Afro-American Monument. United States, ca. 1897. Chicago: Goes Litho., Co. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/93505849/.
This collection of vignettes represents an early attempt to capture important people and events in African American history. Each vignette tells an essential story about the lived experience of famous Black men, including Crispus Attucks, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington.
Print shows a composite of thirteen scenes pertaining to Afro-American history. The scenes range from the beginnings of enslavement to the aftermath of the Civil War.
This monument was created in 1897, approximately thirty years after the Civil War, when African Americans were losing the rights they gained from the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments due to harsh Jim Crow laws in the South. Black men and women like Booker T. Washington had been organizing schools to educate the formerly enslaved. The Plessy vs. Ferguson case had just upheld separate but equal facilities doctrine, separating white and Black citizens in nearly all public venues a year before in 1896.
- What story does each vignette tell?
- How does each vignette match or differ from the historical record?
- What is commemoration?
- How does the lithographer intend for these events to be commemorated?
- How are memory and history connected?
- What story does the composite of all the images tell? How do you know?
Iowa Academic Standards
RH.6-8.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
- When examining a primary source, students should be able to identify the central idea, and this lithograph gives students an opportunity to practice that skill.
Anchor Standard-Reading-6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
- Students should also be able to analyze the point of view of the creator of the source toward the subject of the source. The use of multiple vignettes in this source allows students to make separate observations and then to compile those observations about different points of view.
This would be an excellent catalyst for research, writing, and discussion about how each story has been framed and told in the picture in comparison to the history of the event. With so many stories compiled into one set of images, this print is a rich resource for studying point of view and how stories, biographies, and histories are framed. There is a definite bias toward commemorating African American sacrifice and heroism, so it is a strong example for students to work from for research and discussion of how history and biography can be portrayed to inspire, even though it may be selective about the inclusion of historical fact-based reality. For example, the Crispus Attucks vignette shows him standing alone and being gunned down by redcoats, when he was actually part of a mob. It also represents an important effort to collect African American contributions, which are often overlooked in the larger American history narrative.
- Some may be opposed to the political nature of the source. The source discusses historical events that may be interpreted as too political or violent for children in the middle grades.
Links to resources for approaching those topics
- The University of Michigan has some detailed advice for talking about high-stakes topics.
- CommonSense.org also has several resources about controversial issues and teaching them in the classroom.
- Some might prefer to use the source Heroes of the Colored Race because it is based on actual photographs of the people portrayed and portrays them with less bias.
- The Georgia Public Broadcasting site provides resources for teaching Black American history.