Political buttons from the anti-Vietnam war protests and the hippie days in the late 1960s.

by James K. Sayre

Part and parcel with anti-war marches, petitions, picket signs, were the small round colorful political buttons. "Make Love, Not War" (originally made by the Sexual Freedom League in Berkeley, CA), "Get out of Vietnam." "End the War." "Yankee, Come Home" (from the Stanford Committee for Peace in Vietnam) and many others. Major protest marches had their own buttons. The attempted levitation of the Pentagon demonstration yielded a button, "The Pentagon is Rising" with a black Pentagon, with an orange background (the protests were staged on October 21 and October 22, 1967). For a picture of this fine button and a detailed discussion of the anti-war demonstrations that weekend, please visit: http://www.jofreeman.com/photo/Pentagon67.html. : JoFreeman.com

There also were political buttons advocating social progress, such as "Legalize Abortion" (abortion was illegal in the good ole USofA in the 1960s). Sexual freedom advocates also made some vaguely off-color or ambiguous buttons, such as "If it moves, fondle it," "Pills, Please" and "unbutton."

The most famous button was the peace symbol, which came from the British anti-nuclear bomb protests in the 1950s and which was semaphore for N (nuclear) + D (disarmament).

One of my favorites, was: "U. S. out of North America," an all inclusive thought.

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Web page last updated on 13 November 2007.