Raised Fist - History

History

Assyrian depictions of the goddess Ishtar show her raising a clenched fist. A raised fist was used as a logo by the Industrial Workers of the World in 1917. The graphic symbol was popularized in 1948 by Taller de Gráfica Popular, a print shop in Mexico that used art to advance revolutionary social causes. The symbol has been picked up and incorporated around the world by various groups fighting oppression.

  • Industrial Exhibition in Berlin, Germany 1896

  • October Revolution 1922

  • Civil liberties poster 1940

  • Feminism

  • Otpor!

  • Librarians Against DRM

  • Anti-Clipper graphic

  • Piotr Uklanski, Untitled (Fist) 2008

  • 27th Special Operations Wing

  • Arab Spring

  • Graffiti 2010

  • Anarchist Black Cross

  • Rotfrontkämpferbund

  • Semih Erden at the 2010 FIBA World Championship

  • Antiwar movement

  • kach and Kahane Chai

  • Originally by Hunter S. Thompson for his campaign for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado

  • Logo for Gauntlet, the Scout Network unit from Kenilworth, United Kingdom

A raised-fist icon appears prominently as a feminist symbol on the covers of two major books by Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful, published in 1970, and Sisterhood Is Forever, in 2003.

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