An African-American Man Protests Labor Discrimination at Bowman Dairy

In 1937, African-American activists in Chicago founded the Negro Labor Relations League to put pressure on companies that refused to hire black workers. The League's campaigns targeted newspapers (to promote black newscarriers), movie theaters (to hire black projectionists), and, in 1938, dairies. This photo is from that successful campaign, where in addition to picketing the League asked black Chicagoans to boycott white drivers and stores selling products from "Jim Crow dairies." Bowman's Dairy was one of the city's largest suppliers of dairy products and a major employer. Such pickets and "don't buy where you can't work" consumer boycotts took place in black neighborhoods in many U.S. cities during from the 1920s through the 1940s.

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Source | From Robin D.G. Kelley and Earl Lewis, eds., To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 437. Original photograph from Library of Congress.
Creator | Unknown
Item Type | Photograph
Cite This document | Unknown, “An African-American Man Protests Labor Discrimination at Bowman Dairy,” HERB: Resources for Teachers, accessed May 21, 2013, http://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1070.