Summary

Part III is titled “Chains of Being: The Black Body and the White Mind” (109). It begins with a series of prints and cartoons that denounce miscegenation and state the evolutionary inferiority of blacks. There are also three photographs of lynchings taken circa 1916-1930.

Chapter 3 begins with quotes by Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois. The former touts the achievements of Hiram Revels, the first black U.S. Senator, while the latter notes that slavery and racist propaganda have gone hand-in-hand in the dehumanization of African Americans.

Gates proceeds to define “Sambo art” - the representations of black women and black men as embodiments of all that was the reverse of Truth and Beauty, the Good and the Civilized” (126). He goes on to note the contradictory representations and stereotypes used to vilify black people at this time; black men were sometimes depicted...