This listing is for a 1960s vintage Black Power Political De Berry For Mayor Socialist Communist pinback button in very nice condition. Size: 1-1/2 inch.
DeBerry's career as a political activist began in earnest in the 1950s. In 1955 he helped organize a mass protest in Chicago to protest the lynching of Emmett Till back home in his native Mississippi.[3] DeBerry spoke out in defense of the Cuban Revolution, in support of African liberation struggles, and demanded withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.
DeBerry marched for civil rights in Selma, Alabama and Memphis, Tennessee and was a supporter of Malcolm X in the 1960s.[3] He was a delegate to the founding conventions of the Negro Labor Congress and the Negro American Labor Council.[2]
In November 1963, DeBerry ran for councilman in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. He received 3,514 votes in the race.[6][7]
DeBerry was the Socialist Workers Party's candidate in the 1964 election. He was the party's first African American candidate as well as the first African American candidate for president of any existing party (he was preceded in 1960 by marginal candidate Clennon King). DeBerry's running mate was Ed Shaw, a printer from Illinois.
In the 1965 city election, DeBerry was the SWP's candidate for Mayor of New York.[6]
In 1970, he ran for Governor of New York and polled 5,766 votes.
DeBerry ran again in the 1980 United States presidential election as one of three candidates the party had that year, the others being Andrew Pulley and Richard Congress. Matilde Zimmermann was the vice presidential candidate on all three tickets.
These historically significant pinback buttons come from the archives of a noted activist-historian (and lifelong family friend) who was on the front lines of human rights demonstrations from the March on Selma, and MLKs ‘I have a dream’ speech, through labor rights, women's rights, anti-vietnam, anti-nuclear proliferation, anti-capitalist-colonialism, and other worthy causes up to the 1990s. Thank you GT for being on the side of the oppressed everywhere.