Peace Education: Samantha Smith

Memorial Day 2023 Topsham, Maine

Part of building a future of peace for our children is providing them with an education in peacemaking. This can take different forms, occurring both inside and outside of school. It becomes especially important in times of hot wars in an age when peace conferences are canceled because they're...calling for peace.

A unique event in Maine last week gave me an opportunity to bring a child who is a little too young to walk in a long parade. School-age Samantha Smith was being remembered for her role in bringing about dialogue over preventing nuclear war between the U.S. and the USSR. Some of us know of her work because we've taught about it or we're aware of the Samantha Smith Challenge run by Americans Who Tell The Truth. Now, Maine has named a road after her in the hope that young people will continue to find out what she did and why: she talked to and even visited the "enemy"! 

My friend Regis Tremblay, a former Mainer who now lives in Yalta, has told me how widely known and popular Samantha Smith still is, many decades later, in Russia. So when I told him I'd gone to the road dedication ceremony, he wanted to talk to me about it. Here's the video he made:

(If you're boycotting YouTube for destroying thousands of videos Regis and other activists have previously shared there, you can also see this interview on Rumble or Bitchute.)

Local tv coverage of the road dedication can be viewed here and here.