"Occurences"
In the late summer of 1889, the <em><a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199">Indianapolis Freeman</a> </em>used the figure of Uncle Sam to protest a Gouldsboro, Louisiana, massacre of African American families on an excursion, and the burning of a church, as a symbol of federal protection. In this image, members of the Ku Klux Klan cower behind a tree, from which one lynch victim hangs, as a second man flees to safety. The caption emphasizes the persistence of violence in the South, its “daily or rather nightly occurrence.” Uncle Sam and a Union soldier advance with rifles and bayonet in hand, a reference to the government’s power, during military Reconstruction at least, to suppress mob violence.
owproject
2013-07-10 06:14:29
31
"Ethiopia to Uncle Sam"
This drawing in the <a title="Indianapolis Freeman" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/199"><em>Indianapolis Freeman</em></a> 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, maltreated and outraged in the South,” Ethiopia says, “and you, with a great army and navy, are taking no measures to prevent it.” Ethiopia was a recurring figure in <em>Freeman</em> iconography, who represented strong advocacy of equal protection and due process.
owproject
2013-07-09 15:43:28
377
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
24
"Our Republic"
In this image, widely reproduced in the African American press, popular white political cartoonist Thomas Nast captured the outrage that followed the lynching of three African American men in Memphis, Tennessee a few months earlier--the incident that catapulted <a title="Ida B. Wells" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/202">Ida B. Wells</a> to prominence as an anti-lynching activist. Under a banner that reads “Our Republic Can Only Exist So Long as Its Citizens Respect and Obey Their Self-Imposed Laws,” the symbolic figure of Justice simultaneously halts a lynching and renders retaliation unnecessary. “Take not the law into your own hands, for where will that end?” she asks. Only due process, the image implies, can avert a downward spiral of retributive violence.
owproject
2013-07-04 07:06:32
40
"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
"Free (?) America"
The gruesome lynching of a mentally disabled man, Henry Smith in Paris, Texas, in February 1893, sparked renewed visual critique in the African American press regarding federal inaction on lynching. The mob’s torture of Henry Smith seemed to contradict the nation’s values, these editors believed. “Free (?) America” quipped the terse, sarcastic caption to an illustration of Smith’s torture in Wisconsin’s <a title="Northwestern Recorder" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/195"><em>Northwestern Recorder</em></a>.
owproject
2013-06-30 18:07:04
101
"Thirty Years of Progress"
After the brutal lynching of a mentally disabled man, Henry Smith, this image in <a title="Detroit Plaindealer" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/192"><em>Detroit Plaindealer</em></a> portrayed the failure of outgoing President Benjamin Harrison administration’s to condemn the lynching as a direct contrast to Abraham Lincoln’s leadership and the founding principles of the Republican Party. At left, President Abraham Lincoln is shown holding the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, and opening the door of freedom to an African American man leaving bondage; at right, in 1893 a mob sets him on fire. The image suggests that government in a civilized society would have shielded any accused criminal, but particularly one of Smith’s limited mental capacity, from mob action.
owproject
2013-06-29 06:43:26
34
"Lynched"
Like journalists Jesse Duke and <a title="Ida B. Wells" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/202">Ida B. Wells</a>, <a title="The Richmond Planet" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/204"><em>Richmond Planet</em></a> editor <a title="John Mitchell, Jr." href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/203">John Mitchell, Jr.</a>, had braved mob retaliation for defending an African American man from a rape charge, and challenged the increase in lynching actively. In 1894, for example, Mitchell organized a lecture for Isaac Jenkins, who was the lone survivor following mob violence against African Americans in Clifton Forge, Virginia, in 1891, and included a postcard from that lynching within the frame of the advertisement.
owproject
2013-06-28 17:58:21
99
"Horrible!"
<span style="font-size: 13px;">In spring 1894, the </span><a title="Cleveland Gazette" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/197"><em style="font-size: 13px;">Cleveland Gazette</em></a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> published this rare lynching image to protest </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">the murder of Roscoe Parker, in West Union, Ohio. The paper includ</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">ed a simple pen-and-ink drawing of Parker’s lynched body—with the white mob </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">sketched in the bottom left of the frame—but placed Parker’s portrait higher up to emphasize his</span><span style="font-size: 13px;"> humanity and retain dignity. The Ohio lynching made clear that lynching </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">was a national problem, not confined to the South, and a federal response was </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">necessary to quell the violence.</span>
owproject
2013-06-27 06:08:05
27
Prays For His Persecutors
In early 1895, <a title="The Richmond Planet" href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/204"><em>Richmond Planet</em></a> editor <a title="John Mitchell, Jr." href="http://songswithoutwords.org/items/show/203">John Mitchell, Jr.</a>, published a series of his own drawings, beginning with this illustration “Prays for His Persecutors.” The image depicts an African American man kneeling in prayer against a backdrop of lynched bodies, a reference to a recent murder of six men in Tennessee. The man appears forgiving, even saintly, despite the violent backdrop. The least confrontational cartoon from this series, it invokes non-threatening protest against violence. Like a popular “Day of Prayer and Fasting” three years earlier, the drawing appealed to the conscience of observers and urged the federal government to offer support and protection.
owproject
2013-06-25 17:17:06
15