Keeling-Puri Peace Plaza Peace Poles - Rockford, IL - Peace Poles on Waymarking.com

Each six-sided Peace Pole in the Keeling-Puri Peace Plaza proclaims the peace prayer “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in 12 languages.

Languages on the Peace Poles (they won't all fit in the normal box below)
Afrikaans
Albanian
Algonquin
Arabic
Azerbaijani
Bengali
Chinese
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Esperanto
Feet Prints
Finnish
French
Gaelic
German
Greek
Gujararti
Haitian
Hebrew
Hindi
Hmong
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Kirundi
Korean
Lao
Latin
Leaf Prints
Lingala
Lithuanian
Malay
Mongolian
Norwegian
Pashto
Paw Prints
Polish
Persian
Potowatomi
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Serbo-Croation
Sign Language
Slovak
Somali
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Tagalog
Thai
Tibetan
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Vietnamese
Yiddish

From the plaza's website (visit link)
"Aspiring for true peace and tranquility and celebrating diversity and heritage, the Keeling-Puri Peace Plaza is located in Rockford, Illinois. It is easily accessible from I90 (Riverside Exit) west one-half mile to McFarland Road and south one quarter mile.

The Peace Plaza is situated in a 2.5 acre park which also serves as a trailhead for Rockford’s 20 mile Perryville Path network of bicycle and recreational trails with an easy link to Rock Cut State Park located three miles north of the Peace Plaza. Ample parking is available at the Peace Plaza. "

The Keeling-Puri Peace Plaza celebrates the rich and diverse ethnic history of the Rock River Valley region and the universal aspiration for tranquility and world harmony. It challenges each individual to embrace a heightened sense of personal responsibility to erode barriers and construct enduring world peace. Built as a tribute to Virgil Keeling and Amarnath Puri, it honors the virtues of tolerance and respect for all people.

Though its conception predated the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., the catastrophe redoubled the community’s efforts to complete the construction of the Peace Plaza. One of the Plaza’s founders has commented:

“The aspiration is for each individual to take personal responsibility for the world. Recognizing that we are all interconnected, we each have our role in improving how we deal with each other and improving how we deal with other countries. Everything in the world starts with the individual.”

Key design elements of the beautifully landscaped Peace Plaza include the 15 foot by 34 foot sculpture “Harmony Atlas” which sits atop a 7 foot by 25 foot granite sculpture base in the center of the Plaza itself crafted in brick-like streetprint. The sculpture base is adorned with 10 peace quotes from modern day and ancient prophets of peace: John F. Kennedy; Mother Theresa; Martin Luther King; Mahatma Gandhi; an Oglala Sioux Native American; Albert Einstein; Abraham Lincoln; John Lennon; Petrarch; Aristide Briand; . . . and from Micah 6:8 of Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition:

And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

The theme of Peace is portrayed in the Peace Plaza’s five Peace Poles. The Peace Poles are 8 foot tall, six sided obelisks which proclaim in sixty different languages (all related to Rockford’s ethnic and cultural heritage), the simple prayer: “May Peace Prevail on Earth”.

The sculpture base is engraved with a short course historical of 200 years of immigration and settlement in Rockford. The celebration of Rockford’s ethnic heritage and diversity is visually symbolized in the striking Court of 40 Flags, fully illuminated. The flags represent 40 different nationalities, all currently dwelling in the Rockford area in significant numbers.

At Peace Plaza,
One World
Comes Together.

What an amazing place to visit for a peace pole junkie!

Languages: SIXTY OF THEM, SEE ABOVE! Made of: Metal

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