On a tiny silver button, two entwined male symbols are shown next to twin female symbols, all linked with peace signs. A flowery verse reads, "You are a child of the universe; you have a right to be here." It is one of the oldest known gay and lesbian buttons of liberation, issued by a workshop on non-violence in the weeks following the historic Stonewall riots on Christopher Street in June of 1969.
That button and more than 250 other gay and lesbian pins are shown in the first-ever book on movement memorabilia, "All for the Cause: Campaign Buttons for Social Change."
The book, published this month by Decoy Magazine Press of Lewes, DE, is by Rehoboth Beach writer Bill Sievert. Sievert has been collecting socially oriented political items since the 1960s when he edited the student daily newspaper at Ohio University. He went on to cover social movements for numerous publications including The Louisville Courier Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Rolling Stone, the gay news magazine The Advocate, Saturday Review, and Earth News Service.