Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America

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The tree that Leo Frank was hung on had to be protected, because so many relic-hunters. The man who owned the piece of property where Leo Frank was murdered was offered hundreds of dollars more than once for that tree.

Many people today, despite the evidence, will not believe—don’t want to believe—that such atrocities happened in America not so very long ago. These photographs bear witness to . . . an American holocaust.” — Congressman John Lewis Without Sanctuary-Lynching Photography in AmericaAnd we realized that if we want to gather as many of these as we can, we need to find them from all sources, and that includes people who collect these, because they glorify, they're still glorifying the event. To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account.

The only book I can think of, that comes even close to this in its up-front and photographic depiction of human evil, is The Auschwitz Album, which reproduces photographs that the Nazis took of Hungarian Jews as they arrived at the death camp. But even these photos do not depict the actual murder of the victims, the gas chamber, and the crematorium. Many people today, despite the evidence, will not believe—don't want to believe—that such atrocities happened in America not so very long ago. These photographs bear witness to . . . an American holocaust." — Congressman John Lewis Many people today, despite the evidence, will not believe--don't want to believe--that such atrocities happened in America not so very long ago. These photographs bear witness to . . . an American holocaust." -John Lewis, US Congressman GROSS: What are you doing to make sure that you're not furthering the kind of profit motive behind the cards?

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They took Laura and her son to jail. Laura claimed that she did the shooting. She desperately tried to protect her son. She begged them to kill her in the prison. He was only 14 years old. They came in the middle of the night and took them by wagon, 40 men, and wagoned them 12 miles over this shiny new bridge over the Canadian River, and raped Laura Nelson and hung them from this bridge. GROSS: You feel really awful looking at these lynching photographs, because they're so brutal, they're so grotesque. It's the ultimate violation of the victims. Why do you want them on exhibit?

I think Lynching is a closed topic. And this book is the definitive explanation. First of all, without being absurdly cliche (minus the punctuation marks) about what a picture is worth, you only need to see the accidental photgraphic essay on Froggy's demise to grasp how big a deal this is. The essays at the beginning are also useful, too, though Hilton Als' is the only one that will stand up to the test of time. BELZER: Divorced, huh? Ex-husbands make great murder suspects. Looks like she caught the corner of the table on the way down. Who's the M.E.? ALLEN: We were determined, after John and I traveled and called to the different archives in the country, and could not find a body of these images, and then we would show them to friends who came to the house that we thought could stand it, and in every case, irregardless of their age, no one had ever seen an image like it. So Atlanta was enraged and thrilled with the possibility of a Yankee Jew, dirty Jew, wealthy man, to take out their hatred and complaints on. ALLEN: I think people are disappointed in my answer to the question of how I've been affected by the postcards and photos of this American brutality. But the deepest influence on my life has been the reality of ideas and their power to influence people's thinking and their behavior. All of this took part because of ideas that were promoted by a few, by institutions, and the people followed suit. And we as Americans need to think for ourselves, to question ourselves, where are the ideas in my head from? Are they mine, or are they someone else's who has a profit motive in controlling my behavior?And somehow during this process, the son shot the deputy sheriff with a squirrel rifle. He crawled outside the cabin. A gun battle ensued in which Laura and her son kept the posse away for a couple hours, and the deputy sheriff died outside because the posse couldn't reach to help him.