'Joyful solidarity': Diane Turco's 40 years of Cape Cod activism

It’s the late 1980s, and Diane Turco is back on trial in Connecticut for protesting the launch of a nuclear missile-wielding submarine at the Naval Submarine Base New London.

She couldn’t find a babysitter. Her 2-year-old son Justin is with her, and is doing what babies are prone to do — crying, and crying loudly.

“Will someone get that baby out of my courtroom?” Turco remembered the judge eventually demanding.

Turco held her son up high so the judge could see him.

“This is why I’m here,” she said. “It’s for my children, and for all other children, too.”

Turco, a Harwich resident, teacher, mother and activist, is no stranger to courtrooms.

She was inspired to begin her career of organizing after she heard a talk given by Dr. Helen Caldicott, an anti-nuclear advocate, in the early 1980s.

Early anti-nuclear efforts

The Nuclear Freeze Movement, a grass-roots effort in the 1980s for the governments of the U.S.S.R and the United States to agree to stop the testing, production and employment of nuclear weapons was just beginning.

Turco's daughter had just been born, she said, and she couldn’t stand the thought of living passively in the shadow of the then-operational Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant.

“The highlight of Caldicott’s talk was that with the discovery of the atom bomb, it chipped away at the world, and it was up to us, it was kind of like mostly mothers, too, to stop the madness,” Turco said. “It’s a personal obligation to end nuclear weapons and nuclear power.”

The Pilgrim plant, which went online in 1972, is in the Manomet area of Plymouth, on Cape Cod Bay. It was built and operated by Boston Edison Co. until 1999, when it changed hands to Louisiana-based Entergy Corp.

In 2015, Entergy announced that the plant would be closed by June 1, 2019. The plant was then sold to Holtec International LLC in 2019 for decommissioning.

More: Cape town leaders oppose radioactive water release in Cape Cod Bay, in letters filed at hearing

When 35 Cape Codders helped block entrance to a weapons conference

After Caldicott’s talk, Turco cut her protesting teeth at a missile makers conference in Boston.

“There was a flyer that said more bombs for your buck,” she said. “And we thought, this is just horrible.”

Thirty-five activists from the Cape traveled to Boston on the day of the conference and blocked the entrance to the building. Everyone involved was arrested, including the band the protestors had hired for the occasion.

“I was a young mom, and we went down (to the city) with other mothers, and fathers and grandmothers,” Turco remembered. “But we were arrested and thrown into the police van, one woman was even injured (being) thrown into the van. And then we were in jail.”

Turco remembered the impression left on her by the experience, noting the bravery and intensity of people willing to block a weapons manufacturing conference.

“It was just these wonderful, lively people, and I don’t know, maybe it was the juxtaposition of the police dragging us, they were on their horses and it was kind of scary,” she said. “But I got to spend time with these really lovely people. I think about 150 people (who) were arrested that day, but 35 of us were from the Cape.”

She said when the protestors got in front of the judge, he let them off with a warning.

As the protestors were leaving the courthouse, however, the band hired for the protest began playing the spiritual “Down by the Riverside.”

“As we go around the building, we get to the bottom floor, we’re holding hands and dancing to the music," she said, "and the judge and court officers are upstairs tapping along, it was so cool.”

It was this missile makers conference that kicked off a more than 40-year career of organizing on the Cape and beyond for Turco, from issues of nuclear energy to anti-war efforts.

More: Cape activists continue to be inspired by King's example

The Harwich teacher can’t remember how many times she’s been arrested for the causes she’s passionate about.

'An act of faith'

“It’s an act of faith in our system when you stand up to it,” she said. “There’s definitely joyful solidarity when you are part of a protest.”

Turco has worked with many organizations across the country in the pursuit of a nuclear- and war-free future, including Cape Codders for Peace and Justice, Occupy-Cape Cod Hyannis and Cape Downwinders, a nuclear watchdog and advocacy group, where she is the director.

More: Hundreds of Pilgrim opponents question NRC

Mary Lampert, director of Pilgrim Watch, a public interest and safety group that focuses on the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, first met Turco at a 1988 New Year's Eve protest at the Pilgrim plant.

The plant had been offline since 1986 due to several mechanical difficulties, and despite pushback from local organizers and government officials including Gov. Michael Dukakis, Attorney General James Shannon and U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gave the plant the green light to reopen.

As operations began on that New Year's Eve, activists from across southeastern Massachusetts, including Turco and Lampert, gathered to rally against the reopening.

Lampert remembers herself, Turco and other women at the protest donning fur coats and pearls for the occasion. They were arrested for trespassing.

“When we were taken to jail, the warden was looking at us like, who are these ladies in their fur coats?” Lampert said.

She also talked of Turco’s importance to Pilgrim Watch and the anti-nuclear movement on the whole, as her organization focuses mainly on fact compilation rather than direct community outreach.

“If you’re community organizing, you need to have the facts, which is my and my husband’s specialty,” she said. “That’s where Diane comes in. If it’s not out in the public in a public-friendly manner, what good does it do?”

More: Activists mourn loss of 'quietest leader'

'Best organizer I've ever met'

“She’s the best organizer I’ve ever met, and that’s after working on these issues for many years,” Susan Carpenter, fellow Cape Downwinder and co-defendant in the infamous 2014 Grandmother’s Trial, said of Turco. “The way she thinks, she can get pictures in her head on what needs to get done and how to do it.”

Carpenter, Turco, and two other women, Mary Conathan and Sarah Thacher, all members of Cape Downwinders, stood trial in 2014 for trespassing on the Pilgrim Power Plant after a 2012 Mother’s Day protest. The women said they wanted to plant flowers on the property.

They took advantage of the moment. Caldicott testified on their behalf, citing the Fukushima-level threat the plant posed to Massachusetts, as well as the inherent dangers of nuclear energy.

The women were found guilty of trespassing, but weren’t sentenced to jail time.

“I was not comfortable, I’ve never been comfortable with public speaking, and I had a 30-year career in real estate at this point,” Mary Conathan said. “But we felt it so strongly. I look back and think it helped eventually close the plant.”

Conathan, who lived in Chatham at the time, said she watched a "60 Minutes" episode about the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and started researching nuclear energy.

Her sister had just gotten involved with the Cape Downwinders and told her about the shelter-in-place order for the Cape in the event of a disaster at Pilgrim.

Chatham empty-nester joins cause

“I remember thinking, you’re kidding me,” she said. “So I called Diane and said, 'You know, my kids are out of the house,' I hadn’t remarried at that point, so I said I could give my time. She said that there was an event that weekend, and that was the beginning.”

The weekend event Turco mentioned was the 2012 Mother’s Day protest, and she remembers the moment she stepped over the no-trespassing line.

“I walked across the line, my sister looked at me and said are you sure, and I said 'Yes,' ” Conathan said.

“I basically hung out at Diane’s side,” she said. “I admire her to no end. She’s sacrificed for years for this. She’s the moving force, she’s the organizer, she’s the voice. I can’t tell you how fond I am of her.”

Conathan was with Turco when the two, along with Doug Long of Orleans, were arrested for a sit-in at Gov. Charlie Baker’s Boston office in 2016, urging him to close the plant.

“All of a sudden three of us were left,” Conathan said of the September 2016 sit-in. “They said, 'You know, if you don’t leave now we’re calling the police.' Diane looked at me and said, 'You can leave,' and I said, 'I’m not leaving you here.' ”

Conathan remembered being handcuffed and escorted out a back exit to avoid press attention and transported through Boston to jail.

“You know, I had never even had a rolling motor vehicle infraction at this point,” she said. “Diane has done this over and over and has found not only a calling, but a need for this work. She’s wonderful.”

More: Pilgrim opponents: 'We're sitting on a time bomb'

Turco’s organizing efforts don’t just stop with nuclear energy, however. Carpenter met her through Occupy-Cape Cod Hyannis, a movement that protested bank foreclosures on Cape homes. It was this meeting that convinced Carpenter to get involved with Cape Downwinders.

A voice against foreclosures

“At these meetings, they’d ask people to do things that no one raised their hand for, but Diane always did,” she said. “She’s just an impressive person.”

“We (Occupy-Cape Cod Hyannis) were a real grassroots, community-based push back against the capitalist system that kills their own,” Turco said. “The poor communities of Hyannis were the target of Bank of America, and that’s the truth.”

Turco was also one of the first to protest against the war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an opinion that virtually no one in the country shared.

“I remember this one time there were just two of us standing in the town center in Harwich,” Turco said of her early antiwar efforts in 2002. “I held a sign that said ‘Today I weep for my country’ and a black veil like I was in mourning, because you know, I was.”

Her daughter Emily Turco, a third-grade teacher in Windsor, Conn., remembered a childhood full of protests, parades, marching and activism.

More: Anti-nuke activist and deputy police chief share award

“She’s such a great role model in her activism. I just remember her always making phone calls and connecting with people,” she said. “Never a dull moment, there was never a lull with so many issues going on.”

A mom's example

One of Emily Turco’s first memories of protesting was an antiwar rally outside then-Rep. William Delahunt’s Hyannis office with her mother. Diane would later stage another sit-in at Delahunt’s Boston office in 2008, which she was arrested for as well.

Emily Turco said her mother also organized several bus trips from the Cape to Washington D.C. for antiwar protests, and remembered tagging along with her mother for one trip in 2004.

Amazingly, to Emily Turco, who is a mother herself now, Diane Turco also made time for her family alongside her activism work.

“She made plenty of time for us when we were growing up, too,” she said. “I don’t know how she did it.”

Regardless, the exposure to activism had a positive effect on Emily Turco, who credits her mother with her interest in animal rights issues.

“Seeing her care so deeply, whether it be antiwar or anti-nuclear, left an impression, and it’s an incredible amount of work,” Emily Turco said. “She’s a leader. She inspires me.”

“I’ve been very fortunate that my husband Tom, and our children Justin and Emily fully supported me. They never complained when I was away,” Turco said.

While organizing against war and nuclear energy certainly feels like a full-time gig for Turco, during her 41 years of activism she was also a full-time special education teacher in Sandwich, Chatham and Harwich.

In 2015, Turco was awarded the Kathleen Roberts Creative Leadership Award from the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

Back in a Plymouth courtroom today

An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere for Turco, who credits her activist ethos to Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

“That letter and the civil rights movement impacted how I interpreted citizenship,” she said in an email. "Particularly this part: 'Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.'"

Turco is scheduled to be back in the Plymouth courthouse today on trespassing charges in relation to a 2018 incident at the plant.

She is looking forward to the trial, and hopes she can use it as an opportunity to get the word out about the dangers the power plant still poses to the Cape and the South Shore.

“The nuclear industry is killing our own, just like the tobacco industry did," she said. "They insist it’s safe and clean when it’s not. But I’m feeling positive about the trial. It’s about public health and the safety of the beautiful land of Cape Cod. That’s what it’s all about, to me.”

Contact Sarah Carlon at scarlon@capecodonline.com. Follow her on Twitter: @sarcarlon.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Anti-nuke Diane Turco is back in court after 40 years of Cape activism