On the eve of local elections in 1895, the Indianapolis Freeman printed a previously-published drawing by the late political cartoonist Henry J. Lewis, 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 Edward E. Cooper to that of Republican George L. Knox, demonstrates that the paper's visual themes--of organizing, political activism and the vote--transcended political party affiliation.
When editor Alexander Manly challenged the rape/lynching narrative in his paper, the Wilmington Record, a white mob destroyed his press, forced him to leave town, and murdered others in a two-day massacre. In protest, the Indianapolis Freeman published an image of Manly’s burning press beside a column that criticized President William McKinley for his unwillingness to criticize the destruction.
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 Indianapolis Freeman depicted the mob scene, with insets showing the prisoner being removed from jail and lynched. The Richmond Planet 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.”
Following the lynching of "Click" Mitchell in spring of 1897, African American editors criticized both President William McKinley’s silence, and Booker T. Washington’s suggestion that lynch victims were “invariably vagrants”—troublemakers who deserved their fate. Many African American newspapers expressed outrage that lynch law, in accepting the accusations of the lynchers without due process for the accused, violated fundamental tenets of American and English legal tradition. The Cleveland Gazette used few illustrations generally; here, the “Not Guilty” headline, combined with a portrait of Click Mitchell while alive, emphasized the travesty of justice inherent in mob violence.