Love-In-Action Taos has joined in with a beautiful project you may want to participate in. Send a creative message of peace to the “cradle of the bomb” to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the horrific bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This year, as people around the world take action to commemorate the massacre and ban the bomb, Campaign Nonviolence and Upaya Zen Center are calling on citizens to fold 70,000 paper cranes for peace to be brought to Los Alamos National Laboratory, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Days. Sign up here.
Sadako statue with paper cranes in Japan.
Seventy years ago, the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 80,000 women, children, and men instantly; and over 150,000 in total. The symbolism of the paper crane began with Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old when the blast from the Hiroshima bomb threw her out a window. She was ten when purple spots formed on her arms and legs. Hospitalized for leukemia in Feb 1955, the popular girl died in October 1955. In her last year of life, she folded 1300 paper cranes as a prayer for healing. The paper crane is now an international symbol of peace, and a poignant reminder of the human costs of nuclear bombs.
On Aug 6-9th, hundreds of citizens will be gathering in New Mexico to embody Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous words regarding nuclear weapons, “It is no longer a choice between violence or nonviolence. It is nonviolence or nonexistence.” They will be participating in a National Conference on Nonviolence and traveling to the heart of nuclear weapons research, Los Alamos National Laboratory, to hold a vigil, a peace march, and deliver 70,000 paper cranes that have been folded by people like you.
Love-In-Action Taos folded paper cranes designed by Taos member, Paul Gutches.
Come to New Mexico in person or send a delegation of paper cranes to represent you, your family, friends, and neighbors, your peace and justice center, church or spiritual group, school or classroom. Learn how to fold cranes and sign up here.