Abolition: Acceptance Turned into Disdain

The first of the two Thomas Nast images, this piece reflects immediate post-war attitudes of the North and abolitionists who are trusting enough in the black community to allow their vote over that of the surrendering Confederates (1865).

Picturing the achievement of a long process, Alfred Waud depicts members of the black community seen as worthy in the eyes of the white hegemony: honest laborers, small-time businesspeople, and military veterans (1867)

Seven of the approximately 2000 black men in public office during the Reconstruction Period. This staggering number served not only to give the black community a face to point to in a position of power, but it also unfortunately caused enough agitation in the white-controlled power structure to curtail the freedoms given in fear of losing power.

Not ten years after Nast's approval of black voters does he then ridicule the idea of black men in legislative positions, revealing the want for black suffrage, but only to vote for the white allies and not the black candidates; the hegemony is willing to bring them up to the point that they maintain and not destroy said hegemony (1874).

This image of early KKK members shows another, more open and violent version of black subjugation. Here is where we will see the use of spectacular actions to keep the black community controlled and to remind them who is a part of the hegemony.

One of the most famous black officials assassinated during Reconstruction, Benjamin Randolph served in the South Carolina State Senate and led the Republican state executive committee. Randolph was one of the 12 known state legislators to be assasinated. His death at the hands of white supremacists further showed how the black community still was not receiving the necessary support from the established white Republican allies who began distancing themselves from those who they once thought would vote for them.

The main form of spectacle used in oppression in this era by both Klan members and other white supremacists was lynching. Not only would the act show power over the black bodies by murdering them, but it would also reveal where the power of the police force lied in. Many victims of lynchings were accused of crimes beforehand, usually sexual assaults, and those responsible for the lynchings would rarely, if ever, face punishment.