Public Programs Archive

February 19, 1942, is the day President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the forced removal of almost 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast of the United States?most of them U.S. citizens?from their homes and into federal detention camps.

The Day of Remembrance is now an annual event held in cities across the country to keep the memory of this great injustice alive and to honor those who were impacted by this action of the US government that was in direct response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In Juneau, the City Museum has teamed up with the Public Library to reprise our 2014 exhibit The Empty Chair: The Forced Removal and Relocation of Juneau's Japanese, 1941-1951 which was mounted in conjunction with the installation of the Empty Chair Memorial at Capital School Park.

The program begins at 5:30 pm on February 19th, in the Mendenhall Valley Library's meeting room. Greg Chaney's documentary film The Empty Chair will be shown and then, after a short break for conversation and refreshment, a selection of stories, images and objects from the Museum exhibit and the memorial dedication will be shared in slide-lecture format. The program will conclude at 7:30 pm.

Join us for one or both of these program components on February 19th, the Day of Remembrance. For more about The Empty Chair Memorial visit https://emptychairproject.wordpress.com.