Rhode Island
Monday is Victory Day in Rhode Island — a holiday worth reconsidering – The Boston Globe
Rhode Island is the only state in the nation that observes a holiday to commemorate the victory over Japan in World War II. Now there’s a fierce debate about the holiday.
Victory Day, the second Monday in August, honors the estimated 92,000 Rhode Islanders who served in the war and the more than 2,200 of them who were killed. Rhode Island first adopted the holiday in 1948. Arkansas adopted Victory Day as a state holiday in 1949 but abandoned it 1975, choosing to give state workers a day off for their birthdays instead.
A Democratic state lawmaker in Rhode Island, Jennifer Stewart, introduced legislation this year to change Victory Day to Peace and Remembrance Day. She has been accused of dishonoring World War II veterans. “I think this is an atrocity that you’re taking away the honor and bravery that those men and women deserve,” state Representative Patricia Morgan said at a State House hearing. “What they did was honorable and not something that should be criticized.”
Stewart counters that she wants to honor the sacrifices of the past while establishing a more peaceful future. The holiday’s association with victory over Japan “belies the harsh truth that military victories are often built on civilian injury and death,” Stewart says.
As a Rhode Island native, I’ve lived on both sides of the debate.
I came of age marching in V-J Day parades in downtown Providence with my dad, a World War II Army veteran who advanced to the rank of major after serving four years in the China-India-Burma theater. Every August he’d wear his military uniform, I my Boy Scout khakis. The atomic bombs that the United States used to decimate Hiroshima and Nagasaki meant my father’s life had been spared from being summoned into further combat. It meant we had won against Japanese aggressors who had masterminded the murderous attack on Pearl Harbor. When I marched alongside my dad on Victory Day, I was convinced the Japanese got what they deserved.
But as an adult and a newspaper editor, my opinion changed: I met Sakue Shimohira, who was an 8-year-old girl when the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki and still suffered from radiation sickness as an adult.
“I remember how the houses were all blown to bits,” she said at a lecture in Providence. “In the river, the water was gone and there were many dead bodies. I found my eldest sister dead under the rubble. My mother was missing. I found her later that day. I recognized her body by her gold tooth. I touched her body and it disintegrated into ashes.”
After I reported on her speech, she asked me to mail her a copy. A month later she wrote to me, urging me to apply for a journalism fellowship, a 10-week residence in Japan to interview survivors like her, known in Japan as “hibakusha.” The fellowship was sponsored by the Hiroshima region’s daily newspaper, Chugoku Shimbun, and named the Akiba Project after Tad Akiba, a Tufts University professor who was later elected mayor of Hiroshima.
I was selected for the fellowship. One of the members of the selection panel was the author John Hersey, whose first-person account of traveling to Hiroshima appeared in The New Yorker in 1946. He told me his life had been forever changed when he interviewed the survivors. He said that I should expect the same.
Hersey was right. I am still haunted, especially when Victory Day rolls around each year, by the testimonies I heard during my 10-week residency in Japan. Even if I believed Japan’s leaders had brought on the carnage and hellfires that consumed Japanese civilians, how could I ever come to terms with the radiation sickness that plagued people like Sakue Shimohira throughout their lives?
Yet it is not only what the survivors told me they witnessed that continues to disturb me. It’s the fact that nuclear weapons still exist — and more are being developed by rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea. As Tad Akiba has argued, the only way to prevent a nuclear attack “is the total abolition of nuclear weapons.”
This level of awareness is what Stewart hopes to promote by renaming Victory Day. Her bill failed to pass in the 2024 legislative session, but she says she will keep pushing the bill if she wins reelection this fall.
“I intend to play the long game. Rhode Island is a forward-thinking state. We changed the name of our state four years ago,” she told me, referring to the 2020 referendum in which Rhode Islanders voted to remove “and Providence Plantations” from the state’s name.
“We can do that again with V-J Day. What happens here can influence our nation. Judging on the positive responses I’ve received, I believe we will succeed.”
Robert Israel is a Boston-based writer and a contributor to Harvard University’s Divinity School Bulletin. He can be reached at risrael_97@yahoo.com.
PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Blood Center’s blood supply was low before Saturday’s mass shooting at Brown University, and it is immediately stepping up blood drives to meet the need, an official said Sunday.
“We were definitely dealing with some issues with inventory going into the incident,” Executive Director of Blood Operations Nicole Pineault said.
The supply was especially low for Type 0 positive and negative, which are often needed for mass casualty incidents, she said. Type 0 negative is considered the “universal” red blood donor, because it can be safely given to patients of any blood type.
Pineault attributed the low supply to weather, illness, and the lingering effects of the pandemic. With more people working from home, blood drives at office buildings are smaller, and young people — including college students — are not donating blood at the same rate as they did in the past, she said.
“There are a lot challenges,” she said.
But people can help by donating blood this week, Pineault said, suggesting they go to ribc.org or contact the Rhode Island Blood Center at (401) 453-8383 or (800) 283-8385.
The donor room at 405 Promenade St. in Providence is open seven days a week, Pineault said. Blood drives were already scheduled for this week at South Street Landing in Providence and at Brown Physicians, and the blood center is looking to add more blood drives in the Providence area this week, she said.
“It breaks my heart,” Pineault said of the shooting. “It’s a terrible tragedy. We run blood dives regularly on the Brown campus. Our heart goes out to all of the victims and the staff. We want to work with them to get the victims what they need.”
She said she cannot recall a similar mass shooting in Rhode Island.
“In moments of tragedy, it’s a reminder to the community how important the blood supply really is,” Pineault said. “It’s an easy way to give back, to help your neighbors, and be ready in unfortunate situations like this.”
The Rhode Island Blood Center has donor centers in Providence, Warwick, Middletown, Narragansett, and Woonsocket, and it has mobile blood drives, she noted.
On Sunday, the center’s website said “Donors urgently needed. Hours extended at some donor centers, 12/14.”
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.
Authorities said two people were killed and eight more were injured in a mass shooting at Brown University, an Ivy League school in Rhode Island. Authorities said students were on campus for the second day of final exams.
Posted
A Rhode Island school superintendent has resigned amid an investigation into alleged antisemitic hazing in the district, NBC affiliate WJAR-TV reports.
Smithfield Superintendent Dr. Dawn Bartz announced her resignation in a letter addressed to the school community. Bartz has been on leave since November after a report of hazing at Smithfield High School.
The Jewish Alliance of Rhode Island said five high school football players locked a freshman student in a bathroom, sprayed Lysol at the student and yelled antisemitic slurs.
In her resignation letter, Bartz focused on her successes surrounding academic outcomes, special education and STEM opportunities and other positives for the district, and thanked the community.
“As Smithfield moves forward, I am confident the district will continue to build on this progress
and momentum. I wish all our students, staff, and families continued success in the years ahead,” she wrote.
The letter did not specify a reason for the resignation.
WJAR-TV first reported on the situation on October, when the Bartz released a statement on its investigation.
“The investigation confirmed inappropriate conduct among a small number of students,” Superintendent Dawn Bartz said in a provided statement. “Disciplinary action has been taken in accordance with district policy, and several student-athletes will not participate for the remainder of the season.”
The statement went on to say that there would be mandated training and education in response. However, the involved players were back at practice, which didn’t sit well with the victim’s family. His parents said his son walked into practice and found himself face-to-face with his alleged assailants.
Five football players were initially removed from the team for the remainder of the season but were later reinstated. When asked about the reversal in October, Bartz issued a one-sentence statement saying, “The disciplinary process has concluded and we will not be discussing details involving students.”
Smithfield Town Council President John Tassoni said the situation has deeply divided the community.
“It’s a long time coming,” Tassoni said of Bartz’s resignation. “A lot of people are angry about what happened. A lot of people don’t know the truth of what happened, nor do I.”
An investigation is underway by the school committee’s attorney and a report is expected to be delivered to the school committee sometime next year, Tassoni added. However, some people have concerns about transparency and have floated the possibility of hiring an independent investigator.
The Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island said they want the focus to be on student safety.
“While we can’t speculate on the specific reasons behind the superintendent’s decision to resign, we remain focused on what matters most: that Smithfield schools become a place where Jewish students and all students feel safe, valued, and protected from bias and harassment,” President and CEO Adam Greenman wrote in an email.
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