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		Robert Brown, founding member, Copper Country Peace Alliance

Guest columnist Robert (Bob) Brown of Houghton, along with his wife Viola Brown, is a founding member of the Copper Country Peace Alliance (CCPA). Bob Brown is also a retired Michigan Technological University professor of biology.

Bob and Viola Brown, of Houghton, founding members of the Copper Country Peace Alliance, pause near the Portage Lift Bridge during a "Walk for Peace" in March 2002. (Photo by Michele Anderson)

The Browns founded the Copper Country Peace Alliance in the late 1970s and early 80s in opposition to the Sanguine-Seafarer-ELF project for a nuclear submarine warning system.

"Viola and I attended a meeting in Ashland about Sanguine-Seafarer-ELF and were told by those people that the next meeting would be in Houghton, so we organized the Peace Alliance to do it," Bob Brown writes. "I testified in court against Sanguine-Seafarer-ELF in Ontonagon--the only 'expert' witness. We won and forced elections in eight counties about it.  Result--82% opposed to 18% in favor. Politicians took notice."

Also during the 80s, Bob Brown was appointed by Governor Blanchard as one of 20 people on the Governor's Task Force on High Level Nuclear Waste.

"We were biologists, chemists, physicists, nuclear engineers, physicians, geologists, lawyers, health specialists, etc.," Bob Brown explains. "We unanimously rejected locating a nuclear waste dump in the UP."

Heading toward the Portage Lift Bridge in Houghton, Robert Brown, left, of Houghton, a founding member of the Copper Country Peace Alliance, carries the group's sign during their third Walking Vigil for Peace and Nonviolence on Dec. 22, 2001. (File photo by Michele Anderson)

During the student anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the late 1960s, Bob Brown says he prevented a Kent State-type student riot from happening at Michigan Tech by arranging for the would-be rioters to join with the ROTC and make a memorial park just above St. Albert's Church. The site of the students' work is now mostly a parking lot, he notes.

Bob Brown writes letters to the editor and to legislators on peace, justice and environmental issues.

Viewpoints

Letter: Leaders' words can determine war or peace

Posted 06/02/2002

HOUGHTON -- Guest author Robert Brown, founding member of the Copper Country Peace Alliance (CCPA), sends a letter in response to a recent editorial in The Daily Mining Gazette. Brown read the letter to fellow Peace Alliance members during their June 1, 2002, "Walk for Peace" from Houghton to Hancock. more