Friday, August 15, 2008

Happy 50th Peace Sign

I already talked about this, but the April National Geographic Magazine had a picture of the first group of people carrying what is considered to be the peace sign at a nuclear disarmament march over Easter in 1958. They looked quite miserable and were in full rain gear. But, there they were carrying that very familiar symbol. Actually, it IS the sign of nuclear disarmament.

They set out from London on a four-day march. This was in the very early days of the movement and it was determined that they also needed a new symbol. Artist Gerald Holtom based it on the semaphore initials for nuclear disarmament. The letter "n" is the flags being held down at 45 degree angles and "d" is straight up and down. It was purposely never copyrighted and has been usedoften since, especially in the Vietnam peace movement.

Not the Great American Chicken. --Da Coot

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