The Spark that Lit the Flame

My grandma emailed me and shared the first time she became politically active. It’s obviously amazing, so I’ll let her tell you about it in her own words in a moment. But now that I’ve been writing this blog for like, a full ten days, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned (and I talked about it in therapy last night, so it’s nice and fresh.)

I always knew that my grandma was politically active, but I think I viewed it in the abstract. I would hear stories about it from time-to-time, but since we didn’t live right down the street like some of my other family members, I didn’t really ever see it first-hand. Sorting through all of these buttons made these stories seem more real to me.

I started this blog with the intention of looking into the history of the buttons, but I am realizing that the more interesting story is her story with the buttons. They aren’t all from campaigns or causes that she was involved with, but of the ones that were, I’d like to tell her story. We’ve got a date on Sunday to sit down and go through some of them.

The last thing I’ll say for now is this: researching these buttons, talking to my family and my grandma about her activism, and thinking about the way things are now has made me want to do something. Activism has changed a lot, it seems, and especially for millennials it has moved largely to the internet. I think I definitely fall into that category — I’ll happily defend any issue I believe in, as long as I don’t have to actually speak to anyone or put on real pants or leave my cats. And while it’s great to express your opinion on Facebook and Twitter, real change has always come from people who are willing to leave the house. So, I signed up to volunteer with Planned Parenthood yesterday (and shout-out to the wonderful staff at the Livonia location who might be reading this, we got pretty up close and personal today.)  It’s no march on Washington, but it’s something.

And now, without further ado, onto a great story from grandma:

“Wow! Your acquirement of my button collection, has sent me on a trip down Memory Lane! I’m delighted that you got it and are interested in learning more about the various buttons.

Is there a button for Flavin and Morris for the Ferndale School Board? That is the first campaign in which I became politically involved, and I don’t remember if we had a button or not.

The situation:

My son, Rob was in 3rd grade, and was not learning how to read. He was a very bright child; but he was just not catching on! Then the Ferndale School District introduced a FEDERALLY FUNDED reading program – and with that program, Rob was learning to read!

The Ferndale School District includes part of Royal Oak Township – a black -community. Grant, an elementary school in the township, was all black. The federal government told the Ferndale school board to desegregate Grant school or lose federal funding – including the reading program that was helping Rob. Our school board told the feds where they could go with that money!

Well! I spoke at that meeting urging the board to desegregate Grant. Instead, they voted to keep the status quo. The Feds subsequently cut off funding to the district which, at that time was about, I think, $250,000.00/year – a considerable amount of money!

After that meeting, I was invited to attend another meeting with a group of people who were looking to replace that school board which would sacrifice our kid’s education for their own racist reasons. That’s when I became politically involved.

It took years of campaigns to change the board (7 seats; with 2 up for election every year). We’d win two, then lose one, etc. etc., but eventually we got a majority – and then the whole board!

Rob learned to read through that federally funded program– and now, instead of being a drop-out, he is a physicist who works for the U.S. Army.

I thank God for allowing me to see the results of all that time and all that work.”

Morality…in the Eye of the Beholder?

The Moral Majority was a political organization in America founded in 1979 by televangelist/Baptist minister Jerry Falwell.  It was created as a response to changes in the 1960s and ’70s that many Christian fundamentalists worried undermined the moral values of the country, like the silly women burning their bras, black people marching every-which-way, or those gay people with the audacity to think that they have the right to exist (how much sarcasm is too much sarcasm?  Asking for a friend.)

The organization, aiming to advance conservative social values, expanded very quickly to include lobbyists, voter registration, and fundraising efforts.  They were even credited with helping Ronald Reagan win the presidential election of 1980.

These buttons were both issued in 1980.  The first was not only used by progressive groups opposing the Moral Majority, but also other members of the Christian right who opposed Jerry Falwell’s hard line beliefs.  The suggestion that the Moral Majority is neither “moral” nor the “majority” applied to both the Christian community, as well as America as a whole.

Progressives began to use the term “immoral minority” as a point of pride and opposition to the the Moral Majority.  An organization was formed in Washington under that name and attempted to counteract some of the Moral Majority’s propaganda through humor.

The Moral Majority remained a strong presence in American politics for most of the 1980s, but eventually dissolved in 1989 due to internal difficulties and scandal (to nobody’s surprise, I assume.)  Even though it does not officially exist anymore, it helped to firmly establish the religious right in American politics.

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One Issue Wasn’t Enough

It’s not exactly a secret that my grandma is pretty liberal, so I actually thought this button was a joke at first — being a single-issue candidate is usually an accusation from an opponent, not something celebrated on a button.

As it turns out, there was once a pretty good reason for Republicans to be a single-issue party: It’s 1932, the world is in the midst of the Great Depression, and your presidential candidate is the guy who many Americans are pointing the finger at, incumbent Herbert Hoover.  He was not the most popular guy in America, as his promise of “a final triumph over poverty” in his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination in 1928 had turned out to be super ironic.  A few months after taking office, the stock market crashed, and the world’s economy began to fall into the Great Depression.

It’s not fair to say that Hoover did nothing to try to stop the Depression, but it probably looked like that from the outside.  He encouraged business leaders not to cut wages or layoff workers, pushed for Congress to pass public works initiatives that would create jobs, and asked local and state governments to work with private charities around the country.  He just didn’t believe in intervention by the federal government, or widespread government aid.  But, to the average citizen standing in line for bread as unemployment skyrockets to almost 25% and over 5,000 banks fail, a little government intervention would’ve been welcome.

Enter: Franklin D. Roosevelt and his promise of “a new deal for the American people.”

While Democrats essentially ran a single-issue campaign, too, they had a couple things going for them.  First, people tend to blame the party in charge for problems that happen on their watch.  Another big factor, though, was the fact that Hoover rarely made public speeches or radio addresses — he actually had a fear of public speaking.  This made it easy for Democrats to paint him as a cold, aloof leader who didn’t care about the average American.  It also allowed for FDR to make grand speeches about the “new deal” without having to give many specifics about what that might entail, because Hoover wasn’t giving any indication as to what his recovery plan would be, either.  FDR was full of idealism and optimism, while Hoover was…well, nobody really knew.

Anyways, the American people were in on FDR.  Hoover got completely destroyed in the election (and almost on the campaign trail, a few times, when multiple citizens tried to assassinate him.)  FDR won 42 or 48 states as well as the popular vote, and Democrats won control of both Congressional houses.  These victories also ended a period of Republican dominance in federal government.

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Fashion Victim

This button was inspired by events at a Michigan campaign stop!  In 1952, Democrat Adlai Stevenson of Illinois was running for president against Dwight Eisenhower.  His family was super wealthy and connected (his grandfather was Grover Cleveland’s vice president,) which made it difficult him to connect with the regular voters — he wasn’t the kind of guy Average Joe wants to grab a beer with, especially when he’s running against a famous war hero.

On Labor Day of 1952, Stevenson made a campaign stop in Flint.  While Governor G. Mennen Williams addressed the crowd, Stevenson sat cross-legged and studied his speech.  A photographer from the Flint Journal, William Gallagher, was standing just below where the candidate was seated, and noticed a hole in the sole of his shoe.  He took a picture, for which he would later win a Pulitzer Prize.

Eisenhower’s campaign immediately began producing these buttons, trying to suggest that Stevenson wasn’t even able to care for himself, let alone the entire country.  Stevenson’s campaign, however, produced their own shoe pins (see below,) explaining that the Democrat was frugal, and he would treat taxpayer dollars with just as much care as he did his own.

Voters didn’t buy it, and Eisenhower won the election by a landslide.  Stevenson ran again in 1956, but Americans have long memories when it comes to fashion faux pas, so Eisenhower was re-elected.  Stevenson tried one more time in 1960 but failed to secure the nomination.  He didn’t stand a chance against JFK, a man who never left the house looking any less than 100%.

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I’ll Take Two!

Voter turnout had been declining for years in Chicago, and by 1988, Thomas Schaffner decided to do something about it.  In the October issue of his newsletter, Chicago File, he proposed that Congress give current and former Chicago residents  “the authority to pick up the voting ‘slack.'”  He sent these buttons along with the issue to his 1,000 subscribers, many former residents still interested in the city politics.  With his two-ballots method, he quipped that Chicago’s voter turnout for the presidential election could exceed 100%.

The newsletter also included some the unique traditions, scandals, and strange histories of Chicago elections, such as the 1927 “Pineapple Primary” when Al Capone’s goonies threw grenades into polling places where their candidate wasn’t projected to do well.  He advised his readers, “Proclaim yourself precinct captain…wear something official-looking and walk around your neighborhood telling people who they should vote for.  Don’t forget to invent some ugly rumors about your candidate’s opponent.”

Schaffner admitted to creating the buttons to boost circulation of his newsletter, and offered them for free to new subscribers who signed up at a discounted rate before election day.

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Pink Slip, Green Thumb

I can find a lot of information about Milliken, and very little about the “pink slip” incident, but here it goes.

William Millikan (Republican) was the 44th Governor of Michigan and was the longest-serving governor, serving 14 years (term limits weren’t imposed until 1992.)  Lieutenant Governor from 1965 to 1969, he became governor when George W. Romney resigned to serve in President Nixon’s cabinet.  He was then elected in 1970, 1974, and 1978.

In the 1970s, Michigan was going through a serious budget crisis.  In early May 1976, Milliken proposed an additional spending cut of $107 million.  The Democratic Senate had been resistant to passing the governor’s fiscal year plan, which included extended the fiscal year from June 30 to September 30, and since it’s apparently unconstitutional in Michigan not to have a balanced budget, this might have been a power move to get them to approve his plan.  The Senate Leader thought it was total overkill and would hurt needy residents unnecessarily.

What it did do is piss a bunch of teachers off, and they came to Lansing to let him know.  Fearing that shortfalls in school aid due to the spending cuts would cause the loss of 10,000 teaching jobs the following years, 800 teachers jumped on buses on May 24 to protest at the Capital building and call for an income tax increase.

So, that wasn’t great, but Milliken did do some awesome stuff during his 14 years as governor — specifically, environmental protections.  In the ’60s and ’70s, factories were dumping tons of chemicals wherever they wanted and rivers were literally CATCHING ON FIRE.  Milliken was an outdoorsy boy from Traverse City who looked around and thought, nope, not on my watch.  In January of 1970 he addressed the legislature and told them, “The preservation of our environment is the critical issue of the Seventies.”

And then he got to work.

Michigan Environmental Protection Act, granting any citizen the right to sue to prevent pollution?  CHECK.

Regulation of phosphorus in laundry detergent to shrink algal blooms in Michigan lakes and rivers?  CHECK.

Michigan container deposit law, which is still considered the most successful law of its kind in America?  CHECK.

National Resources Trust Fund?  CHECK.

 

Milliken signed over a dozen environmental protection laws as governor, and chaired the Center for the Great Lakes when he retired from office, a research center dedicated to the protection of Michigan’s lakes.  He is 96-years old.

Screwy Truman

This button is from 1948, during the presidential campaign between incumbent Harry Truman and Republican nominee Thomas Dewey.  It refers to the fact that during his first term, Truman had a balcony built on the south portico of the White House.  Since Dewey was almost unanimously predicted to win the election, this rhyme both pokes fun at Truman for remodeling just in time to vacate the White House, as well as attack the addition as wasteful government spending.

Dewey’s victory was almost certain — the Chicago Daily Tribune even distributed 150,000 issues with the front page headline, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” before the official results declared Truman the winner.  However, his failure in the 1944 campaign had made him very cautious, and he often spoke in empty platitudes rather than risk making any mistakes.  Truman’s “whistle-stop” campaign, however — a 21,928-mile trek across the nation, making spontaneous speeches at stops from the rear platform of the observation car — drew millions of people but was barely covered by the national press.  Likewise, polls in 1948 were largely done by telephone, and many in Truman’s Midwestern and Southern base did not yet own telephones.

As we know, Truman did win the election and did get to enjoy the balcony for four more years.  Maybe he sat there at the end of a long day and contemplated the Korean War, which my grandfather served in and where he invented the selfie (please see indisputable proof below.)  Perhaps that is where he chose to General Eisenhower as the commander of NATO troops.  He didn’t actually get to enjoy it for long, because as they were building the balcony, other parts of the White House were collapsing around him due to serious structural issues.  The Truman family spent most of his second term living in the Blair House while almost the entire interior of the White House was gutted and rebuilt.

(Text from back of photo: “Took this myself, holding the camera at arm’s length.”)

Nixon Eats Lettuce

I thought this would be a fun one to start with, since it initially made me laugh but I ended up learning something new.  The Salinas Valley is one of the most productive agricultural regions in California, and in 1970, was producing most of America’s lettuce.  There’s a little back story involving grapes and teamsters, but since nobody is accusing Nixon of eating grapes, let’s focus on the lettuce.

In July/August 1970, the United Farm Workers (led by Cesar Chavez) were pretty pissed off that some of the lettuce growers had signed contracts with the teamsters.  They tried holding secret negotiations to avoid a strike, but eventually it collapsed and on August 23rd, the UFW called for the lettuce pickers, many of whom were underpaid, unskilled migrant workers, to strike.  About 10,000 of them did, in what became the largest farm worker strike in US history.  Almost overnight, the production of lettuce dropped by 70%, the price doubled, and shipments almost ceased nationwide.  The UFW also asked consumers to join the boycott by refusing to buy non-union lettuce.

Nixon, however, was having none of it.  He publicly opposed the boycott, openly criticized its leaders, and tried to find ways to undermine the movement.  He was definitely still eating lettuce, but he couldn’t choke down enough salads to beat the UFW.  The boycott officially lasted until 1978, but the big win came in 1975 with the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act.

“The Buttons” and Me

Hi, and welcome to the obligatory introduction post where I tell you a little bit about myself and what, for the last week or so of my life, have been referred to by those around me as “The Buttons.”  It’s not exclusively buttons, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

So, me.  My name is Kyle, I’m 29-years old, I live in Michigan with my boyfriend, Steve, and our four cats.  More important to the story is my grandmother, Nancy, who is 84-years old, and amazing.  I have a lot of evidence to back that up, the most compelling of which is this: as Steve and I drove home from my cousin’s wedding a couple years ago, he turned to me and said, “This might sound weird, but I think we need to spend more time with your grandma.  She is just so full of joy.  I’ve never met someone like that before.”  I don’t think any other girl in the world has ever experienced her boyfriend asking if they could hang out with her grandma more often.

My grandma recently moved to a retirement community, and her house is being cleaned out.  Among 50 years of furniture, photographs, and whatever else is collected over a lifetime of raising six kids, spoiling 11 grand kids, hosting Sunday breakfasts and Raging Granny meetings, was a collection of political buttons.  When I heard that no one else had claimed it, I did.  I’ve always admired my grandma’s activism, and I thought she probably had a few cool buttons from the protests she had attended.

I had no idea what I was in for.

This is not “a few cool buttons.”  This is hundreds of buttons, spanning decades, states, philosophies.  From Warren G. Harding to Barack Obama.  “Nixon Now” and “Impeach Now.”  Many local from metro-Detroit, others from the Chicago area where she was born.  Congressmen from states across the country, and causes local, state, national, and international are represented.  There are also stickers, bumper stickers, ribbons, and more.

I’m not completely sure what I want to do with it all, and it would be easy enough to put it all back in the box and put it on a shelf.  However, I am a huge history/politics nerd and I’m also hoping to apply to grad school soon to get a master’s in library/archival studies, so this is just about the most exciting thing I could have possibly come across.  So, while I figure out how to organize it, I am working on cleaning and photographing it all.  This is also going to take quite a bit of research, since I’m not familiar with a lot of the people on these buttons (especially the local ones.)

That’s the reason for this blog.  I wanted to have a place to post the pictures with a little history about each of them.  It will also probably include some stories about my grandma, my research, and anything interesting I might learn along the way.