The National Atomic Testing Museum sits on East Flamingo Road in Las Vegas, NV. From there one can travel 65 miles northwest by charter bus to the Nevada National Security Site and take a general interest tour sponsored by the Energy Department. However, before the NNSS became a respite from casino floors and buffet lines, it was known as the Nevada Test Site, and was a destination for contention—particularly between anti-nuclear protest groups and Department officials. In 1988, on this very site, Lisa Adler was arrested, jailed and charged with a misdemeanor for trespassing on government property. Though a misdemeanor, at a federal level this charge carries a potential penalty of up to one year in jail. Adler managed 24 hours and community service. Today, in Santa Fe, Adler teaches political theory for the liberal arts department at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. Since 2002, when SFUAD was still the College of Santa Fe, Adler has covered a wide range of subjects including global politics, feminist theory and, currently, social movements for civil rights. Adler’s arrest in Nevada wasn’t her only confrontation with the Establishment. Her career in political agitation spans almost the entirety of the 1980s and was centered on women’s equality. In college, Adler founded her own women’s rights organization called POWER—People’s Organization for Women’s Equal Rights. “We just really liked the acronym,” Adler says. POWER advocated for reproductive rights, and participated in many events such as the famous Take Back the Night marches. “Women are denied a sense of safety,” Adler says, and these marches were designed to raise public awareness of sexual assault and rape, according to the organization’s website. Created by European women’s groups in the 1960s, TBTN marches made their way to the U.S. by the 70s,...

On April 4, a group of roughly 100 demonstrators gathered for a third time at civic plaza to condemn the Albuquerque Police Department for allegations of police brutality and the recent killings of homeless man James Boyd and Albuquerque resident Alfred Redwine.