19 Aug The Golden Rule and supporters present at the Onion Social Justice meeting

The “Onion” where S.U.U.S. holds services, events, music, and presentations

August 19, 2015

By Daniel C. Lavery

Helen Jaccard spoke to the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society about the Golden Rule, a 30-foot ketch and its original crew, Capt. Albert Bigelow, William Huntington, George Willoughby, and Orion Sherwood, which was stopped by the Coast Guard from interfering with nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands in 1958. They were part of an international movement to stop the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. They were arrested at Honolulu, Hawaii.

Jessica Reynolds Renshaw spoke about another peace keeping sail boat, The Phoenix of Hiroshima, skippered by Earl Reynolds, his wife Barbara, their children Ted and Jessica, and Nick Nakami, a crew member from Hiroshima.  Together they sailed The Phoenix into the nuclear test zone to protest nuclear testing in 1958 and were arrested. Earl was a physical anthropologist whom the Atomic Energy Commission sent to Hiroshima to research the effects of radiation on children. In 1961 they sailed to Vladivostok, Russia, with Thomas C. Yoneda replacing Nick as a crew member to share their message to the Soviet Union. For extraordinary civil disobedience, they were branded as traitors in the U. S., while Japan held them up as national heroes.

The Golden Rule was resurrected, repaired, with the help of Garberville Chapter of Veterans For Peace and other West Coast Chapters formed a movement to bring her back to sail again on June 20^th 2015 carrying their peace and anti-nuclear weapon message for the next two months in California (set forth below). They plan to undertake a ten-year peacemaking voyage around North America challenging military solutions to the world problems. Helen is a part of the crew and member of Women’s International League For Peace and Freedom.

Albert Bigelow is author of the boo Voyage of the Golden Rule, and a former naval officer in WWII who resigned his commission a month before he was eligible for a pension. “To Russia with Love,” An American Family Challenges Nuclear Testing, by Jessica Reynolds Renshaw, follows the Phoenix on its mission to spread the truth about radiation from nuclear testing and finding peaceful solutions rather than military ones.

Golden Rule Schedule:

8/ 27-29 in Long Beach

8/30 Arlington Memorial

8/31-9/ 1 Marina Del Rey

9/3-9/19 Seal Beach, San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, Monterey, Santa Cruz

9/21-10/10 San Francisco Bay

10/12 Morro Bay/ Ft. Bragg

VVAW member Daniel C. Lavery graduated Annapolis, navigated a Navy jet, and a ship, turned peace activist and became a civil rights lawyer for Cesar Chavez’s UFW. His memoir, All the Difference, describes his experiences. www.danielclavery.com.

Daniel Lavery
djasb@aol.com