Thread by @SurfCityWriter

1/ I obtained a first edition of the book banned in 1969 by the #OrangeCounty #OCBoardofEducation. The banning was pushed by board member and John Birch Society member Dale Rallison.

It is the Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Hiroshima," by John Hersey.

2/ What did #OCBE not want students to see?
Descriptions of the impact of the A bomb by Japanese children.

3/ Banning the book would prevent students from learning about the impact to the emergency response, to hospitals, doctors, and nurses. The majority of healthcare workers in Hiroshima were dead after the bomb.

4/ Hersey followed the impact to several people, including Dr. Sasaki. The doctors that were left alive in the immediate aftermath worked around the clock until help arrived.

They still weren't sure what the "peculiar" bomb was, but noticed the x-ray plates were exposed.

5/ "They're going to set fire to us!"
Hersey describes the rain that fell and the winds that spread fires after the A bomb. Rumors spread that the rain was gasoline. People hid, including a large park where people took refuge.

6/ "Hiroshima" describes the slow rollout of symptoms from radiation.

Not everyone died immediately. For some it was a lingering death.

For those who survived, the Hibakusha (被爆者 or 被曝者) it was a life of health disabilities.

7/ Hersey describes people he profiled, Mrs. Nakamura, who had taken refuge at a Catholic Novitiate, beginning to suffer the noticeable affects of radiation.

8/ Hersey's book, "Hiroshima," reports on the impact of the atomic bomb one year later. Those who survived became a community "something like that of the Londoners after their blitz."

#OCBE wanted students to learn about Londoners, but not Hiroshima's residents.

9/ History kept from #OCBE students & the American public was the rationale behind targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were civilian targets, not military targets.

The 'The Height of Burst of the Gadget' was not declassified until years later.

10/ This small 1946 book is 118 pages and about the size of a notepad.

It was considered DANGEROUS HISTORY by the #OCBoardofEducation #OCBE in 1969 and banned by their board.

In 2021-2022, OCBE is at it again with "concern" about CRT. It is an overreach of their powers.

11/ What's the danger learning multiple views of historic events? What's the goal banning analytical multi-perspective views?

We point to state indoctrination in other countries, while not recognizing the efforts by some to manipulate our own factual knowledge of history.

Adding this 2021 article about Hersey's book, Hiroshima, from Esquire. Once banned by an #OrangeCounty school board after pressure from their John Birch Society member. Still essential reading.

esquire.com/uk/culture/boo…