Wednesday, August 6, 2025 marks the 80th Anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. We will commemorate this day with a Silent Peace Walk in downtown Cleveland. Eighty people dressed in white, the color of mourning in Japan, will solemnly and meditatively walk from Cleveland Public Library’s Eastman Reading Garden to Willard Park and the Free Stamp. We will remember the Hibakusha, the “bomb-affected people,” seeking water to ease their suffering. At sunset, we will light candle lanterns, declaring our intention that there will never be another nuclear war. No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis! No More Hibakusha!
We need your help. We invite you to SIGN UP HERE to join in the Silent Peace Walk and help us to spread the word so that we can sign up at least 80 walkers.
This 80th anniversary commemoration Silent Peace Walk has been initiated by Cleveland Nonviolence Network, IRTF, and Cleveland Peace Action. We welcome other groups to add their names as endorsers and help sign up walkers.
The walk:
We will gather at 6:30pm at the Eastman Reading Garden betweeen the two buildings of the library (old Main Library and Louis Stokes Wing) 525 Superior Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44114 .
For the first hour, we will have a few gathering activities (fold paper peace cranes, listen to inspiring spoken word, a land welcome/grounding, participate in a centering message to get us into a meditative space). Gathering at the Cleveland Public Library’s Eastman Reading Garden, we will begin our walk (everyone dressed in white) at 7:30pm, meditatively walk from Cleveland Public Library’s Eastman Reading Garden to Willard Park and the Free Stamp. The approximate route is 1.5 miles
PARKING
Parking on Cleveland streets is free after 6pm. Our volunteers have counted approx. 80 free on-street parking spots (not including handicapped spots) on these streets:
Lakeside Ave: in front of City Hall (601 E Lakeside); between E 9th and E 12th; in the parking lot of the Water Department/DoubleTree Hotel (north side of Lakeside at E 12th).
St Clair Ave: between E 6th and E 9th, between E 9th and E 12th.
MORE INFO ABOUT HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI COMMEMORATION
Pax Christi USA has posted an updated Apology Petition to the People of Japan to commemorate the upcoming 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombings on August 6-9, 2025.
About the Petition
On August 6, 2016, during a prayer service of repentance and nonviolent witness to commemorate the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in front of the White House, an apology petition was read and presented to Mr. Mimaki, a Hiroshima A-bomb survivor (hibakusha). The witness was sponsored by the Dorothy Catholic Worker, Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore and Pax Christi USA in cooperation with other faith-based peace and justice groups. More than 700 people signed the petition. In September 2016, Mr. Mimaki delivered the petition to the mayor of Hiroshima and later was presented to the Hiroshima Peace Museum. To mark the 75th anniversary of the US atomic bombings of Japan, an updated petition was signed by more than 240 people and was sent to and received by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to Nihon Hidankyō, the main A-Bomb survivors (hibakusha) organization in Japan and 2024 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The original petition was composed by people connected with the Catholic Worker and is the fruit of years of public witness by nuclear abolitionists who met and were inspired by many hibakusha. The petition was co-sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach, the Isaiah Project, the Sisters of Mercy Justice Team, Little Friends for Peace, Jonah House, the Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capital Area, and Pax Christi USA. The petition has been used each year at Aug. 6-9th commemoration witnesses at the Pentagon and White House. Please sign and incorporate the use of the Petition in local acts of nonviolent witness and circulate widely.
This updated petition for 2025 has been revised to include new developments regarding the increasing danger of nuclear war, a papal proclamation regarding the immorality of possessing nuclear weapons, and the TPNW. It will be sent to the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to Nihon Hidankyō, and church leaders.
In hope for a disarmed world,
Art Laffin, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Washington DC
SPECIAL INVITATION FROM THE CATHOLIC WORKER IN WASHINGTON DC
“Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil.” (Epitaph at bottom of the Hiroshima Peace Park Memorial Cenotaph and Peace Flame to remember all the victims of the atomic bombings)
Dear Friends,
To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the sinful and criminal U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, in concert with Pax Christi, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Little Friends for Peace, the Isaiah Project and other peacemakers from the DMV, invites you to attend a prayer vigil/witness on August 6th outside the Pentagon, and on August 9th, outside the White House.
During our public witness, we will read an updated Apology Petition to the people of Japan that was previously signed in the past by 940 Americans to repent for the U.S. use of nuclear weapons in 1945. Please sign and circulate this updated Petition which Pax Christi USA has posted on their web site: https://paxchristiusa.org/2025/07/10/apology-petition-to-the-people-of-japan-on-the-80th-anniversary-of-the-us-atomic-bombings/
We will also remember and pray for the victims of these unspeakable nuclear atrocities and all those who witnessed the destructive power of nuclear weapons use, testing and mining--hibakusha, pacific islanders, Native Americans, downwinders, and all other victims of nuclearism--and call for nuclear abolition.
Nuclear weapons are immoral and illegal. Pope Francis declared that the very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral and 73 countries have now ratified the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which entered into force on January 22, 2021, thereby making nuclear weapons illegal under International law. The nine nuclear-armed nations — the U.S., Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea — have not signed the treaty, nor has any nation from the NATO alliance.
On January 28, 2025, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds before midnight, the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been. This is due to the existential threats of nuclear war and the climate crisis, bio- and cyber threats, nuclear proliferation, state-sponsored disinformation and Artificial Intelligence. The Ukraine war and recent Israeli and U.S. attacks of Iran has further exacerbated the nuclear peril.
In 2024, the nine nuclear-armed states spent $9.9 billion (11%) more on their nuclear arsenals than the year before, a total of $100.2 billion, or $3,169 per second on nuclear weapons. In the past five years, from 2020-2024, these countries spent $415.9 billion on their nuclear arsenals. The United States had the biggest increase from 2023-2024, at $5.3 billion, and spent more than all of the other nuclear-armed states combined, at $56.8 billion. China remained second, at $12.5 billion, and the United Kingdom came in third, spending $10.4 billion. The U.S. nuclear arsenal upgrade now underway is estimated to cost $1.7 trillion over the next several decades.
The Navy has contracted with General Dynamics to build the Columbia class nuclear subs to replace the existing Trident fleet. Twelve Columbia class subs will cost over $130 billion and the first of these subs will be named the USS District of Columbia. As these exorbitant resources are spent on weapons of mass murder, 120 people died without the dignity of home last year just in D.C.
The USS Florida Trident nuclear submarine, now refitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles, was deployed on November 5, 2023 to the Middle East, in support of Israel's genocidal war in Gaza. And the USS Georgia Trident sub was recently used to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at several Iranian military sites. We join our voice with all those urgently calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to all U.S. military aid and weapons to Israel and U.S. complicity in the genocide, forced starvation and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, an end to apartheid and the occupation of Palestine, and for a just peace for Palestine and Israel. We call, too, on the U.S. and Israel to make peace with Iran!
As we call on the nation to repent for the nuclear sin, abolish all nuclear weapons, ratify the TPNW, and redirect exorbitant military and nuclear expenditures to meet urgent human needs, we do so in solidarity with actions taking place around the U.S. and worldwide.
The Hibakusha plead to the world: “Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. exhorts us: “The choice today is…either nonviolence or nonexistence.”
Pope Francis declares: "Nor can we fail to be genuinely concerned by the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices. If we also take into account the risk of an accidental detonation as a result of error of any kind, the threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned…The total elimination of nuclear weapons is...a moral and humanitarian imperative of our time.”
Please join us and share this invitation widely.
Organizers of the Aug 6-9 commemoration vigils include: Assisi Community, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Isaiah Project, Little Friends for Peace, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, Pax Christi USA
When: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 (Anniversary of the U.S. Nuclear Bombing of Hiroshima) @ Pentagon 7-8 AM
Where: Pentagon Designated Protest Zone on the Southeast Side of Building (Take South exit from Pentagon Metro station--Walk a short distance on sidewalk toward South Parking Lot--vigil site is on left behind fencing)
When: Saturday, August 9, 2025 (Anniversary of the U.S. Nuclear Bombing of Nagasaki) @ 10 AM
Where: Outside the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. (North side)
