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Peace Resource Center to Hold Exhibit Opening for ‘The Journey of the Phoenix’

Peace Resource Center
Wednesday's Opening to be Covered by Japanese Film Crew In 1954, Barbara Reynolds and her family began a four-year “Peace Odyssey” in which they sailed around the world in their yacht to protest the development, testing and use of nuclear weapons in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima. (PICTURED) Barbara Reynolds is pictured on the yacht, The Phoenix of Hiroshima, in with she and her family circumvented the world on an antinuclear peace mission in the mid-1950s. Reynolds went on to establish the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College in 1976, a place she selected as the depository for materials on the atomic bombing that hastened the end of World War II, yet left 140,000 dead and dying. The PRC subsequently, over the past 40 years, expanded its role to create a vital connection between the campus community and efforts toward nonviolence, social justice and global peace. PRC-Journey-PosterAn exhibit, titled “The Journey of the Phoenix: A Peace Odyssey,” highlights the family’s global journey between 1954 and 1958 that propelled them to antinuclear and peace activism. Running from June 1 to Aug. 1, the exhibit will open Wednesday (June 1), from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Normal exhibit hours are Mondays and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The PRC is located at the corner of Main and College streets. Coinciding with the exhibit opening, a film crew from NHK World English — the Japanese equivalent of PBS or the BBC — will be shooting footage of the event to complement additional footage shot of Wilmington College students putting together the exhibit. They include senior Maraya Wahl and juniors Ellyse Herr, Hillary Mitchell and Jessica Fair. The network is planning a feature story that prominently includes the Peace Resource Center and Barbara Reynolds’ peace testimony. Following World War II, Barbara Reynolds’ husband, Earle, was a scientist with the U.S. Atomic Bombing Casualty Commission in Hiroshima who studied the impact of radiation on the child survivors of the August 1945 atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following the three-year study on the harmful effects of radiation, Barbara, Earle and two of their children, Ted and Jessica, decided to leave Hiroshima and sail around the world. While traveling 54,360 nautical miles and stopping at 122 ports on a peace mission, they were transformed from curious seafarers to antinuclear peace activists. This exhibit is a record of their voyage with images largely been taken from the Peace Resource Center's archive of digitized slides recently donated by Barbara’s daughter, Jessica Reynolds Renshaw.