Give Peace a Chance

All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.

The 1960s were filled with tensions surrounding the Vietnam War and human rights movements. The decade was filled with violence and loss of many lives. In 1969, John Lennon and his newlywed wife Yoko Ono started a new kind of protest, one that was free of hatred and free of violence.

Six students walk towards the right in a line parodying the Abbey Road album cover by the Beatles.

The thing is to protest, but protest non-violently. Violence begets violence, you know.

John Lennon

The world needs a sense of humour…more than anything else because it is getting more and more violent and tense… So instead of becoming violent about it and saying ‘Stop the war,’ or something with violence, it’s better to say, 'It’s spring—let’s stay in bed.’

Yoko Ono

Experience John and Yoko’s year of peace at our exhibit, Give Peace a Chance. Learn how the couple stayed in bed for a week, once in Amsterdam and again in Montreal, inviting the world’s press into their bedroom to hear their message.

Participate in some of their other forms of protest by getting into a bag or writing a letter to a world leader. Stage your own bed-in by climbing into bed and singing along with the famous recording from the Montreal Bed. And ask yourself, how does staying in bed promote peace anyway? Join the discussion about John and Yoko and peaceful protests. Tell us what you think.

John and Yoko’s bed-ins and their other forms of protest were presented 14-16 March 2011 in our exhibit Give Peace a Chance at the Knowledge Integration eXhibition 2011.

Spread the word, like butter.

John Lennon

Created by: Will Ogden, Trystan Goetze, Delaney Swanson, Kaleigh Eichel, Kat Curwin, Megan Vander Woude.