If you would conduct a worldwide opinion survey to discover one wish for the future of humanity shared across societies and cultures, chances are that universal yearning would be for peace.
A world without war and strife, without sectarian violence, without the omnipresent threat of terrorism, certainly these are among our most cherished but unrequited dreams.
Boomers attached themselves to an idealistic quest for world peace early in their adult lives.
Some demonstrated for peace. Some molded lifestyles eschewing violence, whether through nonviolent civil disobedience or conscientious objection to military service. Some sought to influence national war policies through political engagement. Some joined the military to fight for long-term peace. Some joined the military as clergy or nurses.
The yearning for peace became a theme of many rock and folk songs, with these lyrics among the noteworthy:
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
— Pete Seeger, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
For this generation, peace became a preoccupation.
One icon subsumed their hopes for a better future: the Peace Sign. This graphic image tapped into a collective set of values emerging during a generation's youth, from anti-authoritarian attitudes to youthful thoughts of a more Utopian society. To some it took on inspirational import about moral values similar to symbols of the world's great religions.
With its growing emotional and motivational subtext, the peace symbol eventually became a useful selling tool as businesses refined modern marketing techniques to create a Boomer revolution in product sales. Advertisers quickly recognized the strategic value of co-opting the symbol for product positioning. So-called "head shops" filled initial Boomer-consumer demand by offering peace symbols as stained glass sun catchers, silver necklaces, refrigerator magnets, T-shirts and posters. Eventually so did K-Mart and Walmart.
On April 4, 2018, the peace symbol turns 60.
The story about how it has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the Boomer generation is significant.
In the spring of 1958, Gerald Holtom, a textile designer and graphic artist from Great Britain, set out to create a mark that could be used at protest events pressing for nuclear disarmament. In perhaps one of the most inspired days of identity design during the 20th century, the artist brought together semaphore symbols for N and D, surrounded by a circle representing the globe.
On April 4th, five-thousand people gathered at Trafalgar Square in London to support the Ban the Bomb movement and to protest testing and stockpiling of fissionable materials by the world's largest industrial powers. It was on this day that Holtom's memorable icon made its debut.
Protesters walked a few miles from the square to Aldermaston, location of an atomic weapons research facility. Their placards carried the succinct message of protest in this new and undefined symbol. Yet it needed no explanation, whether viewers understood the symbolic implications or not. Reactions were not always positive; some saw Lucifer in the logo.
The peace symbol quickly spread to other protest movements representing opposition to the Vietnam War, the quest for civil rights, a growing outcry against environmental degradation, and spirited marches for gender and sexual equality. The symbol persisted through Vietnam and onward into the debates about two wars in Iraq.
The peace symbol even emerged during a nationwide protest inspired by today's youth, called March for Our Lives.
Hundreds of thousands of young and old gathered in cities across the nation to assert their impassioned pleas for stricter gun control laws. They also honored seventeen students and faculty members massacred February 14, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The peace symbol received overdue commemoration in a book published in April 2008 by the National Geographic Society, PEACE: The Biography of a Symbol. Author Ken Kolsbun observed that the symbol "continues to exert almost hypnotic appeal. It's become a rallying cry for almost any group working for social change."
Ironically, April 4, 2018 is also the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
This callous slaying represents the severest liabilities of peaceful efforts to further social and political progress.
A pivotal figure in the American civil rights movement, Dr. King personified one facet of a grassroots peace movement with nonviolent protest marches, speeches and rallies. And the symbol marched with him through Selma and Montgomery, Washington D.C. and New York, and finally to his destiny with a bullet in Memphis, allegedly fired by James Earl Ray.
April 4, 2018 is a good day for pause: to contemplate a symbol and how near or far Western society is from achieving the dream of peace. And it is a day to recall one of the most revered leaders in the history of the nation: how he knowingly sacrificed his life in pursuit of some noble ideals represented by a symbol.
Where have all the flowers gone? by Pete Seeger, covered by Kingston Trio
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