“Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” Handbill for the Negro Retail Store Employees Association Selective Patronage Campaign

Detroit, ca. 1967. Approximately 8.5” x 10.25”on thin toned paper with light vertical crease and chipping at top edge, about VG.
 
Sponsored by Detroit’s Inner City Organizing Committee, this handbill focuses on the three inner city Sears stores, which have “75% Negro Patronage and Less Than 10% Negro Employees in Lower Paying Jobs.” The aim of the campaign was “Organizing Consumer Dollars to Make Jobs.” Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr. was Chairman of the Inner City Organizing Committee, and in his New Year’s Message of 1967, entitled “Year of Transition from Action to Organization,” he notes, “The black community does not yet realize that it is engaged in a power struggle for survival and that the white man will do everything possible to maintain white supremacy. Conflict is inevitable.” He was right—in July of that year there was the violent Riot of 1967 (also known as the Uprising of 1967 or the Detroit Rebellion) where more than 40 people died. The riot is often seen as one of the sparks that set ablaze the Black Power Movement.
 
Scarce—no copies in commerce or auction records, and no copies listed separately in OCLC, although we do find a photo of one online at www.riseupdetroit.org. Item #1262

Price: $775.00