Race, Crime, and “Hambone's Meditations” in Memphis, 1920–1923

On January 27, 1921, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, a newspaper with the largest circulation in the South, sent readers two different but related messages regarding race.1 The first message was communicated by Hambone, a caricatured black male in a single‐frame cartoon whom white readers looked upon with sympathy and understanding (Figure 1). On this particular day, Hambone spoke of the burns he received the evening before when his wife, or “ole 'oman,” poured hot oil, or in this case “hot axle‐grease,” on his feet. The other message that appeared on this day likely also brought relief, for it came after a prolonged and unsettling period for white Memphians. Under the headline “Negro, Dual Slayer, Burned at Stake,” an article described the brutal lynching of Henry Lowry. That these two dichotomous images appeared in the Commercial Appeal was not, however, coincidental, for they represented the two prevailing stereotypes of black men generated by the paper and condoned by its white readership at the time. The stereotype of the “brute beast,” representing those African Americans deemed threatening to white society, became manifest in the capture and lynching of Lowry.3 Hambone provided the antithesis to this stereotype, evoking a Sambo‐like figure content to maintain the racial order and submit to white rule. Throughout the episode described above, white readers most likely found it comforting that Hambone affirmed their ability to control the black population. He was an important psychological and conditioning force, representing the “ideal Negro” or the “happy darky,” who allowed white Southerners to defensively assert that African Americans appreciated the guidance and conditions granted by white people.