The Day Thousands Joined Hands Around Rocky Flats

On October 15, 1983, thousands of people gathered around the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant and joined hands in an extraordinary demonstration. The Encirclement became one of the defining moments in a protest movement that had been building outside the plant's gates for years.

There are moments in history when a complicated issue becomes visible in a single image.

At Rocky Flats, one of those moments came on October 15, 1983. Thousands of people traveled to the nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver. They spread out along roads surrounding the sprawling federal facility and joined hands. Their goal was remarkable:

Form a human chain around Rocky Flats.

The Department of Energy's own history of the plant records approximately 12,000 peaceful demonstrators that day and says the crowd fell short of completely encircling the facility. Other historical accounts estimate the crowd at approximately 17,000 and describe demonstrators encircling Rocky Flats' roughly 17-mile perimeter. Contemporary photographs leave little doubt about the scale of the event. The demonstration became known simply as the Rocky Flats Encirclement. But it wasn't the beginning of the movement. It was the culmination of years of organizing, demonstrations, arrests and civil disobedience outside a plant that most people in the Denver metropolitan area had once known very little about.

A nuclear weapons plant outside Denver

Rocky Flats wasn't a nuclear power plant. It was part of the nation's nuclear weapons production complex, manufacturing plutonium components for nuclear weapons.

For much of its operating history, what happened inside Rocky Flats was largely removed from everyday public view. By the 1970s, however, concerns about nuclear weapons, plutonium contamination, worker safety, environmental releases and government secrecy were bringing increasing attention to the plant. And people began showing up outside its gates.

1978: A protest becomes a movement

One of the pivotal years was 1978. On April 29, thousands of people gathered at Rocky Flats for what the Library of Congress describes as the first major protest at a Department of Energy plant. Estimates of attendance vary, but contemporary reporting placed the crowd in the thousands. After the rally, approximately 150 protesters began blocking the railroad spur serving Rocky Flats. They weren't simply holding signs for an afternoon. The blockade continued. Participants endured rain, snow and near-freezing temperatures. By May 5, a smaller group remained on the tracks and was arrested. Among them was Daniel Ellsberg, who had become nationally known years earlier for releasing the Pentagon Papers. Congressional records from the period document the extended blockade and arrests.

The demonstrations helped give rise to the Rocky Flats Truth Force, which organized nonviolent actions aimed at disrupting the plant's operations and drawing public attention to nuclear weapons production at Rocky Flats. Poet Allen Ginsberg also participated in the Rocky Flats protests, along with other activists who would return repeatedly to the plant.

Rocky Flats was becoming more than a local environmental controversy. It was becoming a nationally recognized center of the anti-nuclear movement.

1979: More than 10,000 people return

The movement grew dramatically the following year. On April 28, 1979, more than 10,000 people gathered near Rocky Flats despite cold and rainy weather. Contemporary estimates varied—something common with large demonstrations. The Colorado State Patrol estimated 7,700, while other contemporary accounts reported more than 10,000 and some organizers and later histories put the number higher. The rally included music, speeches and calls for Rocky Flats to be closed or converted to nonmilitary production. The following day, hundreds of protesters moved toward the plant's gates and railroad tracks as part of an organized civil-disobedience action. Federal marshals arrested hundreds of them. Daniel Ellsberg was again among those arrested. The Library of Congress' Historic American Engineering Record later singled out the 1979 demonstration as a rally that drew approximately 10,000 participants.

There was another side to the story

Not everyone in the community supported the protesters. Rocky Flats employed thousands of people and was economically important to the region. Workers and supporters of the plant responded to the growing protest movement by organizing themselves. The Library of Congress records that Rockwell employees formed Citizens for Energy and Freedom, which organized a pro-nuclear rally called "Power to the People." That rally reportedly attracted approximately 16,000 people. This belongs in the history too. Rocky Flats wasn't surrounded by a community with a single opinion. For some people, it represented nuclear weapons, environmental contamination and secrecy. For others, Rocky Flats represented national defense, good jobs and economic security. Those competing views existed side by side for decades.

Protest continued into the 1980s

The demonstrations didn't end after 1979. Activists continued organizing rallies, vigils, blockades and acts of civil disobedience around Rocky Flats. Some were large.

Others involved only a handful of people. In 1982, two Catholic nuns entered the plant using counterfeit security badges. According to DOE's own historical account, they raised a flag reading "Death Factory" near one building before plant security arrested them. Then came 1983.

October 15, 1983: The Encirclement

The idea was simple enough to understand without a speech: surround Rocky Flats with people. Participants arrived from throughout Colorado and beyond.

They positioned themselves along the perimeter of the nuclear weapons facility.

Then they joined hands. DOE's official history says approximately 12,000 peaceful demonstrators participated and that they did not completely close the circle. The demonstration attracted extensive media attention, and traffic on Colorado Highway 93 was reportedly backed up for hours afterward. Other sources—including the University of Colorado's Coloradan—put the number at approximately 17,000 and describe the demonstrators as joining hands around the plant's 17-mile perimeter. A recent history of the event similarly describes approximately 17,000 participants while noting that the human chain was "not quite complete." So the most responsible way to describe the event is also the simplest: Somewhere between approximately 12,000 and 17,000 people participated in the 1983 Rocky Flats Encirclement, attempting to form a human chain around the plant.

Whether every yard of the perimeter was physically closed matters less than what the demonstration represented. Thousands of ordinary people had turned a secretive nuclear weapons facility into something impossible to ignore.

The protests continued

The Encirclement wasn't the last major demonstration at Rocky Flats. On August 10, 1987, hundreds of protesters attempted to force a one-day shutdown of the plant. About 320 demonstrators were arrested. And on August 6, 1989, another large demonstration brought an estimated 3,500 people to Rocky Flats. By then, something extraordinary had already happened inside the plant. Two months earlier, on June 6, 1989, FBI and EPA agents had executed a search warrant at Rocky Flats as part of an investigation into alleged environmental violations. Plutonium weapons production was suspended.

It never resumed.

Did the protesters shut down Rocky Flats?

This is where the history deserves careful wording.

The 12,000—or perhaps 17,000—people who joined hands in 1983 did not shut Rocky Flats down that day. Nor would it be accurate to say that protests alone caused Rocky Flats to close. The eventual end of production involved a much larger chain of events: environmental problems, internal concerns, federal investigations, the 1989 FBI/EPA raid, changing nuclear weapons requirements as the Cold War ended, and subsequent federal decisions about the plant's future. But that doesn't make the protests insignificant. Far from it. For more than a decade, activists kept Rocky Flats in public view. They stood at the gates. They blocked railroad tracks. They were arrested. They organized concerts and rallies. They brought journalists, musicians, religious leaders, peace activists and thousands of ordinary Coloradans to a place that had operated for years with relatively little public understanding of what was happening inside. The protests became part of the public pressure surrounding Rocky Flats. And the people who participated helped transform Rocky Flats from an obscure federal weapons facility into a subject of sustained public scrutiny.

More than one kind of protest

It's also important not to flatten this history into a simple story of protesters versus the government. The people who came to Rocky Flats represented different concerns.

Some opposed nuclear weapons. Some were concerned about plutonium contamination.

Some focused on worker safety. Some objected to government secrecy. Some advocated converting Rocky Flats to peaceful production rather than simply closing it. Religious activists approached the issue as a moral question. Environmental activists focused on contamination.

Peace activists focused on nuclear war. And thousands of Rocky Flats employees and their families believed deeply in the plant's national-security mission and defended their work.

Rocky Flats was a workplace, a nuclear weapons facility, an environmental controversy and a focal point of the peace movement—all at the same time. Understanding that complexity makes the history more credible, not less.

The image that remains

Forty-three years later, the 1983 Encirclement remains one of the most striking images in Rocky Flats history. People standing beside Colorado highways.

Families.

Students.

Activists.

Religious leaders.

Musicians.

People who had traveled long distances.

People who lived just down the road.

Thousands joining hands around a place that most of them would never be permitted to enter.

They didn't close Rocky Flats that October day.

But they did something else.

They made it visible.

And in the history of Rocky Flats, that mattered.

Sources & Further Reading

U.S. Department of Energy — Rocky Flats HistoryOfficial history of Rocky Flats, including the protest movement and 1983 Encirclement.

Library of Congress — Rocky Flats Plant Historical RecordFederal historical documentation of Rocky Flats, including major demonstrations during the 1970s.

University of Colorado Boulder — Rocky Flats EncirclementIncludes a historical photograph of the 1983 Encirclement and an account estimating approximately 17,000 participants.

University of Massachusetts — Daniel Ellsberg and Rocky FlatsArchival material documenting Ellsberg, the Rocky Flats Truth Force and nonviolent civil disobedience at the plant.

Congressional Record — Rocky Flats Demonstrations, May 1978Contemporaneous federal documentation concerning the 1978 demonstrations.

The Washington Post — “Antinuclear Protests Spread,” April 29, 1979Contemporary reporting on the large 1979 Rocky Flats demonstration.