Earth Flag

Seeking a symbol through which all people of the world could find hope, John McConnell created the Earth Flag in 1969. The first Earth Flag was a two-color silkscreen with white to represent clouds and blue to represent oceans. Purposefully, there were no land masses to represent territory, boundaries and borders. Now adorned with a full-color photograph of Earth, taken from outer space, the Earth Flag is still the only flag for all people. The Earth Flag sold through www.earthflag.net is the only "Authentic Earth Flag" with a direct link to John and Anna McConnell

World Equality

World Equality, Inc. (WE) was the first formal social justice organization that John McConnell formed, doing so in 1969 as an entity to sell and promote Earth Flags. John penned slogans based on the WE name: "WE can make Earth a beautiful home for all mankind." Through WE, Inc., John published his long-held philosophy of "come together where we agree while leaving room for our differences" then simplified that to "unity in diversity," a visionary statement that would later gain buzzword status among corporate and organizational consultants.

Earth Day on the Vernal Equinox

John McConnell conceived the idea of Earth Day in 1968. After much deliberation, he chose the vernal equinox, March 20 or 21, one of only two days each year when the sun is shared equally between people of the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. Calling Earth Day "nature's global holiday," John announced the event at a large United Nations conference in San Francisco in late November 1969.

Earth Day is Nature's Day. A day of drama, dreams and dedication to the restoration, renewal and improvement of Earth's natural beauty and bounty. - John McConnell, "Celebrate Earth Day" speech at United Nations, 20 March 1991

At the same time, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson had conceived and was promoting an Environmental Teach-In, patterned after the anti-Vietnam War protests that were popular on college campuses. Nelson's event was to be held on April 22 and the message was to focus on pollution and environmental degradation within the United States. Attendance records show that, when John McConnell announced Earth Day at the UN conference, some of Senator Nelson's student aides, his colleague Senator Paul McCloskey, and possibly Nelson himself were in the audience. John vividly recalls that two of Nelson's aides approached him and asked him to join the Environmental Teach-In campaign, saying they really liked the Earth Day name. John declined, of course, citing the global spiritual significance of having Earth Day on the equinox. Six weeks later, Nelson's Environmental Teach-In organization ran full-page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post that proclaimed, "April 22. Earth Day." Having two Earth Days caused much consternation within John. He and his colleagues attempted on several occasions, starting in 1970 and extending into the 1990s, to reach a settlement with Senator Nelson and his young protégé Denis Hayes. Correspondence from Nelson and Hayes denied wrongdoing toward John McConnell and disavowed any previous knowledge of John and his plans for Earth Day on the vernal equinox. Having two Earth Days also caused much confusion within the U.S. government. President Richard Nixon proclaimed Earth Day to be April 22 in 1971 and 1972. President Gerald Ford proclaimed Earth Day to be March 21 in 1975. And Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush proclaimed for April 22 in 1977, 1980 and 1990. An official copy of Carters' proclamation was sent erroneously to John McConnell. The U.S. Congress adopted resolutions for March 21 in 1971 and 1975, and for an Earth Week from April 9 to 15 in 1973. All three of these resolutions contained identical language - except for the date. Forty-five state governors and hundreds of mayors signed Earth Day proclamations for one day or the other, most of them for April 22, in the early 1970s. In 1973, Governor Arch A. Moore, Jr., of West Virginia wrote to his fellow governors, asking them to observe "the first day of spring as Earth Day." And Michigan Governor William Milliken expressed his desire "for coordination and consistency in our observations of Earth Day," noting that he had been asked "to declare three different dates as Earth Day or Earth Week by differing organizations." History notes that Senator Nelson's forces had the political clout and the public relations infrastructure to eventually win the Earth Day popularity race. And when Gaylord Nelson died on 2 July 2005, obituaries across the nation unanimously saluted him as the founder of Earth Day. Yet, John McConnell is the spirit and inspiration behind the Earth Day concept as a day of global significance. And while John, himself, and some of his supporters sought compromise reconciliation, he steadfastly maintained "April 22 is NOT Earth Day." Testimony to that statement is a tradition for an Earth Day celebration at the United Nations, begun in 1971, and held each year since on the vernal equinox. The ceremony, which featured Secretary-General U Thant that first year, includes the ringing of the UN Peace Bell. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim rang the Peace Bell in 1972 in conjunction with a 12-hour environmental special broadcast on WOR-TV and its affiliate stations that year. Bell ringers since have included other UN officials and ambassadors, including long-time Under-Secretary-General Robert Muller, Nobel Peace Laureates, priests and rabbis and ministers and healers, government officials, children of Israel and Palestine, folk singer Pete Seeger and anthropologist Margaret Mead. Starting in 1973, the Peace Bell was rung at the moment of equipoise in the U.S. Eastern Time Zone. Anna McConnell bore that honor at 3:03 a.m. on 20 March 1996 when the scheduled honoree was told, incorrectly, by UN security personnel that the event had been cancelled due to a tremendous rain storm. John McConnell rang the Peace Bell for the first time 20 March 2004 at 1:49 a.m., exactly two years after the United States' attack on Iraq. One day shy of his 89th birthday and with dramatic eloquence, he stated to the modest number of people there, "We've got to kill our terrible addiction to war. We ought to make friends, and not skeletons, of our enemies."

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