AMHERST — The Amherst Town Council is seeking to join Mayors for Peace, the international organization that advocates for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Councilors on Monday unanimously supported the measure, which was advocated by resident Bruce Stedman, the region’s representative for the organization. Several area communities are already members, with Leverett, Northampton, Easthampton and Holyoke all joining more than 20 years ago.
“There is no mitigation for nuclear war, except preventing it,” said Stedman, who is also a member of the local Back from the Brink hub.
Stedman noted that Amherst declared itself nuclear free in 1984. Forty-two years later, he said, the world is nearing annihilation. He pointed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ decision in January to move the Doomsday Clock as close to midnight as it has ever been.
“We have to do this together,” Stedman said, noting more than 8,400 cities and towns around the world are members. “My project is to get more of them from western Massachusetts and the rest of New England to build a foundation of engagement, concern and active pressure to the U.S. Congress, once we have one that can actually do things in this field, which they cannot do at this moment.”
This can provide foundation for two of the already leading advocates who represent Massachusetts at the federal level, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern.
District 3 Councilor George Ryan made the request for action on behalf of Stedman, citing the 1984 declaration, a 2018 Town Meeting vote in support of Back from the Brink and the ongoing sister-city relationship with Kanegasaki, Japan, and the upcoming visit by some of its middle school students.
“Given that the United States is the only nation on Earth to use such weapons, and it used them against the people of Japan, I feel that becoming a member of MFP would be especially meaningful,” Ryan said.
Membership also fits with the town’s values.
“Its mission essentially seeks to advocate for the total abolition of nuclear weapons,” Ryan said. “It does this by fostering solidarity among member cities and towns, as well as seeking solutions to some of the vital problems we face, such as starvation, poverty, the flight of refugees, human rights abuses and environmental degradation.”
The only other councilor who spoke during the discussion was District 5 Councilor Sam MacLeod, who evoked the memory of his late uncle Chad Johnson, a Marine officer who served in the Foreign Service in both Japan and Germany following World War II, and saw firsthand the implications of war.
When Johnson arrived in Amherst later in life, he regularly participated in the Vigil for Peace and Justice held on the Town Common starting in 1966.
“I’ll be thinking of him as I vote for this,” MacLeod said.
Over the summer, Sister Clare Carter of the New England Peace Pagoda in Leverett began a push for expanding membership in Mayors for Peace, bringing her advocacy to the Leverett Select Board and requesting the town send letters to communities not yet part of the organization.
Leverett was one of the first anywhere to join, adopting membership at annual Town Meeting in 2004 and then having a Greenfield resident represent the town at a worldwide Mayors for Peace conference in Hiroshima, Japan, in August 2005.
In 2005, mayors from Northampton, Easthampton, Holyoke and Greenfield all signed their cities up for Mayors for Peace, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time, then-state Rep. Peter Kocot, D-Northampton, helped to pass a recognition in the state Legislature.
More recently, Pelham, Deerfield, Whately, Gill and New Salem have become members.
Through Mayors for Peace, member communities can plant seeds from hibakujumoku, trees that survived the atomic bombings. Through a partnership with the University of Massachusetts Botanic Garden, the hope is to grow a seedling that could be planted on the grounds of the Amethyst Brook School.
Mayors for Peace also sponsors activities such as children’s art events that promote peace and poster exhibitions about the atomic bombs.
