African American Postcards

The faces drew me to them. Big eyes. Wide smiles. Proud people despite humble circumstances.

The chance purchase of a few turn-of-the-century postcards showing African Americans was to have been a one-time thing. But after attending a local postcard collector’s show – a job I was assigned to while working as a newspaper reporter – I found myself seeking out more and more images. In eight years, I bought about 360 postcards at shows and flea markets.

It was the early 1980s and these postcards were going cheaply. Dealers were happy to see black buyers, and eagerly showed them dozens of postcards costing anywhere from 50 cents to $5. It was a time when not many people wanted them. Within five years, as savvy individuals and universities began creating collections, that would change.

It was easy to understand why some were reluctant to buy these cards. They were uncomfortable reminders of the past.

 A handsome woman wearing a yellow and red-checked headscarf was identified only as “Mammy.” For a young boy eating watermelon there was “Nothing Better.” A man with a pegleg was described only by his mode of transportation, “Ox Cart, Tallahassee, Fla.”

These were among the milder descriptions. The use of coon and the N-word were common, and jarring. But I overlooked them to save and preserve faces that were a part of our history.

What I couldn’t overlook were the so-called comic postcards: drawings of blacks with huge lips and other grotesque features. These stereotypical cards never found their way into my collection. I found them too insulting.

Instead, I focused on early colorized portraits and scenic postcards – pictures of families sitting before their ramshackle log cabin, people working on tobacco farms or picking cotton or crabs.

Later, when the most choice black postcards began costing $15 to $50 each, I bought less-expensive cards decorated with well-dressed men and women from the 1930s posing in front of photo-studio backdrops. Then those got pricey, too.

I drifted away from postcard collecting, and even sold some duplicates and gave away less-desirable cards. But my interest remains. You never know what you’ll find in a box of junk, in an album or among the stock of a dealer willing to offer a discount. I’ll always be drawn to the faces and the stories they tell.

 

– J. McMillan, Philadelphia