Remembering Jimmy Hara: physician, educator, and lifelong advocate for nuclear abolition

Jimmy Hideo Hara, MD, FAAFP, a physician, educator, and long-time advocate for community health, peace, and nuclear abolition, passed away on May 14, 2026. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, he served as a member of the Board of Directors starting in 2011, and the Board’s Vice Chair since 2023.

Jimmy was born during World War II in the Gila River War Relocation Center, a Japanese American internment camp, and later grew up in Los Angeles, California. Jimmy attended UCLA as an undergraduate student, where he earned his degree in Zoology. In 1970, he obtained his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, completing residency training through the VA Greater Los Angeles System.

Jimmy practiced family medicine for more than five decades and volunteered at the Venice Family Clinic beginning in 1971. In addition to practicing medicine, he held long-standing academic appointments at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he served as Professor of Clinical Family Medicine from 1985, and at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, where he has served as Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and Professor of Family Medicine from 2012.

Outside of medicine, Hara held leadership roles with Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, and served as the first and only physician commissioner for the Los Angeles City Fire Department. He also served on the boards of the Region 9 Western Clinicians Network, the American Board of Family Medicine, and the Venice Family Clinic Foundation, and was an At-Large Director with the California Academy of Family Physicians.

In 1980, Jimmy joined a steering committee that led to the formation of PSR-Los Angeles, where he served as the LA Chapter’s President for 32 years. From 1997 to 2010, he chaired the Health Care Workforce Policy Commission (Song-Brown Commission) under the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, helping direct funding toward training programs serving underrepresented and medically underserved communities.

In 1986, Jimmy, along with his beloved wife Diane, who passed away in 2025, and two of their children, participated in the Great Peace March, alongside hundreds of others who walked from Los Angeles to Washington, DC over the course of 8.5 months (March 1 – November 15). Jimmy loved to share stories from the march and was immensely proud of his family’s participation in this seminal effort for peace. With marchers en-route, Gorbachev and Reagan met in October of that year in Reykjavik, Iceland, almost agreeing to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

In 2011, Jimmy joined the Board of Directors of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, where he most recently served as Vice Chair. He was deeply inspired by the “Story of Sadako,” which he shared “solidified why I dedicated my life to this cause—why I believe health professionals should care about nuclear abolition, and why I, as a Japanese American and a physician who saw hibakusha patients firsthand, believe in this work.” Jimmy was involved in organizing and participating in NAPF’s Annual Sadako Peace Day event, where he frequently told the “Story of Sadako” to spread his message of peace.

His advocacy was shaped by his experience as a Japanese American born in Manzanar and by his lifelong commitment to health equity, public service, and nuclear abolition. Across decades of work, he combined clinical practice and teaching with sustained engagement in nuclear abolition efforts, mentoring generations of physicians, and inspiring countless others through his work.

All of us at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation extend our deepest sympathies to Jimmy’s family, friends, and all who were touched by his work and example. We miss him dearly and will dedicate our 33rd Annual Sadako Peace Day on August 6, 2026 at La Casa de Maria in Montecito, CA to his memory.