August 2018 Hiroshima/Nagasaki Commemoration Events
Published on September, 47 2018
Sophia Barbagelapa, 7, floats a paper lantern in the water as people gather on August 6, 2018, at Green Lake (Seattle) to honor victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and other wars. Thousands gathered on the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. use of the atomic bomb. This date has been marked with a ceremony at Green Lake since 1984. Photo: Genna Martin, seattlepi.com.
By Disarm-End Wars Committee
Here are photos and reports we received from some WILPF members about the remarkable array of commemorations of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings held during the first two weeks of August. Send us your photos and reports if you haven’t already!
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California
Barbara Nielsen of San Francisco, CA, wrote:
I participated in the August 6 actions at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA, with Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CARES and WILPF Life Member Jackie Cabasso of Western States Legal Foundation, with many others, including East Bay branch members Anne Henney, Annie Boddum, and Sandy Thacker and Sandy's husband Ed Williger, and Barbara Blong of our San Francisco branch. We were later joined by Cappy Israel of the Santa Cruz branch who had driven up herself.
Jacqueline Cabasso sent this outstanding account of Monday’s action from People’s World: Nuclear Abolition: Protesters Confront Livermore Lab on Hiroshima Anniversary
For more information, contact Barbara Nielsen: bln.sf.ca@gmail.com.
Cherrill Spencer of Peninsula Palo-Alto WILPF reported:
Our Peninsula-Palo Alto WILPF branch held a 6th August evening event at a local library meeting room. We showed the film Atomic Homefront to the 34 people who attended.
This 96-minute documentary is about the failed oversight by the federal government and corporate companies to properly safeguard the Westlake landfill in St. Louis, Missouri, where 47,000 tons of radioactive waste was dumped from a local uranium-processing facility contracted by the Manhattan Project in the 1940s.
It is quite a depressing story, which has not yet ended. You can read more about the situation at the film's website: www.atomichomefront.film
We had an information table with lots of info on WILPF, on WILPF projects, the petition on the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty, how to join, newspaper articles on a Superfund site near San Francisco where nuclear contamination has not been properly dealt with (Hunter's Point), diagrams showing the process of mining uranium ore and turning it into a nuclear weapon, and multiple copies of the trifold on Ending the Nuclear Era, which we sent home with each attendee. Plus we had another table with lots of refreshments.
Before showing the film we introduced WILPF to the audience (very few had heard of us) and held a minute of silence to honor the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
Joan Goddard of San Jose, CA wrote describing their local event:
On August 6, we organized picketing with people from Vets for Peace, San Jose Peace & Justice Center, and other groups—and the Raging Grannies sang—at a busy intersection we call the Peace Corner. We had good interactions with drivers and passengers stopped at lights or honking in support as they turned left towards us. Most picketing at this location is on weekends so it was great that different people responded with honking after noticing us across a large intersection!
Then some of us went to Palo Alto for the Atomic Homefront film and the discussion after about the nuclear bomb material contamination threatening suburban areas northwest of St. Louis, and what a group of women are doing about this long-developing problem. Lots of people stayed after the film to get more information, to talk, and to help with clearing the room.
For more information, contact Joan Goddard joan@rujo.org
Oregon
Leah Bolger wrote from Corvallis, OR:
We had a really great event here. We held an outdoor ceremony just next to the Willamette River. We started with people milling around, looking at the informational panels, folding cranes, and listening to cello and guitar music.
Next we had a program with some speakers, the reading of the first commemoration in 1947, and a group reading of the community affirmation. Following the reading, people picked up a jar with a candle and we walked to the sound of a bell to the bridge crossing the Willamette. From there we watched a floating procession of 11 kayaks adorned with colored lanterns come up the river and pass under the bridge. It was so beautiful to see the kayaks from the bridge, and the kayakers said that the sight of people and candles across the bridge was really special too. We had about 100 people in attendance. Thank you!
For more information, contact Leah Bolger: leahbolger@comcast.net.
Vermont
Robin Lloyd provided this account from Burlington, Vermont:
Here is WILPF member Max Vose, offering herself as a silhouette as part of our shadow chalking on Church St., Burlington, during our walk to the water and the floating of candleboats.
Unlike in Japan, we tie the candleboats together so we are able to retrieve all of them, which is environmentally commendable, but somehow it takes away from the chaotic jostling of candleboat spirits that is so moving when witnessed in Hiroshima.
Also, reports Robin, at Democracy Now! there is must see coverage of Nagasaki Day events and the visit of the Peace Boat to NYC.
For more information, contact: Robin Lloyd, robinlloyd8@gmail.com.
Washington State
Lilly Adams and Patricia Schroeder wrote with several items of note:
Congratulations to the Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which passed an anti-nuclear weapons resolution at Olympia City Council on Aug 7th! You can read their resolution here.
This makes the second city-level resolution to pass in WA thanks to the hard work of local activists. We're on a roll!
Also, on August 7th, coalition members attended the weekly Indivisible Rally at the Federal Building in Olympia, and Beth Brunton spoke about nuclear weapons issues. She then joined the group to meet with members of Sen. Murray and Cantwell's staff, and hand-delivered 40 postcards from constituents.
There has been a lot of coverage of “From Hiroshima to Hope” in Seattle, with many beautiful photos of the event. See the Seattle Times article and photos (wonderful photographs!), seattlepi.com article and photos, Northwest Asian Weekly coverage, and a Seattle Channel video (on the City of Seattle’s website).
Spokane's Rusty Nelson also wrote a great letter to the editor in The Spokesman-Review about the resolution they just passed!
Check out "Back From the Brink" to read more about the “Five Policy Solutions” and how to endorse “The Call to Prevent Nuclear War.”
For more information, contact Lilly Adams, lilly@wpsr.org; Patricia Schroeder, cnell@earthlink.net.
Leonard Eiger of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action based in Poulsbo, WA, reported:
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action was one of countless groups around the world that faithfully remembered the anniversary of the atomic bombings this year. It was part of our effort to tell the stories and make people aware of the truth about nuclear weapons and the very real threat they pose to humanity. Two events included a Peace Fleet in Elliott Bay and an Interfaith Peace Walk from Eugene, Oregon to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington.
PEACE FLEET
We held the fourteenth annual Peace Fleet, a water-based nonviolent protest against the glorification of weapons of war at the Seattle Seafair festival. Activists in sailboats, motor boats and kayaks met the US Navy fleet in Elliott Bay, while other activists held a simultaneous nonviolent protest at Pier 66 overlooking Elliott Bay.
We were there for the unrepresented and forgotten victims of these weapons of war and to call attention to the crimes of our nation, and because the celebration of warships in our harbor helps bring about the normalcy of modern war. The fleet arrival at Seafair is a public relations and recruiting event for the US Navy, paid for by our tax dollars.
This was the eighteenth year for the Peace Fleet, which began on August 2, 2000, when the Trident submarine, USS Alabama, arrived in downtown Seattle for Seafair, complete with up to 192 nuclear warheads.
INTERFAITH PEACE WALK
Monks from the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Temple on Bainbridge Island led their annual interfaith peace walk, beginning in Eugene, Oregon, and arriving at Ground Zero Center for the weekend of remembrance of the atomic bombings. The theme of this year’s walk was “No More War – A World Without Nuclear Weapons.” Participants stopped in cities along the way, listening, and sharing the voices of the victims of warfare. This was the fourteenth year of the August Peace Walk.
WEEKEND OF REMEMBRANCE
After welcoming the Interfaith Peace Walk, vessels from the Peace Fleet and other vessels, including kayaks, sailed past the Bangor Trident submarine base on Hood Canal in the annual Boats by Bangor nonviolent demonstration.
Read a full account of all the Ground Zero Center events here.
Maine
Christine DeTroy of Maine WILPF sent the following report for the eNews:
August 4, 2018, marked the day of the 14th year of the Greater Brunswick (ME) Peace Fair. This year's theme was "Imagine a World Without Nuclear Weapons.". The opening ceremony included a dramatic reading of excerpts from the novel Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes to mark the 73rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Maine WLPF has been an active participant in the planning and development of the Peace Fair since 2005. The photo of some of the organizers and presenters at the start of the fair is by WILPF member Martha Spiess.
France
Finally, Odile Hugonot-Haber of Ann Arbor, MI, was in Valduc, France, for the summer, and sent the following account of participating in an action there:
For Hiroshima Day I was in Valduc (the French Centre for Nuclear Studies and research) where they are making parts for nuclear missiles. At the event, there were 100 people surrounded by the police, people from Movement la Paix, ICAN, a die-in was covered by media from the local press. I also did a three-day fast.
For more information, contact: Odile Hugonot-Haber, odilehh@gmail.com.
