This pinback button features the logo for COYOTE, an organization founded in 1973 to advocate for the rights of sex workers. On a cream background, a brown coyote’s head appears in profile. The group’s name, an acronym for “Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics,” is printed above the coyote, while its slogan, the double-entendre “A Loose Woman’s Organization,” follows the button’s curve below. The button belonged to journalist Ethel L. Payne (1911-1991), who moved from her native Chicago to Washington, DC in 1952 to cover national and international news for the preeminent African American newspaper, The Chicago Defender. Known as the First Lady of the Black Press, the civil rights activist collected political buttons over the course of her pioneering career.
Cite As:
Ethel Lois Payne Collection, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Avis R. Johnson.
