Here’s another photo recently found and scanned. That’s me standing outside the garage of the Honolulu Friends Center, the Quaker Meeting House in Manoa, which had been converted to offices for the local program of the American Friends Service Committee. At the time, I was program director for the Hawaii AFSC office.
As I recall, my visitor was a reporter who was traveling with a small delegation of Japanese anti-nuclear activists.
The garage office was informal but very pleasant. The outer part was a small reception area, and back through the door was an even smaller screened office with two desks and a tiny bathroom. Several years later, a new addition was built on the side of the meeting house and AFSC moved over there. Unfortunately, a few years ago, the Hawaii program was discontinued for budgetary reasons.
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Ah, but Ian, the organization survives as Hawaii Peace & Justice, with a small group of people still doing peace work on 1) demilitarization of Hawaii, 2) building solidarity with other activist groups, and 3) building capacity in our youth.
The framework is there for some fierce peace & justice activism.
Some good work came out of that little AFSC office in those years. One strong focus was on documenting and publicizing the storage of nuclear weapons at the West Loch of Pearl Harbor. Another was research and debate about how Castle and Cook, a local multinational corporation, was performing according to social justice criteria.
I appreciated Ramona’s comment. It is good to know that the work continues.