ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Allen Sánchez recalled his grandfather’s words— how, in the stillness of dawn, on July 16, 1945, he was out milking cows in the New Mexico desert when the sun seemed to rise and set at once.
What his grandfather witnessed wasn’t the sun at all, but the Trinity test—the world’s first detonation of a nuclear weapon—carried out in the Jornada del Muerto desert near Socorro, New Mexico.
“The silence was broken at 5:29,” Sánchez said. “The peace was broken at 5:29.”
The explosion confirmed the terrifying reality of nuclear power. Just weeks later the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ushered in the nuclear age.
Sánchez shared the story as emcee of “80 Years and Still Waiting: A World Without Nuclear Weapons,” held July 13, 2025, at Saint Pius X School and co-sponsored by the SGI-USA, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe Social Justice and Respect for Life Office, Back From the Brink New Mexico Hub, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium and other organizations.
SGI-USA General Director Adin Strauss represented the SGI-USA at the event.
Given New Mexico’s role in the development of nuclear weapons, the event drew notable voices for abolition, including keynote speaker Melissa Parke, the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize partly for its advocacy of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (The SGI has served as an international partner to ICAN since its early stages.)
“The case for disarmament is not utopian,” Parke said. “It is existential and, therefore, must be reframed as a global security imperative. The future demands common security, not mutual destruction.”
Tina Cordova, of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, spoke of the enduring toll the Trinity test had on the residents who lived downwind of the site and uranium workers who were exposed without proper protection.
The group fought for the inclusion of New Mexico downwinders in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. While compensation was recently approved, Cordova said it would “never replace the [loved ones] that we buried who should still be here today.”
On July 16, the 80th anniversary, a commemorative sign was installed at the Stallion Gate entrance to the Trinity Site, both honoring and acknowledging those affected by radioactive fallout.
Dr. Ira Helfand, past president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize) and co-founder of its U.S. affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility, reminded attendees of the joint 1985 U.S.-Soviet statement: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The discussions between the leaders of both nations became a turning point, laying the diplomatic and ideological groundwork for ending the Cold War in the early 1990s.
“We’ve done this once before,” he said. “We can do it again.”
He then introduced SGI-USA member Eddie Laiche, a university student who founded a nuclear abolition club in high school and now serves on the steering committee of Students for Nuclear Disarmament.
Speaking with a youthful enthusiasm that energized the crowd, he said our world will become more peaceful when more people “are of the common mind that going to war and stockpiling these nuclear weapons is utter madness.”
“What urgently needs to be upheld,” he said, “is an indomitable respect for the dignity and sanctity of all life on this planet.”
In closing, Strauss offered a call to action and prayer at the event, in which he cited Ikeda Sensei’s words addressing the feeling of powerlessness individuals may feel in the face of the huge institutions that run our world: “The inner determination of an individual can transform everything; it gives ultimate expression to the infinite potential and dignity inherent in each human life” (The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra, vol. 1, pp. 6–7).
“The theme of today’s gathering was ‘80 Years and Still Waiting,’” he said. “I’d like to close my remarks today as follows: ‘80 Years and More Determined Than Ever.’”
—Prepared by the World Tribune staff
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