Lynching photos served as souvenirs for whites, not intimidation for Blacks.

Evidence

It is remarkable, Austin observes, that one can find many expressions in the crowds of white men, women, and children who watch or who actually do the lynching, but the expression one never sees on anyone’s face is horror. Ordinary Americans participated in these crimes, had their photos taken beside lynched bodies, smiled for the camera, and sent postcards of the event in which they circled their own faces and described the ‘barbecue.’ As I am suggesting for Abu Ghraib, lynching photos were not intended for Blacks but for whites, a tangible and lasting reminder of an important occasion. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 161 (#expands, via linked claim)

On the cover: a Black protester, caught in a cop’s chokehold, his mouth open to shout or gasp for air. Inside, pictures I could not bear to look at as a child: a man tied to a scaffold, his body burned blacker, the fire still smoldering beneath him; two boys hanged from a tree above the smiling white faces of the revelers turned back toward the camera: a young couple holding hands, ordinary as any night out on a date. Now I think of my mother, in love and writing love letters, cataloging her days, those terrible/beautiful pictures on the table next to the crocheted lace doily and crystal bowl my grandmother kept for candy: butterscotch in cellophane wrappers, bright and shiny as gold. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1151 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Lynching photographs addressed white audiences, not Black ones — Sherene Razack, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims…, 161; White lynch crowds were festive and photographed with trophies; Lynching photography circulated as ordinary domestic tabletop objects in Black homes — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 1151 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Lynching photographs addressed white audiences, not Black ones #expands (0.92) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 161
• Lynching photography circulated as ordinary domestic tabletop objects in Black homes #complicates (0.80) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1151