PSA: Canadian Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day Events (Updated)

by matttbastard

Via Canadian Peace Alliance:

Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day Events

Please join one of the 12 Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemorations this week. The full events listings are available at: http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/HiroshimaDay.htm

BRANDON

The First Annual Japanese Lantern Ceremony for World Peace
Where: Keystone Centre YMCA Pool on 13th Street
When: Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Time: 7:30 PM

CALGARY

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorial

Thursday, August 7, 2008, 7pm – 9pm
Calgary Area Outdoor Council, Large Room on 2nd floor
(wheelchair access to 2nd floor, 1111 Memorial Drive NW)

– We may watch movie with colour footage of the devastation.
– Speeches
– Lantern ceremony with glow in the dark non-flame, non-flammable
lanterns.

CASTLEGAR, BC

This year we gather on Zuckerberg Island, Wednesday, August 6 at 6:00 pm to both commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki but also to listen to our minstrels of peace and hear from the Mayor of Hiroshima and other voices of reason in our troubled world.

Kootenay Region Branch of the        United Nations Association in Canada (KRUNA)

2600 Columbia Avenue
Castlegar, B.C., V1N 2X6
250-365-7180

GRAND FORKS

Grand Forks City Park at 1 pm on Saturday, August 9th to commemorate the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and mourn today’s victims from ‘Depleted Uranium’ radiological weapons, tanks, vests, bullets and bombs.

We urge you to join us on August 9th at 1 pm in City Park for speakers, entertainment and a Auction. The auction is to raise funds to support our work and encourage all to donate items and then make generous bids.

We thank all who have given of their time, energy and funds in the past and look forward to your continued participation at events and regular meetings in Selkirk College on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of every month.

For inquiries please phone Laura at 250-442-0430.

On behalf of the Boundary Peace Initiative: member of B.C. Southern Interior Peace Coalition, Canadian Peace Alliance, Uranium Free Kootenay Boundary, Uranium Free B.C., Abolition 2000, Lawyers Against the War, and an affiliate of Fellowship of Reconciliation.

HAMILTON

Wednesday, August 6th 2008, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
The Hamilton Spectator Auditorium, 44 Frid Street, Hamilton
Help Eliminate Nuclear Weapons Everywhere!

Presented by the Hamilton Chapter of Project Ploughshares, a national, ecumenical, non-profit organization; part of the Canadian Council of Churches working to transform a world of violence into a world of enduring peace and security.
Co-sponsored by Amnesty International Group No. 1 in Hamilton; Group No. 8 at McMaster University and Group No. 21 in Burlington; the Hamilton Mundialization Committee; Children’s International Learning Centre; United Nations Association in Canada; Gandhi Peace Festival; Physicians for Global Survival; Interfaith Council for Refugees and Human Rights; Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University; The Hamilton Culture of Peace Network.

Everyone is invited to this very important and informative presentation
For information call Leonor Sorger at 905-528-7988, Reverend Linda Nash 905 387-9783
Project Ploughshares: www.projectploughshares.ca

MIDLAND

Peaceworks Midland will hold a commemorative service at the Peace Garden in Penetanguishene at 5.30 on August 6. Bring some food for a picnic and be inspired by the Orillia Raging Grannies. There will be a hands on workshop on making origami cranes.

For further information contact peace_works@hotmail.com

NORTH BAY

The North Bay Peace Alliance will host an event commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The gathering will be held on the 63rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6 on the steps of North Bay City Hall (McIntyre Street, between Wyld and Sherbourne Streets) between 8 and 9 p.m. Everyone is welcome.

For more information please call 497 0373.

OTTAWA

EVENT DETAILS (SATURDAY, AUGUST 9th):
6:30pm: meet at Friends House (91 A Fourth St in The Glebe) to decorate laterns
7:30pm: film screening and discussion @ Friends House on the threat posed by nuclear weapons
8:30pm: march to float and light the laterns (location to be announced shortly)

The Ottawa Peace Assembly

SASKATOON

Commemorate Hiroshima Day, Wednesday August 6 at Rotary Park Peace Pole, 12-1 pm

Program includes Mayor Don Atchison, Mayors for Peace • Reverend Hiraku Iwai • Jillian Cyca, Artist • John Crawford, Project Ploughshares

ELIMINATE NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOREVER

For more information, call (306) 384-4134

Building peace in our families, communities, and world. www.saskatoonpeace.tk

TORONTO

See Hiroshima Day Coalition for more information

The Toronto Hiroshima Day Coalition (THDC) cordially invites you to attend the unveiling of the powerful exhibition of photographs from the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Rotunda inside Toronto City Hall on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 5:30 pm.

The exhibit runs from August 6th -11th, 2008 in conjunction with the “Paths to Hope” Peace Commemoration and Lantern Ceremony on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at the Toronto Peace Garden, Nathan Phillips Square beginning at 6:30 pm.

To RSVP for the August 6th, 2008 unveiling of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki Photo Exhibition at the Rotunda, Toronto City Hall, please contact Helen Chilas, National Coordinator of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, via email h-chilas@rogers.com or cell at 416-473-8238

Note: If you would like to reserve a table at the Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Annual Peace Commemoration and Lantern Ceremony (August 9th at the Toronto Peace Garden, Nathan Phillips Square), please contact Dr. Barbara Birkett with Physicians for Global Survival at bbirkett@interlog.com.

VANCOUVER

HIROSHIMA MEMORIAL PEACE LANTERN CEREMONY

Mayor Derrick Corrigan reading of the Burnaby City proclamation,

Free family event with Music, Speakers and Floating Lanterns

Wednesday Aug 6 7:30 to 9:30 pm
South Pond, Central Park, Bby
Parking N. side of Imperial, just E. of Boundary Road

Related events: Powell Street Festival – Sat. Aug. 2nd & Sun. Aug. 3rd includes a showing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki exhibit panels, along with beautiful embroidered quilts, which show the wording of the Renunciation of War in Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution; now threatened with repeal.

Presented by Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Lanterns for Peace and Vancouver Save Article 9 – for info. call 604-325-8824, email lanterns@shaw.ca

Sponsored by: Veterans Against Nuclear Weapons
Endorsed by: STOPWAR.ca, World Peace Forum, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, & Peace and Philosophy Centre in Vancouver
Contact: David Laskey laskey8824-at-shaw.ca

WINNIPEG

Where: Memorial Park, Winnipeg
When: Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Time: 7:30 PM

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U.S. House of Representatives Apologizes for Slavery

by matttbastard

Well it’s about damn time:

The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.

“Today represents a milestone in our nation’s efforts to remedy the ills of our past,” said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

[…]

The Cohen resolution does not mention reparations. It does commit the House to rectifying “the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow.”

It says that Africans forced into slavery “were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized and subjected to the indignity of being stripped of their names and heritage” and that black Americans today continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow laws that fostered discrimination and segregation.

Full text of the Cohen Resolution, H. Res 194 (courtesy the Thin Black Duke):

Whereas millions of Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and the 13 American colonies from 1619 through 1865; (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)

HRES 194 EH

H. Res. 194

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

July 29, 2008.

Whereas millions of Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and the 13 American colonies from 1619 through 1865;

Whereas slavery in America resembled no other form of involuntary servitude known in history, as Africans were captured and sold at auction like inanimate objects or animals;

Whereas Africans forced into slavery were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized, and subjected to the indignity of being stripped of their names and heritage;

Whereas enslaved families were torn apart after having been sold separately from one another;

Whereas the system of slavery and the visceral racism against persons of African descent upon which it depended became entrenched in the Nation’s social fabric;

Whereas slavery was not officially abolished until the passage of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865 after the end of the Civil War;

Whereas after emancipation from 246 years of slavery, African-Americans soon saw the fleeting political, social, and economic gains they made during Reconstruction eviscerated by virulent racism, lynchings, disenfranchisement, Black Codes, and racial segregation laws that imposed a rigid system of officially sanctioned racial segregation in virtually all areas of life;

Whereas the system of de jure racial segregation known as `Jim Crow,’ which arose in certain parts of the Nation following the Civil War to create separate and unequal societies for whites and African-Americans, was a direct result of the racism against persons of African descent engendered by slavery;

Whereas a century after the official end of slavery in America, Federal action was required during the 1960s to eliminate the dejure and defacto system of Jim Crow throughout parts of the Nation, though its vestiges still linger to this day;

Whereas African-Americans continue to suffer from the complex interplay between slavery and Jim Crow–long after both systems were formally abolished–through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity, the frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and opportunity;

Whereas the story of the enslavement and de jure segregation of African-Americans and the dehumanizing atrocities committed against them should not be purged from or minimized in the telling of American history;

Whereas on July 8, 2003, during a trip to Goree Island, Senegal, a former slave port, President George W. Bush acknowledged slavery’s continuing legacy in American life and the need to confront that legacy when he stated that slavery `was . . . one of the greatest crimes of history . . . The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destiny is set: liberty and justice for all.’;

Whereas President Bill Clinton also acknowledged the deep-seated problems caused by the continuing legacy of racism against African-Americans that began with slavery when he initiated a national dialogue about race;

Whereas a genuine apology is an important and necessary first step in the process of racial reconciliation;

Whereas an apology for centuries of brutal dehumanization and injustices cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs committed can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help Americans confront the ghosts of their past;

Whereas the legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia has recently taken the lead in adopting a resolution officially expressing appropriate remorse for slavery and other State legislatures have adopted or are considering similar resolutions; and

Whereas it is important for this country, which legally recognized slavery through its Constitution and its laws, to make a formal apology for slavery and for its successor, Jim Crow, so that it can move forward and seek reconciliation, justice, and harmony for all of its citizens: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

• (1) acknowledges that slavery is incompatible with the basic founding principles recognized in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal;

• (2) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow;

• (3) apologizes to African Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow; and

• (4) expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future.

Attest:

Clerk.

Sure, simply saying sorry isn’t enough.  But it’s a start (key word: start — I’m curious to see what specific measures Congress will take in tackling “the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow.”)

As Jill Tubman says:

Is it empty symbolism, you may ask? I don’t discount symbols which are powerful, especially when it comes to race in America. It’s good to see positive symbolism rather than negative symbolism come our way for once. And it instills confidence in our leaders when they can admit poor judgment and commit to better choices. Still, when the gov’t acknowledges oppressive, incorrect action — isn’t corrective, remedying action a reasonable expectation?

Related: More from Jack and Jill Politics on Rep. Steve Cohen (D – TN), the author of the resolution.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers