Courage and Resistance in a Nuclear Age Talk and Book Signing
Washington Post Reporter Dan Zak will discuss his new book Almighty: Courage, Resistance, and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age. He says “On a tranquil summer night in July 2012, a trio of peace activists infiltrated the Fort Knox of Uranium in Oak Ridge, Tenn.” His book examines the love-hate relationship the US has to the bomb from the race to achieve atomic power to the solemn 70th Anniversary of Hiroshima. Sister Megan Rice is a peace activist and an octogenarian nun with a criminal record. Four years ago she was one of three who broke into a high security nuclear facility in Tennessee in what was later described as the largest security breach in American atomic history. Carrying a backpack and a deeply held conviction that the United States is breaking international law by quietly keeping up a multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons program, she crawled on her belly under a top security fence, ran across an open field, symbolically poured blood on equipment and raised a banner for peace. For this she was put in prison for three years. Sponsored by Sandy Spring Friends Peace Committee and Pax Christi, the presentation will begin at 3:00pm. For more information, contact Ellen Atkinson (301-774-1328) or Bette Hoover. (bette@justpeacecircles.org)