Race and Sexual Politics of Lynching

         Following the Emancipation, freed blacks began to achieve and thrive, much to many white southerners’ dismay. Ida B. Wells’ interest in the cult of lynching in the South was stirred by her friend Thomas Moss’ death by lynch mob. He was a successful grocer that had caused a white grocer’s business profits to decline. This stirred up strong hatred and envy—Southern whites held a lot of entitlement to put the black men and women back into the place they were just years prior. The Ku Klux Klan, along with Jim Crow laws, resulted in a political agenda that supported the exploitation of free black men and women in the South. Wells saw lynching as a tool, used by southern whites, to keep freed black people from gaining back their humanity and hope after decades of slavery, abuse, and dehumanization.

         During slavery in the United States, white men consistently violated black slave women with sexual violence and exploitation. It was another component of “ownership”; the white man had legal right to the slave’s body. Post-emancipation, that exertion of control was continued, not just by rape but also by the lynching of black men. It was a way to maintain dominance over the bodies of freedmen—using fear and intimidation; whites used he-said-she-said finger pointing to justify lynch mobs. The court systems believed the accusers, as the accusers were white, and the assailants were black. They justified lynching and accusations with the notion of the dehumanized, savage black man, pursuing white women. This was during a time where a woman’s purity and domesticity were the social expectation; to even hint that a white woman may have voluntarily entertained a black man’s courtship was scoffed at. Ida B. Wells pointed out the irony in her publications; that while white men raped and impregnated black slave women, sometimes falling in love, they couldn’t imagine an instance in which a white woman would allow that with a black man.

         Ida B. Wells’ campaign against lynching contributed to the mobilization and development of an organized African-American’s women’s movement because the validity and exposure that she gained through her public rhetoric speaking out against the unjust lynching practices of the south gave black women a voice. By sharing her findings of the hundreds of southern lynching deaths, Wells was able to exert her presence and unite black woman across the nation to begin speaking out for African-American rights, justice, and equality.

 ^^ During my reading and search for photos, I found this book. Interesting that this publication would pop up during a search for Ida B. Wells quotes. 

Godey's Lady's Book

The Godey’s Lady’s Book preached the conservative ideals of the 19^th century; wholesomeness and domesticity, purity and reserved personalities and values of women during that time.

It propagated trending fashions, literature, and stories, mainly written by men. While Sarah J. Hale was the female editor of the male-run publication, she performed her role with the most restrained, dignified approach, sure not to go beyond what she honestly felt was the women’s place in the world.

Publisher Louis Godey shared her views, and the magazine exuded this perspective tenfold, through the context and subscriber list. It was a reinforcement of societal norms and behavior, and a guideline to the idea lifestyle for women at that time.

            While it kept women informed on current affairs, it was within the context of the significant of a women’s role to the United States. This was a period of transformation and progression—Godey’s responded to the upheaval by reinforcing a women’s role to provide stability during times of change.  

This reinforcement is evident through the drawings and articles of the publication. Barbara Welter’s Cult of True Womanhood refers to Godey’s Lady’s Book as a primary source when examining the four components of femininity—domesticity, piety, submission, and purity.

            Figure 4.1 embodies those four components—the woman is eagerly awaiting her husband’s return, while tending to their infant, amidst a clean and organized home. It symbolizes the structure that a woman should uphold—a stable environment for children and husband, an orderly home for the husband to return to after a long day at work.

 Figure 4.2 shows a female teacher, working to maintain her maternal values and exhibiting her experience.  She appears to be reflecting, perhaps in prayer, as she reviews books. Figure 4.5 portrays middle-class women going shoe shopping as a form of leisure, instead of necessity. This is an early indicator of the emerging consumer society that would become the staple of the American economy. The clerk is a male and looks over them, handling the transactions. The low-class female employee tends to the shoppers, who are lounging around in the store in luxury—reserved and submissive, pure and pious. 

Much how political cartoons continue to serve a purpose in propagating certain believes and perceptions in modern times, figure 3.7 portrays a women neglecting her feminine duties (childcare, kept appearance) in order to flirt and fool around with the men of the revolution in signing a boycotting pledge--this was an attempt on behalf of the English to negate the efforts of the colonies to establish its dependence, prior to the revolution. The women are incorporated into this drawing for the sole purpose of furthering the insult towards the male colonists attempting to gain independence from England. 

In Figure 3.9, you see a young soldier from the early days of the Revolutionary War. He is happy, his horse is happy, and the women carrying the American symbols of liberty and freedom is happy. The woman, by his side, is the key holder to the eagle and the flag. This is propaganda depicting the soldier's noble duties, the woman's "essential role" and reiterating the visual symbolism that is maintained throughout wartime publications--eagles, bells, flags, stars and stripes.

For figure 3.10, we are introduced to an angelic woman who has a close relationship with the eagle, a big symbol of American freedom. This drawing maintained popularity throughout the revolution due to the detail and beauty of the picture, and the symbolism of British defeat that is so evident throughout the drawing. Using a male soldier as opposed to a well dressed woman would have created a more masculine piece of propaganda which may have alienated some women and their impression that their role affected the success of the revolution. 

University of Southern California

Gender Studies Program Mark Taper Hall of Humanities,

422 3501 Trousdale Parkway

Los Angeles, California 90089-4352 USA

Attention: Professor Alice Echols

Dear Prof. Echols,

            The content of your biography on the life of Janis Joplin evoked in me a fresh perspective on the historical context of the blues scene in the 1960’s. While the political and sociological climate was ripe for radical change and revolutionary thought, the musical climate is often overlooked or generalized as one big hippie-ridden, LSD-laden Woodstock festival. Your biography, Scars of Sweet Paradise, The Life and Times of Janis Joplin, not only examined the life of Joplin, but it presented parallels with the counterculture of the 1960’s that are so relevant in its effects on the nation’s current political and social climate. The racial, economic, and gender divides during the 1960’s played such an influential role in the art and life of Janis Joplin, which is a major underlying foundation of your biography.

            The duality of her persona presented such inner-conflict, which you examined closely in your book. I visualized Joplin’s performances and music, but then connected her childhood background from the early chapters and how that effected her internalization of her insecurities. You create this sympathy for Joplin in the book, and give readers such hopes for redemption, success, and happiness for her. However, much to my own frustration, I never got the impression in your book that she was doomed from the beginning—such an undertone is nearly impossible to avoid when writing an account of a notorious tragedy. The self-destructive environment that you recognized of the blues scene in San Francisco doesn’t present itself as a foreshadowing to her untimely death. While I knew the story would be an anti-climatic one with a far from Hollywood ending, I found myself convinced, over and over, that Janis would end up living until the chapter on her overdose. Figuratively, she lives on through her music, your book, and the influence she had on modern day blues and rock. 

            Janis Joplin bridges the gap between the early 1960’s folk scene and an electric rock scene that emerges full-force in the 1970’s. It is that transition that truly parallels the transition of the politics and societal norms and movements of that period. The 1960’s were the period of revolutionary thought and action, and the period of the emergence of Civil Rights, Black Power, Women’s Rights, and Gay Rights movements truly gain momentum and nation-wide recognition. I was looking for some more definitive examples of this throughout the book, but there were mainly brief allusions to them amongst recounts of Joplin’s life.

            From what I interpreted after finishing the book, Janis teetered on the edge of feminist and anti-feminist, especially in the radical sense of that time. While she expressed female angst of inequality and mistreatment by men, she didn’t identify with the feminist movement by any means--“it seems like they haven’t had a good time in months (306)”—and invaded the male-ridden industry with her persona, yet that persona maintained a highly eroticized portrayal of her. Janis was, and was perceived as, a sexualized artist with ambiguous sexual preferences and public rejection of conventional relationships. This was often more “Pearl”, her stage persona,  than Janis, which allowed her to maintain a self-destructive character to her fans, as the miserable blues singer. While this is the publicized perception, your book truly showed the ways in which Janis was happy, and sought fulfillment in her relationships and in her actions over the course of her short life.

            Apart from it all, it was Janis’ love affair with music that made her a sensation and a legend, yet an affair with drugs that caused her untimely demise. This biography showcased the roots of her inspiration, the world she lived in, and the plight of the counterculture. Thank you for your thoroughness and dedication to developing such a strong piece of research that will remain a relevant source for examining the blues scene and counterculture of the 1960’s.

           

            Warm Regards,

                                    Katie Montgomery

European Images of Native American Women

The United States government is a compromise of institutions. Before this grandiose institution was officially formed in 1776, the Europeans who initially colonized North America engaged in a drawn out process of decimation and dehumanization of people of color. The European colonizers began exploring and looking for new land with a particular agenda in mind: to conquer, dominate, and expand--nothing could stand in their way of spreading their European ideology through inexorable imperial advancements. The colonizers used Native Americans to further their progress of colonization and concurrently degenerated the population of Native Americans. When colonists encountered Native Americans in North America in 1511, their hegemonic motives went unaltered.

Whitesattempted to destruct and change the natives’ culture as well as way of life. They used their own European Christian ideology to justify the harsh and barbaric actions against the natives. The Europeans viewed Native Americans as savages, inhuman, and animalistic. The views of Native women were that of fascination, as they seemed free, without inhibitions, and without clothes. Native culture was often that of a matriarchal society, which valued women and their roles. Native women were much more empowered than the European women. That resulted in lonely colonial men to pursue Native American women, no consent needed. After white settlers progressed into new territories for settlement, they relocated Native Americans to reservations. The tribes were forced to adapt to new agricultural methods, often left with limited, if any, resources. Starvation, disease, and corruption quickly grew to another hardship Indians were to face. Initially, in 1492, Native American population was over 5 million, and this drastically was reduced in a ten year span from 1890-1900 to roughly 250,000 Native Americans. This shift was due to an increase in mortality rates and a decrease in the birth rate, as a direct result from European colonization. From the beginning of reservations and to this day, the quality of many Native Americans’ lives is on the same level of that of third world, developing countries. Today there still remains economic and political barriers many Native Americans struggle against.

Musical Performance of The Blues

Janis Joplin escaped her hometown, full of rejection and isolation, and found solace in traditionally black music—blues, folk, and jazz. Her racial transgressions were limited to the musical components, as she didn’t herself socialize with the black population of her town.  She later went on to compare her own middle-class white expectations and her rejection of those norms to the black struggle of inequality and oppression.

She later found a place in the San Francisco blues scene with a variety of blues bands, each teaching her and guiding her development as a blues artist. Her natural rebellion was cradled by blues music; it was empowering and liberating to be part of an organic form of expression. She found herself rejecting the societal norms along with the subculture of the time—forgoing a bra, makeup, and hair styles to embrace a freedom of her own gender role, especially coming from a small Texas town.

Despite not having a polished appearance, Joplin was open with her sexuality and her activities, and exuded female sexuality in her live performances. Janis was bisexual as well yet held back about that personal aspect in the media and her music to cater to the male-driven industry and misogynistic norms.

Her lyrics expressed her experience as an oppressed woman; much alike how black blues artists expressed racial oppression.  She had a very powerful demeanor about her yet her lyrics also set her up as a tortured female, subject to emotional dependency on men, which was a mindset and a lifestyle that many females during that time were trying to reject, and encourage freedom from men.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”

One of my favorite Joplin lyrics, in hindsight, can be loosely interpreted to her life and perspective on blues, race, and gender.