Entry · catalog no. 8406
Don't Buy Where You Can't Work
/ /doʊnt baɪ wɛr ju kænt wɝk/ /DOHNT BY WAIR YOO KANT WURK
phrase · Chicago (Bronzeville) and Harlem · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
The slogan and movement of boycotts and pickets against businesses that took Black customers' money but refused to hire Black workers.
“Folks walked the picket line under Don't Buy Where You Can't Work signs.”
2.
By extension, the economic principle that spending power should be tied to fair hiring.
“It's the same Don't Buy Where You Can't Work logic, just on a hashtag.”
Origin & Attribution
The campaign began in Chicago's Black South Side around 1929, pushed by the Chicago Whip, a Black newspaper, and local activists, as the Depression deepened and white-owned stores in Bronzeville employed few or no Black people. It spread to other cities, and the Harlem campaign of 1934 became the best known, led by figures including Sufi Abdul Hamid and Rev. John H. Johnson, with picket lines at 125th Street stores reported in the New York Amsterdam News. It is a Black-organized economic movement, and its name is a plain-spoken slogan taken up in the community.
1929
Chicago campaign begins on the South Side, led by the Chicago Whip
1934
Harlem boycotts and pickets of 125th Street stores
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Chicago (Bronzeville) and Harlem · 1920s
Spoken by
Black picketers, newspaper editors, and clergy in Chicago and Harlem
$DONTBUThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady97 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
40/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1929
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Don't Buy Where You Can't Work Movement, Encyclopedia.com
article
■
Harlem in Disorder: Don't Buy Where You Can't Work campaigns in Harlem (digital archive)
archive
■
+ Cite a sourceNew York Amsterdam News, May 26, 1934 (photograph: minister pickets)
newspaper
See also