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Peace advocates march to the British Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in 1958.
Marchers link hands during this year's Aldermaston march.
'Peace' author Ken Kolsbun's children model badges from his collection in this 1974 photograph.
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Descendants of peace-sign creator Gerald Holtom attend an Aldermaston event in March.
This photograph was snapped in 1958, but 50 years later the peace-symbol garb looks perfectly modern.
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BY EDIE GROSS
It debuted in London's Trafalgar Square on Good Friday 1958, in the hands of protesters marching to an atomic weapons facility 50 miles away.
Since then, has popped up virtually everywhere. In Mos-cow's Red Square and on the Washington Mall.
In the West Bank and Cape Town.
Around the necks of soldiers in Vietnam and atop mortar boards of fresh graduates.
On graffiti-covered walls in L.A. and across the bellies of pregnant women united against war.
Friday marked the 50th anniversary of the coming out of the peace symbol, one of the most recognizable emblems in the world.
"It's displayed in so many colorful ways," said Ken Kolsbun, co-author of "Peace: The Biography of a Symbol," which was published this month by National Geographic. "It's a classic symbol, and it's as familiar as the Red Cross sign or the Coca-Cola sign. It's an icon."
Kolsbun, a California resident and longtime peace activist, started photographing the symbol about 40 years ago when it took center stage at protests against America's involvement in Vietnam.
What many don't realize, he said, is that the symbol is a British import.
Gerald Holtom, a textile designer and member of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, created the symbol for the committee's march to the British Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston.
The four-day trek started on April 4, 1958, when thousands sporting the "lollipop" placards gathered in Trafalgar Square.
Ten days later, a photo of the crowd appeared in Life magazine. The symbol had officially arrived in the United States.
AN ICON BUILT TO LAST
Holtom, a graduate of London's Royal College of Arts, thought the symbol might catch on, said Kolsbun, who corresponded with the artist before his death in 1985.
When designing the banners for the march to Aldermaston, he drew the emblems in white on dark backgrounds so they'd show up well in newspaper and TV shots.
He made them waterproof as well as reflective to headlights, so passing motorists could see them at night.
Shortly before the march, Holtom walked into a local post office wearing a peace button on his lapel, Kolsbun said.
When the clerk asked him what it meant, he explained that it stood for nuclear disarmament. The lines inside the circle resembled the semaphores, or flag signals, for the letters N and D.
"This is going to be around a long time," Holtom reportedly told the clerk.
The symbol's simplicity may have much to do with its popularity. Even the least artistic among us can draw a circle with three lines in it.
"It's simple, but there's something poignant about it," said Grace Hale, associate professor of history and American studies at the University of Virginia. "It's easy to draw. It's iconic because it's easy to see. It's easy to recognize. It's easy to reproduce."
A 'UNIVERSAL SYMBOL'
Civil rights activists incorporated the peace symbol into their movement to promote nonviolent protest.
Women pushing for equality combined the peace emblem with the female gender symbol.
Everyone from Greenpeace to Code Pink has adopted it in some fashion.
"It keeps getting reinvented for new struggles. Apparently, it's been seen in almost every peace and protest movement in the world since it's been invented," said Hale.
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, it did so with peace symbols scrawled on it.
And when South Africans marched against apartheid, they did so with peace emblems in hand.
When two companies actually tried to trademark the symbol in 1970, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected their requests, placing the image firmly in the public domain.
The symbol crosses political and geographic borders, said Ben Soffa, spokesman for England's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which took over the march to Aldermaston in 1959.
"It is a truly universal symbol that can be used by speakers of any language, in any country," Soffa wrote in an e-mail. "From its creation as a symbol calling for nuclear disarmament, it has always been used to support life over death, be that death through nuclear war, conventional war or otherwise, and in that sense, it is truly a symbol of hope."
Mankind's progress toward peace has experienced its share of hiccups over the years, but the idea--and the symbol--are enduring, Soffa wrote.
"Having a strong, easily recognizable symbol for our movement has definitely been part of its success--demands for specific agreements to let us escape the nuclear age may be complex, but the symbol lets us reach out to the huge majority who know it as a sign of peace."
EMBLEM HAS ITS CRITICS
Holtom's symbol hasn't existed without controversy. In America, it had become synonymous with opposition to the war in Vietnam. Some soldiers, many of whom were drafted, actually displayed the symbol.
As a result, U.S. military officers tried to ban soldiers from wearing or displaying the peace symbol in the late '60s, according to Kolsbun's research.
In 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that three students in Des Moines, Iowa, were exercising their rights to free speech when they wore armbands displaying the peace symbol to school. The trio had been suspended.
In a 1970 issue of its American Opinion magazine, the John Birch Society charged that the emblem resembled a witch's foot or crow's foot, both symbols of the devil during the Middle Ages.
And critics sported bumper stickers describing the lines of the peace symbol as "footprints of an American chicken."
In the middle of it all, Kolsbun got a call from his wife's aunt in South Dakota. She'd heard about the alleged satanic connection in church and wanted to know if it was true.
"Their purpose was to discredit peace people," he said of the vilification efforts. "They tried to associate the symbol with communism--we were all com-munists because we were protesting the war, which was not true. This book will straighten out those misconceptions, hopefully."
PEACE SIGN STILL NEEDED
Kolsbun first proposed the book in 1974, sending a 200-page manuscript to dozens of publishers.
"They all came back, of course," he said. "I had a pile of rejects."
A former landscape architect, Kolsbun went on to invent board games with his wife, Jannice. All the while, he gathered more and more information about the peace symbol and the movement it represented.
A few years ago, he pitched the idea again. With the 50th anniversary of the peace sign looming, responses were more positive.
Co-author Michael S. Sweeney, a journalism professor at Utah State University, provided some of the historical context in the photo-filled book.
Kolsbun said he's got plenty of material for a second book, perhaps for another anniversary.
"How long will a symbol last? I think it's going to be around a long time, particularly as long as we've got this concept of 'peace through power' and the arms buildup and a military industrial complex where a few people make a lot of money at the expense of people all over the world," he said. "People are going to have to stand up to this."
As long as war continues, the need for the peace movement--and its symbol--will continue, said Hale, the University of Virginia history professor.
"One can only hope the symbol might get retired for lack of need," she said.
Edie Gross: 540/374-5428
Email: egross@freelancestar.com
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Gerald Holtom, a British artist and conscientious objector, created the "peace symbol" by combining the semaphores, or flag signals, for the letters N and D--for Nuclear Disarmament. He later wrote of his design: "I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it." |
Ken Kolsbun, co-author of "Peace: The Biography of a Symbol," is collecting personal stories from folks who have specific memories about the peace symbol, possibly for publication in a book. To submit a story or photo or read some examples, visit peacesymbol .com. To learn more about the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and its 50-year connection to the peace symbol, visit cnduk.org on the Web. |
