Daisy Tibbs-Dawson has been thinking a lot recently about a chapter of her rich life that she, a famous Seattle peace activist, and the citizens of Hiroshima wrote 63 years ago. A 25-year-old volunteer on a 1949 project to help…
Author Archive for Joe Copeland
How an early Aug. 6 memorial surprised a peace activist
by Joe Copeland • • 0 Comments
While working on an upcoming article about a new exhibition facility in Hiroshima, I came across a rather striking reference to the Aug. 6, 1949 ceremony by Seattle peace activist Floyd Schmoe. Schmoe was there with other volunteers for a…
Takashi Nagai, 3: jarring aspects
by Joe Copeland • • 0 Comments
Nagasaki physician Takashi Nagai’s religiously oriented writings about the deaths of atomic bombing victims, which included his wife, sometimes raised difficulties for others. It’s no wonder, in part because his outlook could easily be seen as glossing over the sufferings…
Takashi Nagai, 2: criticisms
by Joe Copeland • • 0 Comments
Takashi Nagai’s deeply religious reflections on the atomic bombings are said to have played a role in a rather passive attitude toward the peace movement in Japan. A paper by a DePaul University’s Yuki Miyamoto, an assistant professor of religious…
Lessons from Takashi Nagai, an early leader of survivors
by Joe Copeland • • 0 Comments
More than six decades after his death, Dr. Takashi Nagai remains relevant to how we look at the pursuit of peace today. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Nagai became one of the most famous survivors of the…
Nagasaki: The historical debate
by Joe Copeland • • 0 Comments
As we mark the 65th anniversary of Nagasaki’s hellish destruction, it has always seemed to me that, of the two atomic bombings, this was the one more clearly unnecessary. After all, as Martin J. Sherwin argued in his classic work,…