The Student Peace Union (SPU) was a nationwide student organization active on college campuses in the United States from 1959 to 1964. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, chapters across the country held protests against the nuclear testing they felt would lead to war. After the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963 the SPU, whose identity was bound up with anti-nuclear war activism, struggled to find a new footing, and the organization dissolved in the spring of 1964.

In this image members of the University of Washington's Student Peace Union chapter picket the Federal Office Building in downtown Seattle to protest President Kennedy's Cuban blockade. John C. Burdick (b. 1940), chairperson of UW SPU, right, and another SPU member carry their signs past two unidentified women, who taunt them.

Caption information sources: "Cuban Action Draws Pickets," The Seattle Daily Times, October 24, 1962, p. 3; and "U.W. Student Board Disavows Peace Pickets," The Seattle Daily Times, October 25, 1962, p. 9.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.