JF Ptak Science Books Post 1223
In the long line of “firsts” in the history of photography–the first photograph, the first photo of a human, the first photo of the Moon, the first color photo, the first photo on paper the first mention of the word “negative”, and so on–the first published photograph of a lynching of an African American in America took place late, late in the history of photography, late in the history of lynching Blacks, late in the history of conscience, late. Too late.
Even though images of lynching began to appear in pamphlet in the 1890’s, and then in Black-owned newspapers in the ‘teens, the first images in White-owned newspapers didn’t make appearnaces until the 1920’s. The images were seen as being too upsetting, too divisive, too much.. During an era of yellow journalism and sensational exploitation of disasters and murders and crimes and bad craziness–usually accompanied by photographic illustrations–the pictures of hanged or burned black people was where the white-owned journalistic establishment drew their line in their own segregated sand.
In a thorough and disturbing work, Lynching and Spectacle, Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940 (UNC Press, 2009), Amy Wood identifies numerous cases in which lynching/burning photos in Black-owned papers appear in White-owned papers, though with the victims of the violence cropped and edited out. All that is shown in so many cases are the faces of the lynch mob and a mild description of what they were up to–their gross indignty white-washed, the enormous suffering and fear of their victim almost completely removed. The images are revolting, sick, sadistic–but so are many of the other images that appear in these sanitizing newspapers over the same time. The editors just weren’t showing images of these White-based hate crimes.
This is necessarily an exaggerated summary of these events–and there were many White-owned newspapers (like the Chicago Tribune) that decided to carry news and statistics of lynchings back into the 1890’s)–but the fact remains that these same stories were not photographically covered until 85 years ago, within the lifetimes of 5% of the American population. And it should also be noted that by the mid-1920’s there had already been many thousands of lynchings in the United States, and that it took decades for this sort of journalism to occur.
[I do have the following material for sale to individuals; that, or I’ll donate all of them to an appropriate institution.]
I came to this book by Woods after reading through some of the anti-lynching pamphlets here–well, those, and a postcard of an infmaous lynching and burning scene, a spectacularly ugly image, meant to entertain. It is a repulsive idea–that such suffering could be seen as a joke and used on the front of a postcard to entetrtain the receiver.
An Appeal to the Conscience of the Civilized World, published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, i s exactly that–a basic plea to stop lynching in the United States, a prayer for understanding, a call to action which is really a call for people to just stop lynching Black people. It is an incredible document, seemingly from another century but not so, being printed in 1920, just 90 years ago.
The next pamphlet (really just a fold piece of 11×8 inch paper), A Crime of Being a Negro, is a little older (printed in 1912 at 20 Vesey Street in NYC), and details “some of the 51 lynchings which have occurrd during the last six months…and there are others”. It also makes the emphatic statement at the bottom, “in 26 years 2,456 Negroes have been lynched/not one lyncher has ever been punished”. This would have been quite a crowd of lynchers–given the number of Blacks killed in this way, the total crowd of lynchers may well have been 50,000 people.
One of the most shocking things that I have here in my small collection of items relating to these he
inous actions is this original art, or mock-up, for the book The Curse at the Door, by Clara Morris Diggs. The artwork and design is the work of Merton Witten (“Artist and designer”) Illustrated scene of a lynching, being the original dustjacket art for the novel The Curse at the Door, by Clara Morris Diggs1.
Lastly is this scarce mimeographed report by Robert Taylor Gray, The Supreme Court Proposal and the Wagner Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill. It is basically a letter to Senator A.H. Vandenberg, Robert F. Wagner and four others from Gray, from typed originals, and dated 3rd August, 1937.
It reads: “It scarcely takes a statesman to see that the murder of any citizen by a gang.is not justified on any grounds whatsoever. If any single Congressman dissents from the point of view here taken, I should appreciate his advising on what legal or moral grounds it is done.” If you thought that there wouldn’t be any dissent among Congress-people, you’d be wrong.
Gray was a very prominent Philadelphia Quaker and scion of a business begun in that city in 1683. He was on numerous committees for racial fairness and equality including the Whittier Center Housing Corporation (where hhe extracted a promise from the Secretary of Commerce that the Public Works Administration would not build new apartment complexes ruled by discrimination or racial unfairness, a major coup)..
Gray writes about the difficulty of establishing the Wagner Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill and its coming to loggerheads with FDR’s plan to pack the Supreme Court. Evidently the President’s need for Southern support for his court plans would have to be purchased with the defeat of this Bill. Versions of this 1937 Bill (strongly written by the NAACP) had failed to pass the House and Senate in 1934 and 1935. The general way of defeat for these bills had been Southern Filibuster. So even though the bill was defeated, there weren’t any “no” votes cast against it–but it certainly had enough storming enemies to keep it from getting anywhere near a vote in the U.S. House of Representative.
Time Magazine, 28 January 1938, reported the following:
“The actual contents of the Wagner-Van Nuys Bill, as simple as they were familiar, would scarcely keep the U. S. Senate busy for that period. Like its predecessors, it provided for Federal prosecution, and a $5,000 fine or up to five years’ imprisonment, or both, for sheriffs & peace officers who did not afford criminals and suspected criminals reasonable protection from mobs (any gatherings of more than three persons).”
(The principle Southern anti-anti-lynching bill proponents were) ” Tom Connally’s loyal little band-Georgia’s Russell, North Carolina’s Bailey, South Carolina’s James Byrnes, Tennessee’s Kenneth McKellar, Louisiana’s Ellender, and Pat Harrison.”
“But if the practice has been general, the opposition to laws intended to suppress it has centred in the South. For two generations Southern Representatives and Senators have greeted every lynching bill that came up for debate with a reaction as sharp and unfailing as would be produced by a polecat. Snorted Georgia’s Richard Russell last week of the latest and one of the most threatening Federal attempts to prosecute and punish lynchers: “Skunk meat.”
In 1938 a Republican U.S. Senator from Georgia, Richard Russell, Jr.–a man who would rise to be President pro tempore of the Senate and leader of a conservative Republican coalition within the Senate, the great American legislative and deliberative body–referrred to legislation aimed at bringing lynchers to justice as “skunk meat”. Here’s his picture. He was indeed a product of his time(s)…well, perhaps he produced the product of his time, he and others like him were the manufacturers of this machine. He did after all make it possible for this despicable outrage to continue and made it possible for those working way outside the law–the lynchers–to escape prosceution. He subverted the law. And he was one of the highest officials in the land. So I’d say he was a little more than just product–people like this were the producers.
Notes
1.The address for Merton Whitten on the back of the board lists 35 Mt. Vernon Street in Boston–this is Beacon Hill, and is in the same block (today) as the Colonial Society of Massachusetts (a very considerable old structure). Julia Ward Howe lived next door once upon a time. Whitten is listed as a “Commercial Artist” in the 1923 Boston Directory with a business address of 118-A Bowdoin.
“Which utterly with sadness had confused me, New torments I behold, and new tormented Around me, whichsoever way I move, And whichsoever way I turn, and gaze.” Dante, Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto VI, third circle, gluttony.
