering the people it was meant to protect.” A photo of this march showing Carol Gaddy and Marianne Wolfman-Dawn was published on the cover of Ours: a Feminist Newspaper (vol. 3, no. 5, Little Rock, Arkansas- Winter 1980). (Many thanks to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture for digitizing and exhibiting this newspaper cover.)

As attested by Bryna Fireside and Elaine Lytel, this earth pledge was cited at the opening ceremonies of The Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice in Romulus, New York on 4 July 1983 (in The Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice: Images and Writings (1987), p. 21).

Source(s)

our new pledge of allegiance by Carol T. Gaddy and Marianne Wolfman-Dawn (25 April 1981) in What will it take to prevent nuclear war (ed. Pat Farren 1983), p. 149

Carol Gaddy at the March to Damascus, Arkansas (25 April 1981)

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Marianne Wolfman-Dawn

Maryanne Wolfman-Dawn was an anti-nuclear activist in Arkansas in the 1970s and early 1980s. As an undergraduate, she studied Anthrology at the University of the Americas after transferring from the University of Colorado, and was selected for inclusion in the 1967-68 edition of Who's Who in American Universities and Colleges. In 1978 she was awarded a grant from the Arkansas Endowment for the Humanities to sponsor a forum focusing on issues relating to nuclear power at which Dr. Benjamin Spock spoke, among others. In 1981, she co-authored an earth pledge with Carol Gaddy while marching against nuclear weapons following the Titan Ⅱ missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas in 1980. We know very little else about Maryanne Wolfman-Dawn. If you know more, please add to this bio of her life and career by contacting us.

Carol Talbot Gaddy Graywing

Carol Talbot Gaddy Graywing (1940-2018), born in in Norman, Oklahoma, was a social activist and lay leader in the Unitarian Universalist Church.

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Carol Gaddy at the March to Damascus, Arkansas (25 April 1981)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)

Earth Pledge, by Carol T. Gaddy and Marianne Wolfman-Dawn (25 April 1981)

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