RARE "CHICAGO DELEGATE PRAYER PILGRIMAGE FOR FREEDOM" BUTTON AND RIBBON.
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Winning Bid:
$392.15
(Includes 15% Buyer's Premium)
Bidding Ended:
Tuesday, March 15, 2016 10:00:00 PM (20 Minute Clock Begins At Tuesday, March 15, 2016 10:00:00 PM)
Item Description
2-5/8" button reading "Chicago Delegate" with a 6.5" ribbon attached under the collet that reads "Prayer Pilgrimage For Freedom/May 17, 1957/Washington, D.C." Both ribbon and button have "New York" union bug. This demonstration was planned for the third anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education which declared segregation in public schools illegal. The march was organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. It was supported by the NAACP and the recently founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. influenced planners not to embarrass the administration and thus the event was organized as a prayer commemoration. The 3 hour demonstration took place in front of the Lincoln Memorial with Mahalia Jackson and Harry Belefonte participating and speakers that included Roy Wilkins, Mordecai Johnson and Martin Luther King who spoke last. This occasion marked the first time he addressed a national audience. His speech set the agenda for voting rights as an important part of the civil rights crusade. King's remarks are known as the "Give Us The Ballot" speech and its key section uses this demand as an anaphora followed by the different changes voting rights will bring about for African Americans; for example, "Give Us The Ballot And We Will No Longer Plead To The Federal Government For Passage Of An Anti-Lynching Law..." With this speech, James L. Hicks, publisher of the Amsterdam News declared King as the "No. 1 Leader Of 16 Million Negroes." Ribbon has a couple of extremely faint and tiny light gray dots in the white field below the "GR" in "Pilgrimage." Button has extremely clean surface with only a faint trace of surface wear seen in reflected light. Overall NM displaying Mint. There is a 1.75" button that was produced for this demonstration that surfaces occasionally. This is the first example time we have seen this spectacular piece in five decades.
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