Biography
Wilmer Young was a seventy-one-year-old Quaker from Wallingford, Pennsylvania, who joined the Omaha Action against construction of the Atlas missile base at Mead, Nebraska. A United States marshal arrested him after he climbed the base fence on July 6, 1959 and took him to the county jail. He pleaded guilty the next day and received a six-month sentence and $500 fine, both suspended on condition that he stay away from military installations.
Custody record
Mildred B. Young’s July 1, 1962 Friends Journal report explicitly identifies Wilmer among three White House vigil participants serving out twenty-day jail sentences. The source supports twenty days served, but does not individually date his admission or discharge.
A contemporary report records the twenty-day sentence for the 1962 White House vigil as served. Friends Journal, July 1, 1962, p. 281.
Mildred B. Young’s July 1, 1962 report on the White House nuclear-test vigil distinguishes two jail phases for the four Peace Action Center staff members. In the first, charges were dismissed after about twenty-four hours and the prisoners were released. For the later twenty-day sentences, the report individually identifies Wilmer Young among the three who served the sentences out, while Lawrence Scott posted bail pending appeal. The report supplies no exact individual admission or discharge days for these phases.
Friends Journal, July 1, 1962, printed page 281, Vigil at the White House.
