I was looking for some pictures of violence at Wallace for President rallies in 1968. They were rather hard to come by, but there are some swell posters, cartoons, and other images from the 1968 campaign online. Some of them are *official* campaign items and others are a bit out there. I could spend years trying to find out who made them so I decided to punt on that and just share a few with my readers.
Let’s start with the Wallace campaign:
That’s right, y’all, Wallace went there; at least one of his supporters did. It is indicative of the fact that 1968 was the white backlash to the civil rights and anti-war movements election. In 2016, we’re going through the white backlash to the first black President and fear of the first female Oval One election. Ovaries apparently scare many people…
Here are two cartoon posters featuring Democratic contenders Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. As far as I know, nobody ever called HHH Hubie, not even LBJ.
The next image is one of the most memorable posters of 1968. It was done by the distinguished American artist Ben Shahn for Democrat Eugene McCarthy:
If you think some current candidates try too hard to be cool, they weren’t the first to do so. The dorkiest man in politics, Tricky Dick, tried to be hip and current in this poster:
In a sign of the times, liberal Republicans John Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller are in the foreground to Tricky’s stage left. Visual pun intended. By 1972, Lindsay ran for President as a Democrat, and Rocky had moved way to the right. He was still hated for his insufficient purity by GOP wingnuts. Some things never change.
Speaking of Republicans who moved from the center to the right, here’s a campaign button from Willard Mittbot Romney’s father’s ill-fated 1968 run:
Willard might consider adopting that slogan for his effort to derail the Insult Comedian’s campaign. It’s likely to be as ill-fated as Romney ’68.
Finally, Jim Trelease did a series of caricature posters of the 1968 hopefuls in the style of the Fillmore poster artists. Note the presence of Illinois Senator Chuck Percy who did not run and the absence of George Wallace who did. I guess he was too busy posing as Johnny Reb:
Since, we’re back in the 1960’s, here’s one of the best protest songs of all-time. Yeah, I know it didn’t come out until 1969, but cut a brother some slack: