Darlene Keju-Johnson

Public health pioneer and advocate for those impacted by US nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands

Darlene Keju-Johnson was born in 1951 in the Marshall Islands; she spent most of her childhood on Wotje Atoll, which lay downwind of the U.S. nuclear tests conducted between 1946 and 1958.

As a teenager, Darlene was sent to Hawai‘i to pursue her education. While earning a master’s degree in public health, she learned about the history and consequences of the nuclear testing program—information that many people in the Marshall Islands had not been told. As she uncovered more about the tests and their effects, Darlene came to understand that the suffering experienced by her people was far greater than she had previously realized.

The more she learned, the more determined she became to speak out. Darlene returned to the Marshall Islands in 1984 and began traveling throughout the islands to learn about the experiences of people who had lived through the nuclear tests. She met families who had been forced from their homes because of radioactive contamination. She heard from women who had suffered miscarriages and from families whose children had been born with severe birth defects:

For example, we have hundreds of women who have had miscarriages, we have leukemia cancers, we have thyroid cancers, we have stillbirth babies nowadays. I just got back from home, and I have talked to many women and men in the population saying that we have babies we call ‘jellyfish babies’ – a baby’s born on a labor table and it moves up and down like this. It’s a kind of ugly thing that is not shaped like a human being. It moves up and down like this on a labor table, because that thing is breathing. It is a baby, and we have more than 10 of these all throughout the islands.*

When the Enola Gay B-29 dropped Little Boy, a 10,000-pound uranium bomb that detonated approximately above Hiroshima, 80,000 to 140,000 people were instantly killed and 100,000 more were seriously injured.

The firestorm resulting from the blast generated enormous quantities of ash, which were carried into the atmosphere. The ash helped to “seed” the clouds, contributing to the formation of what became known as “black rain.” This dark precipitation—described as having an almost tar-like consistency—consisted of water mixed with ash and radioactive fallout. In some cases, exposure to the black rain resulted in severe radiation burns.

US military nuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll in 1946

These stories showed Darlene that the consequences of nuclear testing were not limited to the explosions themselves. The effects continued through people’s health, families, communities, and connections to their ancestral lands.

One of the most important events in Darlene’s activism came in 1983, when she spoke at the World Council of Churches gathering in Vancouver, Canada. In front of thousands of religious leaders and members of the international media, she brought attention to the suffering of Marshallese communities affected by nuclear fallout. She challenged the limited understanding of the damage caused by the tests and described health problems that had received little international attention.

The agreement was for the United States to protect our health and to prevent the loss of our land and resources – a promise that would never be kept. Before we knew it, our islands were blown up. The United States government did not bother to tell us that four of our islands, two in Bikini and two in Enewetak, would be blown off the face of the earth…


All of the Department of Energy team who come and look at us for our illnesses only look at the people on the island that they consider contaminated. And they only look at their throat. They will not – they refuse to look at their children, they refuse to look at the people who have come to the islands and have similar kinds of illnesses. The Department of Energy sent us throughout the United States for the medical surgery on our thyroids. They sent us to New York, they sent us to Hawaii, they sent us to Guam, and still do not explain what is the matter with us.

Darlene used education, public speaking, music, dance, and personal stories to help people understand what nuclear testing had meant for ordinary Marshallese families. She wanted the world to recognize that the islands were not empty testing grounds. They were homes filled with communities, traditions, families, and children.

She also challenged the response of the United States government to the health consequences of the testing. Darlene argued that the assistance provided to affected communities was inadequate and that the effects of radioactive fallout had reached more islands than had been officially acknowledged at the time. Later-released U.S. government documents supported concerns about the wider distribution of radioactive fallout.

It’s very funny when the United States tell us that they are there to protect us. We turn around and ask them protect us from whom? We have no enemies. In fact, you might be interested to know that us Marshallese do not have a word for enemy. The Marshallese are dying out now. My island up in the north is also contaminated. I, too, have three tumors in me. I’m about to have a surgery, and I’m frightened I don’t know whether I should have children or not, because I don’t know whether I’ll have a child that is like a jellyfish baby. I don’t know whether I will have a child that has six fingers, a child that has a horn on his head. We don’t know what is going on.

Her work extended beyond nuclear activism. In 1986, she founded Youth-to-Youth in Health, an organization designed to help young Marshallese people take greater control over their health and their communities. She believed that young people needed hope and opportunities to create change.

Darlene’s activism was cut short when she died of breast cancer in June 1996, at only 45 years old. Her death came after years of speaking about the health consequences of nuclear testing and supporting survivors. She gave a voice to people whose suffering had often been overlooked and helped bring the Marshall Islands into the international discussion about nuclear weapons:

All we know is we must travel throughout the world and share this kind of experience from the bombs. We must stop it before it gets to you. Remember we are the victims of the nuclear age. Don’t become a victim.