Songs Without Words

Browse Items (16 total)

"Ethiopia to Uncle Sam"
This drawing in the Indianapolis Freeman shows Uncle Sam standing impotently before a robed figure, Ethiopia, as she gestures toward the shooting of innocent African American men and women, and a burning church. “See how my people are murdered,…

Edward E. Cooper
Edward E. Cooper was born in Florida in 1859. He founded short-lived Colored World in Indianapolis in 1878, which was later revived as the Indianapolis World. He founded the Indianapolis Freeman in July 1888 as a politically independent, national…

Indianapolis Freeman "banner"
The Indianapolis Freeman was a weekly newspaper first published in 1888 by editor Edward E. Cooper. As the nation’s first illustrated African American newspaper, it was considered by the Indianapolis Journal to be the “best paper…

"George L. Knox"
George L. Knox purchased the Indianapolis Freeman from Edward E. Cooper in 1892 and transformed the newspaper from a Democratic-leaning, independent paper into a loyal Republican Party press. Knox was well connected with the state party leadership,…

Moses L. Tucker was an engraver, illustrator and caricaturist from Atlanta, Georgia. Little is known of his history, but in the late 1880s and early 1890s, he produced a range of satirical cartoons for the Indianapolis Freeman. The editor, Edward E…

"H.J. Lewis" self-portrait
Henry J. Lewis was born in slavery in Mississippi, sometime in the late 1830s (the exact year of his birth is unknown). He was severely burned as a child, which left him blind in one eye and crippled in his left hand. He lived much of his life in…
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