An “N” in semiphore is a person with arms (or flags) down and a bit away from their body. A “D” is one arm straight down, one arm straight up. Fifty years ago, in April of 1958, Gerald Holtom, a textile designer, put the two signals together to form the symbol we call a peace sign. The ND stood for “nuclear disarmament”, and Gerald was involved in Britain’s Direct Action Campaign (DAC), a ban-the-bomb protest group. Time Magazine has a nice history of the peace sign at Time.Com/Peace.

Ten years after it first made its appearance, when I was a 15 year-old kid (in 1968) I wore some form of peace sign almost all the time - as a pendant, a belt buckle, and on several pins. To me it was the sign of all that I thought the world was moving towards. The peace sign indicated the dream of a world without war, and implied “make love, not war.” The peace sign, and the two-fingered peace sign (that was the same as Churchill’s V for Victory, but now meant peace) was a kind of shibboleth, a symbol used to distinguish members of “our” generation from outsiders.

A lot has been written about the sixties - some that matches my memories, a lot that seems revisionist or just plain wrong. Thankfully the dream of living together in peace keeps resurfacing, and so does that 50 year-old peace sign. I’ve been seeing it a lot lately. And one thing I know is - the things we focus our attention on are the things that grow.

So happy birthday Peace Sign!