Mar 21, 2013 - Sale 2308

Sale 2308 - Lot 350

Price Realized: $ 1,920
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
GARVEY, MARCUS. COOKS, CARLOS. BUY BLACK. Large silk banner, approximately 5 x 8 feet, unfurled; some damage to one edge; needs conservation. [New York City, circa 1930's-1940's

Additional Details

an exceedingly rare artifact from the black nationalist movement. Pan Africanist Carlos Alexander Cooks was born in the Dominican Republic in 1913 and died in New York's Harlem in 1967. It was Cooks who urged African American communities to "Buy Black" as a path to freedom through economic solvency. He is best known as the founder of the African Nationalist Pioneer Movement, an offshoot of the U.N.I.A. Cooks, who came to the United States in 1929, came to prominence during the Ethiopian crisis, when he formed a group within the U.N.I.A. called the "Black Shirts." In response to Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, Cooks' "Black Shirts tried to drive the Italians out of East Harlem. Following Garvey's deportation, Cooks became president of the U.N.I.A. Advance Division. Cooks was expelled from the U.N.I.A. in 1948, but continued preaching black nationalism. He ran afoul of the Nation of Islam when he accused them of "diluting" the black nationalist and pan-African movements by the introduction of religion. Cooks could often be heard speaking on the corner of 125th Street and Seventh Avenue, a favorite spot for Harlem's orators.