Original - Not For Sale
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Not Specified
Dimensions
3.800 x 3.800 x 0.300 cm.
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Title
1983 Chicago Mayoral Race Buttons
Artist
Ed Meredith
Medium
Mixed Media - Metal - Pin/button
Description
1983 Chicago Mayoral Race Buttons:
In 1983 Harold Washington was elected as the 51st Mayor of Chicago. He was the first African-American Mayor of Chicago and served from April 29, 1983 until his death on November 25, 1987.
During his campaign in both the Democratic primary and the the Mayoral race, there was a fair amount of racial slurs and tension, which was nothing new for the city of Chicago, it just more public and heighten than usual.
After Washington won the Democrat primary for Mayor, the campaign PR machines for both sides went full throttle with slogans and paraphilia, the signs, banners and buttons etc... most of it fairly ordinary, but the racial slurs and hatred and disinformation, as expected, was out there also at full throttle.
So i decide to contribute to the historic event by making two campaign pins/buttons, which i hoped might make one stop and think for a moment. The pins/buttons had one thought and took no one's side, neither Democrat or Republican nor Black or White, the message was left to the wearer of the pin/s/buttons to chose/; to wear one or the other or both or more in any combination that they thought made their statement, in other words the meaning was up to who ever wore it/them and of course the way in which the viewer interpreted the wearers intentions.
i went onto the streets of Chicago's Downtown (The Loop) and into different neighborhoods. I wore a a small top hat covered in pins of both kind and approached people of all types, colors and ethnicities to offer and hand out the pins/buttons.
The reaction went from; "Oh great, thanks" - "Love It" - "Bullshit" and "Get out of my face asshole"... with one guy, you would have thought i had placed a burning hot coal in his hand, he screamed and threw it into the street. i was threatened more than once.
Anyway it was great theater and sociological study... using two pins of different colors with one (the same) written statement. I escaped unharmed... lol
Uploaded
December 14th, 2014
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