Alaska Peace Center Committed to nonviolent conflict resolution, working for peace within ourselves, our community, and our world

Greetings Friends,

The new Alaska Peace Center newsletter is out.   This past year has been unprecedented in many of our lifetimes, in many ways.  However, deeply precedented is the ongoing need for Peace, Justice and a Sustainable human presence on this beautiful planet.  Thank you to each of you for the work, financial support, visioning and prayers you give to creating a healthier place for all. You are welcome to reply with comments, corrections, additional information, etc.

Peace and blessings to all,

Maia Genaux for the Alaska Peace Center

Our monthly meeting will take place on Thursday, February 4 at 7 pm via Zoom. The Zoom link is the same for all monthly meetings this winter and spring:

https://zoom.us/j/93703738136?pwd=UlRBMU1lQXR2c0ZKKzlEaklvb1VNZz09

All welcome! We need to nominate new board member candidates to be voted on at the April 1 meeting, as some current board members have reached term limits… Come help participate in finalizing a new bus ad design, newsletter publication, and planning upcoming & future events and campaigns advancing Peace, Justice, and Sustainability! Contact info@alaskapeace.org or call 479-0981, Heather, with questions.

Thursday, February 18 at 5:00 pm Alaska Time

This is the Kenneth Reams story. Kenneth has spent his entire adult life in solitary confinement on death row in an Arkansas prison.

This screening is a fundraiser to benefit the Alaska Peace Center, the NAACP Greater Fairbanks Branch, and the “Who Decides, Inc.” nonprofit (which uses art to educate society about the practice and history of capital punishment in America). The screening will take place over Zoom, with access via tickets coordinated by Eventbrite. Tickets are by donation: $20 suggested, $1 minimum.

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Our monthly meeting will take place on Thursday, February 4 at 7 pm via Zoom.

The Zoom link is the same for all monthly meetings this winter and spring:

https://zoom.us/j/93703738136?pwd=UlRBMU1lQXR2c0ZKKzlEaklvb1VNZz09

Our monthly meeting will take place on Thursday, January 7 at 7 pm via Zoom. Among other things we need to plan the upcoming streaming of the documentary “Free Men”, about the Kenneth Reams story. Kenneth has spent his entire adult life in an Arkansas jail. He started producing art a number of years ago, and has established a non-profit, “Who Decides.” This is a network of artists, activists and volunteers using art to educate society about the practice and history of capital punishment in America. Kenneth is a charismatic speaker and had a conversation with a Fairbanks audience in January of 2019.

The Alaska Peace Center and Fairbanks NAACP will offer this documentary to a Fairbanks audience via Zoom. It is intended as a fund-raiser for APC, NAACP, and the “Who Decides” non-profit. Information about Kenneth can be found, along with an opportunity to view the “Free Men” trailer, at https://freekennethreams.org/. Information about the non-profit “Who Decides” can be found at http://www.whodecidesinc.org/.

The Zoom link is the same for all monthly meetings this winter and spring:

https://zoom.us/j/93703738136?pwd=UlRBMU1lQXR2c0ZKKzlEaklvb1VNZz09

Our monthly meeting will take place on Thursday, December 3 at 7 pm via Zoom. On the agenda are Armistice Day debriefing, the Borough bus ad campaign, KWRK-LP, and an update on our understanding of the partnership agreement between UAF and the Air Force Research Lab. All are welcome.

The Zoom link is:

https://zoom.us/j/93703738136?pwd=UlRBMU1lQXR2c0ZKKzlEaklvb1VNZz09

Alaska Peace Center and Veterans For Peace North Star Chapter 146 invite everyone to ring bells at 11:00 at Veteran’s Memorial Park, 700 Cushman Street in Fairbanks, in celebration of Armistice Day. Bring a bell if you have one (we’ll have extras if you don’t), in any case bring a friend. Masks and social distancing recommended.

Bell-ringing has been a traditional way of celebrating Armistice Day ever since the end of World War One (known at the time as “The Great War”) 102 years ago. It signifies the relief and joy felt around the world when the armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Bells were rung to celebrate peace and the end of four years of war that killed or wounded more than 30 million people. In the wake of so much carnage, it was then clear to millions of people that wars were not about valor or romantic ideals, but about empire, which benefits a few at the expense of many. A tradition of observing the anniversary of the armistice by ringing bells to honor veterans and promote peace spread throughout the world.

Armistice Day became a legal holiday nationwide by an act of Congress in 1938, dedicated to the cause of world peace. In 1954 President Eisenhower changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day by presidential proclamation, admonishing us to “reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.” However, in contrast to Eisenhower’s intention, rebranding Armistice Day as Veterans Day has led to a change from celebrating peace to celebrating the military and glorifying war. Armistice Day has been flipped from a day for peace into a day for displays of militarism.

The Alaska Peace Center, along with Veterans For Peace nationally and locally, celebrates the original intent of November 11th – as a day for peace. Peace, not war, is the best way to honor the sacrifices of veterans. We want generations after us to never know the destruction war has wrought on people and the earth.

For more reflections on the significance of Armistice Day see essays by Rory Fanning and Skip Oliver.

Monthly Meeting Thursday, October 1, 2020

7 pm via Zoom

Following is the Zoom link:

https://zoom.us/j/93820547416?pwd=dHdRMk80Q2xDNy9yTFRLWW9STFd2dz09

That should be all you need if your are joining over the internet via a computer. If you are joining some other way, you may need the following:

Meeting ID: 940 5191 1104
Passcode: 199544

Questions? Contact Alan Batten, 488-3205

Placing the Chris White Memorial Paver

On the lovely afternoon of Sunday, September 27, the APC Board met to place a memorial paver for former board member Chris White in the Laborer’s Local 942 Memorial Park at the Laborer’s Hall on Davis Road. Lee Stockwell, Chris’s wife of 46 years, also attended. Chris’s energy and infectious enthusiasm for progressive causes were an inspiration to many of us and will not be forgotten. He worked hard in support of the Peace Center, Fairbanks Open Radio (KWRK LP-FM 90.9), the IWW, and many other groups working to make the world a better place. The paver now joins the unmarked tree that was planted in remembrance of Chris at the Laborer’s Hall, where Chris fought long and hard for fairness and justice for rank and file union members. Chris passed away in 2016 and we still miss him. His obituary can be read here.

Placing the Memorial Paver for Chris White at the Laborer’s Local 942 Memorial Park

Chris White’s memorial paver

Silent vigil in remembrance of the first strike use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima, Japan

Veterans Memorial Park, 700 Cushman Street

Thursday, 6 August 2020, at 12:00 noon

On August 6 seventy-five years ago the United States dropped the first atomic bomb to ever be used in warfare on the civilian population of Hiroshima, Japan. This ultimate result of the Manhattan Project ushered in the atomic age, where humanity became capable of destroying itself. Join us at noon for a silent vigil to commemorate this tragic loss of life and to contemplate the continuing threat that the world’s arsenals of nuclear weapons hold for life on earth.

Hiroshima, August 1945

Masks and social distancing appreciated.

Before noon August 6, 1945 1,700 m from the hypocenter Hirano-machi. On a road leading to Miyuki Bridge. Drawn by Fujita Makiko (20 at time of bombing, 49 at time of drawing)

Organized by Veterans For Peace Chapter 100 in Juneau, the Alaska Peace Center, and North Star Veterans For Peace Chapter 146 (Fairbanks).

The drawing to the right is from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum’s collection of artwork by hibakusha (atom bomb survivors) decades after the explosion. Following are the artist’s notes about his drawing: “I clearly remember this scene where students were walking while helping their teacher; they were holding the arms of the teacher from both sides and saying to him, ‘Hold on please.’ The students’ conditions were more pitiful than the teacher who was somehow wearing clothes, but he was blinded.”

Many people are familiar with the story of “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” by Eleanor Coerr. This story inspired the profoundly moving song “Cranes Over Hiroshima” written and sung by Fred Small.