Making the Movement

How Activists Fought for Civil Rights with Buttons, Flyers, Pins, and Posters

by David L. Crane
contributions from Silas Munro

Packed with over 200 color photos, this visual journey through Black history and the Civil Rights Movement is told through the objects—buttons, badges, flyers, pennants, posters, and more—designed by activists as tools to advance the fight for justice and freedom, offering a unique perspective on the Civil Rights Movement from Emancipation through the present day.

From Reconstruction through Jim Crow, through the protest era of the 1960s and ’70s, to current-day resistance and activism such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the material culture of the Civil Rights Movement has been integral to its goals and tactics. During decades of sit-ins, marches, legal challenges, political campaigns, boycotts, and demonstrations, objects such as buttons, flyers, pins, and posters have been key in the fight against racism, oppression, and violence.

Making the Movement presents more than 200 of these nonviolent weapons alongside the stories of the activists, organizations, and campaigns that defined and propelled the cause of civil rights. It is a must-read for anyone seeking to learn about Black and African American history in the United States and about strategies to combat racism and the structures that support it.

Paperback | 240 pages | Princeton Architectural Press | 2022

David L. Crane is the founder of the traveling exhibition Making the Movement: Civil Rights Museum. He is on the faculty of the history department at Alamance Community College in North Carolina.