People all over the world will commemorate the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day, carrying forward the legacy of hibakusha – survivors – who remember the first A-bombed cities. By the end of 1945, around 213,000 people had died from radioactive blasts hotter than the surface of the sun – vaporized, burned, and crushed. Many thousands more survived; for decades, they have worked for: NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
Global institutions are responding. Since it was adopted by the UN in 2017, 81 countries have signed and 39 have ratified the Treaty for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. While the U.S. and other nuclear-weapon states have refused to sign the Ban Treaty, the paradigm is shifting: from the perilous ill-logics of “deterrence” and “mutually assured destruction” to truthfulness about the humanitarian consequences of A- and H-bombs.
At this time of pandemic, mass uprisings, and emerging consciousness, the fight for nuclear abolition is not abstract. Nukes siphon resources that could be used to meet human needs and live responsibly on this planet; they are built to inflict massive and indiscriminate destruction; they enforce a global system based on domination. Ridding the world of these weapons requires that we confront state and imperial violence in their interlocking forms: war, racism, the destruction of Mother Earth, prisons, hetero-patriarchy, poverty, militarism, exploitation, colonization, and so on.
Join Mass. Peace Action in these commemoration events across New England:
July 26th
-Online event:
Fund Healthcare not Warfare Webinar Series
During the pandemic, the lack of investment in public health infrastructure, including health care for all, has had deadly consequences for tens of thousands of people. The $22.42 billion the U.S. will be spending this year to upgrade its first-strike nuclear arsenal could pay for 624 million corona virus tests, 747, 633 covid-19 hospital stays, or 6.6 BILLION N95 masks. This has to change. Our lives and security depend on it.
Join Bill Hartung of the Center for International Policy, Elaine Scarry of Harvard University, and Joseph Gerson of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and common Security for our Health Care, not Nuclear Warfare webinar July 26, 7pm
July 28th
-Online event:
Nuclear Weapons – The Threat & What We Can Do
Zoom in with Elaine Scarry and Dr. Ira Helfand as we discuss the threats and issues around nuclear weapons and what we can do to mitigate those threats. From No First Use to the billions being spent on modernization, there is plenty we can be advocating changes on.
August 1st
-Online event:
2020 World Conference against A and H Bombs
With the Hibakusha, let us achieve a nuclear weapon-free, peaceful, and just world- for the future of humankind and our planet. 9pm.
August 6th
-Boston/ Cambridge:
Witness for Peace and Life at Raytheon
Waltham-based Raytheon Technologies just secured a contract to develop the Long Range Standoff Missile, an air-launched nuclear weapon delivery system that makes nuclear war more likely. On the 75th anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima, we will gather at 9am on the public sidewalk in front of Raytheon BBN Technologies for the Witness for Peace and Life.
9 am Raytheon BBN Technologies 10 Moulton St, Cambridge MA
Envisioning a World Free from Nuclear Weapons
Program featuring speakers, music, and dance at Lower Longfellow Park. Karlene Griffiths Sekou of Black Lives Matter Boston and Ray Matsumiya of the Oleander Initiative will be among the speakers. After, join us for lantern and paper boat floating on the Charles.
7pm Lower Longfellow Park
-Waltham:
Hiroshima/Nagasaki Anniversary Peace Vigil
Waltham Concerned Citizens joins with peace groups, people of faith, youth, community groups, and human rights advocates who have organized events across Massachusetts on August 4-11, 2020, to call attention to the people’s demand for an end to the $1 trillion nuclear weapons escalation and the failure of the United States to support the nuclear ban treaty.
7:30 pm, Waltham Common
-Newton:
Commemoration for the 75th Anniversary of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Featuring speakers, music and signing, and a candle light remembrance. Testimony welcome.
5:00 pm, Newton Center Green
Anniversary of Contrast: the 75th Year of UN Founding and Atomic Bombings
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is reflecting on two of the most pivotal events in world history on their 75th anniversaries: the founding of the United Nations and the dropping of A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an 11 sign lawn exhibit on the Walnut street side of the Newton Free Library from August 6 to 9. The exhibit presents several perspectives on the hopes people and organizations held, in 1945, for the future of a global organization committed to maintaining world peace. The exhibit ends with the Sadako Sasaki story and peace cranes near the library Peace Garden. You might want to bring a seat.
-Walpole:
Never Again – No More Hiroshima And Nagasaki
On Thursday morning, August 6, the Walpole Peace and Justice Group will join a Peace Wave of people from around the world in holding a vigil marking the 75th anniversary of the U.S. dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We will be remembering the lives lost and altered forever on August 6 and 9, 1945, calling for the abolishment of nuclear weapons, and recognizing that militarization is intimately connected to racism, violence, poverty, and environmental destruction We will ring bells and observe a moment of silence at 8:15 am, the local time when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. We will be reading the poem “Original Bomb Child” by Thomas Merton. Join us for this time of readings and reflection. We will have banners and cloth “waves” and people are invited to bring their own signs and readings.
We ask that people wear masks and follow best practices for COVID-19 safe distancing. For more information you may contact the Walpole Peace and Justice Group at info@walpolepeace.org.
8:00 am, Walpole Common
-Pittsfield:
Thursday 6 August 2020 marks 75 years since humans first used nuclear weapons against other humans. There will be a Hiroshima Day Vigil that Thursday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on the sidewalk around Park Square in Pittsfield. At 8:15 a.m., the time the A-bomb fissioned above Hiroshima, there will be 5 minutes of silence. That bomb alone killed about 140,000 human beings. This will be the 39th consecutive Hiroshima Day Vigil at Park Square. Signs will be provided at the Park Square vigil, or people may bring their own. Participants may stay for all or part of the hour. Sponsored by Berkshire Citizens for Peace and Justice
8:15 am, Park Square, Pittsfield
-Bedford:
Remembering Hiroshima at First Parish in Bedford
The bells will toll at First Parish in Bedford, Unitarian Universalist, at 8:15 am on Thursday August 6 th , 2020 in solemn observance of the moment the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated on Hiroshima, Japan 75 years ago. There will be a silent vigil that day from 8:00 am – 8:30 am on the Bedford Green in front of First Parish. All are invited to join in commemorating this historic and tragic event. Participants are encouraged to bring signs expressing the sentiment of the Hibakusha, the atom bomb survivors, “Never Again!”
8:15 am, First Parish Bedford
-Andover:
7pm, Old Andover Town Hall
-Fall River
11 am, Iwo Jima Memorial Bicentennial Park
– Turners Falls
75 years of Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki Events Across the Valley
In Western Mass. several events are being planned. While reflective and physically safe, they will express our solidarity with the remaining Hibakusha survivors, and call for a phase-out of nuclear weapons, as we make connections and demands for justice relevant to this time.
7:30 pm, Peskeomskut Park
-Online events:
StillHere: A National Virtual Event
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Memorial 2020
Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 8th
–Greenfield
75 years of Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki Events Across the Valley
Presence at weekly Peace Vigil on Town Common
11 am, Greenfield Town Common
August 9th
-Watertown:
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki – 75th Anniversary
7:30 PM – Silent Vigil – Watertown Square
8:00 PM – Music and Testimonials
8:30 PM – Launching of the Candle boats – Watertown Dock
-Easthampton
75 years of Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki Events Across the Valley: Easthampton
Meet at Library, walk to Nashawannuck Pond for 7:30 event
-Online events: