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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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July 15, 2012

Welcome to Dodgeville WI — A lawn jockey and other Jim Crow-style decorations grace this home on the main street leading into Dodgeville WI. (Fran Kaplan)

Seen today in Dodgeville, these patriotic decorations greet passersby and visitors to a home on the main thoroughfare.

The oldest city in Wisconsin, with a population just under 5000, Dodgeville is the corporate home of the well-known apparel retailer Lands End.

According to Wikipedia, in the 2010 census “the racial makeup of the city was 98.06% White, 0.36% Black or African American, 0.02% Native American, 0.59% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.17% from other races, and 0.76% from two or more races. 0.43% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.”

Twenty-five percent of the townspeople likely to pass this display regularly are the children of the town. They may passively absorb racist lessons from such displays or see their own skin color reflected in such displays.

Open displays of racist memorabilia such as this cause some to wonder whether Black Americans are free at last.

More Black news stories from Wisconsin and beyond.

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