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Ku Klux Klan Lynching Scene Wooden Printing Block

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Black History

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Lynching Scene Wooden Printing Block 1869

1869, Wooden Printing Block, Depicting a Ku Klux Klan Double Lynching Scene, Choice Extremely Fine.
This fantastic, hand-engraved, wooden printing block depicts two men hanging from a tree branch, one of them holding a carpetbag labeled "Ohio." Walking away from the scene is a mule labeled "K K K." The back of this 1.75" x 3" block is engraved with the monogram initials "J B" the date "1869" and "Cotton-Bagger" in parentheses. The Klan was organized in Tennessee in 1866 in reaction not only to the growing power of freed slaves, but also to the arrival of "carpetbaggers" from the North, both Black and White, who bought up land and businesses in the bankrupt South. Southerners saw these individuals as transients (hence the carpetbag or cottonbag), who intended to loot the South rather than settle there, and who intended to establish local governments in the South which included or were even dominated by African-Americans. The Klan attempted to stop this process by first intimidating and finally murdering those involved. The local Klan units became so violent that in 1869 the Grand Wizard of the Klan, former Confederate General, Nathan Forrest, officially disbanded the organization. Nevertheless, local Klans continued to operate until the Anti-Klan Act of 1871 authorized force to suppress it. After hundreds of arrests, the Klan gradually faded away.
The printing block offered here, we believe was carved in 1869, perhaps in defiance of Nathan Forrest's order to disband. It was probably copied from a nearly identical image which appeared in the Tuscaloosa, Alabama "Independent Monitor" for September 1, 1868 titled, "A Prospective Scene in the City of Oaks 4th of March 1869." The article with this illustration indicated that hanging would be the fate of the 2 individuals named in the article if they remained in the South after sunrise on March 4, 1869. According to testimony given before a Congressional Committee by Reverend A.S. Lakin, a Presiding Elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Alabama at that time, the hanged man with the bag labeled "Ohio" represented him, and the other hanged man represented his assistant, Mr. Cloud. The Klan had been terrorizing and burning Methodist churches and sometimes murdering Methodist ministers. Lakin and Cloud, fearing for their lives, left the area 2 days before this image appeared in the newspaper. This printing block is in excellent condition, with no significant cracks or flaws. A rare and historically important artifact of a violent time in American History.



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