Exhibition Guide
Introduction
Julie Ault, Guest Curator
I once imagined archives as airless mausoleums of history, sealed off from the present. That view dissolved when research drew me into collections alive with voices, actions, and evidence—nowhere more so than in U-M’s Joseph A. Labadie Collection, whose vast holdings on politics, protest, and social movements anchor this project.
The Labadie’s materials reveal a powerful convergence of dissent, showing how the Black freedom, civil rights, and Black Power movements of the late 1950s to the late 1970s intertwined with countercultural and antiwar movements—particularly against American intervention in Vietnam. These intersecting struggles, which form the central narrative of American Sampler, continue to resonate today.
American Sampler is a branching composition of archival materials and art arranged in layered groupings that blur the distinctions between forms of cultural expression. The artworks I have gathered here from UMMA’s collection and my personal history speak to the subject terrain directly and symbolically. Archival materials in the wall cases, on the table, and within the vitrine and its print drawers reveal the forces of collective action—the conflicts, strategies, and desires that drive change and the turning points that reshape consciousness and society. These contain historical records and objects, including sensitive material and previously classified documents. This accompanying pamphlet is a resource for further information about organizations and groups, situations and events, and specific artifacts and artworks.
American Sampler explores how collective and personal histories continue to shape the present and inspire new forms of agency. Some materials will rotate over time, introducing new perspectives and histories. Designed as a living resource, the exhibition invites visitors to look, read, watch, and connect across its layers.
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About the Joseph A. Labadie Collection
The Joseph A. Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan Library is a renowned resource for materials documenting the histories of social protest, radical politics, and movements for civil liberties. Through books, pamphlets, ephemera, posters, buttons, and personal papers, the collection offers a unique window into the diverse voices and strategies that have shaped grassroots activism from the nineteenth century to today. Open by appointment to all visitors and researchers, the Labadie Collection invites exploration and insight into the ongoing pursuit of social justice and political change.
Unless noted from a particular collection, archival items are from the Joseph A. Labadie Collection’s extensive holdings and subject files.
In keeping with standard archive practices, the Joseph A. Labadie Collection does not generally provide item-level descriptions in its databases and finding aids. Archivists do not seek and attach more information to material beyond its “as is” status when acquired. Visitors to the archive glean from the items themselves and the contexts that unfold with further research. The captions for the archival material in this booklet follow suit.
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Exhibition Diagram
Click on a letter in the diagram to jump to that section.
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Title Wall
Corita Kent
american sampler
1969
Serigraph
Collection of Julie Ault
In american sampler, Corita Kent (formerly Sister Mary Corita, IHM) employed lettering like that found in nineteenth-century “Wanted” posters that law enforcement used to publicize and capture fugitives. Using overlays of red, white, and blue inks, she highlights subtext in the words “ASSASSINATION,” “AMERICAN,” and “VIETNAM,” revealing the embedded words “sin,” “I can,” “nation,” and “I am.” The title refers to the eighteenth-century custom of young women embroidering “samplers” depicting alphabets, numbers, and religious and homespun proverbs to demonstrate their literacy and needlework skill.
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A: Vitrine
The archival material in this vitrine relates to items in its print drawers and on the walls. The bag containing remnants of the flag burned by Sidney Street in 1966 connects to documents from the Street vs. New York Flag-Burning Case Collection in Drawer A. Col. Henry Tufts’ index system links to his investigation records of the Mỹ Lai massacre in Drawer C. The 1967 Detroit Uprising Scrapbook echoes with material on direct actions by civil rights groups in the early 1960s that sought to dismantle segregation in the southern states and empower Black citizens to secure voting rights and confront unjust laws.
Items in this vitrine are from the University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
Police Department City of New York evidence bag containing remnants of the flag burned by Sidney Street, 1966, from the Street vs. New York Flag-Burning Case Collection, gift of the prosecuting lawyer, Harry Brodbar, Assistant District Attorney for Kings County, NY
Colonel Henry Tufts’ index filing system of major case files, from the Colonel Henry Tufts Collection
Detroit Uprising Scrapbook, contains clippings from local newspapers from 1967 to 1985, source unknown
The Catonsville Nine, An Act of Conscience brochure, The Catonsville Nine Defense Committee, 1970
The Milwaukee 14 brochure, The Milwaukee Fourteen Defense Committee, 1968
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A: Print Drawers
Drawer A
Street v. New York
The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, but many southern states defied enforcement and continued discriminatory practices such as literacy tests. In 1966, civil rights activist James Meredith began his over 200-mile “March Against Fear” in the South to protest racist violence and encourage voter registration among Black citizens. A white sniper, later identified as Aubrey James Norvell, shot and wounded Meredith on the second day of his solo journey.
In response to this attack, World War II veteran Sidney Street burned his 48-star American flag on a street corner near his Brooklyn apartment. When questioned by police, Street replied, “If they let that happen to Meredith we don’t need an American flag.” He was arrested and convicted of defacing the flag under a New York law that made it a crime to “cast contempt upon” the flag “by words or act.”
Street lost his initial appeals and the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969. The Court reversed his conviction, citing First Amendment protection for speech, on the grounds that he was unconstitutionally punished for his words. While the Court did not explicitly rule on the act of flag burning, it laid the groundwork for later decisions recognizing burning the flag as a form of constitutionally protected symbolic speech.
Items in this drawer are from the Street vs. New York Flag-Burning Case Collection, gift of the prosecuting lawyer, Harry Brodbar, Assistant District Attorney for Kings County, NY, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
DRAWER A
1. Criminal Court of the City of New York trial transcript, July 25, 1966
2. Supreme Court of the United States case decision, April 21, 1969
3. Draft of case result, 1969
4. Supreme Court of the United States pamphlet
5. Criminal Court of the City of New York arrest record, June 6, 1966
6. Supreme Court of the United States list of justices, October 2, 1967
7. Supreme Court of the United States case docket, October 1968
8. Supreme Court of the United States seating chart
9. “High Court Flag Desecration Ruling Discussed by London Program Panel,” The Commentator, November 26, 1969
10. “Court Upholds Right to Denounce Flag,” New York Times, April 22, 1969
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Drawer B
The Vietnam War
Following Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh victory over France in 1954, which ended a century of colonial rule, the Geneva Accords partitioned Vietnam into a communist North and a noncommunist South. Driven by Cold War fears of communist expansion or a “domino effect,” the United States backed the South with military advisors and financial aid.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson escalated U.S. involvement by committing large-scale ground forces to a protracted, costly war against the North Vietnamese Army and the communist Viet Cong in the south. American combat troop presence peaked in 1969 with over 543,000 personnel.
In the United States, domestic opposition to the war erupted in 1965, growing from widespread campus protest and draft resistance to extensive national resistance in 1968. The 1973 Paris Peace Accords led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and in 1975 communist forces seized control of Saigon and the South, reunifying the country. The war was devastating, resulting in over 58,000 American deaths and estimates of the deaths of over 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
Phoenix Program, aka Phung Hoang
In 1967, the CIA designed and coordinated the joint effort of the South Vietnamese and U.S. military in a covert operation called the Phoenix Program. Its primary goal was to “neutralize” the Viet Cong infrastructure through methods including capture, encouraging defection, and killing communist sympathizers. Phoenix targeted Viet Cong administrators and political cadres as combatants and collected intelligence using infiltration, interrogation, torture, illegal imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings. In addition to using illegal methods, Phoenix was regarded by many as ineffectual, rendering unreliable intelligence and alienating Vietnamese civilians. By 1970, the responsibility for the program was largely transferred to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), as part of President Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy to gradually withdraw American troops and shift combat responsibility to the South Vietnamese military. Press leaks and media coverage in 1971 led to widespread criticism of the Phoenix Program, and it was scrutinized in congressional hearings, including for war crimes.
Items in this drawer are from the Greg Mutz Phoenix Program Papers, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
DRAWER B
1. Annotated surveillance photo
2. Bi-weekly Summary of VCI Activities, August 3–16, 1969
3. Intelligence Received for May 1969
4. Interrogation intelligence notes
5. Photograph, written on the back: “me sitting and ‘working’ at my desk in the DIOCC [Defense Intelligence Operations Coordination Center]”
6. Photograph, written on back: “Located in Luong—standing by me is Sgt. An, all the rest are VC POW [Viet Cong Prisoners of War] in our interrogation room”
7. “The Viet Cong Infrastructure,” December 1968
8. Photograph of unidentified men
9. Photograph of Greg Mutz
10. “The Hidden War: Elite Phoenix Forces Hunt Chiefs of the Vietcong Apparatus in an Isolated Village,” Wall Street Journal, March 25, 1969
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Drawer C
Mỹ Lai aka Sơn Mỹ Massacre
On March 16, 1968, the U.S. Army Task Force Barker attacked the Sơn Mỹ village in South Vietnam, which encompassed the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khê. Commanding officer Capt. Ernest Medina ordered C (Charlie) Company to move in aggressively and destroy what was purported to be a Viet Cong stronghold— demolish the infrastructure, burn homes, poison wells, and kill livestock. Led by Lt. William Calley, Charlie Company entered Mỹ Lai early in the morning. Meeting no resistance and finding only unarmed women, children, babies, and elderly men, Lt. Calley nevertheless led his platoon to brutalize and kill hundreds of civilians and raze the settlement. In nearby Mỹ Khê, the army’s B Company similarly assaulted and killed civilians.
Stop the killing
U.S. Army warrant officer and helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson was flying reconnaissance over the area when he spotted defenseless civilians being shot and landed to investigate. After witnessing soldiers executing civilians and spotting an irrigation ditch filled with dead women and children, Thompson confronted Lt. Calley, who advised him to mind his own business. Landing again to assist victims and evacuate villagers, Thompson instructed his crew members Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn to fire on U.S. soldiers if they continued shooting civilians. With the help of two other choppers Thompson enlisted to fly escort, they airlifted a dozen survivors to safety.
Thompson reported the killings to his superiors, and Lt. Col. Frank Barker ordered the ground units to cease the Sơn Mỹ “Search and Destroy” mission. (“Search and destroy” was a principal strategy under General Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968.) Thompson filed an official report in the aftermath, but high-ranking officers ignored it, submitted false reports concocting a fictitious battle and combatant death toll, and announced the mission’s success. More cover-ups ensued.
Thompson was condemned within the military and assigned to dangerous missions as retaliation. For his testimony in closed Congressional and Army hearings early in 1970, he was accused of being a traitor. Some congressmen suggested that he was the sole person who should be punished for his actions at Mỹ Lai, and one tried to have him court-martialed. Thompson faced public hostility and received death threats. Thirty years later, in 1998, Thompson, Andreotta—posthumously—and Colburn were recognized for their courageous acts and awarded the Soldier’s Medal.
Whistleblowers
Infantryman Ronald Ridenhour from another unit heard stories about what happened at Mỹ Lai and began gathering accounts from high school friends and other soldiers he knew in Charlie Company who participated in or witnessed the massacre. In March 1969, after returning from Vietnam, Ridenhour sent a letter detailing his research to President Richard Nixon, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and up to thirty U.S. Congress members. Most recipients ignored the letter, but Ridenhour’s congressman, Rep. Morris Udall, responded and referred the letter to the Secretary of Defense, which directly catalyzed the Army Inspector General inquiry called the Peers Commission.
Freelance investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke the story for the Dispatch News Service, which appeared as a three-part report beginning November 13, 1969, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and many papers nationwide. One week later, the Cleveland-Plain Dealer published a front-page article with the eyewitness account and photographs by Army combat photographer Ronald Haeberle. Haeberle shot official documentation for the military in black and white and carried a second “personal” camera loaded with color film. Since returning home, Haeberle had been giving slide talks to civic groups about his time in Vietnam, including at Mỹ Lai. The public discussion created by Hersh’s reports, along with the news that Lt. Calley was being charged, predicated Haeberle agreeing to publish the visual evidence in his hometown newspaper and subsequently in Life magazine.
Investigation and trials
Under the command of Col. Henry Tufts, the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) conducted a thorough investigation to gather facts and evidence for the Peers Commission and resultant legal proceedings and prosecution. The Peers Commission determined that soldiers from Task Force Barker massacred hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. The inquiry found widespread failure at multiple command levels to report and investigate the incident, concluding that senior U.S. Army officers systematically concealed the mass killings. The commission identified dozens of individuals involved in the massacre and cover-ups and recommended that action be taken against them.
The Army brought charges against approximately twenty-six individuals, including fourteen officers for the cover-ups, and others for war crimes. A key challenge to the prosecutions was the lack of forensic evidence due to the initial cover-ups. Many of the potential defendants had been discharged from the Army and were no longer subject to military legal proceedings. Most charges were dropped or resulted in acquittals.
The “I was just following orders” defense used by Lt. Calley’s attorneys did not prevent his conviction. Though initially indicted for killing 109 civilians, Lt. Calley was court-martialed for twenty-two counts of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison and hard labor. His imprisonment produced a widespread intense public outcry that he was scapegoated for doing his job while higher-ranking officers went unpunished. After just two days, President Nixon intervened and had him transferred to house arrest in his Fort Benning apartment, pending appeal. Army command further reduced his sentence, first to twenty years and then to ten. Ultimately, Calley was paroled after three and a half years of house arrest.
The Vietnamese government identified 504 dead, including 210 children under the age of thirteen and seventeen pregnant women. The local government and community established the Sơn Mỹ Memorial and museum at the site of the destroyed village, with all the victims’ names inscribed on a plaque.
Items in this drawer are from the Colonel Henry Tufts Collection, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
DRAWER C
1. U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) Report of Investigation, Captain Ernest Medina, September 10, 1970
2. CID Report of Investigation, multiple soldiers, September 25, 1970
3. CID case files, Department of the Army Memorandum, November 17, 1970
4. CID Report of Investigation, Lieutenant William Calley, January 23, 1970
5. Investigation of the Sơn Mỹ incident, November 26, 1971
6. CID Talking Papers, Talking Paper, War Crimes Allegations, July 30, 1974
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Drawer D
Items in this drawer are from the University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
1. “Impeach Nixon” bumper sticker
2. Presidio 27 flyer
3. Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization, Inc. circular
4. “Memorial Day May 30 Washington DC,” Veterans Against the War circular
5. Winter Soldier Investigation circular
6. Nixon impeachment brochure, War Resistors League
7. War Protest Issue flyer, April 2, 1969
8. Fort Hood United Front flyer
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Drawer E
Items in this drawer are from the University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
1. “The Massacre at Mylai,” Life, December 5, 1969
2. Vietnam Primer “I Quit,” published by Ramparts, 1966
3. “Hanoi Bodies Led to Files, Priest Says,” Baltimore Sun, October 10, 1968
4. Installation view of Corita Kent, Power Up, 1965, at altar with Life magazines
5. The Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Beacon Press, 1972
Winter Soldier Investigation
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) was founded in 1967 to give voice to the growing opposition by servicemen and women to U.S. involvement in the war in Indochina. The group rapidly grew to a membership of thousands, including active-duty GIs. VVAW convened its Winter Soldier Investigation (WSI) public hearing in Detroit, Michigan, from January 31 to February 2, 1971, with fundraising support from the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Jane Fonda and help from Catholic antiwar activists and individuals, including former Green Beret Donald Duncan, who delivered the closing statement. Sixteen civilian contractors, medical personnel, and academics, and 109 veterans gave eyewitness testimony to war crimes and atrocities they had participated in or witnessed in Vietnam between 1963 and 1970. Over 700 veterans attended the hearings.
The prominent court-martial trial of Lt. Calley was ongoing at the time. The purpose of the hearing was to show that incidents like those that occurred at Mỹ Lai were a common application of U.S. military policy and training, not abuses “confined to a few rogue units,” as Army officials claimed. Veterans narrated the mass killing of unarmed civilians, mutilation, sexual assault and rape, abuse and execution of prisoners, and indiscriminate bombing, demonstrating that war crimes were widespread and systematic. The testimonies were organized chronologically and by combat unit so reports could be corroborated and to show “the consistent development and implementation of the criminal policy through the succession of administrations and top military commanders.”
The hearing received little media attention outside of the Detroit Free Press and Pacifica Radio. Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon read the complete transcript of the WSI into the Congressional Record in 1971.
A documentary, Winter Soldier: A Film, was made in 1972 by the Winterfilm Collective in cooperation with VVAW.
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Drawer F
Civil Rights and the Americus Movement
The law enforcement response to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) peaceful protest in Americus, Georgia was violent and intense. According to the SNCC, it was a situation of “unrestrained police persecution and brutality.” Activists were subjected to beatings and unlawful arrests. In July 1963, law enforcement arrested a group of over thirty young Black women who joined a ticket line to enter the movie theater through the front “whites only” door and jailed them in horrific, unsanitary conditions at the Leesburg Stockade. Some were held without charges for up to two months. SNCC photographer Danny Lyon secretly photographed the girls and the conditions behind bars, leading to national coverage and outcry.
Click here for more information on SNCC.
Items in this drawer are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
DRAWER F
1. “Fact Sheet on Americus (GA),” SNCC, from the Tom Hayden Civil Rights Papers
2. “Fact Sheet on Americus (GA),” SNCC, from the Tom Hayden Civil Rights Papers
3. “Mississippi: Allen’s Army,” Newsweek, February 24, 1965, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
4. “Four Civil Rights Leaders Face Chair in Georgia,” Detroit News, September 26, 1963
5. “The Civil Rights Crisis: A Synopsis of Recent Developments,” June 25, 1963, Southern Regional Council, Inc., from the Tom Hayden Civil Rights Papers
6. Photograph of Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) member George Smith in Meridian, Mississippi, standing with cross burned by the Ku Klux Klan, May 1964, from the Séamas Cain Papers
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Drawer G
The Vietnam War Draft
The Vietnam War draft was a system of compulsory enlistment in effect between 1964 and 1973. American men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six were required to register with the Selective Service operated by local draft boards. Exemptions were permitted for physical or mental disabilities, and deferments were permitted for full-time college students and those providing the sole financial support for dependent children. Men could also apply for conscientious objector (CO) status due to religious beliefs and, later, ethical and pacifist views. If CO status was granted, alternative civilian or military noncombatant service was required. The process was rigorous—it is estimated that about half of the approximately 170,000 applications for CO status were denied.
The system favored those from white, middle- and upper-class backgrounds. In response to public criticism, in 1969, the Selective Service System adopted a lottery method to determine the order of call.
The use of the draft ended with the Paris Peace Accords (the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam), signed on January 27, 1973, which mandated a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Vietnam. That same day, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced there would be no more draft calls. The United States extracted the last of its combat soldiers from Vietnam on March 29, 1973, but left behind scores of military advisors and Department of Defense civilian employees. The cease-fire agreement quickly unraveled, and with North Vietnamese forces closing in on Saigon in April of 1975, President Gerald Ford ordered the evacuation of the U.S. embassy, marking the end of American involvement in Vietnam.
On his first day in office in January 1977, President Jimmy Carter issued a pardon to all draft evaders, including those who had fled the country, allowing them to return to the United States without threat of prosecution.
Items in this drawer are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
DRAWER G
1. New York Times, April 16, 1967
2. “Manpower Makes War Power” flyer
3. Selective Service System correspondence, 1968–69, from the Séamas Cain Papers
4. Vietnam Summer Organizers’ Manual, 1967, from War Resisters League Records
5. “Vietnam Summer,” Christian Century, May 24, 1967, from War Resisters League Records
6. Photograph at protest, from the Séamas Cain Papers
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Drawer H
Items in this drawer are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
1. The Nation, April 16, 2012
2. “Yippie Panther Pact,” Berkeley Barb, October 4–10, 1968
3. “Come to Detroit on Election Day,” Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) flyer, 1964
4. “An Introduction,” SDS pamphlet, 1968
5. “Resolution on SNCC,” National Council of SDS, June 18, 1966
6. “White Kids and Black Power,” SDS leaflet, 1966
7. “Bring the War Home!”, SDS leaflet, 1969
8. SDS leaflet
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Drawer I
Items in this drawer are from the Chuck Ream Papers, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
1. Michigan Daily, February 1, 1970
2. Michigan Daily, May 6, 1971
3. May Day Tactical Manual, May Day Collective, 1971
4. Tear sheets, Newsweek, May 17, 1971
5. May Day 1971 Order Without Law, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 1972
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Drawer J
Disarming the Black Panthers
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966 in Oakland, California, to protect residents in Black neighborhoods from police harassment and brutality. Newton’s extensive knowledge of the law informed the group’s strategies. California was an open-carry state, meaning it is legal to openly carry loaded firearms, and Panthers carried loaded guns while monitoring police activity and alerting citizens of their legal rights. In May 1967, thirty armed Panthers marched into the California State Capitol to protest a gun control bill introduced by Assemblyman Don Mulford, which was aimed at disarming their patrols. The event generated significant national media coverage. The police, politicians, segments of the public, and the FBI were alarmed at the public display of armed Black men. The 1967 Mulford Act prohibiting carrying loaded firearms in public without a permit was rapidly passed and signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan and remains in effect to this day.
Except where noted, items in this drawer are from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
DRAWER J
1. The Black Panther, September 7, 1968
2. The Black Panthers Speak: The Manifesto of the Party, 1970
3. “Panthers Cry Foul, Blast FBI Raiders,” Chicago Daily Defender, June 5, 1969
4. “The Draft—Who Beats It and How”, Life, December 9, 1969
5. FBI file on Paul Potter, from the Paul Potter Papers
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B: Balcony Walls
Posters along the balcony walls courtesy the University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
[Left to right, South > West > North]
South balcony wall
1. “My train never jumped the track, and I never lost a passenger”— Harriet Tubman, Organization for the Equal Education of the Sexes, 1989
2. You are the spark that started our freedom movement. Thank you sister Rosa Parks, Donnelly/Colt
3. Come let us build a new world together, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), photograph by Danny Lyon, 1963
4. One Man One Vote, SNCC, photograph by Danny Lyon, 1960–65
5. NOW, SNCC, photograph by Danny Lyon, 1960–65
6. “I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing . . . ”– Malcolm X, Black Liberation Press, Northern Sun Merchandising
7. The New Order Molotov
8. Mobilize to end the war in Vietnam, Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 1967
9. Peace and Power [Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X shaking hands], United Brothers and Sisters Communication Systems, 1990
10. Huey P. Newton, Minister of Defense, Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, composition by Eldridge Cleaver, photograph by Blair Stapp, 1968
11. The Five Chicago Anarchists, Solidarity Bookshop, 1968
12. Chicago 8 [Bullseye on face of Richard J. Daley], 1969
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West balcony wall
13. You can’t jail the revolution. Stop the Trial. Free the Chicago 8, 1969
14. Fred Hampton, Northland Poster Collective, 1999
15. Stop the Bombing!
16. Q. And babies? A. And babies., Art Workers’ Coalition, 1970
Q. And babies? A. And babies. publicized Ron Haeberle’s photograph of women, children, and babies murdered by the U.S. army in Mỹ Lai, Vietnam, taken on March 16, 1968. The text overlay is from the New York Times transcript of an interview by CBS TV news reporter Mike Wallace with soldier Paul Meadlo, who participated in the massacre. The interview was broadcast on November 24, 1969, two weeks after the Mỹ Lai massacre was initially exposed to the public.
The Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC) was a New York City-based group of artists and critics founded in 1969 to demand museum and art industry reforms. Arthur Drexler, director of the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) Department of Architecture and Design, agreed to collaborate with AWC to sponsor, produce, and distribute a poster protesting U.S. military policies and atrocities in Vietnam. Jon Hendricks, Irving Petlin, and Frazier Dougherty led the effort for AWC. When the mockup was finished, Drexler showed it to MoMA’s president, Bill Paley, who was the founder and head of CBS. Paley adamantly objected to MoMA’s involvement, and Drexler reneged on his promise.
Nonetheless, the AWC printed fifty thousand copies that they distributed for free to organizations and wheatpasted throughout the city. The poster was published in many newspapers and television broadcasts and carried in demonstrations around the world.
17. GIs united against the war. Ft. Jackson. Fighting men., GI Civil Liberties Defense Committee, 1969
18. International Day of Solidarity with the People and Students of Cambodia, International Union of Students, 1979
19. Is he protecting you? Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), photograph by Danny Lyon, 1964
20. Vietnam Week of Solidarity, Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAALA), 1970
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North balcony wall
21. “If I am guilty…”– Walter Collins, Southern Conference Educational Fund, 1970
22. All his parents’ love and devotion did not save the life of this boy, Berkeley Political Protest Poster Workshop, 1970
23. Harrisburg Seven /“life” [with quotation from Corita Kent], 1971
24. End the Air War, People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice, 1970
25. Jornada contra la penetración imperialista en las universidades, Organización Continental Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Estudiantes (OCLAE), 1975
26. La unión antimperialista es la táctica y la estrategia de la Victoria, OCLAE, 1973
27. “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system”– Dorothy Day, WIN Peace and Freedom through Nonviolent Action
28. Four Years Later . . . Kent State May 4, Kent State Indochina Peace Campaign, Kent Student Union, 1974
29. Join the New Action Army—Demonstrate with GI’s Bring the Troops Home Now, Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 1971
30. Your tax dollars at work? Don’t pay!, War Resisters League
31. Refuse to Register — No Registrar — Conscripción No
32. The Beginning Is Near: Occupy Wall Street, Just Seeds, 2011
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C: West Wall
C1
Gordon Parks
Emerging Man, Harlem, New York
1952
Photograph on paper
Museum purchase made possible by the University of Michigan Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Director’s Acquisition Committee, 2019, 2019/2.51
In 1948, Life magazine hired Gordon Parks, making him the first Black staff photographer at a major magazine, a position he held until 1972. In 1952, Parks collaborated with his friend Ralph Ellison on the Life feature “A Man Becomes Invisible” to promote Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man (1952). They staged photographs to illustrate key scenes, including a person emerging from a manhole in the historically Black Harlem neighborhood of New York City, symbolizing Ellison’s protagonist ending his hibernation.
C2
George Nelson
2213 (Asterisk)
1948–58
Satin brass finish dial with black hands
Gift of Dr. Seymour and Barbara K. Adelson, 2015/2.9
C3
Danny Lyon
John Lewis in Cairo, from “Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement”
1962–2010
Gelatin silver print on paper
Gift of Thomas Wilson ‘79 and Jill Garling ‘80, 2014/2.319
In the summer of 1962, Freedom Rider John Lewis and other members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), founded in 1960 to challenge segregation using nonviolent direct action, joined local activists organizing peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins at swimming pools, restaurants, and other public places in segregated Cairo, Illinois. They faced intimidation and violent resistance from white residents and local officials.
The civil rights movement deeply engaged Danny Lyon, SNCC’s first official photographer. Lyon’s images of nonviolent resistance were used in SNCC brochures, publications, and posters and brought national attention to the movement. Lyon moved to Atlanta in 1963 to work full-time for SNCC. There, he became roommates with Lewis, who was then serving as the organization’s chair.
C4
Edward (Robbie) Roberson
Tired Marchers Sleep on the Streets— “We were tired, we were tired.” Selma, Alabama
1963, printed 2000
Inkjet print on paper
Gift of Detroit Focus 2000, and partial purchase with funds from the Jean Paul Slusser Memorial Fund, 2003/2.69.28
C5
“The Savage Season Begins,” Life, March 19, 1965
C6
Robert Indiana
Mississippi, from The Confederacy
1971
Color screenprint on paper
Gift of the Marvin Felheim Collection, 1983/1.321.1
Robert Indiana’s Mississippi links white violence against civil rights workers in the South to the Civil War and its legacy. This print is based on one of his Confederacy paintings, which, at their bullseye, feature a map of a southern state that seceded from the Union to preserve slavery and plantation agriculture after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. Mississippi was made in response to the 1964 Freedom Summer project, when civil rights organizations and activists entering the South to register Black voters were met with racist violence. The stars represent sites of racial violence, including the abduction and murder of James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner by Ku Klux Klan members. In 1966, Indiana reflected: “I can’t wake up in the morning and see a newspaper or listen to a radio without becoming perhaps ill at the news that comes through. I am sensitive to this and it’s part of my painting.”
C7
Roy Lichtenstein
Finger Pointing
1973
Screenprint on wove paper
Gift of Mr. Robert Rauschenberg, 1976/2.118
C8
Corita Kent
my people
1965
Serigraph
Collection of Julie Ault
Corita Kent’s my people marked a turn toward overt political engagement in her work. The print incorporates a Los Angeles Times article blaming the Black community for the violent conflicts in the city’s Watts neighborhood in August 1965. The Watts rebellion was ignited by longstanding anger and frustration over frequent instances of police brutality, poverty, and lack of infrastructure. The six-day conflict led to thirty-four deaths, thousands of injuries and arrests, and extensive property damage. Kent inverted the news clipping and countered it with a quotation from Father Maurice F. Ouellet, a white civil rights activist who had marched with John Lewis in protest of the racist structures that prevented Black people from voting in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.
C9
Robert Indiana
Number 5, from Numbers
1968
Screenprint on paper
Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry, 1970/2.161
C10
Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival)
Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary—Satan
1986
Black gesso on book pages mounted on linen
Collection of Julie Ault
This painting was created collaboratively by Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival), founded in 1982. Their starting point for making art typically entails reading books together to relate to the ideas they encounter and consider their meanings in relationship to their lived experiences. They then disassemble the book and reassemble it as a grid affixed to canvas. The literary field is the background on which they imagine and paint. This work is created from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965, soon after Malcolm X, who fought for Black independence, power, pride, and self-defense “by any means necessary” was assassinated. The group used the pages of Chapter 10 as the foundation upon which to render a bold and strong emblem to signify the influential leader.
After Rollins’ death in 2017, K.O.S. has been helmed by long-term members Angel Abreu, Nelson Ricardo Savinon, Robert Branch, and Jorge Abreu.
C11
Félix González-Torres
“Untitled” (March 5th) #2
1991
40-watt light bulbs, extension cords, porcelain light sockets
Museum purchase made possible by the W. Hawkins Ferry Fund, 1999/2.17
Back to exhibition diagram ↑
C12 – Wall Case
Nurturing civil rights leaders at the Highlander Folk School
Educator Myles Horton cofounded the Highlander Folk School in 1932 as a social justice and leadership training school in segregated rural Tennessee. Its purpose was to create an educational setting for marginalized people to come together to address sociopolitical problems in their communities and develop methods to bring about effective solutions.
Highlander initially concentrated on educating impoverished Appalachian white people and organizing for the labor movement. In the early 1950s, it shifted focus to racial integration and leadership for the burgeoning civil rights movement in the South. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Lewis, among others, participated in Highlander programs. The school provided meeting space for the student leaders of the sit-in movement, which was instrumental in desegregating lunch counters and public facilities in the South in the 1960s. Highlander’s director of workshops and teacher, Septima Clark, developed the idea of citizenship schools to provide Black citizens with the literacy skills and civic education necessary to vote in the South before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, thereby empowering tens of thousands of voters.
In 1961, Tennessee, which was hostile to Highlander and its civil rights activity, closed the school on a technicality and seized its property. Days later, the school relocated and reopened as the Highlander Research and Education Center.
Martin Luther King, Jr. billboards
Billboards and flyers featuring an image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Highlander Folk School, which opponents of civil rights denounced as a “Communist training school,” were distributed by the Georgia Education Commission in 1957. During the Cold War, segregationists sought to discredit the civil rights movement by associating it with communism. The John Birch Society and its Truth About Civil Turmoil (TACT) committees promoted the idea that King was communist.
In 1965, billboards were situated on the route from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, where civil rights workers marched protesting discrimination in voter rolls.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1960 by students inspired by the Greensboro, North Carolina, sit-in movement that challenged white-only lunch counters and public places to provide equal access. This ultimately brought about desegregation in many businesses. Civil rights strategist Ella Baker, who along with Martin Luther King, Jr. and others founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), organized the gathering that resulted in establishing the SNCC.
The SNCC was a driving force for Black freedom and civil rights movements in the South, including in Albany, Georgia, from 1961 to 1962 and in Americus, Georgia, between 1963 and 1965. (See print Drawer F for Americus material.) With the support of a coalition of national civil rights groups, including the SCLC and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), the SNCC worked with the Sumter County Movement in Americus, local groups, churches, leaders, and citizens to challenge segregation and motivate Black voter registration.
In Albany, the demonstrators’ peaceful sit-ins, boycotts, and marches were met with mass arrests to quickly jail protesters and maintain a façade of “order.” Police Chief Laurie Pritchett’s strategy of refraining from public brutality to minimize negative press was initially effective, prolonging the confrontation. Martin Luther King, Jr. was invited to get national visibility and uplift the movement. He was one of hundreds jailed for petty infractions like “obstructing the sidewalk.”
Unless otherwise noted, items in this case are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
C12 – WALL CASE
1. “Mrs. Rosa Parks Reports on Montgomery, Ala., Bus Protest,” 1956, Highlander Folk School
2. Billboard depicting Martin Luther King, Jr. at Highlander Folk School, labeled a “Communist training school,” Bob Fitch, 1966. Bob Fitch photography archive, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California
3. Myles Horton (right) with Rosa Parks and labor leader Ralph Helstein, 1957 (facsimile)
4. Highlander Report, October 1, 1956– September 30, 1958
5. “Dear Friends” letter from Myles Horton, 1961
6. Newspaper clippings related to the Albany Movement, 1961, from the Tom Hayden Civil Rights Papers (facsimiles)
7. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) news releases, 1961–62, from the Tom Hayden Civil Rights Papers (facsimiles)
Back to exhibition diagram ↑
C13 – Wall Case
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a pivotal New Left organization, was formed in 1960 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with founders Alan Haber, the group’s first president, and Tom Hayden. Hayden and others teamed up with the SNCC and Freedom Riders in the early 1960s. Hayden largely penned the 1963 Port Huron Statement, SDS’s manifesto, which championed participatory democracy, racial equality, and opposition to the American intervention in Vietnam. SDS grew nationally, organizing campus activism, and protests like the 1965 March on Washington and the 1968 Columbia University occupation. Internal debates over radical reform versus revolution led to its 1969 collapse and fragmentation, with the Weather Underground emerging as a violent offshoot.
Items in this case are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
C13 – WALL CASE
1. “Draft Paper for S.D.S. Manifesto,” 1962, from the Tom Hayden Papers
2. The Port Huron Statement, SDS
3. SDS Bulletin, May 1964, from the Barbara Murphy Papers
4. March on Washington leaflet, 1963, from the Barbara Murphy Papers
5. Working Papers for Conference on Community Movements and Economic Issues, 1964, from the Barbara Murphy Papers
6. SDS Bulletin, January 1965, from the Barbara Murphy Papers
7. “All our sons in Vietnam are POWs” stickers, Another Mother for Peace, from the Barbara Murphy Papers
8. SDS membership form, from the Barbara Murphy Papers
9. SDS leaflet, from the Barbara Murphy Papers
10. SDS membership card
11. “A Call to All Students,” SDS circular
12. SDS booklet, Paul Potter speech given at the 1965 March on Washington to End the Vietnam War, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert papers
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D: Research Table
The archival material in this exhibition is but the tip of the iceberg that is U-M’s Joseph A. Labadie Collection of holdings relating to social protest, radical politics, and civil liberties movements. American Sampler offers an invitation to further explore the Labadie collection, which is open to visitors and researchers by appointment.
This table serves as another research hub; many of the archival items on display have multiple pages, and some are reproduced in full within the table’s binder. The Detroit Uprising Scrapbook’s display in the vitrine will change periodically, with complete scans available on the dedicated iPad. The Reverend Philip Berrigan Scrapbook, too fragile for physical presentation, is also on this dedicated iPad, alongside facsimile publications.
iPad
1. Reverend Philip Berrigan Scrapbook, Gift of Valice F. Ruge, 1997, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
2. Detroit Uprising Scrapbook, contains clippings from local newspapers from 1967 to 1985, source unknown, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
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E: North Wall
E1
Ben Patterson
I know of 16 official US spy agancies (sic). How many more do you think are hidden down really deep?
2012
Ink on paper, sticker on plexiglass, within frame
Gift of the artist, 2012/2.110.16
E2 – Video Program
Black Panthers
Agnès Varda
1968
28 min.
French filmmaker Agnès Varda made this concise, beautifully shot documentary in Oakland, California, in the summer of 1968. Black Panthers focuses on the group’s ideals, gatherings, and milieu and includes interviews with minister of defense Huey Newton and communications secretary Kathleen Cleaver; informal talks at “Free Huey” protests; addresses by Black Power leader Stokely Carmichael, the Panthers’ chairman Bobby Seale, and minister of information Eldridge Cleaver.
Catonsville 9 Draft Board Action
Patrick McGrath
1968
9:17 min.
During the American war in Vietnam, religious and humanist beliefs led Catholic antiwar activists to engage in over a hundred raids on draft boards. In 1968, the Catonsville Nine, composed of laypeople and priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan, removed draft files from the Catonsville, Maryland, selective service office. Using a recipe from a United States Special Forces handbook, they burned them with homemade napalm—a chemical weapon used extensively by the United States against military targets with devastating consequence for civilians. They prayed and spoke to the press in front of the burning files until the police arrived and arrested them. WBAL-TV Baltimore reporter Pat McGrath filmed the event, but the station did not air the footage, and McGrath was forced to turn the film over to the U.S. Attorney’s office. He later retrieved it from the court and shared it with activists and documentary filmmakers.
The Catonsville Nine inspired dozens of similar actions, including by the Milwaukee 14, also in 1968, the Minnesota 8 in 1970, and the Camden 28 in 1971 (and the Media, Pennsylvania, FBI office burglary). This campaign of civil disobedience had practical and symbolic intent, received a great deal of media attention, and sparked widespread public debate. A scrapbook devoted to Reverend Philip Berrigan, courtesy of the Labadie, has been digitized and is viewable on the iPad on the table.
Sir! No Sir!The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War in Vietnam
David Zeiger
2005
Excerpt 00:00–24:53
David Zeiger’s award-winning feature documentary charts the history of the antiwar movement among U.S. soldiers, known as the G.I. movement against the American War in Vietnam. Using archival footage and interviews with soldiers, veterans, and women involved in the war, Zeiger traces the coalition’s evolution from barracks and battlefields to the establishment of G.I. coffeehouses and antiwar publications. The grassroots movement undermined military effectiveness and public support for the war, having significant influence on U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. The G.I. movement was suppressed, and its history has been downplayed and omitted from mainstream and governmental historical representation.
Sir! No Sir! will be screened in the film series accompanying this exhibition. Date to be announced.
Dewey Canyon III
Newsreel Films
1971
3:27 min.
During the week-long protest called Dewey Canyon III, organized by VVAW, veterans staged guerilla theater events and sit-ins, lobbied Congress, marched to Arlington Cemetery where they were initially denied entry, and camped near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to publicly register their fury over U.S. military policies and atrocities in Vietnam. The Nixon administration obtained injunctions to prevent the demonstrations, including a desist camping order from the Supreme Court, which the veterans defied in favor of civil disobedience. During the week, veterans were harassed and attacked, and some were arrested for sitting on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
What was planned as a simple “medal turn-in” became a “raging demonstration of anger” lasting three hours on the final day of the campaign. Over 800 vets lined up in front of the Capitol and, one after another, stepped up to express their anger about the war, hurling their medals, ribbons, Purple Hearts, and discharge papers toward the building steps that, to them, symbolized dishonor and inhumanity. A hastily erected fence had been mounted the night before to prevent protesters from reaching the Capitol steps.
E3
Elizabeth Catlett
Malcolm X Speaks for Us
1969
Linoleum cut on paper
Gift of Elizabeth Catlett, 2006/1.96
E4
Danny Lyon
Clifford Vaughs, another SNCC photographer, is arrested by the National Guard
1964
Gelatin silver print on paper
Gift of Thomas Wilson ‘79 and Jill Garling ‘80, 2016/2.456
E5
Garry Winogrand
New York City
1970
Gelatin silver print on paper
Gift of Stanley T. Lesser, A.B. 1951, J.D. 1953, 1981/2.65.5
E6
Robert Indiana
Number 6, from Numbers
1968
Screenprint on paper
Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry, 1972/2.376
E7
Faith Ringgold
United States of Attica
1971
Offset lithograph
Exhibition print
E8
Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith, Temple University Press, 2007
Track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos were members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights against racism in sports, advocating for civil rights and for Muhammad Ali’s world heavyweight title to be restored. Ali’s boxer title was rescinded in 1967 when he refused induction into the U.S. Army, asking, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?”
At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Smith won the gold medal and Carlos won the bronze in the 200-meter sprint. At the medal ceremony, Smith and Carlos appeared shoeless, wearing black socks to represent poverty. They lowered their heads during the U.S. national anthem and raised their black-gloved fists in the Black Power salute, drawing attention worldwide.
E9
Jacob Lawrence
Champions
1953
Tempera over black colored pencil on wood board
Gift of Dr. James and Vivian Curtis, 1997/1.530
Muhammad Ali: Conscientious Objector
In 1967, world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army to fight in Vietnam, citing his religious convictions and his belief that the war was unjust. As a Black man, he refused to fight overseas on behalf of a country that denied Black people equality and human rights at home. Ali was immediately stripped of his boxing title and banned from the sport. He was subsequently convicted by an all-white jury of draft evasion, resulting in a $10,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence—the maximum for the offense. He was free on bail throughout the appeals process. After a four-year legal battle, the Supreme Court voted 8–0 to overturn the conviction because the Selective Service neglected to inform Ali of any reason for denying his Conscientious Objector status.
E10
“Tragedy at Kent: Cambodia and Dissent: The Crisis of Presidential Leadership,” Life, May 15, 1970
E11
Félix González-Torres
Untitled
1989
C-print in plastic bag
Collection of Julie Ault
E12
Robert Indiana
Number 7, from Numbers
1968
Screenprint on paper
Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry, 1970/2.162
E13
Michael Jenkins and Andres Serrano
Wrapped Blood
1989
Plexiglass, plywood, canvas
Collection of Julie Ault
E14
Corita Kent
stop the bombing
1967
Serigraph
Collection of Julie Ault
“I admire people who march. I admire people who go to jail. I don’t have the guts to do that. So, I do what I can,” declared Corita Kent in 1967 as she turned her attention to racism, poverty, and the American war in Vietnam. This print reproduces the poem Stop the bombing by Gerald Huckaby, which begins: “I am in Vietnam—who will console me? I am terrified of bombs, of cold wet leaves and bamboo splinters in my feet, of a bullet cracking through the trees, across the world, killing me . . .” Kent superimposes “stop the bombing” across a red, white, and blue color field, the words unfurling as if falling from the sky.
E15
Robert Indiana
Number 8, from Numbers
1968
Screenprint on paper
Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry, 1970/2.163
E16
Carrie Mae Weems
Jim, if … you choose to accept, the mission is to land on your own two feet
1998–99
Silver gelatin print
Collection of Julie Ault
E17
Statement: The Boston Eight, 1969
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E18 – Wall Case
Items in this case are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
1. “The Words of Malcolm X on the 1963 March on Washington,” Ray O. Light, 1983
2. “Murder of Malcolm X a Cruel Blow to the Cause of Black Emancipation,” The Militant, March 1, 1965 (facsimile)
3. Black Panther identification card
4. An Introduction to the Black Panther Party, Young Lords Organization, Young Patriots Organization pamphlet, 1966
5. “The Panther Is Here,” flyer
6. “Panthers, Peace and Freedomites Urge No Police for Negro Area,” Oakland Post, April 17, 1968, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
7. Photograph of Black Panthers at Huey Newton’s trial, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
8. “The Who and Why of Huey Newton,” Los Angeles Times, April 1, 1968, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
9. Freedom Rally flyer, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
Back to exhibition diagram ↑
E19 – Wall Case
1968 Democratic National Convention and the Prosecution of the Chicago Eight
Amid rising public disillusion with the war, the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE) and the Youth International Party (Yippies) called for large-scale protests in August 1968 to coincide with the Democratic National Convention (DNC) to be held in Chicago, Illinois. Mayor Richard Daley’s administration denied permit requests for marches and the use of public parks and produced a heavily militarized situation. The protestors had no official authorization to gather and camp. Crowds estimated between 7,000 and 10,000 people encountered nearly 20,000 police, federal agents, and National Guardsmen. Violent clashes occurred, particularly when authorities enforced an 11 p.m. curfew using tear gas, mace, and billy clubs on those assembled in Lincoln and Grant Parks.
The day that Hubert Humphrey, who was a strong supporter of U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam, won the party’s nomination over antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy, demonstrators marching to the convention center were confronted by a line of police that brutally beat protesters and bystanders. The violence was broadcast on television nationwide, while demonstrators chanted, “The whole world is watching.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration ordered a federal investigation resulting in the Walker Report. Titled “Rights in Conflict,” the inquiry officially concluded that the violence was not caused by protesters but was a “police riot” encouraged by police commanders, city officials, and the Daley administration. It noted, “Police violence was often inflicted upon persons who had broken no law, disobeyed no order, or made no threat, including bystanders, journalists, and doctors offering aid.”
Regardless, Mayor Daley and the city officially accused activist leaders of the violence, leading to a grand jury indictment of a group of activists that came to be known as the Chicago Eight, which included David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale. The trial, presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman, began over a year after the convention. Seale’s case was declared a mistrial after Judge Hoffman controversially ordered him bound and gagged in the courtroom for making objections. In February 1970, the jury acquitted the Chicago Seven of conspiracy and found five defendants guilty of incitement to riot. Those convictions were reversed on appeal in 1972.
Items in this case are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
E19 – WALL CASE
1. “Yippie! Chicago Aug 25–30” poster, Festival of Life at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
2. “Chicago Itself” handout, 1968
3. “Stop the Trial Conspiracy 8” flyer, 1969
4. “Conspiracy!” pamphlet, The Committee to Defend the Conspiracy, 1969
5. “Set Bobby Free” flyer, 1969
6. “Death of a Radical Abbie Hoffman, 1936–1989,” People, May 1, 1989, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
7. Photograph of Abbie Hoffman in doorway and Stew Albert on floor, right, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert papers
8. “A Troubled Rebel Chooses A Silent Death,” People, May 1, 1989, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
Back to exhibition diagram ↑
E20 – Wall Case
Items in this case are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
1. Black Panther Party (BPP) National Headquarters circular, August 28, 1969
2. “Toman’s Hampton Autopsy Hit,” Chicago Daily News, December 8, 1969, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
3. “Here and Now for Bobby Seale,” Jean Genet, 1970
4. Photograph at “Free Huey” protest, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
5. “It’s the Same War” circular
6. “What’s Ahead for Black Panther Party,” Jet, January 15, 1970, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
7. “To My Black Brothers in Vietnam” pamphlet, Eldridge Cleaver, BPP, 1970
8. “Vietnam: Who Profits? Who Pays?” flyer, 1970
9. “The Panthers and the Law,” Newsweek, February 23, 1970
Back to exhibition diagram ↑
F: Cafe Wall
Corita Kent
now you can
1966
Serigraph
Collection of Julie Ault
Corita Kent, Heroes and Sheroes, 1968–69
For her Heroes and Sheroes series, Corita Kent commented on the sociopolitical landscape by weaving together documentary material, such as newspaper clippings and images from Life and Newsweek magazines (which she considered “contemporary manuals of contemplation”) and textual fragments from media and literature. She made the prints in 1968 and 1969, a period of escalated political turmoil that included the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy; the election of Richard Nixon; the police riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the subsequent trial of the Chicago 8; the highest number of American casualties in Vietnam; the passage of the Civil Rights Act; and the exposure to the public of the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians by American soldiers in Mỹ Lai.
All the prints on display are from the collection of Julie Ault.
[Left to right]
moonflowers
1969
Serigraph
the cry that will be heard
1969
Serigraph
the cry that will be heard incorporates a photograph by Gordon Parks from his 1968 Life magazine cover story about a Harlem family living in poverty and handwritten lyrics to the song Give a Damn by the band Spanky and Our Gang.
if i
1969
Serigraph
Both if i and love your brother honor the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. if i includes a photograph of Coretta Scott King at her husband’s funeral in 1968, alongside her words and a text by philosopher Alan Watts. love your brother incorporates news photographs following King’s arrest in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 for participating in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation. One is captioned “Dr. King stares through the rain-spattered window of a police car after his arrest in Birmingham” and the other “Dr. King’s wife shared his triumph when he learned that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.”
phil and dan
1969
Serigraph
phil and dan highlights a news photograph of Fathers Philip and Daniel Berrigan burning draft records at a Selective Service office in Catonsville, Maryland, on May 17, 1968, to protest U.S. military actions in Vietnam. The Berrigans were arrested along with seven lay peace activists, together called the Catonsville Nine. They were all convicted of destroying government property and interfering with the Selective Service System. Sentenced to three years, Father Daniel Berrigan went underground. He was captured by the FBI in August 1970. Father Philip Berrigan went into hiding but was quickly apprehended. He became the first Catholic priest in U.S. history to serve a prison sentence as a political prisoner.
manflowers
1969
Serigraph
love your brother
1969
Serigraph
news of the week
1969
Serigraph
news of the week includes reproductions of Newsweek and Life covers from 1965.
Back to exhibition diagram ↑
G: Vertical Wall
G1
Artist unknown
Amish, early 20th century
Quilt in the Sunshine and Shadow pattern
1900–25
Cotton
Gift of James and Jennifer Crimmins in honor of Courtney Crimmins,
2000/2.323
G2
Artist unknown
Amish, early 20th century
Quilt in the Drunkard’s Path pattern
1900–1925 Cotton and wool
Gift of James and Jennifer Crimmins in honor of Courtney Crimmins,
2000/2.324
G3
Michael Jenkins
June 30, 1986
1988
Acrylic on paper
Collection of Julie Ault
Michael Jenkins’s interpretation of a U.S. flag omits the stars to signify the exclusion from the U.S. Constitution of privacy rights for homosexuals as upheld by the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick. In 1982, Michael Hardwick was arrested in Georgia for violating the state’s sodomy law by engaging in consensual sex with another adult man in his own bedroom. Hardwick challenged the law’s constitutionality, but on June 30, 1986, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, upheld the statute. The ruling galvanized gay rights demonstrations and spurred the creation of new activist organizations. Justice Lewis Powell cast the deciding vote; after his retirement, he admitted, “I think I probably made a mistake in that one.” The decision stood until Lawrence v. Texas (2003), when the Court struck down sodomy laws nationwide.
G4
Robert Indiana
Love
1967
Color lithograph on paper
Gift of David L. Chambers and John G. Crane, 2002/1.234
G5
Andres Serrano
St. Michael’s Blood, Parts I & II
1990
Cibachrome, silicone, plexiglass
Collection of Julie Ault
G6
Hana Hamplová
Uncertain Path to Harmony, Part 1–3
1997
Color photograph on backing board
Gift of Martha and Dady Mehta, 2015/1.383A–C
G7
Danh Võ
Chachug Nareekarn
2011
Gold leaf on cardboard, 698 grams
Collection of Julie Ault
Danh Võ’s work often embodies material, aesthetic, and historical contrasts. While spending time in Bangkok, Võ noticed cardboard and boxes with U.S. brands on them throughout the city. In this series, these became the ground for painting in gold leaf, a centuries-long tradition in Thailand that includes temple architecture. Võ drew the 1777 flag representing the thirteen colonies that comprised the United States of America on the back of the cardboard and invited Thai artisans to gild the stars and stripes. He chose the early version of the U.S. flag as a reminder of the domestic focus of the nation’s pre-expansionist stage—an era long before the U.S. began exporting its commercial brands and exerting its influence globally on cultural identity.
G8
Paul Rand
Minuteman
1974
Offset lithograph on paper
Gift of Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo and Maria Phillips, 2016/2.214
G9
James Montgomery Flagg
Will You Have a Part in Victory?
ca. 1918
Color lithograph on paper
Gift of Mr. Maurice F. Lyons, 1954/2.35.39
G10
James Montgomery Flagg
I Want You for U.S. Army – Nearest Recruiting Station
1917
Color lithograph on paper
Transfer from the William L. Clements Library, 1974/2.17
G11
Robert Indiana
Number 9, from Numbers
1968
Screenprint on paper
Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry, 1970/2.164
G12
Corita Kent
ha
1966
Serigraph
Collection of Julie Ault
G13
Tyree Guyton
Untitled (Paint Cans)
1988–89
Paint cans, wooden crate, American flag, rearview mirror, and telephone receiver
Gift of H. David Zucca, 2013/2.310
G14
James Benning
After Howard
2013
House paint on plywood
Collection of Julie Ault
Filmmaker James Benning taught himself to paint in the early 2000s by copying works of the artists he most admired. One of these was Jesse Howard, a self-taught Missouri artist who made scores of hand-lettered signs expressing his religious, political, and philosophical beliefs and critical views of local leaders. Found materials, including salvaged metal, scrap wood, and hubcaps, were the platform he emblazoned with his observations and commentary. Howard mounted his signs all around the Missouri homestead that he dubbed “Sorehead Hill.” When his signs were vandalized, he made more, leading to more vandalism and still more signage. As Howard’s property grew increasingly dense, neighbors were incensed and regarded it as an eyesore, even circulating a petition to have him committed.
G15
Nancy Spero
Reconnaissance By Fire
1974
Handprinting and gouache collage on paper
Courtesy of Galerie Lelong
G16
“Deeper Into The Vietnam War,” Life, 1965
G17
“Catonsville 9 Get Jail Terms: Sentences Run From 2 to 3 1/2 Years,” The Evening Sun, Friday, November 8. 1969
G18
“Berrigan: An Overdue Parole,” Detroit Free Press, December 2, 1972 (facsimile)
G19
The Fire This Time, The Catonsville Roadrunner
G20
Nancy Spero
Pacification F111, from The War Series
1968
Gouache and ink on paper
Courtesy of Galerie Lelong
Politicized from seeing U.S. military atrocities in the Vietnam War unfold on the nightly news, Nancy Spero experienced “an absolute loss of faith, a great disappointment in the American system.” In 1966, she conceived her War Series as urgent visual manifestos on the obscenity of war, noting, “As horrified as people were at this work, reality was much worse.” In this series, Spero abandoned her primary medium of canvas, choosing to work exclusively on paper. She described the shift as “intentionally subversive . . . a personal rebellion against the art world, the male establishment . . . male dominance, male wars, males as perpetrators.”
G21
Gordon Parks
American Gothic, Washington, D.C.
1942
Gelatin silver on paper
Museum purchase made possible by the University of Michigan Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Director’s Acquisition Committee, 2019, 2019/2.50
Celebrated Farm Security Administration (FSA) and freelance photographer Gordon Parks went to Washington, D.C., in 1942 on behalf of the Farm Security Administration. There he personally encountered “rampant racism” and met government worker Ella Watson. Parks befriended Watson and photographed her, her family, and her community over four months. Watson became the subject of his iconic American Gothic.
Back to exhibition diagram ↑
G22 – Wall Case
Items in this case are from University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center), Joseph A. Labadie Collection
1. “Free Dr. Howard Levy” flyer, 1967
2. “Uncle Sam” flyer, from War Resisters League Records
3. Photograph at Berkeley student protest, from the Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo Albert Papers
4. “Presidio Stockade Oct. 14, 1968” flyer
5. “National GI Week” brochure, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
6. “Free Billy Smith” flyer
7. The Fatigue Press, Oleo Strut Coffeehouse newsletter
8. “Are Soldiers Citizens?” pamphlet, GIs Civil Liberties Defense Committee
9. “A Message from . . . Phil Berrigan, George Smith, Angela Davis” circular, 1972
10. “Winter Soldier ‘71” flyer
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H: Alcove
H1
Roni Horn
Key and Cue No. 1182 (Remembrance has a rear and front)
1994
Cast plastic and aluminum
Gift of Joan Binkow, 2009/1.470
H2
Romare Bearden
Now the Dove and the Leopard Wrestle
1946
Oil on canvas
Transfer from the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, gift of Clarence Wolf, February 1997, 2012/1.225
H3
Corita Kent
let’s talk
1966
Serigraph
Collection of Julie Ault
H4
Donald Moffett
Wolf
1989–97
Iris print
Collection of Julie Ault
H5 – Videos
FBI burglary
In 1971, a group of antiwar activists suspected the FBI was infiltrating the domestic antiwar and civil rights movements to suppress citizens’ rights to political dissent. The self-named Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1971, stealing over 1,000 classified documents in hopes of finding incriminating evidence. They did.
Copies of classified documents were sent to several congressmen and newspaper journalists, but most news outlets initially refused to publish the information, and many recipients returned them to the FBI. However, on March 24, 1971, the Washington Post printed some of the papers in a front-page article, sparking a wave of news outlets to follow suit.
The documents revealed for the first time the FBI’s covert and often illegal COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) that director J. Edgar Hoover had initiated. COINTELPRO sought “to disrupt, discredit, and neutralize” civil rights, student, Black Power, counterculture, and antiwar leaders and organizations, and it was officially dismantled shortly after its operations were exposed to the public. Nonetheless, similar FBI activities continued into 1974, with no centralized program or title. Growing objections prompted congressional investigations in 1975, including the congressional committee chaired by Senator Frank Church that probed the practices of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and IRS. The Church Committee’s 1976 final report gave a comprehensive public record of intelligence abuses and recommended reforms and increased oversight.
Despite an aggressive FBI investigation, the Media office burglars were never caught. Most only revealed their identities decades later, after the statute of limitations expired, to coincide with the 2014 publication of The Burglary, a book by Betty Medsger, the former Washington Post reporter who first covered the leak.
Stealing J. Edgar Hoover’s Secrets
Retro Report
January 7, 2014
13:30 min.
Monument Avenue and the Lost Cause: A conversation on Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia, July 2021
Dr. Sarah Beetham and Dr. Steven Zucker, Smart History Center for Public Art History
6:26 min.
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SUPPORT
Lead support for this exhibition is provided by Joseph and Annette Allen, Nicole and Matthew Lester, Erica Gervais Pappendick and Ted Pappendick, Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Barbara Timmer, Susan and Richard Gutow, U-M Arts Initiative, U-M Institute for the Humanities, the Mary L. Wolter Welz Fund, and the Marvin H. and Mary M. Davidson Endowed Fund. Additional generous support is provided by U-M CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, U-M National Center for Institutional Diversity, Inclusive History Project, U-M Department of History, and U-M Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies.
