The Peace Symbol1

By2

M. Leifeste3

The peace symbol is rarely seen these days and most of the younger generation has no idea of its true meaning. Other than a few die-hard old hippies who use it as a greeting of hello and goodbye no one uses the two finger sign or wears the symbol around their neck. At one time it could be found everywhere and on everything from clothes to walls, to flags and even drawn and/or painted on people.4

Most remember the sign that became popular back in the sixties and seventies that consisted of two fingers raised in a vee shape as in victory, but the one that began the whole thing had nothing to do with hand signals or hippies or smoking pot or living in communes. 5

Where did the sign come from? Who thought it up and why did they decide that it stood for peace? And why did the hip generation of those early years embrace it so tightly?6

In the beginning the symbol was never meant to define peace exactly. It actually stood for Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War and was designed by Gerald Holtom a graduate of the Royal college of Arts on February 21 during 1958 in Britain. At that time the sign had not made it to the United States, so the ‘colonies’ can’t take credit for this relic.7

The original concept was to have the Christain cross in the circle; however the crows feet version worked better. The crows-foot is considered a symbol of death and despair and makes an appearance in a 1955 book called The Book of Signs written by a German calligrapher.8

The circle drawn around the crow’s foot means ‘eternity’ or ‘the unborn child’. It has also been interpreted as the ‘broken crosses’ a sign of the antichrist. Emperor Nero had some of his citizens crucified upside down, so in the Middle Ages the symbol was considered a sign of the devil. 9

However, the symbol with the crow’s foot within the circle eventually came to mean something entirely different than it had in times past.10

The first time where the symbol was used and appeared in public in modern times occurred on a march to Canterbury Cathedral to protest the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston. The symbol was drawn on signs that were carried as the protesters marched against the use of nuclear energy.11

Badges were designed by Eric Austin and were made of white clay with the symbol painted in black on them. Notes were distributed along with the badges that read, ‘in the event of a nuclear war, the badges would be among the very few things to survive’. 12

An associate of Martin Luther King who attended that first march at Aldermaston carried one of the badges back to the United States and used it in civil rights marches. A freshman at Chicago University named Albert Bigelow also traveled to England and met with British peace groups as a delegate from the Student Peace Union. Bigelow purchased a bag of the ‘chicken-track’ buttons while he was there and brought them back to Chicago where the SPU reproduced and sold the buttons on campus. 13

Later it began to appear during anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and soldiers even daubed its likeness on their helmets to contribute to the protest in their own small way. It was easier and quicker to draw than the peace dove, so it quickly became the universal symbol of peace. 14

Although the sign was specifically designed for a definite purpose, it has deliberately never been copy written. No one has to pay for its use or ask permission to do so. Not only is it a symbol of freedom, but it is also free for anyone to use or misuse.15

Hippies no longer roam the country as freely as they did in the sixties and seventies and nuclear plants protests are much less frequent, but the symbol still has a place in our culture and with the Baby Boomer generation.16