"Editor Manly"
<p>When editor Alexander Manly challenged the rape/lynching narrative in his paper, the <em>Wilmington Record</em>, a white mob destroyed his press, forced him to leave town, and murdered others in a two-day massacre. In protest, the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis Freeman</em></a> published an image of Manly’s burning press beside a column that criticized President William McKinley for his unwillingness to criticize the destruction.</p>
2013-06-17 17:33:32
Post
80
"A Song Without Words"
<p>On the eve of local elections in 1895, the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis </em><em>Freeman</em></a> printed a previously-published drawing by the late political cartoonist <a title="Henry J. Lewis" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/193">Henry J. Lewis</a>, entited "A Song Without Words." The drawing used inserts within the larger frame to tell the story of a lynching by hanging (1), shooting (2) and fire (3). The persistence of Lewis's artwork after the transition from the editorship of Democratic-leaning independent <a title="Edward E. Cooper" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/200">Edward E. Cooper</a> to that of Republican <a title="George L. Knox" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/198">George L. Knox</a>, demonstrates that the paper's visual themes--of organizing, political activism and the vote--transcended political party affiliation.</p>
owproject
2013-06-19 04:54:38
126
"Fair Ohio in Disgrace"
<p>In spring of 1897 African American editors were outraged when President William McKinley ignored the lynching of an Ohio man, “Click” Mitchell. In somewhat sensational style, the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis Freeman</em></a> depicted the mob scene, with insets showing the prisoner being removed from jail and lynched. The <a title="The Richmond Planet" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/204"><em>Richmond Planet</em></a> noted in its own pages that the unmasked lynchers had murdered the innocent Mitchell in broad daylight: “No lynching in the South was ever more daring or atrocious.”</p>
owproject
2013-06-20 18:19:05
103
"Notice"
<span style="font-size: 13px;">As editor, <a title="George L. Knox" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/198">George L. Knox</a> re-printed a drawing by the late political cartoonist <a title="Henry J. Lewis" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/193">Henry J. Lewis</a> in the formerly independent <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis </em></a></span><a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em style="font-size: 13px;">Freeman</em></a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> to chide the National Negro Democratic Convention meeting in that city in August 1894. "Gentlemen," reads the caption, "cannot you persuade the white members of your party South, to cease these persecutions of your brethren?" At the time, </span>the Southern branch of the Democratic party remained hostile to voting and civil rights for African Americans. While some African Americans in the Northwest were moving away from the Republican Party, which they saw as failing to protect those rights, this cartoon made clear that the Democrats offered no refuge for African American voters.
owproject
2013-06-26 04:46:05
124
"The Great Southern Exodus"
In its election-eve issue in 1892, perhaps to encourage the exodus that <a title="Ida B. Wells" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/202">Ida B. Wells</a>’s campaign had begun, the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis Freeman</em></a> re-printed a drawing by the late political cartoonist, <a title="Henry J. Lewis" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/193">Henry J. Lewis</a>. A series of frames reminded readers that migration was another form of protest against local and state governments that had failed to punish lynching. The image shows African American men, women, and families in a train station, departing the South. Insets depict whippings, lynching, and pursuit by dogs that help to explain “The Great Southern Exodus.”
owproject
2013-07-01 18:23:24
70
"Some Day"
In June 1892, the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis Freeman</em></a> re-printed an earlier visual compilation of civil rights themes drawn by the late political cartoonist <a title="Henry J. Lewis" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/193">Henry J. Lewis</a>. The small cartoon laments the need for combative imagery in the black press, but explains its necessity. “Some day the inspiration for such representations will have passed,” the caption reads; “some day, America will extend equal rights and justice to all men.” A sign affixed to the whipping post reads: “Give the Negro an equal chance with other men, and there will be no race problem.”
owproject
2013-07-03 17:52:23
67
"Still Asleep"
When Frederick Douglass warned whites of the dangers of “reaping the whirlwind,” the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis </em></a><em><a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199">Freeman</a> </em>recycled an oft-used drawing by the late political cartoonist, <a title="Henry J. Lewis" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/193">Henry J. Lewis</a>, showing a sleeping African American Gulliver, a gentle giant at the mercy of club-wielding oppressors. The image challenged the notion of “superior” white civilization, as imperialists, explorers, and slave-traders of various nationalities scale the helpless figure, who represents Africa, or possibly the African American man. “Still Asleep,” says the caption: “Can Nothing Rouse Him?”
owproject
2013-07-05 00:00:57
64
"Our National Cemetery"
In this image, the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis Freeman</em></a> depicts Uncle Sam as a gravedigger, tending the failed legislation of generations. A headstone for the recently-defeated “Blair Education Bill,” which would have supplied federal funding for local public schools, is visible alongside a host of other pieces of legislation designed to protect African Americans. Such images implied that President Benjamin Harrison and the Republican Party would suffer in 1892 if they ignored the needs of African American voters.
owproject
2013-07-06 16:05:02
52
"The Hercules of To-day"
<a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis Freeman</em></a> artists typically denounced racial discrimination and social inequality, and focused on presidential failures to stem racial violence. This frequently-repeated drawing, for example, showed an Atlas-like figure shouldering the combined burdens of discrimination, poverty, and violence. The <em>Freeman</em> was a Democratic-leaning politically independent press, emerging from the heart of the expanding Northwest, but its strong advocacy for a greater federal government role in ending racial violence aligned it more closely with Republican Party traditions than the Democratic party's adherence to states' rights.
owproject
2013-07-07 15:59:00
9
The Southern Outrages
During the winter of 1889–1890, the killing of prisoners by a white mob in Barnwell, South Carolina, and a “race war” in Georgia, prompted the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis Freeman</em></a> to unleash a more pointed visual critique of so-called southern chivalry. This image, probably the work of satirical cartoonist <a title="Moses L. Tucker" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/194">Moses L. Tucker</a>, lampoons the hideous cavaliers as they lynch African American men for sport; the subtitle reads: “Trees of Georgia Still Bearing Evil Fruit.”
owproject
2013-07-08 05:36:55
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