The peace symbol turns 50 this year.
And to celebrate, the UNM Peace Studies Program is holding its Peace Fair in SUB ballrooms A and B on Wednesday.
City Councilman Ray Garduno will open the ceremony by declaring Sept. 17 Albuquerque Peace Day. Le Chat Lunatique closes the day with a free concert in the SUB at 6:30 p.m.
Fair organizer Ilse Biel said this won't be an average event at the SUB where people look around for a minute and then leave.
"They're going to encourage people to be more interactive, so people don't walk through the fair, consume the fair, buy a T-shirt and go home," she said.
They're going to sing "Happy Birthday" to the peace sign with the help of the Raging Grannies, a group of senior citizens who initiate protests.
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"Wherever they protest, they have these song sheets, and they dish them out for people to sing with them," Biel said. "And they always have cookies. So we asked them to join us as a way to honor them, and they're going to lead the singing."
Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs, will be the first of various speakers to cover topics on peace, sustainability and nuclear issues.
McHenry will talk about the beginning of Food Not Bombs in 1980 and how the program caught on worldwide.
"I decided with my friends we would provide meals out on the street as street theater, and that way we could talk to people about the need for money to go to human needs and not to the military," McHenry said.
Then in the summer of 1988, McHenry and eight people were arrested for serving food in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Members of Food Not Bombs have been arrested there 1,000 times, he said, though he's only been arrested 100 times.
"People all over the world started writing and calling us asking how they could get arrested in their town serving free food," he said. "That's how it took off at that point."
There will also be a talk called The Nuclear Imagination, about people who survived Hiroshima and nuclear warfare in general.
"What do you think about when you hear the word 'nuclear'? Is it protecting yourself? Is it killing people? What is it?" Ilse said. "We'll have several conflict-resolution workshops outside the SUB in that spot between the SUB and Mesa Vista."
There will also be an art supply table for people to make alternative signs for peace.
"We're going to encourage people to create their own peace whirligig or dove or fold a peace crane," she said. "The Peace Garden is going to be on the west side of Zimmerman, where the cactus garden is, opposite the Duck Pond. And that is where we're going to encourage people to hang their peace cranes, plant their whirligigs."
They'll have a small march around campus at 5:15 p.m.
"It's just to show that many people are really fed up with what's going on and would like to see more peace," she said.
