The Birth Of The Peace Symbol

The Peace symbol made its first public appearance April 4,1958 in a DAC march in Britain. There are many stories of how, when, and where and who created this symbol that means a lot of things from peace to love and a lot in between. But lets focus on the two stories about the birthday of the peace symbol and how it came to be so well known today. There is one story that tells us of a young woman who was a leader in a movement Direct Action Commitee Against Nuclear War (DAC). She wanted something to represent the movement and not the group. She wanted a symbol, a flag to fly, so when people saw it they would know there is a movement against nuclear war. So she approached her father with the idea and ask if he could help. Her father worked for the rail road and he told her he could use semaphore flag symbols to make her something to represent the movement. He told her that semaphore flags are used as a system for conveying information at a distance by means of visual signal with hand-held flags. So to represent the N in nuclear, the flags are held at forty-five degrees at your side. And to represent the D for disarmament, the flags one over your head and the other pointing at the floor. He used old steel from the train yard to construct what was said to be the first peace sign. Now durning the nineteen fifties, the sign wasn't call a peace symbol. That came along later. I couldn't find a picture of the symbol made by her father and her name isn't in any writings I could find. So this is one story of the Peace sign and it's birth...