Rev. A. B. Cleage on Christmas Gifts

In 1963, Ossie and Ruby Davis, James Baldwin, John O. Killens, Odetta, and Louis Lomax formed the Association of Artists for Freedom, which called for a Christmas boycott to protest the church bombing, and asked that, instead of buying gifts, people make Christmas contributions to civil rights organizations. I remember that my extended family participated in the boycott. My sister and I were teenagers. I don’t remember anything else about that Christmas. The article below was printed in the Illustrated news in November 1963.

Click to enlarge.

Insert, Louis Lomax. Back row: James Baldwin, Oliver Killens, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee and Odetta artists who called for the boycott of Christmas Boycott in 1963.

Other links for 1963

Kennedy Refuses to Support Civil Rights Demands

Remembering 1963

Six Dead After Church Bombing – Washington Post article from 1963