When I first saw the modern painting of a little black boy with a watermelon, I was torn. I have seen so many derogatory images of black-boy-with-watermelon that I shun them. Going to auctions, it’s…
Category: history
Lynn & Leslie, Constance Bannister’s African American babies
Posted in Black history, Books, Children, history, and Photos
Leslie did most of the crying. She wouldn’t sit still for the shoot by famed baby photographer Constance Bannister that day in the early 1960s. Usually, her brother Kevin, about 5 years old, could get her…
The ugly images of anti-Semitism & racism
Posted in Black history, Carvings, collectibles, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, history, and slavery
We’d like to think that we will someday somehow get past the hatred of those with the insane image in their heads that if you’re not like them – whatever that means – that you…
Anti-slavery pleas displayed in different forms
Posted in Black history, collectibles, history, and slavery
I’d often observed the “Am I Not a Man and a Brother” and the “Am I Not a Woman and a Sister” anti-slavery pleas on coins and medallions. The ones at this auction were in two new forms: a…
George Washington Carver on a whisky decanter
Posted in Advertising, Black history, collectibles, Figurines, and history
The figure looked like many of the other ceramic sculptures of African Americans that I’d seen in discount stores. This was an image of George Washington Carver, the man who experimented with peanuts at Tuskegee back in…
‘Stop busing’ buttons & meat rubber stamps from another era
Posted in Black history, history, Politics, and School
The box of red and white pinback buttons was pushed under a table near the door to the auction house, but their message was loud and clear: “Stop Forced Busing.” It was not the only…
As the tour bus rounded a corner to Saxman Village Totem Park in Alaska, the guide directed us to look at a pile of gray logs with splashes of color. Those are totem poles left…
Palmer Hotel assures it is fireproof after Great Chicago Fire
Posted in Advertising, Architecture/Buildings, Businesses, Equipment, and history
The aged envelope bore a large heading above a drawing of the Palmer Hotel in Chicago. The pronouncement would mean nothing without knowing the hotel’s history. “Only Fire-Proof House in the United States,” it blared.…
Queen Charlotte – Britain’s first biracial queen
Posted in Black history, history, and Women
I had never heard of Queen Charlotte until after the royal wedding on Saturday. A friend who spent the weekend immersed in all things royal mentioned it. She’d read that a woman with African roots…