Druzina Za Svobodu

Category
Additional Images
Sub Categories
Text on Button Druzina Za Svobodu
Image Description

Black and white photographs of two men's head and shoulders with a blue ribbon like banner at the top with white text on a white background with an outer red edge

Curl Text CZECH
Back Style
The Shape
The Size
Additional Information

Družina Za Svobodu roughly translates to “an alliance for freedom” in Czech and Slovak. However, this button features two American politicians: Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and his running-mate, William E. Miller. Czech- and Slovak-Americans and other immigrants from Eastern Bloc countries were often interested in candidates with a strong anti-Communist stance, and the Republican Party courted these “white ethnic” voters in the 1960s. In the 1964 campaign, Goldwater criticized his opponent, incumbent president Lyndon Baines Johnson, for giving in to communist aggression. Specifically, for tolerating the existence of a communist state (Cuba) so close to American territory.

Sources

History.com Editors. (2019). Johnson defeats Goldwater for presidency. History. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/johnson-defeats-goldwater-f…

Zake, I. (2013). Anticommunist white ethnics in search of true Americanness: Ideas and alliances in the 1950s-1970s. Journal of American Studies, 47(4), 1065-1080.

Catalog ID PO0576