Alice Richards created the home base and inspiration for Harvey Richards photography
Alice Richards created the home base and the inspiration for Harvey to do the photography and film making that is now on the Harvey Richards Media Archive and being used by media makers and educators around the country and the world. She encouraged Harvey in every way, brought considerable resources to him for acquiring the right equipment and helped in writing scripts for three of his 22 films.
Alice Richards Understood
Moscow, USSR, 1961
Alice understood the significance of the socialist world’s support for women and children which led to the trip to the Soviet Union in 1961. She wrote the script and narrated their two films on the Soviet Union . She was instrumental in arranging contacts with the Soviet Women’s Committee who opened all the doors for the filming in the USSR.
Alice Richards and Frances Herring wrote the script for “Women for Peace.”
She and Frances Herring were both co-founders of Women for Peace. They wrote the script for Harvey Richards’ film “Women for Peace.” In San Francisco, on August 6, 1962, Harvey Richards photographed the Women for Peace march to commemorate the anniversary of the U.S. dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Marching in a time of complacency and ubiquitous anti-communist media bias, these demonstrators received little or no publicity from the established media. Calling for “No More War”, protesters marched around an area in San Francisco equal in size to the area destroyed in Hiroshima by the bomb. Alice Richards spoke at the rally.
Women for Peace Demonstrations
Out of these demonstrations came the peace organization Women for Peace. Harvey Richards documented the west coast activities and formation of this group in his film Women for Peace, with the script written by Francis Herring and Alice Richards and narrated by Francis Herring. One of the first actions of Women for Peace was the protest against nuclear testing outside the testing zone in Mercury, Nevada where women picketed openly with helicopter surveillance flying over them. Still photo images of these demonstrations are available on this web site.
Alice Richards was actively involved in the peace movement and education throughout her life. Around her home, I met many wonderful people, like Linus Pauling, at parties and gatherings over the decades. She encouraged and supported Harvey’s sons and their children and even their children’s children in countless ways for over a half a century.
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