Mayors for Peace

In August 1945, atomic bombs instantaneously reduced the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to rubble, taking hundreds of thousands of precious lives. Today, more than fifty years after the war, thousands of citizens still suffer the devastating aftereffects.

In 1982, Mayors for Peace was launched at the United Nations by then Mayor Takeshi Araki of Hiroshima, to offer cities a way to transcend national borders and work internationally to raise consciousness about nuclear weapons abolition. It is also committed to pursuing world peace by working to address starvation, poverty, refugee welfare, human rights abuses, environmental destruction, and other problems that threaten peaceful coexistence.

In 1990, the Mayors Conference became a UN NGO in "Special Consultative Status." Membership currently stands at 652 cities in 109 countries and regions.

Thirteen cities in Massachusetts are members - Agawam, Amesbury, Boston, Cambridge, Easthampton, Greenfield, Holyoke, Leverett, Lincoln, Medford, Newton, Northampton, and Worcester. Please encourage your own city to join Mayors for Peace.

Cities can join by sending a simple letter from the mayor or the head of the City Council to the Mayors for Peace Conference Secretariat stating that your city supports the Program and would like to join. The Secretariat will send your city a certificate confirming membership in Mayors for Peace.

To get more information on upcoming Mayors for Peace activities and find sample letters that you can bring to your own city mayor, please visit Mayors for Peace.