White button with red text and small red logo. 

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee was established in 1940. Their mission is to advance human rights and social justice around the world. They are a non-profit organization that depends on grassroots support. Over 40,000 volunteer and support this group. UUSC has done work in Haiti, Rwanda, Darfur, and within the United States.

White button with black text. A red, yellow and green circle is in the center with the image of people waving a flag on it. 

The South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) was made up of young men and women who were often working class and unemployed. Local youth organizations were established at the grassroots and then organized into SAYCO starting in 1987. They were closely allied with student groups, but looked toward working class men and women to lead in the struggle for freedom. The words "Freedom or Death - Victory is Certain" were the motto of the South African Youth Congress and their symbol is a group of young people running across South Africa with a red flag reading SAYCO. Their goals were to increase the political participation of youth, convince those young people who had jobs to join unions, and to support compulsory education for children and youth of all races. In 1990 SAYCO integrated into the ANC Youth League. 

Image of the venus symbol with a fist in the center in red on a white button.

This button depicts the symbol of the women's liberation movement and was created by Robin Morgan for the 1969 Miss America protest. The fist represents power and rebellion and is enclosed in the women's symbol. The button was originally made in "menstrual red" like this one.

The first Miss America protest occurred in 1968 and drew a lot of media attention. Women unfurled banners inside the Convention Hall, performed skits (including crowning a live sheep Miss America) and sang songs outside the entrance. They also threw symbols of femininity into a large trash can, but never actually burned any bras, despite the persistent rumors that they had. The 1969 protest was much tamer. Protesters could not get into the event or near the entrance, but they did perform skits behind the police lines and talked to women who came to watch.

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For more than three decades, Iran has been under scrutiny for committing human rights abuses. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has imposed a strict, fundamentalist form of Islamic law, which has denied people of their rights and freedom. In particular, women, homosexuals, Christians, Jews, journalists, and political dissenters have been among the victims. A number of organizations have documented human rights violations in Iran and work to advocate for the victims.

Brown button with white text and white symbol in the middle. 

This button was made in 1966 for the Chicago Freedom Movement. It depicts the movement's symbol, which is made up of the letters M-O-V-E. The slogan "We're on the move to end slums" was created by Don Rose, the press spokesman for the movement.

The Chicago Freedom Movement attempted to end slums and housing discrimination in Chicago with the help of the SCLC and Martin Luther King Jr. who, in January 1966, moved his family into a tenement in Chicago. He soon began leading protests demanding open housing, good education and access to jobs. The Chicago Freedom Movement was one of the most ambitious northern Civil Rights movements and, although it was not very successful, it did bring economic inequality into the spotlight. 

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By the end of the 1970's, the movement against the use of nuclear power had spread globally, with groups in Germany and other parts of Europe coming together to protest the opening of nuclear power plants. Before the highly publicized accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl brought to the forefront the question of plant safety, the primary concern was that the very existence of nuclear power threatened the future of the world. In 1978, a protest was organized in New York City near the United Nations at a time when the United States was in talks to pass the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act. The poster for the event featured an illustration of the globe at the center of a mushroom cloud with the title, "Evacuation Would Be Impossible." Though nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945, nuclear accidents as recent as the Fukushima disaster in 2011 have continued to raise concerns about the threat nuclear power poses to the environment and to the future of political relations worldwide.

Yellow button with red text in the center going in a circle and around it is the image of a sun.

Though the 1970's saw a rising environmental movement following the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, interest in solar energy didn't really gain traction until 1973. An embargo by the OAPEC caused the price of oil to quadruple over the span of a year, resulting in an oil crisis and national shortages. It raised serious questions about the United States's complete dependence on oil for power. In 1974, Nixon signed the Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act, which attempted to regulate the environmental impacts of US energy demands. One of the possible solutions for lessening the use of oil was solar power. Enthusiasm for clean energy continued into the 1980's with further legislation passed to financially incentivize businesses to invest in solar paneling. Today, the U.S. is ranked second in the world for solar use, but it still only accounts for 2.30% of total U.S. electricity.

White button with black text. The image of a white person and a black person reading a book together appears in the middle.  

The Woodlawn Project in an on-going educational study of 1,242 people from the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago starting in 1966 when participants were in first grade. The Woodlawn Project partnered with the Chicago Board of Health, the University of Chicago, and Chicago public and parochial schools. The Student Woodlawn Area Project (SWAP) motto was Pergite Pergere, Latin for “Keep on Pushing”. The project aims to identify poverty and social issues affecting school-age children as a way to improve educational opportunities and health services in underserved communities, including the Woodlawn neighborhood. The study is ongoing and consists of six monitoring stages: first grade, teenage years, young adulthood, a mother's interview, mid-life, and an aging assessment.