Film Showing: White Light/Black Rain The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

America Was Never Great Film Series
Film Showing & Discussion

White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a film by Steven Okazaki

At 8:15 am, on August 6, 1945, a blazing, million-degree fireball suddenly appeared just above the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing, burning alive, or vaporizing tens of thousands.

The U.S. had just exploded the first nuclear bomb over the center of a city of 350,000. killing between 140-150,000. Three days later, on August 9, the U.S. dropped an even more powerful nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, destroying the city and murdering another 70,000 people.

WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN reveals the unimaginable destructive power of the bombs, the inconceivable suffering and extraordinary human resilience. Director Steven Okazaki tells the amazing, shocking and inspiring stories of fourteen survivors.

WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN stands as a powerful warning that, with enough nuclear weapons to equal 400,000 Hiroshimas, we can’t afford to forget what happened on those two days in 1945. We also can’t forget that the US is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons in war, that the US government has never said it was wrong to use them against Japan, and that to this day, it has a policy justifying first use of nuclear weapons in future wars.

This is especially true now under the Trump/Pence fascist regime with Trump’s finger on the nuclear button. In just the past weeks, Trump/Pence have threatened millions around the globe by deploying attack aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines to the Korean Peninsula, setting up the THAAD anti-missile defense system in South Korea and threatening Iran and other countries.