Dear Friends,
Mass. Peace Action is pleased to announce the winners of our student poster and video contest for Peace & Planet. The winners will receive cash prizes, the posters will be displayed on our website, and we will carry placards with the posters at the march in New York City. Join us there – masspeaceaction.org/events/getonthebus.
Please consider attending these exciting events in the coming weeks!
Hands Up Don’t Shoot: Systemic Racism in the Criminal “Justice” System and How to Combat It
With Dr. Khalilah Brown Dean, associate professor of political science at Quinnipiac University, and Carlton Wlliams, Esq., staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Tonight, April 15, 7:30 pm at Northeastern University Law School, Dockser Hall 240, 65 Forsyth St., Boston. Sponsored by United for Justice with Peace and and Northeastern and Suffolk Law School chapters of the National Lawyers Guild. More info
Harvard Heat Week
The climate crisis leaves no room for neutrality, and we must be clear — sponsoring the destruction of people and planet is NOT an investment. Students are protesting at Massachusetts Hall in Harvard Yard all week; join them anytime, or at the final rally, Friday, April 17, at 6pm. More information
Boston Marathon for Peace in Memory of Steven Brion-Meisels
Angela Kelly, former MAPA staff and board member, will run Monday in memory of her former teacher and MAPA’s longtime leader, Steven Brion-Meisels, who died last year. Funds raised will go to our Steven Brion-Meisels Youth Peace Fellowship, which supports student organizing for peace on Massachusetts campuses. Turn out and cheer Angela on! More info
African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement
Historian Vincent Intondi will speak about the leading role African Americans have played in the struggle to abolish nuclear weapons, and sign copies of his new book. Monday, April 20, 6pm at Harvard University, Sever Hall 113, in Harvard Yard. More info
Peace and Planet: Mobilizing for a Nuclear Free, Just, and Sustainable World – April 24-26, New York City
The International Peace & Planet Conference, to be held on the eve of the NPT Review Conference, is being organized on the basis of five themes: nuclear weapons abolition, Move the Money (cutting military spending to prevent wars and fund essential human needs), climate change and environmental justice, the new era of global military tensions and wars, and racism and militarism. Through plenaries and workshops, the Conference Program will serve to share information and analyses, build and further integrate our movements for the longer term, and increase our impact on the NPT Review Conference. Register here.
When: April 24-25
Where: Cooper Union, New York City
Then, on April 26, the day before the 2015 NPT Review Conference begins, we will gather by the thousands in the streets of New York City for an international rally and march to the United Nations. On the streets and in front of the U.N., activists from around the world – with 2,000 from Japan, including Hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) – will make our demands for a nuclear-free world, for racial, economic, social, and environmental justice, and for an end to military crises and wars. With our numbers, speeches, signs, costumes, chants, songs, hope, creativity, and humor we’ll impact the diplomats and political leaders in New York for the NPT Review Conference and build and reinforce our movements. The march will end with the presentation of millions of nuclear weapons abolition petition signatures to U.N. officials. Reserve your bus ticket now; departures from Alewife or Riverside MBTA stations, April 26, 7:00 am. Interfaith convocation 11:30 am; rally 12 noon; march 1pm; peace festival, Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 3 pm. More information
Can’t make it to New York? Organize or join a group to participate in the Global Peace Wave! Groups will wave goodbye to nuclear weapons from the Boston Common, Natick Earth Day, Tufts University, Newburyport, and Higham, as well as dozens of other locations worldwide.
Dialogue with Japanese A-Bomb Survivors and Nuclear Weapons Abolitionists
April 30 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
![yamatokawamoto1[1]](http://testsite2.masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/yamatokawamoto11-300x105.jpg)
47 Japanese anti-nuclear weapons community activists, joined by two survivors of the 1945 A-bomb attacks (hibakusha), and an activist from Okinawa, will visit Boston April 30 to educate and meet with students and community groups. The two survivors are Mr. Tadao Yamato, age 74, and Mr. Shiro Kawamoto, age 78, both from Shizuoka, Japan. The visit will conclude with a potluck and dialogue on Thursday, April 30 Cambridge Friends Meeting, 5 Longfellow Park; the public is invited to participate. Potluck 6pm, dialogue 7pm. Space is limited- you MUST pre-register for the Potluck & Dialogue here: http://goo.gl/forms/ZE5qNW9YWz
Budget for All Organizing Meeting: Sunday, May 3, 2pm at the First Church in Cambridge, 11 Garden St. Regroup, evaluate the Tax Day action, and plan our campaign for the remainder of 2015.
Don’t miss out on any of these unique and informative opportunities for activism, learning, and change. We hope to see you at one or, hopefully, many of these events!
– Cole Harrison, Executive Director