PeaceWorks, Kansas City
4509 Walnut, KC MO 64111
Attend Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance Aug. 8 near nuclear weapon plant in KC MO
The annual Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance occurs this year on August 8, Sunday, near the nuclear weapons plant, the National Security Campus. Times for the walk and program:
6:50 pm Park on Prospect Ave. at the intersection with Mo. Hwy. 150. Choose a flag to carry.
7 pm Walk on the bike path 1 mile to the entry road to the National Security Campus.
7:45 pm Participate in our program at the entry road. We’ll have speakers of Japanese heritage and ponder reasons for hope in this 76th year since the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings in August 1945.
Why does PeaceWorks-KC persist in holding this remembrance? “We recall the horrific bombings in 1945,” says Henry Stoever, a PeaceWorks co-chair, “in order not to repeat the past, in order to recommit ourselves to seeking a nuke-free world. We meet this year near the factory that makes or procures 85 percent of the non-fissile parts of nuclear weapons—triggering devices, aiming devices, fuses, wiring, other components.”
Why is this memorial not held (as in prior years) at Loose Park, easier for people to come to than the far-south tip of KC MO? “We know the federal government, this fall, is allowing the nuclear weapon plant to expand to two warehouses within two miles of the plant,” says Ann Suellentrop, a board member of PeaceWorks-KC and a leader of the KC chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Business is booming in the nuclear weapon industry. We want to walk past the vast nuclear weapon plant, the National Security Campus, and ponder the 2022 budget request of $1.2 billion in our tax dollars to support this abomination, this threat to world peace, this monolith that makes our city a target.”
The featured speakers at the program after the one-mile walk will be Ms. Keiko Baker, Honorary Principal of the Japanese School in the Kansas City area, and Ms. Hiroko Komiya of Topeka, KS, vice president of the new International Peace Center in Lawrence, KS. Co-sponsors of the program include the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council, the Green Party, and the KC chapter of Veterans for Peace.
As in past years, the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance will feature the ringing of a gong in meditative remembrance of the 1945 bombing tragedy, as well as music and reflections. New this year will be the mile-long trek with flags from 50-some countries that have ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; the treaty took effect in the signers’ countries Jan. 22, 2021.