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.
1/ History meets politics. Michelle Steel’s .@RepSteel vote against #RespectforMarriage means she does not know California or American history.
100 years ago, her marriage was illegal in her own California district. 🧵 #history#CivilRights
2/ California banned interracial marriage 1850-1948. In 1922, Congress passed the Cable Act, which removed citizenship of any U.S. *woman* who married "an alien ineligible for citizenship." They meant Asians. This targeted Asian immigrants who were barred from US citizenship.
I wrote about an illegal marriage in 1909 in what is currently is Steel’s congressional district, between a white woman and a Japanese American man. It’s connected to an endangered National Treasure historic place she's refused to help save.
My crime? Writing about & working to save @WintersburgHB in Huntington Beach, an endangered National Treasure historic place representing over a century of Japanese American history. The history that's "CRT."
2/ By 1971, there was a John Birch Society member on the #OCBoardofEducation & their members were targeting local school districts. In Anaheim, it was a textbook that discussed how to review media with a critical eye & recognize propaganda. Ironic.
3/ May 1971: .@latimes called attention to the board's book banning of the Martin Luther King biography, "the #OCBoardofEducation is at it again."
The OCBE had previously banned Pulitzer Prize winner John Hersey's book "Hiroshima" and was banning a book by Joan Baez.
Over 500 people descended on the burial site, carting away "skulls and other relics." Thousands of years of human history were picked apart and carted away to private collections. #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth
2/ The late 1800s Buck Ranch was in Wintersburg near .@WintersburgHB, Edwards Street and Varsity Drive. Some items are in Bowers Museum collection, but not everything is accounted for & likely in private homes. #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth
3/ Early 1900s: Universe Effigy west of @WintersburgHB on Cole Ranch.
1970s: Multiple burial site 1320 ft NW of .@WintersburgHB.
Evidence of shell midden & other artifacts on endangered #HistoricWintersburg.
Significant burial remains in the Bolsa Chica Wetlands.
Zoom w/ David Inoue .@JACL_National on H.R. 1931 Japanese American Confinement Education Act, which permanently reauthorizes the Japanese American Confinement Sites preservation program.
Missing from the #California co-sponsor list?
Michelle Steel.