Before Montgomery

Abstract

Chapter 2 examines the rise of the department store movement in the urban North and Midwest. It begins with a look into the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” movement. The “Don’t Buy” movement built on an earlier tradition of black consumer protests and leveraged black purchasing power to secure better jobs in sales and office work in white-owned business located in urban black neighborhoods. The department store movement was an outgrowth of this Depression-era campaign. Shaped by New Deal and wartime programs, the department store movement built on the tactics, goals, and momentum of its predecessor but targeted department stores exclusively. These stores were now not only symbols of American democracy and prosperity but also inherently public spaces where all the races, gender, and classes might confront each other daily, and consequently where conflict and eventual resolution would be most visible.