The upside-down Y with a line through the center inside a circle was one of the most popular symbols of the sixties. It meant peace. It also showed the wearer was against the Vietnam War. Many who used the symbol were part of the sixties youth culture. People wore the peace symbol as jewelry and on clothing; they carried it on signs and banners, painted it on cars, and put it on anything else they could think of.
It has been reported that activist Gerald Holton, who designed it, based it on the international semaphore alphabet. This alphabet, like a code, uses flag signals in place of letters. The upside-down y is actually the flag signals for N and D, which stand for Nuclear Disarmament.
The anti-war movement in the U.S. began to use the peace symbol in the mid-sixties.
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