Politics Drawn in Black and White

Abstract

There was an explosion of Black American newspapers in the United States in the period after the Civil War. These newspapers faced significant challenges of widespread illiteracy in the Black population and a hostile rhetorical environment. This analysis examines the ways in which the editorial cartooning of Henry J. Lewis allowed the Indianapolis Freeman to face these obstacles. The use of illustration allowed the Freeman to address Black demands for equality while avoiding dominant White attacks. Specifically, our analysis finds that Lewis argued for three forms of equality in his drawings: biological equality among the races, social equality through Victorian values, and political equality by adopting the norms of White political voice. These strategies, when taken together, help to connect Reconstruction-era Black rhetoric to Black rhetoric of the twentieth centuries. Implications for Black citizenship and the role of the Black press in grounding civil rights debates are offered.