People's History Posters

I rarely post links to sites where the primary intent is to encourage visitors to exchange money for some sort of product or service. However, I think people should check out the Celebrate People's History Posters, and maybe buy a few and hang 'em at home or stick 'em up around town -- they are only a few dollars each (plus shipping and handling) and all the money goes to pay for the printing costs.

Here is how the site describes its mission:

The Celebrate People’s History poster series is an on-going project producing posters that focus around important moments in “people’s history.” These are events, groups, and individuals that we should celebrate because of their importance in the struggle for social justice and freedom, but are instead buried or erased by dominant history. Posters celebrate important acts of resistance, those who fought tirelessly for justice and truth, and the days on which we can claim victories for the forces of freedom. In the past 7 years over two dozen posters have been produced on a variety of subjects, from the Battle of Homestead to Fred Hampton, Mujeres Libres to Jane, an underground abortion collective.

These posters have been and will continue to be posted publicly (i.e. wheatpasted on the street, put up in peoples’ home and storefront windows, and used in classrooms) in an attempt to help generate a discussion about our radical past, a discussion that is vital in preparing us to create a radical future. I have also been using this project to create a loose network of artists interested in creating radical public art and showcasing the work of lesser known artists that want to create art that is functional, carries a social message, and doesn’t get buried at the bottom of the heap of the capitalist “art world.”

Admittedly, most of them are focused on events or people in the United States, but I recently got two. One features Metis leader Gabriel Dumont. I'm actually a little disappointed in the design of this one now that I've seen it in real life, but only a little, and it is the only one directly relevant to Canada. I definitely like its content. The other, which unfortunately seems to have disappeared from the list of options since I ordered it, celebrates the Mujeres Libres, an anarchist women's organization in Spain in the '30s that I learned about in Martha Ackelsberg's wonderful Free Women of Spain and that definitely deserves to be remembered and celebrated.

Anyway, have a look!