racial cartoons from the past
Today, my online journalism class assignment is to practice posting Creative Commons License pictures to my blog. I thought this would be a really difficult task because where was I going to find pictures depicting race? As I began looking, I found it wasn’t too hard at all.
With the recent NY Post cartoon controversy, I thought it would be interesting to look at some blatantly racist cartoons of the past. Obviously racism was a big part of America’s past, but it is still so shocking to see what images were published everyday.
1909 postcard from Quincy, Florida
This postcard depicts five small African-American children as “Alligator Bait.” I found a lot of different versions of this picture.
1900s postcard of an African-American woman eating watermelon
The size of the watermelon makes it that much more appalling.
1900s postcard showing a white man kissing a black woman
The verse states:
- Not Particular
- I know you’re not particular to a fault
- Though I’m not sure you’ll never be sued for assault
- You’re so fond of women that even a wench
- Attracts your gross fancy despite her strong stench
I hope these pictures provided a little bit of context as to why the NY Post cartoon created such an uproar. People were reminded of these heinous pictures.
