Greater Clevelanders have a slew of options to celebrate Earth Day this year: a 5K at the zoo to a park clean-up to a recycle fair.

Cleveland’s first Earth Day looked a little different.  

On April 22, 1970, nearly 1,000 students and teachers marched from Cleveland State University to the Cuyahoga River in a “procession of death,” the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. 

“I want to say to the ghost of Moses Cleaveland that I’m sorry,” one protestor told the newspaper as he looked out on a polluted Cuyahoga River.

Several hundred thousand Greater Clevelanders showed their support through special environmental programs at schools and colleges, the newspaper added.  

The protest followed years of consternation around pollution in the river, which infamously caught fire repeatedly between the 1860s and 1960s. A photo of a 1952 Cuyahoga river fire made the front page of TIME in 1969. The photo spurred cross-country outrage – and the nation’s first Earth Day in 1970.     

Learn more details about the role Cleveland advocates, from journalists to politicians, played in the nation’s first Earth Day and the nation’s environmental movement.

Betty Klaric pushes for environmental action

Local historical archives credit Klaric – the first woman president of Cleveland’s News Guild – with raising the profile of pollution in the community. 

Klaric worked for The Cleveland Press as an environmental reporter. In 1965, she helped the Press start a “Save Lake Erie Now” campaign. 

Through her work, she encouraged “public exposure” of polluters – something she herself carried out. One of her reports shared the progress of five companies, from Sherwin-Williams to Du Pont, in reducing pollution.

Klaric’s work had an impact on Carl Stokes’ mayoral administration, which would go on to tackle pollution head-on. Benjamin Stefanski worked as Stokes’ utilities director. In an archival interview with the Western Reserve Historical Society, he cited Klaric as one of the people pushing for water clean-up.

“These were the people that I brought into my office,” Stefanski said. “They educated me and they gave me the impetus to go ahead and create the pollution abatement program. Because there wasn’t any water pollution abatement program prior to my being appointed.”

Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes takes it to the national level

Stokes, elected in 1967, was Cleveland’s first Black mayor and one of the first Black mayors of a major U.S. city. 

His interest in environmental issues was apparent in his first run for mayor, which he narrowly lost. An ad he ran in the Plain Dealer in 1965 told the public that one of his priorities was “pollution control for ALL people.” 

When he won the mayor’s seat in 1967, he said in his inaugural address that: “The enemy is a combination of tangible and intangible, big and little problems – human problems and physical problems – problems that press thorns of misery on huge segments of our population – problems that make our environment irritable and unpleasant.” 

Stokes’ interest in pollution led him and Stefanski to persuade residents to vote in favor of a $100 million bond to improve the city’s sewer systems in 1968. He also headed efforts to reduce air pollution, control rats and build more small city parks, according to the National Park Service.

Eventually, Stokes testified in front of the U.S. Congress twice: once before the infamous Cuyahoga River fire in 1969 and once after. Both times, he asked for federal dollars to fight water pollution. 

Many credit Stokes’ advocacy, alongside that of his brother Louis, a U.S. representative, with helping to spur the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Water Act. 

Cleveland’s Black Environmental Leaders – a group focused on environmental justice in the city today – reference the Stokes brothers’ work on their website. 

“Progress is possible when communities build power, speak truth to power and build coalitions that shift the balance of power and result in real policy change,” it says on the website. “The advocacy and leadership of Mayor Carl Stokes and Representative Louis Stokes elevated environmental justice to the policy arena.”

Earth Day March, 1970

Carl Stokes, however, had his skepticism about Cleveland’s Earth Day plans in 1970. 

Stokes publicly proclaimed the week of Earth Day “Crisis in the Environment Week.” 

But he told activists the week prior that he feared the focus on pollution came at the expense of addressing poverty, according to articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Call & Post. He voiced concern that available city dollars were going to pollution instead of prioritizing hunger. 

“It is a lot easier to get Shaker Heights and Lakewood, and even the President of the United States, concerned about pollution than about hunger,” Stokes was quoted saying in the Call & Post. 

In testimony to the U.S. Congress later that month, Stokes again explained his frustration with Earth Day events – many of which, across the country, featured high-level politicians. So many U.S. senators and representatives were participating in “teach-ins” across the country that Congress went into recess. Many industrial leaders even got on board.

“Frankly, on Earth Day, … I was convinced that this country, while it talks about its environmental problem, is probably going to be unwilling to pay the kind of money that we are talking about to effectively set about doing something about it,” Stokes said. 

Throughout environmental crisis week, events took place across the area in addition to the student march, which was led by the Cleveland State University president. Grade schools, high schools and churches held awareness-raising events. The Call & Post reported that congregations were making plans for “Save Our Environment” services the weekend prior to Earth Day. 

Even groups like the Cleveland Engineering Society held an “Engineering Your Environment” program. At the event, a Dow Chemical Co. official spoke to the group, the Plain Dealer reported.

“A company that expects to stand up to competition in the future simply cannot pollute,” he told them, saying there was “no excuse” for Dow’s own pollution.