The Ribbon International is a United Nations non-governmental organization that created a large decorated cloth promoting nuclear disarmament and care and protection of the earth. In an event held on August 4, 1985, panels were connected in an long strip stretching from the Pentagon into Washington D.C. The event was covered in the film The Ribbon Starts Here by Nigel Noble (1988). Individual sections of the Ribbon are exhibited internationally. In 1991, The Ribbon International became a United Nations Non Governmental Organization. Ribbon events can be held for special designated days such as the International Day of Peace (September 21), Earth Day (April 21), special prayer days or other events. Panels from the Ribbon were displayed at the United Nations Decade for Women international conference in Nairobi in 1985, and others were used by members of Women for a Meaningful Summit at their demonstration at the Geneva Summit (1985). Ribbons were used at peace demonstrations at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, and the Horse Creek Missile Silo near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament in 1986.
Planning
The Ribbon International was created in 1982 as a protest against nuclear war by Justine Merritt (1924–2009)
Following a trip to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1975, Merritt conceived the idea of wrapping the Pentagon with a mile of ribbon to recall (in Merritt's words) "that we love the earth and its people," which is analogous with tying a string around one's finger to remember something. The event took place on August 4, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Ribbon was made in the three years leading up to the Pentagon event from hundreds of panels created by local groups co-ordinated nationally by Mary Frances Jaster of Denver with state co-ordinators. Each panel used embroidery, quilting, painting and other techniques. The makers were invited to convey their thoughts and emotions in the panels, with their story on the back.
Friends, relatives, places of worship, and other organizations helped spread Merritt's idea throughout the United States and around the world. Local newsletters and arts and crafts magazines such as Fibre Art, Handwoven, and Quilter's Newsletter Magazine helped publicize the project. Stories leading up to the Pentagon event appeared in over 2,500 publications, including local newspapers and national publications such as McCall's (Gittelson 1985), Mother Jones (Robinson 1985), People (Grogan and Chandler 1985), and Vogue magazine (L. Davis 1985). Coverage appeared in Time magazine (Pierce 1985) and on the front page of the Washington Post (Saperstein 1985, Kastor 1985, McGrory 1985) after the event. The Ribbon was covered by major radio and television networks. Merritt appeared on Good Morning America in June and August (before the event) and again in November 1985.
Panels were received from contributors in every state in the United States. Every state and many towns and organizations held Ribbon joining events. Panels were received from all over the world, including Russia, England, Germany, New Zealand, Italy, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and Puerto Rico. A group of women with Church Women United led a grassroots effort around the country, making panels and assisting with preparations in Washington. Their newsletter, which was sent to a half a million members of the Catholic Church, the Russian Orthodox Church in America, the Salvation Army, the Quakers, and 29 other Christian denominations, provided information on how to construct the panels. More than 3,000 Ribbon panels were contributed by this group. The California delegation contributed over 3,000 panels for the Ribbon event. In 1984, they created a display of panels that surrounded Lake Merritt in Oakland. The California group also sent panels to Hiroshima for a Ribbon event that was going to surround the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on the same day as the Pentagon event.