1933: “Buy Where You Can Work”
Black Activism
As Black people faced the devastation of the Depression, a national movement, the “Buy Where You Can Work” movement began to attract local supporters. A man known in African American circles as the Prophet Kiowa Costonie (also known as “the new Messiah”) arrived in Baltimore in 1933 and began to generate support to resist anti-Black practices. As historian Skotnes (1994) noted
Indeed, within a few months of his first appearance in Baltimore, Costonie initiated a racial advancement campaign to force white-owned stores in the African-American community to hire African-American workers. Between September 1933 and June 1934, this campaign, the “Buy Where You Can Work Movement,” mobilized large sections of Baltimore's Black community to direct action for the first time. (p. 735)
“Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” poster.
Source: Rise Up Detroit
“Buy Where You Can Work” campaigns occurred in over 35 cities across the United States. As they gained attention, they created a wider movement that brought together Black activists from many different organizations. In many ways, the “Buy Where You Can Work” campaign created the momentum and social organizations that later came to fruition during the 1950s and 1960s in the Civil Rights movement (Skotnes, 1994, p. 736). Baltimore remained a critical city in the midst of this building campaign.