JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Volume 24, Number 2, 2004 Page: 413
261-512 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 22 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Wendy Wolters
stereotypes ofthe day and on outspoken appeals to white solidarity, blacks
rallied around Conley for the same reasons that Jews rallied around Frank.
Thus, whereas gentile whites split on class lines in the case, blacks and
Jews responded in a cross-class manner to perceived cross-class threats. (164)
Whiteness combined with class, gender and sexuality in Frank's lynch-
ing, as it has in all lynchings, to determine how the victim was punished
and who the audience was for that punishment. While lynching crosses
racial, gender and class boundaries, as Pinar notes, the spectacle oftrophy
mutilation and photography has been largely "saved for young black
men."
The pictures in Allen's archive firmly support this. Leo Frank's
lynching photograph includes a number of white male spectators, but his
clothing and body appear to remain intact, in contrast to the mutilation
evident in many of the photographs of African American men. Although
lynching has not been confined to black men, "the very consciousness of
lynching in U.S. culture figures decisively around them" (Wiegman 84).
The photograph serves the purpose of the lynching itself: to create and
remember the spectacle, and rather than simply note the aberrations of
nonblack or nonmale lynching victims, to remember lynching today we
must account for who was made a spectacle of violence, and whose
violence was made (in)visible.
Allen's description of and comments on the lynching photographs of
LauraNelson, an African American woman, are particularly detailed, and
reveal the ways in which race and gender intersect in Without Sanctuary's
memorial argument. There are two pictures ofher: one is a close-up of her
hanging from a bridge, and the other is a panoramic photograph that
shows Nelson and her son both hanging from the bridge, with white
spectators, including men, women and children, lined up and looking
down on them from the bridge above. The second photograph takes up
two pages in the book. Allen describes the first photograph as "the
barefoot corpse of Laura Nelson." Of course, there are many other
barefoot bodies in the photographs that go unnoted. Allen writes,
Grief and a haunting unreality permeate this photo. The corpse of Laura
Nelson retains an indissoluble femininity despite the horror inflicted on it.
Specterlike, she seems to float-thistledown light and implausibly still.
For many African Americans, Oklahoma was a destination of hope, where
they could prosper without the laws in southern states that codified racism
and repression. What was to be a promised land proved to be a great
disillusionment. (178-79)413
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Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition (U.S.). JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Volume 24, Number 2, 2004, periodical, 2004; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc28644/m1/159/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .