I Will Write Peace on Your Wings

In August 1955, Sadako Sasaki began folding paper cranes. A Japanese legend says that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted a wish. Sadako, battling leukemia, wished for world peace. The 12-yearold folded more than a thousand cranes before she died in October 1955. She inspired people around the world. In 1958 a statue of Sadako, a golden crane in her hand, was placed in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park with a plaque reading, “This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world.”

Led by members of the National Art Honor Society, the Jackson Prep community folded more than 1100 cranes in October of 2021. AP Euro classes folded maps into cranes, the Precis staff folded yearbook promo pages, and advisories folded paper with their names on it.

The art installation hung in the Gallery for the month of November, highlighted by changing LED lights. As the doves swayed with the currents of air stirred by students walking through, the cranes silently offered up the Prep community’s wish for peace in the world.