Description

Louis Lozowick made this image in response to the brutal lynchings of African Americans in the American South during slavery and the Jim Crow era. The victim's face is highlighted in the foreground, as he is murdered by a shapeless mass with a grotesque face obscured in the shadows. Lozowick manipulates the viewpoint to suggest that the viewer inhabits the unseen space in front of the victim, thus occupying the place of the lynch mob. Lozowick, a Jew, placed his own features on that of the lynched man, suggesting an additional, grim message. At a time when word of Hitler's oppression of German Jews and stance against Blacks was beginning to reach America, Lozowick suggests parallels between American racism and Nazi fascism and the threat of both to all Americans.