Rally to Celebrate UN Treaty - January 22, 2021

On this day of international action, we held another rally at Vance Monument. We joined people all over the world to celebrate the Entry into Force of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to call out Raytheon’s role in producing nuclear weapons. Raytheon has over $1 billion in contracts connected to the nuclear weapons industry.

We conducted a vigil with signs and banners, listened to speakers remind us of what is at stake with the very existence of these weapons, and took a moment of silence as a bell tolled in commemoration of the victims of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of all the nuclear testing, and of the toxic effects of uranium mining and waste disposal.


Die-in at Vance Monument - Dec. 9, 2020

Our first action took place shortly after the Buncombe County Commissioners voted on the tax incentive package. On December 9, 2020, we conducted a die-in at Vance Monument to call attention to the Pratt & Whitney (P&W) plant being planned for Asheville and the role of Raytheon, P&W’s parent company, as the second largest war profiteer in the world. We denounced the decision of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners to grant a $27 million incentive package to P&W with no transparency to the public. We called on the county to rescind its agreement with P&W, to invest in local businesses, and to live up to its promise of reparations to the African American community.