As editor, George L. Knox re-printed a drawing by the late political cartoonist Henry J. Lewis in the formerly independent Indianapolis Freeman 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, 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.