Pinback button reading “Black Folk Must Vote”: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A pinback button with a white background and black sanserif type face text reading [BLACK FOLK / MUST / VOTE]. The printed words [AG Slater Corp NYC 11] are printed along the perimeter and at the bottom center is a red Union bug [AFL-CIO / – / LOCAL 64] encircled, [UNION MADE] below. The back has a straight pin. The laminate is slightly yellowed from age. There are some scratches on the surface and tarnish on the back.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: ca. 1965
• Manufactured by: N.G. Slater Corporation, American, founded 1936
• Subject of: AFL-CIO Local 64 Union
• Type: buttons (information artifacts)
• Medium: ink on paper with plastic laminate and metal
• Dimensions: H x W x D: 1 9/16 × 1 9/16 × 3/16 in. (4 × 4 × 0.5 cm)
• Place made: New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Civil Rights
• Topic: Politics
• Topic: Race discrimination
• Topic: Social reform
• Topic: Suffrage
• Object number: 2021.78
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Kenneth A. Smaltz Jr.
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The displayed image also has an explicit CC0 designation. The underlying object's rights statement is: Public domain Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.