The Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capital Area
The Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capital Area (H/N Peace Committee) was established in 1982 to remember the anniversary of the atomic bombings each August, and to work to abolish nuclear weapons for the benefit of future generations. The committee emphasizes the deadly connection between nuclear weapons and militarism, and the importance of linking our work for nuclear disarmament to economic and social justice.

Each August the H/N Peace committee hosts a delegation of Atomic Bomb survivors (Hibakusha) from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and organizes gatherings to listen to their powerful testimony. Since the mid-1990s, The H/N Committee has been sending delegates to the annual World Conference Against A & H Bombs. In 2002, the Committee decided to begin sending a youth delegate to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki and hear directly from the Hibakusha their stories. The idea was, and remains, to empower the youth to continue with the crucial task of educating the community about the horror of nuclear war and nuclear weapons.

Each anniversary of the atomic bombings provides us a unique opportunity to study and reflect on the horrors of nuclear war and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaaki. As we listen to the warnings of the Hibakusha we are reminded about how militarism and nuclear weapons exploits the most vulnerable in our communities. The annual Remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a time to recommit ourselves to work unceasingly to establish just Peace, to oppose militarism, and to completely dismantle all nuclear weapons, that the world’s children will be free of the threat of nuclear war and share and enjoy a beneficent and bountiful future.

Sixty-eight years after the atomic bombings, the world still possesses over 10,000 nuclear weapons. The Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capital Area has been working for the elimination of nuclear weapons for the past thirty-one years. We look forward to continuing our struggle until our dream of a nuclear-free world is real.