Amy Goodman, co-host of the progressive news web series “Democracy Now!,” will speak during the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock’s 70th anniversary observance of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6.
Sponsored by the pacifist groups Great Neck SANE/Peace Action, the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives and the Shelter Rock congregation’s social justice committee, the event will take place at 7:30 p.m. at 48 Shelter Rock Road in Manhasset.
“For 70 years, nuclear weapons have held the world in a death grip of feat and terror. It is time for nuclear ban treaty,” said local activist Shirley Romaine, of Great Neck, a board member of Peace Action’s Great Neck chapter and the founder of the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives.
Goodman, 58, of Bay Shore, started the “Democracy Now!” program in 1996 at WBAI, a New York City radio station owned by the Pacifica Radio Network.
Hosted by Goodman and journalist Juan Gonzalez, “Democracy Now!” is broadcast on more than 1,300 radio, television and web networks worldwide.
Goodman is the author of five New York Times bestselling books and has been a recipient of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism’s I.F. Stone Medal For Journalistic Independence Lifetime Achievement Award, the Right Livelihood Award, the Park Center for Independent Media’s Izzy Award.
The event will include a performance by the congregation’s women’s acapella group, Willow, as well as prayers and songs based in a variety of faiths.
It is set to conclude with the banging of a gong to symbolize the moment the atomic bomb was dropped at Hiroshima.
Margaret Melkonian, director of the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives, said in a statement that attendees would also be asked to call on local and state politicians to support the recent nuclear agreement with Iran.
“We will renew our strong commitment to a nuclear-free future,” she said.
The bombing of Hiroshima, and later on Nagasaki, mark the only use of nuclear weapons during war in history, killing at least 129,000 people and decimating infrastructure.
