Public Lynching

by Lawrence Beitler, Hulton Archive, 1930

Black and white photograph

This photograph by Lawrence Beitler of the Public Lynching was placed in between two different poems that both discuss the death of African Americans that were killed from racial violence. The poem following this photograph portrays a violent death of a 49 year old African American man named James Craig Anderson who was brutally beaten by a group of white teenagers and then run over by a truck that was driven by these white racist men. This photograph was placed where it was because both the photograph and poem depict massive atrocities against African American men. Not only do the poem and photograph represent horrible hate crimes, but the photograph was placed very strategically with the poem. Both representations of racial violence were portrayed in two extremely different times in American history. The photograph was taken in the year 1930, when racism was still legal; the hate crime memorialized in the poem took place in the year 2011. Rankine placed the photograph and poem next to one another to show how racism has continued over the years and how it is still being manifested in the killings of innocent African American people. Rankine wanted to place these two horrendous events in our history side by side to compare and contrast how our society has changed and how racism has evolved.

It is important to know that the photograph Claudia Rankine used in Citizen was edited so that it did not directly show the horrible violence that was committed against African Americans. The original photo had two black men that were hung from a tree after they were accused of raping a white woman. In the beginning, there were three men that were accused but the woman's uncle saved the third man, who was only 16 years old. The two men were hung in front of the courthouse because the 10,000 white people that participated in the death of the two black men believed that this would keep the other black people in line. The original photographer was Lawerence Beitler. After he took this photo he stayed up for ten days and nights making thousands of prints and sending them out. This picture became very popular and it was known as an iconic image of lynching.

Without the gruesome bodies to dominate the viewer's attention, Rankine's edited image shifts the attention to the crowd. It is haunting to see people smiling and pointing. It is disturbing to see expressions on the faces of very young people that would not be out of place at a carnival.

Kaplan, Fran. "America's Black Holocaust Museum." Americas Black Holocaust Museum An Iconic Lynching in the North Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.

http://abhmuseum.org/an-iconic-lynching-in-the-north/

Furnish, Kiley. "Beitler Photograph." Beitler Photograph - WikiMarion. Wikipedia, May 2011. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.

http://wikimarion.org/Beitler_

~ Research by Steph Chávez and Megan Goins