About this Item
An original photo measuring approximately 5 1/4 x 4 inches on its original backing measuring approximately 7 3/4 x 5 7/8 inches. Joplin, Missouri was a highly racist community at the turn of the 19th century. African American photographs identified as Joplin are rare. This photo was probably taken around 1910 just after the infamous lynching and attempts to eradicate African Americans from Joplin (please read the education article below). The photographer, Kerr, probablymay have been ridiculed for taking this photograph. "207 Bell" appears on back in graphite which is possibly Jasper Missouri, possibly her house. Thanks for looking at this fantastic African American photograph.From the awldotcom:100 Years Later, A Black Man Finally Loves Joplinby Abe Sauer May 31, 2011 ??I love Joplin! I love Joplin. ? So began President Obama in his Sunday address to the town of Joplin, Missouri, smudged from the face of the earth by a tornado a week before. ??I love you, Obama! ? yelled a Joplin resident in the audience.While there is much hope to be had in Joplin ??s will to rebuild, there is even more to be found in the obliterated town ??s welcoming of Obama. About a century ago, a Joplin lynch mob attempted to drive every last African-American resident out of town, and pretty much succeeded.It ??s been a long time since an African-American publicly loved Joplin, or vice versa.From the beginning, Joplin had a reputation for wildness even by Missouri frontier standards. Its early years were so crime-ridden, the city had a period that came to be well known as Joplin ??s ??Reign of Terror. ? Lawmen, the nearest of which was usually tens of miles away, rarely dared set foot there. The last time Joplin received this much national attention was when Bonnie and Clyde ??s Joplin hideout was discovered and the gang shot its way out of town, killing two officers, including one of the city ??s detectives. It was Joplin where the couple ??s iconic pictures were found.And when Joplin last received the attention of an American president, it was just after World War II. Larry Wood, author of Wicked Joplin, wrote that Eisenhower said, in a post-WWII radio address announcing that stationed U.S. servicemen would be allowed to fraternize with local German women, ??Now, Berlin will be like Joplin, Missouri on a Saturday night. ? Part of the uglier element of the reputation Eisenhower referenced was forged just after the turn of the century. It ??s an event that makes Obama ??s visit to Joplin, and Joplin ??s response to that visit, so meaningful.It had been just 50 weeks since a tornado had swept through Joplin, killing four when the town would make the national news, again for disaster. This one was man-made.The April 16, 1903 Boston Evening Standard headline read: ??Lynching at Joplin, MO. Negroes then driven from the town. ? The Standard, like The New York Times report from the same day, referred to the lynched man, Thomas Gilyard, as ??a tramp negro. ? The explosion of racial violence in Joplin in April 1903 hardly manifested unexpectedly. After the Civil War, Missouri was notoriously slow to acknowledge the South ??s loss, after being fast to support its beginning. From ??bleeding Kansas ? to Dred Scott, no state lobbied for confrontation more than Missouri. While the marquee battles to the east make the PBS documentaries, a full fifth of all recorded military battles during the war occurred in and around southern Missouri. Those records do not include the pervasive and brutal guerrilla warfare. In the 1864 Centralia Massacre, pro-Confederate insurgent William Anderson had 24 captured Union troops executed. Historians have noted that attacks by Missouri Confederate fundamentalists continued well into the 1880s. Jesse James, present at the Centralia slaughter, would go on to be Missouri ??s most famous racist, to be glorified by Brad Pitt, Colin Farrell, porn stars and reality-TV Nazi motorcycle mechanics.In Joplin specifically, anti-African Am.
Seller Inventory # 63907-5126
Contact seller
Report this item
