Hands That Pick Cotton...Now Can Pick Our Public Officials. Register and Vote!
Atlanta, GA: Voter Education Project Inc., 1970. Illustrated sepia-toned poster, 19 x 12.5 inches, on stiff glossy paper stock. Some wrinkling and creasing along edges and at corners, some bumping, minor toning. Very good overall. Item #13229
A rare political poster supporting voting rights for African Americans in Georgia in 1970. The central image of the poster was executed by Kofi Bailey (1931-1981), a notable African-American artist known for his stunning charcoal drawings. The present example is no exception, featuring one black hand reaching for heads of cotton and another hand reaching beyond the cotton to drop an electoral ballot into a ballot box. During his all-too-brief career, Bailey created artwork for MLK's Poor People's Campaign, SNCC, the H. Rap Brown Center, and others. The nature of his work is often cited as Pan-Africanism. OCLC reports just two institutional holdings of the present poster, at North Carolina-Wilmington and NYPL.
Price: $950