Bellman Presentation: Heart Mountain Internment Camp

Name: Bellman Presentation: Heart Mountain Internment Camp
Start: 2025-11-12T12:00:00-07:00
Location: 612 N Main St, Spearfish, SD, United States, South Dakota 57783

Schedule

Wed, 12 Nov, 2025 at 12:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

612 N Main St, Spearfish, SD, United States, South Dakota 57783 | Spearfish, SD

Join us as Jo Powell shares the powerful history of the Heart Mountain Internment Camp in Powell, Wyoming. One of ten camps where Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated during World War II. Through stories, research, and reflection, Powell sheds light on this pivotal chapter of American history and its lasting impact.
Dr. Jo Powell
Dr. Jo Powell is an author, illustrator, sculptor and educator in Spearfish. She is the author of the Coloristory Books, books which present local history with a coloring book component. Dr. Powell believes that coloring books can be educational tools, and has written several about this area of the Black Hills. Her latest book is about the Japanese Incarceration Camp near Cody, Wyoming.

Heart Mountain Internment Camp
In 1941, when Imperial Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States responded in several ways. First, they declared war on Japan and its allies. Second, the Government rounded up all the Japanese and Japanese Americans on the West Coast, 120,000 of them, and sent them to incarceration camps in the interior of the country for the duration of the war. Although the stated reason for this illegal detainment was to protect the Japanese population, the reasons are much more complex. This talk will examine this detainment and its causes and its effects on the Japanese and Japanese Americans both then and now. The topic of illegal detainment, incarceration of innocent people, and human rights still has much pertinence in today's world.
About the Bellman Brown Bag Series...
The Bellman Brown Bag series is a humanities program designed to explore ideas, history, literature, art, and culture. The Brown Bag program was developed by Dr. Stewart Bellman in the 1990s. Recognizing the Matthews Opera House as an ideal venue for the exploration of humanities topics, he engaged a line-up of speakers to present programs on a range of humanities topics each month.
Dr. Bellman was a professor of English at Black Hills State University, Spearfish, SD. His teaching career spanned thirty years. Bellman retired from BHSU and passed away in November 2002.
Programs are presented on the second Wednesday of each month, noon to 1pm. Designed to begin and end within the lunch hour, patrons are invited to bring their lunch, if desired, or simply enjoy an hour of learning and entertainment. This is an opportunity to gain insight into themes that touch our daily lives.