In 1969 a network of antiwar activists across the US planned the...

By :Anwar Washington 0 comments

In 1969 a network of antiwar activists across the US planned the National Vietnam Moratorium, a nationwide coordinated protest against the war on Vietnam. Activist and student groups set Wednesday October 5th, 1969 as the target date for mass demonstrations. The Leo Castelli Gallery of Los Angeles commissioned Jasper Johns to create a poster for the Moratorium. The artist was famous for his pop art renditions of the American flag -works that were iconic celebrations of patriotism equally enjoyed by all citizens. But his poster for the Moratorium was a departure from his red, white, and blue paintings.

Johns painted a toxic flag, a national symbol poisoned by war. The stripes in his flag were black and green, with the sickly green looking vaguely like jungle camouflage. The nauseating orange field was filled with blackened stars. In the center of the painted flag was a single white dot - representing a bullet hole. The design was the perfect banner for an ailing America in the throes of an unpopular imperial war. Johns’ painting was published as a poster with the single word “Moratorium” stenciled beneath the flag. The mechanically printed poster was distributed far and wide, and according to Deborah Wye, Chief Curator of Prints at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the poster “became one of the most well known images of the Vietnam period.” Johns also signed a special edition of the poster to raise much needed funds for the antiwar movement. On the actual day of the Moratorium, university campuses across the nation either canceled classes or were paralyzed by student strikes, and some 30 million Americans participated in some type of protest against US engagement in South East Asia.

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