Earth Day
He left Harvard after being selected by Senator Gaylord Nelson to organize the first Earth Day. The first Earth Day (April 22, 1970) had participants and celebrants in two thousand colleges and universities, about ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities. It is believed that some 20 million demonstrators participated. In 2009, the story of Earth Day was told in the film Earth Days which closed that year's Sundance Film Festival.
Following the success of the first Earth Day, Hayes founded the Earth Day Network and served as international chairman for Earth Day's anniversaries in 1990 and 2000. Internationally, he is recognized for expanding the Earth Day Network to more than 180 nations. It is now the world’s most widely observed secular holiday. Hayes continues to chair the board of the international Earth Day Network and is the Chair of the Earth Day 2010 Global Advisory Committee.
Read more about this topic: Denis Hayes
Famous quotes containing the words earth and/or day:
“I do not believe in erecting statues to those who still live in our hearts, whose bones have not yet crumbled in the earth around us, but I would rather see the statue of Captain Brown in the Massachusetts State-House yard than that of any other man whom I know. I rejoice that I live in this age, that I am his contemporary.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,
Who once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
And let my grave-stone be your oracle.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)