Most Americans alive today do not remember December 7, 1941 – still, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt predicted, it remains “a date which will live in infamy.” It was on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, that the Imperial Japanese Navy executed the infamous surprise attack on the American Army and Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor. The next day the United States declared war on Japan and thereby entered World War II.
In 1994 the U.S. Congress declared National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day as a day set aside to remember and to honor all those who died in that attack.
Twin Cities storyteller and veteran Larry Johnson, along with members of Veterans for Peace, will honor the tradition with a Remembrance Day program on the theme “From Pearl Harbor to Peace.” The program is Sunday, December 7, 1:00 p.m. at the Landmark Center, 75 West 5th Street in downtown St. Paul.
There will be music, stories of the Armistice, the 1914 Christmas truce, the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war, and more. There will also be a remembrance of military killed at Pearl Harbor, soldiers and civilians killed during the war, including victims of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The program will end with the ringing of the Armistice Bells, crafted by Minnesota veterans and funded by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.
The peace-themed event is free and open to the public.
Questions? Contact Larry Johnson at larryjvfp [at] gmail [dot] com