The Corpse of Clyde Johnson

Like most of the pictures in this series, this image ("The Corpse of Clyde Johnson") is extremely disturbing. It portrays the lynching of Clyde Johnson, and the words in the negative read, "Killer of Jack Daw Aug 3, 1935 vengeance in Siskiyou Country." The words refer to the police chief of Dunsmuir, Oregon (where the lynching took place), whom Johnson allegedly killed. Though he was officially arrested, the town of Dunsmuir decided to take justice into their own hands, by taking him from his jail cell and having him from a pine tree three miles outside of town.

The photo is composed very interestingly. Photographer James Allen chose to capture only Johnson in the image, without any of the lynchers pictured. This, paired with the words inscribed in the bottom corner, works to implicate only Johnson for Daw's murder, rather than to implicate the lynchers for their own brutal murder. This is extremely symbolic of this image's historical era. Lynchers could be seen as heroes bringing a man to justice, instead of the vicious killers that they were.

Many of the images in "Without Sanctuary" evoke similar feelings that are, not surprisingly, hard to stomach. This raises an important question of morality. Obviously, the circulation of these images of lynchings as a form of entertainment in correspondence was despicable. Now, they can serve as a reminder of our country's shameful actions and a record for our history books. However, one terrible aspect of lynching was its public nature, and the way in which bodies were left on display for sometimes days on end. This begs the question: are we adding to that shame by continuing to distribute these photos?