English: A racist version of the raised fist, called the Aryan Fist or White Power Fist, adapted by white supremacists to be a white instead of the black fist typically used. Aryan Fist on Anti-Defamation League's website

A raised right fist was used as a logo by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1917. However, it was popularised during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, when it was used by the Republican faction as a greeting, and was known as the "Popular Front salute" or the "anti-fascist salute". The right fist salute subsequently spread among leftists and anti-fascists across Europe.

The graphic symbol was popularised in 1948 by Taller de Gráfica Popular, a print shop in Mexico that used art to advance revolutionary social causes.[5] Its use spread through the United States in the 1960s after artist and activist Frank Cieciorka produced a simplified version for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: this version was subsequently used by Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Power movement.

The raised right fist was frequently used in propaganda posters produced during the May 1968 revolt in France, such as La Lutte continue, depicting a factory chimney topped with a clenched fist.

The symbol has been picked up and incorporated around the world by various oppressed groups. In 2015 it has emerged in the southeast area of Ukraine among the separatists battling the Ukraine Kiev government forces, along with the phrase "¡No Pasarán!".

The image gallery shows how a raised fist is used in visual communication. Combined with another graphic element, a raised fist is used to convey polysemous gestures and opposing forces.[11] Depending on the elements combined, the meaning of the gesture changes in tone and intention. For example, a hammer and sickle combined with a raised right fist is part of communist symbolism, while the same right fist combined with a Venus symbol represents Feminism, and combined with a book, it represents librarians.

A raised right fist icon appears prominently as a feminist symbol on the covers of two major books by Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful, published in 1970,[12] and Sisterhood Is Forever, in 2003. The symbol had been popularised in the feminist movement during the Miss America protest in 1968 which Morgan co-organised.

A raised fist incorporates the outline of the state of Wisconsin, as designed in 2011, for union protests against the state rescinding collective bargaining.