JOHN & YOKO’s 1969 WAR IS OVER! CAMPAIGN

A large Christmas peace message reading ‘War Is Over!’ from John Lennon and Yoko Ono on a billboard in New York City.

On December 15, 1969, John and Yoko Ono launched their global WAR IS OVER! campaign, protesting the Vietnam War.

Also they performed with the Plastic Ono Band at UNICEF’s “Peace for Christmas” concert in London.

As part of the WAR IS OVER! campaign, banners were hung in 12 major cities across the world announcing, “War Is Over! If you want it. Happy Christmas from John & Yoko.”

The photo at the top is from New York. Other cities included Los Angeles, Toronto, Rome, Athens, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Helsinki, and the banners were all written in the countries’ native languages.

Here’s a bit more about the campaign and his political activism from John Lennon himself:

 

Yoko Ono is still carrying on the campaign today, with a more crowdsourcing approach. Posters are available to download and print in over 100 languages on the WAR IS OVER! website, and Yoko has taken to social media to push the campaign in a modern age.

John Lennon’s estate has continued working with UNICEF, as well. This year, you can download an app that lets you create and share your own version of “Imagine” to promote the charity.

Make your own video for the #IMAGINE Project and see others here. Every video upload “unlocks” $1 for UNICEF.