Since the early 1970s, a legend of Rainbow Warriors inspired some environmentalists in the United States with a belief that their movement is the fulfillment of a Native American prophecy. The origin is from a 1962 book titled Warriors of the Rainbow by William Willoya and Vinson Brown from Naturegraph Publishers. Brown, who is attributed with research supporting chapters on Hopi prophecies, is the founder and owner of Naturegraph Publishers.
The book relates Indian prophecies to the Second Coming of Christ and has been described as purveying "a covert anti-Semitism throughout, while evangelizing against traditional Native American spirituality." The book The Greenpeace Story, states that Greenpeace co-founder Bob Hunter was given a copy of Warriors of the Rainbow by a wandering dulcimer maker in 1969 and passing it around on the first expedition of the Don't Make a Wave Committee, the pre-cursor of Greenpeace.
The legend also inspired the 1978 name of (the third) Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior that is used in environmental-protection protests.
Famous quotes containing the words legend of, legend, rainbow and/or warriors:
“The Legend of Love no Couple can find
So easie to part, or so equally join’d.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“We should burn all libraries and allow to remain only that which everyone knows by heart. A beautiful age of the legend would then begin.”
—Hugo Ball (1886–1927)
“Captain, the man of skill, the expert
Leader, the creator of bursting color
And rainbow sortilege, the savage weapon
Against enemies, against the prester,
Presto, whose whispers prickle the spirit.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“We are but warriors for the working day.
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched
With rainy marching in the painful field.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)