Peace Symbol History
Have you ever wondered where the peace symbol came from? There are multiple sources claiming to be the peace symbol creator. Perhaps the most credible source is Gerald Holtom and the date February 21, 1958. In 1958 he worked with the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War. Bertrand Russell was a member of this committee and through his writings has left us with an unmistakable history of when, where and who created the Peace Sign. Here are quotes from letters Bertrand Russell wrote in response to H. Pickles from Lichthort Verlag who wrote to complain that the peace symbol was a death symbol because the arms pointed downwards. Russell's reply: ``I am afraid that I cannot follow your argument that the ND badge is a death-symbol. It was invented by a member of our movement as the badge of the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War, for the first Aldermaston March. It was designed from the naval code of semaphore, and the symbol represents the code letters for ND. To the best of my knowledge, the Navy does not employ signalers who work upside down.'' So there you have it, the Navy code of semaphore is the flag signaling system. The letters
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"Gerald Holtom [sic] is in fact widely credited with the design of the nuclear disarmament symbol (aka the peace symbol). The earliest reference I could find is in American journalist and playwright Herb Greer's Mud Pie (London: Parrish, 1964). A little before the first Aldermaston march at Easter 1958, Holtom showed up at the offices of Peace News in London with drawings for banners and the symbol: "On a purple square was superimposed a white circle with a purple cross inside it, or almost a cross. The arms had slipped and were drooping against the lower sides of the circle. Holtom had made the design by combining the semaphore letters N and D: N for nuclear and D, naturally, for disarmament." (P. 30) Holtom was a commercial artist with, it seems, a "visual aid factory". Greer says he put his factory in Twickenham to making "lollipop signs" marked with the droopy cross. In a recent correspondence through email he added, "I was actually there on and before the first Aldermaston March for which it was created. I visited Holtom, I saw the original sketches and discussed it with him. The reason for the symbol being upside down (D over N) is that semaphore is a military code. Upside down, anti-military." For a much later account by a famous march organizer who witnessed Holtom's presentation, see Michael Randle, "Non-Violent Direct Action in the 1950s and 1960s", in Richard Taylor and Nigel Young, Campaigns for Peace: British Peace Movements in the Twentieth Century (Manchester: Manchester U. Press, 1987), p. 134. The symbol was to appear at either end of banners stretching from one side of a street full of marchers to the other." |
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The symbol consists of the semaphore letters "N" and "D" (for "nuclear disarmament") inside a circle. The original colors were, as shown in the image above, white on black. According to The CND Story by John Minnion and Philip Bolsover (1983), Holtom and other CND artists pointed out other symbolism in the flag as well: the semaphores together, without the circle, look like a stick figure with its arms outstretched -- "the gesture of a human being in despair"; the circle represents the womb or unborn generations, as well as the world; and the color black represents eternity. Bruce Tindall, 29-MAY-1996 Another, presumably 'unofficial', explanation is that it is the cross of Christ with the arms drooping in despair. The symbol is also, in fact, the Death Rune of the Futhark runic alphabet. Whether this is an intentional similarity or not, CND supporters, particularly 'Christian' ones, used to get very uppity when this was pointed out! Stuart A. Notholt, 30-MAY-1996 The "peace sign" was originally the symbol of the (U.K.) Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). It was designed by Gerald Holtom in 1958. The frequently-repeated but mistaken belief that it was designed by Bertrand Russell probably stems from the fact that Russell was the president of the CND at the time. The first public use of the symbol was on flags and placards during the 1958 Aldermaston march (in England). It was described in Manchester Guardian articles covering the march. Bruce Tindall, 28-MAY-1996 The peace symbol has a convoluted and confusing history. It's most notable appearance in modern times was its first use by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) at their Aldermaston march in 1956. The CND meaning of the symbol is semaphore for 'N' (the two diagonal lines) and 'D' (the two vertical lines). About ten years later, the symbol was adopted as a general peace sign within the student anti-war movement. It became probably the single best known symbol of the youth culture of the sixties. The CND was partly based on traditional churches, and I think they were also conscious of mixing two historic Christian symbols:
With the appropriation of the symbol by the peace movement in the sixties, non-traditional and fundamentalist Christians (who apparently knew nothing of Christian symbols) placed a satanic meaning on it, calling it the Witch's Foot, or Crow's Foot (and sometimes Chicken's Foot), or Broken Cross. In the 1980s, the symbol was further appropriated (at least in the U.S.) to represent environmentalism. In this sense, it is rendered as a blue and green imitation of the U.S. flag, with the peace symbol replacing the stars in the canton. T.F. Mills, 9-OCT-1996 |
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