Navy blue button with white text. 

Congressman Sidney Yates ran for Senate in 1962 for the State of Illinois. He lost by a narrow margin to Republican Everett Dickerson, even though President Kennedy campaigned for him. He served in the House of Representatives from 1949-1963 and 1965-1999, making him one of the longest serving U.S. Congressmen. Yates was an outspoken supporter of the arts and the state of Israel and an early opponent of age discrimination.

Black text on an orange button.

Ronald Reagan was an actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild starting in 1947. In the 1960s he became a conservative Republican politician. He served as Governor of California from 1967-1975 and was elected president in 1980. This anti-Reagan button comes from the 1970s when Reagan was Governor of California. The slogan "Ronald Reagan is a Lesbian" comes from a sign used in the play Hair, which debuted on Broadway in 1968. This sign was either used in protest scenes or hung on the set with other signs to show the political and cultural turmoil of the 1960s. Hair showed the hippie and counterculture movements, which Reagan was critical of. U.C. Berkeley was an early center of the counterculture and protest movements portrayed in Hair, and Reagan was especially critical of the protest on campus in the late 1960s, when he was Governor of California.  

Black text on a yellow button.

Eugene McCarthy was a U.S. Congressman and Senator who ran for president against President Johnson in the 1968 race. He was encouraged to run by liberal antiwar activists looking for a peace candidate to run against Johnson. McCarthy had supported the Vietnam war until 1966, but agreed to run for President on a platform to end the war. His strong showing in early primaries encouraged Johnson to drop out of the race and Robert Kennedy to run. He was supported early on by many young people and antiwar activists, many of whom later left to join the Kennedy campaign. McCarthy lost to Vice President Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic Primary.  

Emerald green button with lime green text.

In the 1972 Illinois Democratic Primary, voters were required to vote for Illinois delegates, rather than for candidates. The delegates would then vote based on their constituents' preferences. However, many argued that this system (as well as influence on the part of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley who ran the Chicago political machine) did create a diverse selection of delegates. The 1972 Democratic Convention ended in controversy when delegates who had elected to support Senator George McGovern for the presidency were denied a vote. This was due to more traditional members of the party feeling that McGovern, who ran his grassroots campaign on a platform of ending the Vietnam War, did not represent the spirit of the Democratic Party. This eventually ended in the Supreme Court case of Cousins v. Wigoda, in which the Court ruled that the party had the right to refuse delegates on the grounds of the Right to Political Association.

Green text under a green pine tree on a yellow button

The Citizens' Party was formed in 1980 as a more liberal alternative to the Democratic Party, led by President Jimmy Carter. Environmental science professor Barry Commoner ran for President that year and his running mate was La Donna Harris, a feminist and Comanche Indian woman married to Democratic Senator Fred Harris. The Citizens Party was remarkably successful for a third party, but won less than 1% of the vote in any state where they were on the ballot. 

Their platform covered a diverse group of left-wing issues including environmentalism and social justice. They wanted to end the use of nuclear power and encourage the use of renewable energy sources over coal and oil. The party also argued that the minimum wage should be raised and workers should be protected in the work place. They also campaigned for more government regulation of corporations, including price controls on necessities, such as food and healthcare. The party argued that government should ensure access to birth control, abortion, and mental health services for all Americans. They wanted to punish criminals with fines based on their wealth rather than imprisonment, to end the death penalty, and address and change the social causes of crime. Their foreign policy called for world peace, disarmament, and human rights all over the world.

In 1984 Sonia Johnson, a radical feminist, ran for President for the Citizens' Party, but did not do as well as Commoner had four years earlier. The party disintegrated over the next four years.

White text on a blue button with two white horizontal lines.

Yellow gold button with a black logo and black text. 

The African National Congress (ANC) is a South African political party which opposed Apartheid. Since Nelson Mandela won the 1994 Presidential election, they have dominated South African politics. "Power to the people" is the slogan of the ANC because they believe that the people should control the government through free elections. The image on this button is a version of their symbol. The shield and spear represent the wars against colonial oppression and the militant wing of the ANC. The wheel represents bringing together all people of South Africa and the adoption of the Freedom Charter, which stated the common goals of the ANC and their allies.

White button with red text. 

The Equal Rights Amendment was proposed to guarantee equal rights for women in both 1923 and 1972. The ERA passed Congress and was proposed for ratification on March 22, 1972 with a seven year deadline. By 1978 Illinois, as the only northern state that had not yet ratified, was considered a key state for ratification of the ERA. Supporters held a march on Chicago to encourage the legislature to pass the ERA. More than 4000 people attended and politicians and activists spoke in Daley Plaza. The protest was unsuccessful and Illinois did not ratify the ERA, even by the extended deadline of 1982.

Beige button with black text. 

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is an international member-run labor union founded in 1905. The IWW organizes workers by industry, as opposed to dividing its members by skill or trade, for the purpose of pooling numbers and resources. As a democratic, member-run union, members of the IWW decide what issues to address and what tactics to use to create better working conditions in their industries. Each year, members gather for the IWW's annual convention in Chicago, which is where the general headquarters is located.

White button with beige text and green mountains with a sun coming up behind the two peaks.

Colorado is home to a portion of the Rocky Mountains, and in fact, the highest peak in North America is located in Colorado. Mount Elbert stands at 14,440 feet above sea level, and the city of Denver is famously known as the “Mile-High City”. The slogan on this button playfully makes reference to the high altitudes and welcomes people to the state.