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Japanese Journey Provides Lessons of Peace for Chapel Assistants
BY ADD SEYMOUR JR.
(TOKYO, HIROSHIMA and NAGASAKI,
Japan) — Morehouse sophomore Devon
Crawford knew he and the other five Martin
Luther King Jr. International Chapel assistants
would leam about the importance of global
peace during their August trip to Japan.
But after hearing of the deep pain and
suffering of victims and survivors of the 1945
atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima,
he was nearly moved to tears.
“It was extremely moving,” said Crawford,
a psychology major from Birmingham, Ala
“Students at Morehouse are charged to be
socially conscious leaders with global perspec
tive. So we are given this idea that we are
communal men, that our work is inextricably
connected to everyone else. This trip reaffirms
the fact that my work is not just for myself, but
also for all others who experience traumatic
events and who need justice in their everyday
lives. We are those clarion voices to inject jus
tice, love, peace and dignity of human life for all
people that we come into contact with.”
That’s exactly what Chapel Dean Lawrence
E. Carter Sr. wanted his students to experience.
‘The ultimate goal was to help our stu
dents to become moral cosmopolitans,” he said.
Joining Crawford on the trip were fellow
chapel assistants on the trip were juniors Stephen
Green of Winter Garden, Ha and Winford Rice
of Suffolk, Va; sophomore Donald Hayes of Port
Arthur, Tx.; and the group’s president, senior
Reginald Sharpe of Atlanta
The students, along with associate cam
pus minister Ernest Brooks ’05 and Chapel
relations director Terry Walker ’89, took part
in Peace Week activities in Nagasaki and
Hiroshima where thousands laid wreaths,
cried and remembered those who died.
More importandy, the ceremonies served as
a reminder of the danger of nuclear war and
the need for global peace.
“This trip was to make good on an aspect
of the Chapel’s mission to encourage our stu
dents to be ambassadors of peace and world
citizens,” Carter said. “We want to make them
conscious about the seriousness of the need for
nuclear abolition. We also want to help them
to understand that there are many different
ways of being in the world, many different ways
of being religious and to discover the universal
language of music, laughter and a smile and to
begin to get out of the boxes that keep us from
loving the whole.
That made the trip less a sightseeing
adventure and one where the Morehouse con
tingent was seen as peace ambassadors.
Carter gave a keynote address on evo
lutionary peace at Hiroshima University. As
the Morehouse contingent was ushered into
the University’s auditorium, the crowd of
several hundred stood and cheered, waved
American flags and sang “We Shall Overcome”
- in English - in honor of the only African
Americans in the room.
Then the group was ushered to the front
of a large area where thousands of global peace
activists, government officials, bombing sur
vivors and their families took part in an emo
tional remembrance of the Aug. 6,1945, U.S.
atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Laying wreaths
and speaking were a number of international
dignitaries, including Japan’s prime minister
and, for the first time, an official representative
of the U.S. government
The Morehouse group later prayed for
peace in a temple, honored loved ones lost with
peace lanterns sent down a Hiroshima river and
listened to the stories from bombing victims.
Two days later, they did the same in
Nagasaki.
The students were moved so deeply that
they met one evening during the trip and decid
ed to bring those lessons home to Atlanta Later
this semester, they will host a series of conversa
tions for Atlanta University Center students to
talk about what they can do to ensure a peaceful
world and why it is important to them.
“We want people to be drawn to the art
of the pictures we bring back, but also to their
meanings and their stories and how they relate
to each of us, and for everyone to leam and to
ask questions,” Brooks said.
Unbeknownst to them, the chapel assis
tants’ presence in Japan meant just as much to
the Japanese.
“It really does have an effect on people
when they come to the cities where the
bombs were dropped to see with their
own eyes the record of this bombing,” said
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue during a pri
vate meeting with the Morehouse group.
For you men from Morehouse to
come here and to actually think about this
and be aware of about how you feel and
be willing to take that back to America
with you, that is a really extremely valu
able thing to us here in Japan. So we
warmly welcome you into the circle of
people who are doing this work.” ■