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Lynching postcard

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

U.S. picture postcard depicting a lynching

A colorized postcard of the lynching of Virgil Jones, Robert Jones, Thomas Jones, and Joseph Riley on July 31, 1908, in Russellville, Kentucky<br>A lynching postcard is a postcard bearing the photograph of a lynching—a vigilante killing usually motivated by racial hatred—intended to be distributed, collected, or kept as a souvenir. Often a lynching postcard would be inscribed with racist text or poems. Lynching postcards were in widespread production for more than fifty years in the United States, although their distribution through the United States mail was banned in 1908.

Description<br>[edit]

Part of a series onNadir of American<br>race relationsA French news illustration of the 1906 Atlanta race massacre

Historical background

Reconstruction era

Voter suppression<br>Disfranchisement

Redeemers

Compromise of 1877

Jim Crow laws<br>Segregation

Anti-miscegenation laws

Convict leasing

Practices

Common actions<br>Expulsions of African Americans

Lynchings<br>Lynching postcards

Sundown town

Whitecapping

Vigilante groups<br>Black Legion

Indiana White Caps

Ku Klux Klan

Red Shirts

Lynchings

Andrew Richards

Michael Green

Nevlin Porter and Johnson Spencer

Eliza Woods

Amos Miller

George Meadows

Joe Vermillion

Jim Taylor

Joe Coe

People's Grocery

Ephraim Grizzard

Alfred Blount

Samuel J. Bush

Stephen Williams

Frazier B. Baker and Julia Baker

John Henry James

Sam Hose

George Ward

David Wyatt

Marie Thompson

Watkinsville

Ed Johnson

William Burns

Walker family

William James

Laura and L. D. Nelson

King Johnson

John Evans

Jesse Washington

Newberry Six

Anthony Crawford

Ell Persons

Jim McIlherron

George Taylor

John Hartfield

1920 Duluth

James Harvey and Joe Jordan

Joe Pullen

Massacres and riots

Opelousas massacre

Rock Springs massacre

Thibodaux massacre

Spring Valley Race Riot of 1895

Phoenix election riot

Wilmington insurrection of 1898

Pana riot

Robert Charles riots

Evansville race riot

Atlanta Massacre of 1906

Springfield race riot of 1908

Johnson–Jeffries riots

1912 racial conflict in Forsyth County

1917 Chester race riot

East St. Louis riots

Elaine massacre

Red Summer

Chicago race riot of 1919

Washington race riot of 1919

Ocoee massacre

Tulsa race massacre

Perry race riot

Rosewood massacre

Reactions

Anti-lynching movement

Atlanta Compromise

Back to Africa movement

Exodusters movement

Great Migration

Niagara Movement

NAACP

Silent Parade

Related topics

Black genocide

Civil rights movement (1865–1896)

Civil rights movement (1896–1954)

Mass racial violence in the United States

Terror lynchings as a display of racial domination peaked around the 1880s through to the 1940s, and were less frequent until the 1970s, especially (but not exclusively) in the Southern United States.[1] Lynchings were widely used to intimidate recently emancipated African Americans after the Civil War Reconstruction era,[2] and were later used to intimidate voters and civil rights workers[3] of all ethnic backgrounds. Mostly African-American[1] men, women, and children were lynched, for a lack of subservience or for success in business.[4] Others were often accused of crimes and forcibly removed from their homes or jails[5] to be murdered by a white supremacist mob without due process or presumption of innocence.[6]

Spectators sold one another souvenirs including postcards.[7] Often the photographer was one of the killers.[8]

In a typical lynching postcard, the victim is displayed prominently at the center of the shot, while smiling spectators, often including children,[7] crowd the margins of the frame, posing for the camera to prove their presence. Facial expressions suggesting remorse, guilt, shame, or regret are rare.[8]

Cultural significance<br>[edit]

Some purchasers used lynching postcards as ordinary postcards, communicating unrelated events to friends and relatives. Others resold lynching postcards at a profit.[6] Still others collected them as historical objects or racist paraphernalia: their manufacture and continued distribution was part of white supremacist culture, and has been likened to "bigot pornography".[9]

Whatever their use, the cultural message embodied in most lynching postcards was one of racial superiority. Historian Amy Louise Wood argues:

Within specific localities, viewers did not disconnect the photographs from the actual lynchings they represented. Through that particularity, the images served as visual proof for the uncontested 'truth' of white civilized morality over and against supposed black bestiality and savagery.<br>[9]

Viewed from an outsider's perspective, bereft of local context, the postcards symbolized white power more generally....