1
50
1
-
https://rozsixties.unl.edu/files/original/6ced23c627a35055964377c34231bb1e.jpg
e5afd0fc8fc3571e893ab0e06142f500
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Buttons
Description
An account of the resource
Buttons were one of the most popular and pervasive forms of political messaging during the 1960s, combining brief messaging and memorable graphic designs. Buttons were inexpensive to produce on a mass basis and easy to distribute. They afforded any individual an opportunity to voice their opinions and, potentially, reach a broad audience. As Hunter Oatman-Stanford has written, “From discreet lapel pins to oversized buttons on purses or backpacks, pinbacks invite conversation by declaring potentially controversial viewpoints to complete strangers.” In this way, buttons were (and still are) a particularly democratic form of political propaganda.
As button collector, John Aisthorpe, has put it, buttons offer “a little snapshot of history.” During the 1960s, buttons were vital to the visual identity of a range of movements. “There were many protest groups who put their views on buttons,” Aisthorpe recalls, “from the early ’60s with the Free Speech Movement (FSM) to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and, later, the Veterans for Peace, the Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, and the Yippies.” The political impact of buttons in the 1960s is hard to gauge, though their popularity suggests some modicum of significance. And, as Aisthorpe has asserted, “It’s hard to say what impact they had, but the text of buttons worn at protests were often used as antiwar chants, like ‘Hell no, we won’t go!’… They must have had some effect.” The buttons of the 1960s have remained some of the most enduring relics from this important past.
This collection includes buttons from a wide array of movements from the Sixties, including the student movement, civil rights and Black Power movements, women's liberation, environmentalism, the anti-nuclear movement, gay liberation, electoral politics, the Chicano movement, the labor movement and the counterculture, with a strong emphasis on the anti-war movement. In addition, a few buttons date from Roz Payne’s activist efforts in the 1970s and 1980s, including the early political campaigns of Vermont politician, Bernie Sanders.
Physical Object
An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Her Fight is My Fight, Free Angela Davis
Description
An account of the resource
Angela Davis grew up in the “Dynamite Hill” area of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1944. Later, she moved with her mother to New York City and studied at Brandeis University, the Sorbonne and the University of California-San Diego. In addition to the segregation and racial discrimination she experienced as a child, Davis was deeply influenced by the 1963 murder of four young girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, as well as the activism of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Black Panther Party. In 1968, she joined an all-black branch of the Community Party. The following year, UCLA hired Davis as an assistant professor of philosophy, a contentious appointment given her radical views, ultimately leading to her dismissal.
In the early-1970s, Davis became increasingly active in efforts to improve prison conditions for inmates, including the Soledad Brothers, two African American prisoners and Black Panther Party members, George Jackson and W. L. Nolen, who were incarcerated in the late 1960s. On August 7, 1970, 17-year old Jonathan Jackson, the younger brother of black radical, George Jackson, burst into the Marin County courtroom of Superior Court Judge Harold Haley, where James McClain was on trial for assaulting a guard in the wake of Black prisoner Fred Billingsley’s murder by prison officials in San Quentin Prison in February of 1970. Carrying three guns registered to Angela Davis, Jackson, with the help of McClain and Ruchell Cinque Magee, who was set to testify as a witness in McClain's trial, seized Judge Haley and ordered attorneys, jurors and court officials to lie on the floor. Magee freed another testifying witness, Black Panther William A. Christmas, who also aided in the escape attempt. In addition to their own freedom, the group sought a trade the release of Judge Haley for the “Soledad Brothers,” George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette, who were charged with killing a white prison guard at California’s Soledad Prison. During an effort to flee the courthouse in a van, a shoot-out with police took place, killing Jackson, McClain, Christmas and Judge Haley. Two other hostages, Prosecutor Gary Thomas and juror Maria Elena Graham, were also injured, but survived. Ruchell Magee was the only abductor to survive. Although Davis did not participate in the actual break-out attempt, she became a suspect when it was discovered that the guns used by Jackson were registered in her name. Davis fled to avoid arrest and the FBI placed her on its “most wanted” list. Law enforcement captured her several months later in New York. During her high profile trial, black militants and New Left activists made ‘free Angela” a powerful slogan. In 1972, a jury acquitted Davis on all charges.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Angela Davis Defense Committee
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Roz Payne
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Button
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical Object
Subject
The topic of the resource
Black Power
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ca. early-1970s
16th Street Baptist Church
Alabama
Angela Davis
Birmingham
Black Panther Party
Black Power
Brandeis University
communism
Dynamite Hill
FBI
Free Angela
George Jackson
Harold Haley
identity politics
intersectionality
Jonathan Jackson
New Left
New York
SNCC
Soledad Brothers
Sorbonne
University of California-San Diego
W. L. Nolen