Poster for the Crusade for Justice: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A poster for the Crusade for Justice Movement used in the Poor People’s Campaign. The white poster has a centrally depicted white, brown, and black graphic of the Roman goddess, Libertas, handing a sword, with her proper right hand, to a man kneeling in front of her. She is wearing a white, one shoulder toga and holds a shield in front of the proper left side of her body. The man is kneeling on his proper left knee with his proper right knee raised and slightly extended in front of him. He is wearing a black, collared, long sleeve shirt, black shorts, black shoes, and a white, wide brimmed sombrero. He is looking towards the left edge of the poster. He holds the sword by the blade in in both hands. Text printed in black ink on the blade reads, [CRUSADE FOR JUSTICE]. Printed in the top right corner is large, brown, block text, outlined in black that reads, [VIVA / LA / JUSTICIA]. There is an inscription written in black ink on the back of the poster that reads, [GIFT OF: JOHN DE FOREST].

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1968
• Printed by: Unidentified
• Subject of: Crusade for Justice, American, founded 1965
• Subject of: Poor People's Campaign, American, 1967 - 1968
• Type: posters
• Medium: ink on paperboard
• Dimensions: H x W x D: 27 15/16 × 22 1/16 × 1/16 in. (71 × 56 × 0.2 cm)
• Place used: Washington, District of Columbia, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Activism
• Topic: Civil Rights
• Topic: Justice
• Topic: Poverty
• Topic: U.S. History, 1961-1969
• Object number: 2017.107.2
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Vincent A. deForest in honor of Linda Cusumano, SCLC
• 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 underlying object's rights statement is: No Known Copyright Restrictions Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.