Catalogue Number
NMLH.2020.164
Object Name
Badge
Title
Write in Dick Gregory
Place
USA
People
Dick Gregory; Ernest Hole
Events
US Presidential Election 1968
Date
1980
Description
Round black, red and yellow badge with black, red and yellow horizontal stripes. Across the stripes reads "Write in Dick Gregory President for Peace in '68."
This badge was created for Dick Gregory's US presidential campaign in 1968 as the Peace and Freedom Party write-in candidate, standing against racial injustice, political corruption, and the Vietnam War. A write-in candidate is a candidate whose name does not appear on the ballot but seeks election by asking voters to cast a vote for the candidate by physically writing in the person's name on the ballot, hence the badge saying "Write in Dick Gregory." He received 47,097 votes.
Throughout his life, Gregory was a Civil Rights leader, also involved in anti-apartheid, feminism, Native American rights, and animal rights movements.
This badge is in the Ernest Hole Badge Collection. Hole was co-founder of Gay's the Word LGBTQIA+ bookshop in London.
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