These photographs were part of a campaign, but they’re also a curriculum. They are a visual logic of who should be pitied and who should be saved.

I wrote about the Rhetoric of Recognition on Substack. Check it out.

open.substack.com/pub/tanishia...

The back of the card reveals its mission:

“The nett proceeds from the sale of these Photographs will be devoted exclusively to the education of colored people…”

This was an abolitionist fundraising image. But like many visual artifacts of that time, it was also a performance.

This photograph, titled "Learning is Wealth," was taken in the 1860s and circulated as part of a campaign to raise funds for the education of formerly enslaved people.

It shows four individuals (three children and a Black man) reading together. Or at least, appearing to.

June 19, 1900 — Emancipation Day, Texas.

This is what history looks like when carried in the body, not just printed in the textbook.

Review letters from Abraham Lincoln, but read “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” (1845) to better understand how enslaved Americans defined freedom on their terms.

The twenty-sixth question on the exam delineates President Johnson as the successful champion and force behind changing the outcome of voting rights for Black Americans. President Johnson is the hero, with no mention of the grassroots work that forced political will.

Question 23 pulls from King’s “Give Us the Ballot.” The excerpt begins by affirming appreciation for recent legislation and ends by questioning the obstacles to universal suffrage. Absent are the movement’s collective efforts or King’s full critique of exclusion.

In questions 9-10, Abraham Lincoln prioritizes the Union. Emancipation is presented as a strategy, not a moral imperative. Politically, neither emancipation nor the welfare of Black Americans is paramount. The humanity of the Black race is secondary to national unity.