Boy-Cott Stag Beer. Stop Before You Buy [caption title]

[Memphis, 1964. Near fine.. Broadside handbill printed on orange paper, 9 x 5.75 inches. Light edge wear, short closed tear. An exceedingly-rare handbill calling for a boycott of Stag Beer in Memphis in the early-1960s. The impetus for the boycott was the lack of African American representation in A.S. Barboro Distributing, the distribution company that delivered Stag Beer around Memphis. The text of the flyer reads: "Boy-Cott Stag Beer. Stop Before You Buy. Are You a Stag Beer Drinker? If You Are, You are Drinking Segregation. Don't Drink Segregation - Fight It!! The NAACP is Fighting It. Why don't we all Join in the fight. 80 Per Cent of us Drink Stag Beer. But how many Negro Salesmen do they have? None. A.S. Barboro Dist. of Stag Beer has about twenty Beer Trucks Rolling Everyday. We should have about Ten Negro Salesmen on some of those Trucks. We the Negro People of this city that Drink Stag, We must Stop to Get Some Action. LOOK AROUND AT THE TABLE NEXT TO YOU. WHAT DO YOU SEE? STAG BEER. THAT S IN STAG IS FOR SEGREGATION. WE MUST START WITH SOMEONE TO SHOW THEM THAT WE MEAN BUSINESS. RAMDOWN THE WALLS. N.A.P.A." The identity of the N.A.P.A. has not come down through the decades, but it was almost certainly a local group of civil rights activists in Memphis. OCLC reports just three copies of this powerful little handbill, at the Clements Library, the University of Memphis, and Princeton. There is also a copy at Tulane, which claims St. Louis as the place of publication, but A.S. Barboro was most assuredly located in Memphis.