A Peace of History Turns 50
A familiar icon has reached a milestone. The peace symbol turns 50 today.Before it was a hippie fashion accessory, before it became the emblem of the Vietnam era anti-war movement, the peace symbol stood for nuclear disarmament.
The British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament details the origins of its logo.
Designed by British artist and conscientious objector Gerald Holtom for what then was the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, the bisected circle with two downward spokes combined the semaphores for the letters “N” - two flags held down at a 45 degree angle - and “D,” one up, one down.
The symbol was unveiled Feb. 21, 1958, according to the New York Public Radio show “On the Media,” and made its public debut at a 1958 Easter weekend anti-nuclear march, according to CND.
It later migrated to the U.S., where it was adopted by student pacifists and later by the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Columbia University professor Todd Gitlin said it was in the mid- to late 1970s that the peace sign started to become more of a fashion statement.
As the anti-war activists of the 1960s grew older, a younger generation was looking for a way of declaring who they were, Gitlin said. “For them, it seemed to signify being righteous or hip.”
“Back in the ’60s and ’70s, everyone was familiar with the sign. People were putting it on their graduation caps,” said Keith Knutson, a Viterbo University professor who said he protested the Vietnam War before serving in the Navy.
Knutson compares the Vietnam War to the current war in Iraq. Both were wars of choice, not necessity, he said. “But the peace symbol doesn’t seem to be coming back.”
Chris Hubbuch can be reached at chris.hubbuch@lee.net
© 2008 La Crosse Tribune
Happy Birthday Peacesymbol!
Thanks for your good service.
Perhaps its high due time for a new version
that doesn’t have arbitrary letters
embedded within it. Mercedes Benz gets
too much free advertising, and cynics
think its quaint.
I suggest we initiate a progressive adventure here and
brainstorm on a new symbol.
I am aligned with the GlobalPeaceFoundation
sponsors of the Alcatraz Conversion Project
in SF, campaigning steadily for a global peace center in SF Bay.
Share your ideas for an updated
symbol in the forum of www.Alcatraz.nu.
There will be comment area for the brain/heartstorm on the forum page
of that site shortly.
The other site for the project at this moment is
www.globalpeacefoundation.org
Peace
Here’s an interesting version of the peace symbol:
http://www.peacepreserver.com/
I like the idea of a PEACE symbol image that is created from hundreds (dozens?) of human faces of all nations. Perhaps a mix of larger and smaller images, including the pix of this article above.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King
far out man. groovy.
seriously, the peace is every bit as meaningful as any religious icon or symbol. words fail me.
“Mercedes Benz gets too much free advertising, and cynics
think its quaint.”
Pleasse look again, more closely. The peace sign looks nothing like a Mercedes symbol! Does a “V” look like a “Y”?
That so many USAns below a cerrtain age fail to see the lower vertical part of it, instead confusing it with, and even drawing it incorrectly, so it does look like a particular corporate logo, says a lot about the influence of commercialization. It apparently has reached the point that it even alters their visual perception.
I agree that you shouldn’t even be thinking of Mercedes Benz in the environments where you see peace signs.. I agree with USAn on the influence of commercialism on that one.
Also, the idea of a sign made up of hundreds of faces or something like that is cool and interesting, but I think the idea of such a simple symbol as this one is that people can easily draw it or sew it onto their clothes or otherwise create a visual representation of it. Anything more complicated would prevent so many people from being able to use it in solidarity. It’s like how the U.S. national anthem is so difficult to sing compared to other national anthems, and thus you have to have a good voice to actually sing it. I think the peace sign being so simple is very democratizing, it allows anyone to be able to use it to show their beliefs.
The Hindu word namaste reminds me of the rasta pronoun I&I
It is to be used when the person is representing God within and the self simultaneously. This should be the goal of all education in the 21st century. So, if an enlightened rasta dude was discussing the war, he might say I&I pray for peace every day.
The Holy Spirit for a born again Christian is supposed to parallel the experience of God within us as well. Few do.
I find it amazing that more people don’t see God within them. For me, it takes an awful lot of negative crap in my life for me not to see and feel God within me and all around me. I know it sounds utterly flaky but I would be dishonest to say otherwise.
The mercedes benz thing was a joke.
Yes I see the little line on the bottom, good USAn didn’t see the joke though. true dat about the commercialism.
btw you can easily retrofit your fine mercedes benz hood ornament to sport some irony.
I like the symbol personally, but its a shame it aquired an element of kitch, kinda loses its punch. I’m just opening the dialogue to a creating peace symbol that makes us feel peaceful, like, say, something we can understand, like the faces. or www.baringwitness.org.
the original meaning of the ‘crows foot’ was certainly new to me, and im pretty well educated. hey speaking of hidden history, seek out the origins of the ‘pledge of alleigiance’.
Check out the Community Peace Sign created with luminarias on Christmas Eve in Santa Fe, NM - the Capital of the State which is Nuclear Weapons Capital of the World created by the Los Alamos Peace Project www.losalamospeaceproject.us
Shine the Light of Peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5l05CBsTxg
I don’t think we need a new peace symbol. What we need is to not fear showing the one we have. Yeah fear. Self censorship… that fear.
Those old enough will remember how early on in the anti-war movement that people were hesitant about displaying the peace sign. It was when soldiers in Nam were drawing the peace sign on their helmets that the peace sign UNITED us. They were telling us back home that they also wanted an end to the war too.
It was then the peace sign really became known to most of us and what it stood for. If THEY had the courage to wear it there.. then we at home felt that we could to. Most people do not realize that it was their displaying it which cut through the self censorship that so many had at home.
That self censorship fear is here again. We do not fear wearing the peace sign as a fashion accesory but we do fear wearing it as a peace sign… again.
We do not need a new symbol …a new peace sign… we need the courage to make the one we have …stand for peace again. Way back when as people saw others wearing the peace sign or drawing it on walls… it became a uniting symbol for being against the war. IT was a way to stand up for an end to the war. Eventually (and quickly too) it could be seen everywhere.
Sounds too simple? Maybe. But it united everyone. In fact it was the one thing that did. A shared belief. Sometimes a single symbol can represent everything to diverse people. Like a cross or a star or a crescent or flag.
You just have to wear it … OUR peace sign… because you mean it.
Oh yeah… back then it became a fashion accesory of sorts too but one that was not worn by somebody who didn’t believe it.
Hey I got an idea for a NEW peace sign… how about using the old one… and meaning it again? These days it may take a little courage again… to show you want peace.
Peace
My Grandpa, a conservative Republican from Colorado and a rancher, was rescued by his knowledge of semaphore during WWI.
Fighting in northern France, he was struck in the leg by shrapnel in a snow storm. The next morning, soldiers came out to look for survivors. They were about to leave and took one last look over the hill. And there, at some distance, they made out a prone soldier waving his semaphore flags frantically: ‘help!’. He limped the rest of his long life.
Perhaps he was right in his conservatism, but Republicanism turned wrong sometime in the ’80s, and stayed wrong. Today, I think we are better served by turning left and rescuing the country from new perils. But, as always, a good knowledge of semaphore is always necessary. We still need ‘help!’, and peace is a time that has come.
The footprint of the amerikan chiken as the war mongers dubbed it in the good ol bad days of Nam. Things haven’t changed very much as the amerikan war machine continues to grind the meat of its multiple victims on multiple corporate battle fronts. The peace Movement has long been butchered, packaged and frozen as anti war has been coopted by the pepsi cola coke mix of ameritokracy that this two party same agenda police state now has become.
Support “our troops” because war is as amerikan as well….chicken wings and apple pie!
Cock a doodle doooo!
I remember when the UAW local at GM’s in Delaware (I worked at Chrysler) distributed a newsletter back in the 60s with an article claiming the peace sign was the “witches claw.” They had a photo of some 16th century engraving of demons with a footprint vaguely resembling the old ND semaphore. No lack of web sites these days touting a similar theme. The strange religious atmosphere in auto plants in those days is recounted in my poetic monologue at www.autoplant.info.
Rock is on, feller
America is deep sleeping in the digits of naught
a feathered left- right gated nation secured by the doomsday waking clock
while white bread, black oil, liberation, manna, Mullah, non entity dogs fetch their bottom line
the flat line for us all
as the predator power pomp driven drivel
gushes up to the Venus studded few
who throw us a bone as first light
and our reflections lost in the wave of time
are there…. what’s left to ponder.