Timeline

“I feel a national loyalty to the U.S.  I feel part of that loyalty is protesting when it does wrong”   
Marii Hasegawa

1918

  • WWI ends
  •  Marii Kyogoku (Hasegawa) is born near Hiroshima, Japan, September 17

1919

  • Versailles Treaty
  •  Prohibition Amendment
  •  Adolf Hitler, while jailed, writes Mein Kampf
  • Kyogoku moves to U.S. in August

1920’s

  • 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives women the right to vote
  • Stock Market Crashes, ensuing Depression
  • Immigration becomes a national concern
  • First Transatlantic flight
  • First motion picture with sound
  • Kyogoku’s childhood in California
  • Experienced her first racial slur

1930’s

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt elected
  • WWII begins in Europe
  • Kyogoku attends the University of California, Berkeley.  She is just over 15  years old.  Earns a degree in Home Economics.
  • Kyogoku attends her first protest rally at UC Berkeley
  • Hired at the University as a post graduate

1940’s

  • Pearl Harbor attacked, December 7, 1941
  • US involvement in WWII
  • Kyogoku living and working in California
  • The Kyogoku family is forcibly removed and incarcerated in Tanforan Racetrack, 1942
  • The family is transferred to the American concentration camp in Topaz, UT, 1942
  • Marii Kyogoku is released from Topaz to a job as a cook at a hostel in Cleveland, OH, early 1943
  • U.S deploys the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan,  1945
  • Kyogoku moves to Philadelphia, PA to work for the Food & Tobacco Union
  • The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) attends the 1st United Nations Conference in San Francisco; aids victims of fascism, 1945
  • Marii Kyogoku marries Ichiro Hasegawa, 1946
  • Hasegawa becomes a member of WILPF, 1947
  • The Hasegawa family moves to a farm in Camden, NJ

1950’s

  • McCarthy hearings on communism, American loyalty continues
  • Eisenhower and Nixon are elected
  • Civil Rights movement begins to gain national attention
  • Martin Luther King rises in prominence
  • Racially motivated boycotts and riots
  • Hasegawa, living in NJ, working on chicken farm, builds a boat in their basement.
  • Hasegawa participates with WILPF in peace and justice concerns

1960’s

  • Civil Rights Act passed
  • Race riots continue
  • March on Washington, 1963
  • Hasegawa helps organize the March on Washington with the Burlington Peace group, NJ
  • Attends March and hears “I Have A Dream” speech by Martin Luther King
  • The Hasegawas move to Richmond, VA
  • First WILPF conference of Soviet and American women to help break down Cold War barriers
  • WILPF works to end the Vietnam War
  • Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy are assassinated
  • Medgar Evers is assassinated in Jackson, MS
  • Hasegawa protests Vietnam War and the military draft
  • Works for Peace Rally at Union Seminary, Richmond, VA, 1967
  • My Lai massacre in Vietnam

1970’s

  • Mass demonstrations against the Vietnam War
  • Kent State shootings
  • Watergate; Nixon resigns
  • Vietnam War ends
  • Roe v. Wade legalizes abortion
  • Hasegawa becomes president of the U.S. section of WILPF, 1971-1975
  • Hasegawa leads a peace delegation to North Vietnam
  • She is a signatory to a “letter to Congress” to secure peace in Korea

1980’s

  • The Cold War between Russia and the U.S. continues
  • Nuclear Freeze Movement takes shape
  • Hasegawa continues to work with WILPF on Peace and Justice concerns: local organizing and education in Richmond, VA

1990’s

  • The Gulf War
  • Iraq invades Kuwait
  • Hubble Telescope is launched into space
  • Nelson Mandela is freed, elected President of South Africa
  • Oklahoma City bombing
  • Hasegawa is awarded the Niwano Peace Prize, Japan, 1996

2012

  • July 12, 2012 Our dear friend and hero, Marii Hasegawa, died early this morning. She would have turned 94 in September. 
  • Marii Hasegawa’s obituary   (Obituary contribution information: Correct address for Jane Addams Peace Association is 777 UN Plaza, NY, NY 10017)