Freedom of Speech US propaganda poster with a swastika shattered by a symbolic face promoting freedom of speech in Central America

Libertad de Palabra (Freedom of Speech) is an American propaganda poster produced during World War II for distribution in Central America. Designed by Alexey Brodovitch, this poster features a big black swastika broken into jagged pieces by a symbolic image of Free Speech, a face with an open mouth. It is part of a series of five posters created to promote President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. In his January 1941 State of the Union address, FDR proposed four fundamental freedoms that people everywhere in the world should enjoy: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. The Spanish language posters were published by the Office of Inter-American Affairs in 1942 to gain support for the Allies in Central America. Herbert Bayer, Alexey Brodovitch, Edward McKnight Kauffer, and John Atherton were commissioned to design the posters by Nelson Rockefeller, Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. Brodovitch had fled Bolshevik rule in Russia for Paris in 1920, then immigrated to the United States in 1930, eventually working as art director of Harper’s Bazaar for nearly 25 years.