The Boycott That Targeted Radio City Music Hall

A small flyer from 1970s New York exposes the economics behind the music industry.

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Some pieces of paper were meant to survive. This flyer was not one of them.

Printed in New York sometime in the 1970s, the sheet calls for a boycott of one of the most famous entertainment venues in the United States: Radio City Music Hall. The headline is direct and unmistakable. “We Need Your Help. Support the Black Economy.”

What follows is not simply a protest against a single theater. It is a sharp critique of the economic structure behind the American music industry.

The flyer argues that while Black musicians were central to the music filling concert halls and dominating record sales, the surrounding business structure remained almost entirely closed. Promoters, booking agents, managers, advertising firms, stage crews, limousine services, and even the famous Rockettes were listed as parts of an industry that profited from Black talent while excluding Black participation in its management and profits.

The document’s conclusion is blunt. According to the flyer, the Black community’s role in the system had largely been reduced to two positions: the performers who created the music and the consumers who bought the tickets.

The proposed response was economic pressure. The flyer calls for a boycott of Radio City Music Hall, reflecting a broader strategy that gained prominence during the late civil rights and Black Power era. Activists increasingly argued that cultural influence meant little without economic control. The flyer expresses this idea in a striking phrase when it describes Black music as “our only natural resource.”

Choosing Radio City was deliberate. As the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center since 1932, the theater symbolized the power and prestige of the American entertainment industry. Challenging it meant challenging the system that surrounded it.

Most flyers like this were distributed quickly and discarded just as quickly. They were handed out at concerts, community meetings, and political gatherings, then thrown away once the moment passed. Because of this, very few survive.

Yet when one does, it preserves something official records rarely capture. It shows how communities understood the imbalance between cultural production and economic power while the debate was still unfolding.

The people who printed this flyer were not thinking about archives. They were thinking about leverage. Sometimes the first step in challenging an industry begins not on a stage, but on a small sheet of paper passed from hand to hand.