100 Campaigns that Changed the World

In this episode, we go back to the 1980s, to Greenham Common in Berkshire, where thousands of women built one of the longest‑running peace camps in history. They marched from Cardiff, set up camp outside a US nuclear base, and over nearly 20 years turned a protest site into a global symbol of feminist, anti‑nuclear resistance. From chaining themselves to the gates to “Embrace the Base” human chains of tens of thousands of women, Greenham rewrote what non‑violent direct action could look like. It was noisy, creative, and defiantly women‑led – the biggest women’s protest movement in Britain since the suffragettes.To explore what Greenham meant then, and why it still matters for campaigns today, we welcome writer, performer and activist Rebecca Mordan. Rebecca is the artistic director of feminist theatre company Scary Little Girls and co‑founder of the Greenham Women Everywhere project, which has collected over 200 testimonies from camp veterans. She is the co-author of Out of the Darkness, Greenham 1981-2000. Out now in paperback. ​In this conversation, we talk about life at the camp, the tactics that made Greenham so powerful, and the 19‑year protest. We also look at what today’s climate and peace, and other campaigners can learn from Greenham’s mix of humour, disruption and community care.Here are some resourcesGreenham Women Everywhere, interviewing Greenham Women, archiving and sharing their stories and holding events across the UK. The Greenham Effect for Radio 4’s Archive on 4, and a subsequent podcast series on the camp commissioned by Oxford Modern Art. A screening of Carry Greenham Home will transport you back to the early days of Greenham with Beeban Kidron and Amanda Richardson’s fly-on-the-wall masterpiece, shot whilst they lived at Greenham in 1982-83.Women Against the Bomb, Sonia Gonzalez’s prize-winning look at the impact of the Greenham Women, reflected through interviews and footage from women who took action and never looked back.Gentle, Angry Women, Barbara Santi’s coming of age documentary follows a new generation of young female activists as they embark on a journey of discovery, following in the footsteps of over 30,000 women who forty years earlier united in peaceful, liberating protest, the remarkable Greenham Common Women's Peace Movement.Mothers of the Revolution, Briar March’s tale of how a small number of Greenham Women made connections with their counterparts in the peace movement behind the Iron Curtain, travelling to the Soviet Union to advance peace and, eventually, contributing towards the end of the Cold War.