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......This is a bumper sticker of the legendary sign at the southeast corner of Maxwell and Halsted Streets. The sign is still there but we don't know for how long. This play on words (sounds like "Treat you Fair") was Maxwell Street's unofficial motto in the 1960s and 1970s.
You could get a bargain on Maxwell Street but everyone knew that much of the merchandise was old, used, battered, seconds, irregulars, or obsolete. Everyone knew that people were selling there to survive hard times. It was recycling, reusing what would otherwise be thrown away -- in landfills -- turning negatives into positives, resurrecting people as well as resuscitating goods, and bringing joy and community into people's lives. On Maxwell Street, people and things were born again.
Read the poem, Cheat You Fair. This was handed to me on scrap of paper by Sam, a sock vendor in 1994.
On Maxwell Street
They cheat you fair.
It's a game.
You had a chance.
Elsewhere,
they cheat you unfair.
No chance:
Pograms,
Cossacks,
The Czar,
Jim Crow,
KKK,
Sharecropping,
The company store.
On Maxwell Street
You understood:
A pitch,
A shpiel,
A rap,
A line.
It was joyous.
Blues humming.
Face-to-face.
You knew
People cared.
It was bazaar.
Don't let it die.
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