William Thomas Hallenback Jr.

Thomas started the White House Peace Vigil, the longest-running peace vigil in US history, in 1981. William Thomas Hallenback Jr., known as Thomas (March 20, 1947 – January 23, 2009), was an American anti-nuclear activist and simple-living adherent who undertook a 27-year peace vigil – the longest recorded vigil in US history at the time, with the title passing to his co-protester Concepción Picciotto after Thomas' death – in front of the White House.

Biography Thomas was born in Tarrytown, New York, and became a truck driver, jewelry maker, and carpenter. Inspired by the Sermon on the Mount, he became a pilgrim and began traveling the world in the interest of world peace.

In 1978, having tried to swim across the Suez Canal on his way to Israel, Thomas spent eight months in an Egyptian prison. Later, in response to United States foreign policy, he destroyed his passport while trying to renounce his American citizenship in London. On May 6, 1984, Thomas and Ellen were married at a Quaker wedding.

Thomas died on January 23, 2009, aged 61, of pulmonary disease.

Legacy Thomas and the White House Peace Vigil inspired Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton to introduce the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act to Congress in 1994. It would require the United States to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons – once all other nations possessing nuclear weapons did likewise – and redirect the funds saved into renewable energy and social projects.

Since 1994, Norton has continued to introduce revised or renewed versions of the bill. In March 2011, for example, following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, it was reintroduced under the name of the "Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act".

The Oracles of Pennsylvania Avenue, a 2012 TV documentary commissioned by the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel , recounts the lives of Thomas, Ellen, Concepcion Picciotto and Norman Mayer.