Original flyer issued in the immediate aftermath of the historic Chicago Emergency Peace Mobilization convention of Labor Day weekend, 1940, announcing a "Welcome Home" gathering for returning delegates at the Riverside Plaza Hotel, New York, on Monday, September 9, 1940. Single sheet, 8.5 x 11 inches, printed recto only on tan stock. Folded as issued. A scarce survivor from the moment the Emergency Peace Mobilization was transforming itself into what would become the American Peace Mobilization.
The flyer documents a striking Popular Front coalition combining anti-war activism, labor politics, and African-American civil rights. Speakers include Louis Burnham of the National Negro Congress—later an important Black radical intellectual and journalist—George B. Murphy of the NAACP, and American Labor Party congressional candidate Benjamin Zellman. Chaired by Dr. Annette T. Rubinstein, the program promised first-hand reports from neighborhood delegates attending the Chicago convention, the gathering that formally launched the nationwide anti-intervention movement.
Produced only months before the United States entered World War II, and before the dramatic reversal in Communist Party policy following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the present flyer captures a highly specific and short-lived political moment. Ephemeral material from the Emergency Peace Mobilization and early American Peace Mobilization remains elusive in commerce, particularly pieces documenting Black participation in the movement and local organizing efforts.
Light chipping to extremities, with one minor closed tear. An uncommon and historically resonant piece of American radical and civil-rights ephemera.
Original flyer issued in the immediate aftermath of the historic Chicago Emergency Peace Mobilization convention of Labor Day weekend, 1940, announcing a "Welcome Home" gathering for returning delegates at the Riverside Plaza Hotel, New York, on Monday, September 9, 1940. Single sheet, 8.5 x 11 inches, printed recto only on tan stock. Folded as issued. A scarce survivor from the moment the Emergency Peace Mobilization was transforming itself into what would become the American Peace Mobilization.
The flyer documents a striking Popular Front coalition combining anti-war activism, labor politics, and African-American civil rights. Speakers include Louis Burnham of the National Negro Congress—later an important Black radical intellectual and journalist—George B. Murphy of the NAACP, and American Labor Party congressional candidate Benjamin Zellman. Chaired by Dr. Annette T. Rubinstein, the program promised first-hand reports from neighborhood delegates attending the Chicago convention, the gathering that formally launched the nationwide anti-intervention movement.
Produced only months before the United States entered World War II, and before the dramatic reversal in Communist Party policy following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the present flyer captures a highly specific and short-lived political moment. Ephemeral material from the Emergency Peace Mobilization and early American Peace Mobilization remains elusive in commerce, particularly pieces documenting Black participation in the movement and local organizing efforts.
Light chipping to extremities, with one minor closed tear. An uncommon and historically resonant piece of American radical and civil-rights ephemera.
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