REMEMBERING GORDON HIRABAYASHI

Registration for this online event HERE

A NAJC PRESENTATION 

 JEANNE SAKATA is the author of Hold These Truths a play about Gordon Hirabayashi.

MATT MIWA of The Tashme Project will read from the play.

COMMUNITY & COURAGE

In addition to the featured guests, hear from GREG ROBINSON, author of The Great Unknown and the Unknown Great: The life and times of resister Gordon Hirabayashi and from friends from the Edmonton Community where he lived from 1959 until his death in 2012.  Learn about the NAJC Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Award.

In 2012 shortly after his death Gordon Hirabayashi was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama. In bestowing this honour President Obama concluded his remarks by quoting Hirabayashi,

“It takes a crisis to tell us that unless citizens are willing to stand up for the Constitution, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.”

Hirabayashi is a major figure in the Japanese American community and likely, President Obama could not have predicted how true these words would ring on January 6, 2021. The day of the Capitol Hill Insurrection. Hirabayashi moved to Edmonton in 1959 and while he spent more than half his life in Canada and became a Canadian citizen, his courage and non-violent activism should be better known here and celebrated regularly. He was Chair of the Sociology department at the University of Alberta from 1963-70 and retired in 1983. He was actively involved in the Edmonton Japanese Community Association and founded their newsletter, Moshi Moshi, to keep the community informed during the redress movement.

 AWARD CRITERIA – Deadline June 30, 2021

• The individual or group must be committed to the ideal, as stated in the mission statement of the NAJC, “to strive for equal rights and liberties for all people, particularly racial and ethnic minorities”.
• Individuals or groups must live/operate in Canada
• The award will not be given posthumously nor to an organization that is no longer active.
• The person may or may not be of Japanese ancestry or a member of NAJC., but supportive of its mandate.
• For complete details: www.najc.ca/funds-and-awards/dr-gordon-hirabayashi-human-rights-award.

The Award winner will be announced at the AGM.