The political cartoon Black Migration North combines vivid imagery and bigoted narrative to show the fate of African-Americans in post-Civil War America. The symbolism, stereotypes and dialogue shown in the cartoon give the reader an informative look into the complex and dismal state of race relations during Reconstruction. The cartoon shows how white society viewed the freed slaves and how the Racial Formation (This links to an excellent page that thoroughly defines Racial Formation and provides external links to information on Black Minstrelsy) of African-Americans was portrayed during this period.

Racist Depiction of Myth and Symbol

   The image of the black man morphed into an elephant plays on the theory of myth and symbol in several ways. First, by showing the African-American man as an elephant, the old myth of blacks are beasts and not human is implied. The use of clubs by the mob representing the South in driving off the "beast" further illustrates the de-humanizing of the African-Americans. The cartoon's quote "Big Black Sambo has broken away from his keepers, 

Black Migration North: Circa 1866-1880. **Author Unknown-Citation Needed**

and we can't keep him chained anymore," equates the African-American to circus animals in need of a keeper. Even the quote that represents the "friendly" North's opinion in this cartoon refers to blacks as beasts. "There's no room for such a big black beast here," demonstrates racial bias did not exist solely south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

   In 1903, several decades after the cartoon's publication, W.E.B. Du Bois  (from this link you can access Du Bois's writings, bioigraphical information and other links devoted to African-American History) wrote about the same problems of African-American assimilation into mainstream society that are addressed in the cartoon. In the essay Du Bois stated "The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promise land. Whatever of good may have come in these years of change, a shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people----a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people" (Horwitz 245).

   Du Bois's idea of "double-consciousness," a term he used to describe the problem in black and white culture of looking at oneself through the eyes of others and of "measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity," is represented in the cartoon (Horwitz 243). While the forces of the North and South argue over the fate of the freed African-Americans, they are forced to forge an identity in a society that sees the African-Americans through racist eyes. The "twoness an African-American feels, being an American and a Negro, and having two separate strivings and warring ideals in one dark body," is a struggle that African-Americans and white society have struggled with throughout American History (Horwitz 243).

 Analysis of Political Symbolism

  The second way this image reflects myth and symbol is by showing the "black problem" as a creation of the Republican Party. The symbol of the Republican Party is an elephant, and by morphing the African-American into an elephant, the cartoon is making the statement the GOP has created the problem of black migration North. Since the GOP is the party of Lincoln, it is their party that bares the brunt of political criticism in this cartoon. By placing the mobs representing Northern and Southern opinion at opposite ends of the elephant, and by placing the image of the elephant in the center of the picture, the cartoon is symbolizing how this issue still divides the United States.

  In a sense, the Republican Party created a problem neither side wanted to deal with. The South will take the African-Americans back, but only after they have been broken down and willing to submit to the "old ways". The Northern sentiment is clear: they do not want the influx of freedmen. The former slaves are free, free to live someplace else. Frederick Douglass  (Frederick Douglass National Historic Site) in a 1852 speech, twenty-years before this cartoon was published, touched on issues still symbolized in the cartoon. Douglass’s statement "Americans! Your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three million of your countrymen" (Horwitz 119).

  It is apparent in this cartoon that the inconsistent liberty and politics that Douglass spoke of in 1852, was still hindering African-Americans during Reconstruction and continued to hinder African-Americans until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By continuing to symbolize the former slaves as "beasts" who were still dividing the country, the attitude portrayed in this cartoon hindered the assimilation of blacks into post-Civil War America. 

Silent Voices

  While the cartoon’s creator has captured what he or she believes to be the sentiment of the nation on the issue of African-American migration north, one voice has been silent in the cartoon. The voice and opinion of the African-American on this subject has not been represented. The creator of this cartoon has taken great care to vividly set-up this grand image of the freed black "beast" still dividing our country. However, no credence is given to the black voice or point of view. As free men, they are still not entitled to make decisions affecting their lives and are relegated to being portrayed as helpless "children". The African-Americans must not only try and find their own self-consciousness, but they must also fight through the negative myths and racial attitudes that popular culture has instilled on them. Since they are symbolized as children, the African-Americans are seen as incapable of making intelligent decisions, so the dominant white culture will decide for them.

    The vivid imagery, the not so subtle political commentary and the use of myth and symbol in the cartoon Black Migration North, brings into focus the strained race relations between blacks and whites in the Reconstruction Era. By focusing on the use of race, myth, symbol and politics in the cartoon, the reader can see the complex way racial formations are presented in popular culture.

    A century after the publication of this cartoon, the issues addressed in the piece are still being debated. In Custer Died for your Sins, written in 1988, Vine Deloria wrote "Whites have always refused to give non-whites the respect which they have been found to legally possess. Instead there has always been a contemptuous attitude that although the law says one thing, "we all know better" (Deloria 8). In regards to white attitudes towards African-Americans, Deloria writes, "For one hundred years every program of public and private white America was devoted to the exclusion of the black. It was, perhaps, embarrassing to be rubbing shoulders with one who had not so long before been defined as a field animal" (Deloria 8).

Works Cited

Deloria, Vine. Custer Died For Your Sins. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.

Douglass, Frederick. "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" (1852). The American Studies Anthology. Ed.

     Richard Horwitz. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2001. 119.

Du Bois, W.E.B. "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" (1903). The American Studies Anthology. Ed. Richard Horwitz.

     Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2001. 243-245.