Great Migration image is face of 'shock and terror'

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http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/2718706,CST-NWS-photo17.article

September 17, 2010

BY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA Staff Reporter [e-mail]



Circa 1920 this photo was taken of the Arthur family of Paris, Texas. They had just escaped a lynch mob.
(Chicago History Museum)

Their eight faces stare out from the photograph -- eight pairs of blank eyes; two men, four women, a girl and a little boy; all dressed in Sunday church clothes. No one is smiling.

Taken around 1920, the photo of one Southern family newly arrived at the train depot in Chicago is described by one historian as perhaps the single most reproduced image of the Great Migration.

"Unfortunately, it has been presented again and again as an anonymous photo of 'typical' migrants arriving in Chicago," said historian Michael Flug. snip

Ervin Hill, 66 at the time, shared that the photo was of the Arthur family of Paris, Texas, who had just escaped a lynch mob that had burned at stake two of his uncles and was coming looking to lynch the remaining family members.



Edit to add link to larger photo:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/86288983/Hulton-Archive