The Peace Sign Turns Fifty

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Many of you may know this, but I didn’t: the peace symbol first made its appearance fifty years ago at a Good Friday march against nuclear weapons in London.

It was designed by an Englishman named Gerald Holtom, a conscientious objector to World War II who grasped the fact that the anti-nuclear movement would benefit greatly from a clearly identifiable visual image. What he came up with was a combination of letters from the semaphore alphabet—a man with hands stretched down and out (N, for nuclear) and with right hand raised (D, for disarmament), within a circle that symbolized the Earth. Holtom later said he was also inspired by the famous Goya anti-war painting, where a despairing man about to be shot stands with his hands down and out to the sides.

Of course, the symbol took on a life of its own in the sixties and seventies, when it crossed the Atlantic and was adopted by the anti-Vietnam War movement, and by the movement for racial equality in both the United States and South Africa. Now I understand the symbol has come to be viewed by many as somehow emblematic of Communism and of opposition to militant American Christianity, with many seeing it as a symbol of a broken cross. A couple in Denver were actually threatened with a fine when they used a peace symbol as a wreath at Christmas.

Kinda makes me want to run out and stick one in the front yard. Happy birthday, peace symbol!