Introduced at rally, peace symbol turns 50

Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The peace symbol — three simple lines within a circle — turned 50 Friday. It’s had a colorful and often turbulent life.

It was unveiled at a British ban-the-bomb rally April 4, 1958, and its peak of potency was in the 1960s, when it was the emblem of the anti-Vietnam War movement and all things counterculture. (Said its late creator, British graphic designer Gerald Holtom: “I drew myself ... a man in despair ... put a circle around it to represent the world.”)

The symbol has marched in service of many causes: civil rights, women’s rights, environmentalism, gay rights, anti-apartheid, the nuclear-freeze movement and the latter-day anti-war crowd.