No One Spared

The image to the left is a commercially-produced souvenir of the trial, probably offered for sale to the general public. The illustrator takes no side in the controversy, lampooning everyone equally in vignettes representing the more outrageous details of the story.

Much of the meaning and iconography depicted in the scenes has been lost, including that of the scene in the lower left-center—a racial caricature of a type found in some publications of the time. It demonstrates ingrained racism which is wrong today and was wrong at the time. Rather than hide images like these, we hope that by calling attention to them we can all be made aware of the perniciousness of systemic racism, its presence in our history, and with that knowledge work towards a more equitable future.

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.