The Odd Amalgam: John L. Spivak’s 1932 Photographs, Undercover Reporting, and Fiction in Georgia Nigger

Ronald E. Ostman Department of Communication Cornell University

and

Berkley Hudson School of Journalism University of Missouri-Columbia

Paper presented to the Visual Studies Division International Communication Association

Dresden, Germany

June 20, 2006

Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936), who generally is cited as the first muckraking journalist, called John L. Spivak (1897-1981) “the best of us.” Spivak, among many progressive and muckraking writers of America’s early 20th century who might have competed for the honor, was labeled by some of his contemporaries as “the best reporter … in the whole United States at the present moment,” “America’s greatest newspaper man,”

“one of the alertest reporters alive,” and “greatest reporter since Lincoln

Steffens” (Florinsky, 1936).

Spivak, Who? Yet today Spivak is almost unknown among journalism and communication

historians and scholars. Perhaps this neglect is due to his ideology. He began as a socialist,

was quickly disillusioned, and became a thinly disguised communist (Goode, 1997; Gross,

1935). He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era of suppression and was imprisoned

several times for his alleged libelous writings. Or, perhaps his current neglect is due to his

many violations of ethical standards (by today’s standards) in the ways he went about

investigating and reporting. Or maybe he’s been forgotten because he did not report

exclusively for the “objective” mainstream newspapers of the era, often preferring instead

such outlets as the communistic Daily Worker, the leftist New Masses, the short-lived exposé magazine Ken, the New Haven Union (CT), the socialistic Call, the Charleston

Gazette (WV), trashy pulp magazines like True Strange Stories, and the like (North, 1969).

When he did report and write for more reputable and known media and news services, his day job work tended to be routine and without bylines, while his investigative passions were spent on independent freelance inquiries that resulted in hard hitting and sensational books (Fry [pseudonym], 1959; Spivak, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1939a,

1939b, 1940, 1948).

However, historical and scholarly neglect of Spivak cannot be due to his absence from many of the landmark cases and issues in American history. For example, Spivak was at the center of witnessing and reporting public controversies such as the: corruption of New York City and Washington, DC government officials and police, birth and early struggles of the American Civil Liberties Union,

West Virginia coal strikes and labor-management unrest,

Sacco and Vanzetti trials, use of faked so-called “communist” documents by high public officials,

Scottsboro “Boys’” trials, sharp rise of anti-Semitic furor in the U.S. and abroad, disappointments of the post-World War I world, sham of prohibition and the rise of the gangster element, fascist ideologies and German/Japanese spying at home and abroad that fueled the fires leading to World War II, alleged right-wing plot to overthrow the hated Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. government, rise of federal committees investigating un-American activities leading to McCarthyism, phenomenon of Father Charles E. Coughlin’s right-wing radio propaganda broadcasts and illegal fund raising that fleeced a gullible public, and the fraud perpetuated by mail-order magazine subscription services sold door-to-door.

John L. Spivak, Prisoner in a Seminole County, Georgia, stockade. “On the Chain Gang,” 1932 (Stott, 1986).

Spivak Uses the ‘N’ Word

In addition to his reporting and writing, we examine Spivak’s creative use of documentary photographs (Owens, 1978; Schwartz, 1999; Stryker, 1967; Stryker &

Johnstone, 1940; Tucker, 1984; Watkins, 1982). Spivak made several dozen images inside

Georgia chain gang camps in the early 1930s and published several in Georgia Nigger, a fictional book based on his thorough underground “detective” investigation that collected damning information through purloined government documents and records, interviews with public officials and employees, and observations and conversations with men imprisoned. Spivak’s book claimed that those men, primarily African-Americans, were sometimes beaten or worked to death on chain gangs that meted out medieval methods of diabolical pain and punishment. In addition to Spivak’s photographs, methods of operation, and his visual and editorial decisions, we also address the aftermath of Georgia Nigger’s publication. The book had great impact on the sympathetic intellectual left, which received the photographs as “irrefutable” proof “that the master has not forgotten the ancient use of the whip” (“As Others,” 1934). Another reviewer mentioned that the photographs and accompanying official documents and records were convincing “support of his statements, which might otherwise appear incredible to many of his readers” (“Miss Latimer’s Stories,”

1932). Brickell (1932) spoke of the photographs as a means of substantiating “the truth of the story” and noted that public opinion would be aroused in order “to improve conditions somewhat” (p. 2). However, other Spivak reviewers were more skeptical, commenting on

“distrust” of his anecdotes and descriptions (“The heavy hand,” 1936), his “misleading… use of facts” and his crediting of “rumor and hearsay” (Sullivan, 1939), and referring to him as a journalist “trained to get what (he) is after” (Chamberlain, 1935). In addition to the critical and literary reviews of the book, we examine the aftermath of the book’s publication and the public policy reactions to the gripping, sensational, and theretofore largely unknown implications of Southern chain gangs and the cruel racism they not only perpetuated, but actually accelerated after the Civil War, well into the 20th century.

Muckraking

Any overview of important approaches to journalism and news in the 20th century

(Deuze, 2006; Hamilton, 2006; Ryfe, 2006; Singer, 2006; Tewksbury, 2006) should include “muckraking,” which held a certain sway from 1902 to 1912, after which it blended into the Progressive movement (Weinberg & Weinberg, 1961), “high modernism” from the

1940s to 1980s (Hallin, 1992, 2006), the offshoot of “new journalism” especially prominent in the 1960s and 1970s (Boynton, 2005; Gutkind, 1997, 1998, 2004; Hollowell,

1977; Johnson, 1971; Kerrane & Yagoda, 1997; Sims, 1984, 1990, 1995; Weingarten,

2005a, 2005b; Wolfe, 1973), and recognition of the highly fragmented media universe that has accelerated on the American scene in recent decades. These movements are relevant to understanding John L. Spivak’s journalistic efforts.

The “literature of exposure” eventually known as “muckraking” was roughly synonymous with the Presidency of Theodore R. Roosevelt, who gave it its pejorative name. Characterized more abstractly, muckraking was an in-depth American magazine journalism of fact and the presentation of a “human face” concerning wrongdoing and suffering. Muckrakers’ reports often were laced with direct or indirect criticism, but did not suggest solutions (Miraldi, 2000). Articles were presented to a readership who at first glimpse seemed wed to the status quo, but nonetheless was ripe for turmoil. A full spectrum of U. S. wealth, privilege, status, and power was characteristic of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. On the one hand, it was an era of giant, greedy business monopolies and political corruption, aided and abetted by an establishment, captive press that increasingly was addicted to advertising revenues. On the other hand, a diverse, poverty-stricken, increasingly urbanized population lived under strict codes of inequitable conduct and benefit distribution dictated by class, race, and gender. Muckrakers identified groups that were thought powerful and reprehensible, researched them, and wrote about their activities in exposés calculated to undermine their continued abilities to be exploitive of other oppressed groups (Lofland, Snow, Anderson, & Lofland, 2006).

Popular penny press and “yellow journalism” newspapers during the last decades of the 19th century increasingly developed wider audiences by featuring often lurid and sensational content (Schudson & Tifft, 2005). Adding improved halftone photoengraved visual content to enhance traditional text messages further stimulated the success of the penny press. Distribution networks continued to expand locally with street corner sales to supplement subscriptions and broadening regional and even national circulations attributable to the growth of railroad, telephone, and telegraph services (Becker & Roberts,

1992). These developments fostered similar trends in the theretofore-staid realm of magazine publishing (Baker, 1945). Some journalists rebelled and sought to expose conditions they felt were deplorable and corrupt. Their reform-oriented investigative journalism benefited from supply and technological trends in mass production that lowered costs. Their messages appealed to a huge new potential readership comprised of an increasingly educated public disenchanted with the laissez faire.

Muckrakers were bold and passionate in their investigations and their willingness to be blunt. Some told their stories using reportorial journalism. Others, such as Sherwood

Anderson, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, Hamlin

Garland, and Frank Norris (Fitzpatrick, 1994; Mumford, 1968), told their stories in fiction that sometimes was thoroughly researched and meticulously documented. A variety of impulses drove the muckrakers, among them personal ideologies, a sense of adventure, and a hatred of wrongdoing. These impulses and others stimulated the evangelical fervor that characterized muckraking (Evensen, 2000). The motives of still other muckrakers might have been self-aggrandizement and financial and led critics to suggest they were indulging in sensationalism. Whatever their motives, their mission was to arouse public sentiments, skepticisms, and indignations, with the expectation that society could reform through legislation and new policies that, once enforced, would put an end to the evils and wrongs the journalists exposed. They found huge, receptive audiences for their exposés and – from time to time – a sympathetic President in the White House, for T. R. Roosevelt knew the value of publicity and public relations.

Toward the end of the short period that muckrakers flourished, the businesses and other interests they exposed played a role in their defeat by withholding advertising dollars and through buyouts of their publications. However, an estimated 2,000 muckraking articles had been printed in nationally circulated magazines from 1903 to 1912, although the origins of muckraking are traceable to 1890 (Fitzpatrick, 1994). It is debated, but generally understood that the foundation they laid led to later reforms by Presidents Woodrow

Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, extending their influence politically and socially until the dawn of World War II (Cook, 1972; Miraldi, 2000; Shapiro, 1968; Weinberg &

Weinberg, 1961). Credit for later investigative reports centering on topics such as poverty amidst plenty, the harmful effects of pesticides, and Presidential malfeasance also has been claimed as progeny of the “hard-hitting, socially conscious, independent, and factually investigative journalism” of the muckraking tradition (Fitzpatrick, 1994, p. 114), although the conditions faced by investigative reporters today and their motivations are vastly different from those of muckrakers at the beginning of the twentieth century (Good, 2000). The muckrakers before him had examined race in America and found conditions very bad for African Americans. Their method – outsiders who went out among the people, listening and seeing with fresh eyes for themselves, being taken for ordinary Joes because they didn’t announce their real purpose – was similar to Spivak’s and the corruptions they exposed certainly had not disappeared by the time Spivak rose to the challenge of documenting racial injustice in Georgian chain gangs (Regier, 1932). Ray Stannard Baker, a Northerner, wrote on “The Clashes of Races in A Southern City” (Atlanta, Georgia) for

American Magazine in 1907, for example. Baker vividly described the strict norms and laws that separated white from black in every facet of life and provided the backdrop to mob lynching and race riots. Baker’s engaging use of dialogue, setting, and narration was commingled with history, sociology, politics and anything else that served to elucidate the social problems he witnessed (Baker, 1908; Chalmers, 1958). In a brief passage in his well-known “Following the Color Line” (1908), Baker put his finger on an institutional reason for the perpetuation of the chain gangs that Spivak would later address in Georgia

Nigger. This was the fact that many more African Americans were arrested than whites, even when the same crime was in question. Secondly, Baker pointed out that whites who were sentenced often were assessed more lenient punishments than African Americans sentenced for similar crimes. Third, the state and counties benefited from public works projects from prisoner labor on chain gangs, or financially when convict labor sometimes was leased to private contractors (Cable, 1885; Roberts, 1960; Taylor, 1942a, 1942b). And finally, the state had no incentive to try to reform sentenced criminals. A cheap labor source could always be ensured, even if those charged were innocent. One senses that Baker, like many other muckrakers, identified with “terrorized Negroes” and others on the “underside of American capitalism” (Swados, 1962). Indeed, Filler (1976) credits muckrakers such as

Ray Stannard Baker, Richard Barry, Benjamin Orange Flower, Charles Edward Russell,

Carl Schurz, Lincoln Steffens, William English Walling and Willis D. Weatherford as working relentlessly during 1905 to 1915 to keep race relations and inequality in the

American news and to foster public awareness of race as an important social issue, eventually leading to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

(NAACP).

New Journalism

Tom Wolfe’s four defining characteristics of the “new journalism” (a disputed term to describe the nuanced concoction of journalism and fiction popularized in the 1970s) are often cited: depicting people in dramatic scenes through storytelling; using complete dialogue as it occurred, rather than sound bites and fragments of conversation; using a variety of authorial/observational points of view; and close attention to and description of telling details, such as mannerisms, gestures, and other details that characterize people in subcultures and other social and cultural groups (Connery, 1992). None of this was new under the sun and Spivak’s Georgia Nigger can be considered an extension of early trends toward literary journalism by the muckrakers and a forecast of what literary journalism might look like when it was in full bloom in the 1970s (Wolfe, 1973).

The muckrakers were innovative in their approach to American topics. They sought fresh and dramatic anecdotes, took the reader to the intimacy of behind-the-scenes doings, and presented a new cast of characters, re-enacting their skullduggery and shenanigans in writing that showed exotic and mundane settings that no one had written about previously.

In matters of style and well as substance, the muckrakers were pacesetters. Lincoln

Steffens, for example, is analyzed as an early literary journalist (Parisi, 1992).

Spivak’s “Detective” Journalism

The term “high modernism” has been used to describe routine establishment journalism of the type that Spivak did for his day jobs when he was with the conventional press (Ryfe, 2006). His work was anonymous, claimed to present only straight facts in an objective manner, used formulaic methods of expression, was not enterprising in that it did not challenge the status quo, was founded on a standard routine and reportorial process that featured the journalistic “beat ” and handouts. Nothing was looked at in deep context and the ability to knock off a large volume of words in daily writing was the measure of a good journalist. It’s apparent in reading his autobiography that Spivak was bored stiff with high modernism and always found ways to escape the straitjacket which conventional journalism imposed. His ideology forced him to be other than what his day jobs required and his career is filled with job jumping and he often abandoned secure Establishment positions in order to pursuit more serious concerns and social issues as a freelancer (Spivak, 1967). The traditions of muckraking and literary journalism were well established by the time Spivak came to write Georgia Nigger. However, these genres were not in vogue in the early 1930s, as journalism was enmeshed in the mission of providing information provided for the reader within a generally unimaginative formula and vehicle for delivery (Connery,

1992). Spivak’s work in his freelance mode serves as a forerunner. His “detective” style of research involved deep examination of statistical data, informants and tipsters, hunches, brash confrontation of principal suspects with enough research detail to make them believe he had the goods on them when he in fact was still looking for major pieces of the puzzle, a tough-guy persona that seemed to relish danger and bullying persons in positions of power and authority, a faint regard for ethical principles when they got in the way of his questioning mind, and an ego seeking praise and attention that seemed unquenchable.

Based on his ability to see the big picture with only partial data, he was willing to take a leap into speculative and confrontational publication made to sound authentic, logical, and air tight.

In Georgia Nigger, Spivak incorporated realistic dialogue, believable settings, and a story that was fast-paced and dramatic with a message that had profound social import.

His characters, while occasionally veering off into archetype, were for the most part believable and the reader could love or hate them. He forced the reader to use all the senses, particularly tactile and olfactory, much more than most authors of fiction manage. His narrative occasionally was flawed by brief ideologically inspired asides and explanations, but even these were handled in ways that were not awkwardly obtrusive. Most importantly,

he claimed to have infallible proof of those abuses whereof he spoke in the form of

photographs of persons, situations, and incriminating documents.

Spivak’s Photography

Spivak’s photographs were powerful for their times (Tucker, 1984) and remain fraught with emotional impact, which can be explored within the theoretic frameworks of aesthetics theory (Dake, 2005; Zettl, 2005), visual rhetoric (Foss, 2005), reception theory

(Barbatsis, 2005), and the historical tradition of documentary photography analysis

(Denton, 2005; Stott, 1986).

Aesthetics theory instructs that beauty involves a created object, a maker (or makers) of the object, and a viewer. Obviously, the maker and viewer may not agree on their perceptions and interpretations of the object, although it usually is the maker’s intention to stimulate a collaborative mutual set of perceptions and interpretations. Usually, the maker and viewer disagree about something thought “ugly,” although if the maker intended to make an ugly object they may agree. What apparently is critical in gaining the viewer’s initial attention, gaze, and engagement is that the object contain inherent qualities

(such as complexity, unusual or novel relationships between elements, ambiguity, etc.) that engender a reception of incongruity, unexpectedness, surprise and so on to challenge the viewer’s sense of status quo, harmony, balance, and consistency. Such a state of unbalance stimulates the viewer’s need to create meaning and explanation, to make sense of the new object (Chaplin, 2006).

Thus, it is probable that Spivak chose to photograph unfamiliar scenes in a dramatic way so as to challenge the viewer’s pre-existing sensibilities – whether of equality, freedom, fair play, justice, and so on – with the intention of creating empathy and compassion for other humans in trouble, distress, or pain. Once an imbalance has thus been created, Spivak no doubt wished the viewer to experience unease and outrage and to take action to challenge or change situations and behaviors, thus restoring a semblance of balance to a formerly uncontested set of beliefs and consistent set of informational understandings.

The sought responses can be manipulated further by the maker’s use of text with information and argument to supplement the initial need on the part of the viewer to understand the baffling or challenging photographic image. Thus, visual and textual coordination often is considered part of the maker’s creative process if strategically planned responses are intended (Chaplin, 2006; Rothstein, 1986) as part of the maker’s conscious attempt to persuade and influence the behavior of the viewer (Foss, 2005). Moving from strict theory to applied media aesthetics, in fact, concentrates on the basic image elements that are purposively manipulated and controlled by the maker during the encoding process with reasonably accurate and known probabilities of affecting viewer decoding, thus maximizing potential for achieving intended purposes, often without obvious intent as perceived by the viewer (Zettl, 2005). By contrast, visual rhetoric approaches to photographic communication stress that once the created visual object or symbolic product is intentionally made, “released,” and becomes available to others to see and interpret, the actual meanings attributed to the object by the viewers may be quite different from that intended by the maker. In analysis, this is a shift from putting emphasis on the maker of the message to the viewer (listener, reader) of the message (Foss, 2005; Kenney, 2005). Taken another step, reception theory focuses more on receiver (audience) interaction with message and medium as a means of understanding the creation of meaning and thus, communication (Barbatsis, 2005).

Through such analysis, it is possible to compare viewer-picture receptions and effects of messages with maker intentions as established during the process of message creation in order to assess the degree to which intended effect is in fact actually achieved.

This is difficult to do with historical data, of course, because maker intentions and audience effects are often shrouded in elusive ambiguity and the researcher must deal with vast amounts of missing data concerning the communication process and the social-cultural milieu in which it took place. Thus, traditional historians have been well aware of the limitations of their empiricism long before the post-modernists’ critiques of the 1990s.

Those limitations also include the differential and selective survival of primary data, possible relativism of historical judgment and reconstruction, the simplicity of explanation concerning a complex past, the tentative nature of theory construction, and so on.

Journalism historian David Paul Nord pointed out that many contemporary historians prefer to look at text (and by extension, visual images) in “social, economic, religious, and

political context … some (historians) …. explored the contexts of production … (while)

others stressed the contexts of reception … (a text’s) meaning lies not in the text itself but

in the social contexts in which it was written, published, and read” (2003, p. 367). That this

requires the historian’s effort to transport the self back to an earlier time – often far outside

the parameters of personal experience and understanding, with the goal of reconstructing

those times and the people who produced and interpreted the historical text itself – makes

the task daunting.

Craig Denton’s writing on documentary photography acknowledges a debt to

media aesthetics theory, especially to the pragmatics of the approach as it exists in the

manufacture of texts and images. Denton defines documentary photography as the process

of “using pictures and supplementary written text to record information, tell a story, or

reveal a condition” (2005, p. 405), a definition that is similar to that of others (Rothstein,

1986) which seems to summarize Spivak’s purpose in Georgia Nigger except that Spivak tended to subjugate photographs to text rather than vice versa (only one photograph, that of a trussed convict on the ground, preceded the fictional story).

It is clear that Spivak’s ego interacted with his purpose. That he tried to tell the truth as he saw it motivated his risky behavior in taking photographs in situ and including them as evidence to substantiate the book’s claims. His story, for which he argued verisimilitude to the reality of chain gangs, permitted him to exercise his personal assertions, judgments, and beliefs in an engaging and even entertaining vehicle while at the same time allowing

himself the occasional luxury of directly addressing the reader as “you” in David’s place

(David Jackson is Spivak’s main character, a fictional African American chain gang

convict). That Spivak embedded most of the documentary photographs as appendix

embellishments was perhaps a jarring way to remind the reader: “See, this story I’ve just

told and which you’ve just read is true. It’s not just fiction, it’s really happening! Do

something about it! Let’s correct this terrible injustice.” In Spivak’s words, from the

postscript to Georgia Nigger (1932):

I thought it wise to tell the story of David’s efforts to escape from a monstrous system, in the guise of fiction. But though all the characters in Georgia Nigger are fictitious some of the scenes described are so utterly incredible that I feel an appendix of pictures and documents are necessary in this particular work. The pictures I took personally in various camps and the documents are but a few of the many gathering dust in the State Capitol in Atlanta.

… I do not believe that the overwhelming proportion of intelligent and humane citizens of the south approves these conditions. In those representative southerners, white and black, with whom I discussed my investigations and showed the pictures and documents, I found a sense of startled horror and a desire to end these things.

To those who are vaguely familiar with the lives in Georgia Nigger from the shocking cases which reach the press from time to time, and who may think I deliberately chose sensational and extreme instances for David to see and hear and pass through, I make assurances that I have earnestly avoided that, not only because it would not have been a representative picture but because the extreme cases are unbelievable. (pp. 241-243)

The term “documentary,” as applied to Spivak’s photography, derives from the

Latin docere, meaning “to teach” about truth in society (Rothstein, 1986). The slide show that accompanies this paper shows examples of Spivak’s chain gang photography and draws from his own emotion-laden captions and passages from his fiction to illustrate the interplay between text and visual image (see Appendix A). That interplay clearly demonstrates Spivak’s passion experienced in regard to his subject and his strong desire that the reader/viewer should do something about the injustices shown and described. Thus,

Spivak was not only providing information, he was teaching and persuading in a way that provided proof or evidence (Rothstein, 1986).

It is doubtful that Spivak thought of himself primarily as a photographer, since most of his creativity throughout his career was expressed through the written word. However, he showed an intuitive sense for what communicated well visually and his exposures, despite his elementary equipment and technique, were well composed, focused, and exposed. Most of Spivak’s images were posed and it is likely that the photographs that appear natural and candid actually were taken with bystanders’ or subjects’ knowledge that he was using a camera. There is no requirement that documentary photographs be completely candid (i.e., taken without the knowledge or awareness of those whose lives and surroundings are documented) (Owens, 1978). Spivak was able to adopt the perspective of the chain gang convict, particularly in his portrayal of torture. His images of

“hog-tied” prisoners, for example, employed a “from above” perspective in long and medium shots, but Spivak’s close-ups were taken from ground level, where the convicts were lying. He was willing to dirty his clothes to get an empathic image.

The End Satisfies the Means

Spivak’s camera work presented logistical, bureaucratic, legal, and ethical problems.

The government documents that he photographed in secret were done with great risk to himself. First, he removed them without permission from where they were housed to a location (his hotel room) where he could expose film with regard to focus and lighting.

Second, he would not have received permission to photograph them if he’d asked. Third, what he did probably was illegal and he might have become a convict himself if he was caught and tried. Fourth, he jeopardized his entire documentary mission in order to make the photographs. And fifth, in the case of photographs made of convicts on the chain gangs, Spivak succeeded because he pretended to be someone he was not and gave untruthful reasons to authorities and officials who questioned the need for his photographs.

From a newspaper and magazine perspective, Spivak’s photography was frequently altered for publication. Overexposed areas of the image were darkened to dramatize detail. Extensive cropping was used to highlight areas of most dramatic interest and to eliminate setting and incidental details. Backgrounds were eliminated to reduce distractions.

However, the images reproduced in his book were used in unaltered state. At least, we have found no evidence that Spivak or his book publisher altered his photographs in Georgia

Nigger. However, the Daily Worker, a communist newspaper that serialized the novel, did alter his photographs by cropping, whiting out and obliterating backgrounds, and emphasizing lines and details by darkening them (see Appendix A). The book also was serialized in the Des Moines (Iowa) Tribune and the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Journal

(Lichtenstein, 2005), extending its reach to mainstream Americans via the popular press.

Lascia (1999) pointed out that some people continue to have the naïve belief that photographs literally represent some slice of reality, although that impression apparently is declining as computer and digital alteration of images with computer software has become so easy for professionals and amateurs alike. As a result, growing ethical standards have dictated against decades-old practices of faking and retouching photographs for publication.

This enhances the reader/viewer’s inherent trust in news images, although doubts legitimately are harbored. In recognition of the need to maintain credibility, “Today retouching a news photo is forbidden at most publications, and faking a photo can be grounds for dismissal” (Lascia, 1999, p. 128). For images other than news purposes, however, standards are relaxed. In a trend away from Spivak’s type of photography, there is a contemporary trend toward use of entertaining images as decoration rather than the use of photographs for documentation and reportage (Lascia, 1999). This may be in response to reader/viewer demand for such entertainment and the competition threatened by entertainment and advertisement-financed media such as television. The audience often expresses apathy or alienation toward media news, which the audience often thinks is subtly biased. Apparently, levels of cynicism toward news media and those who produce news content continue to rise (Kurtz, 1999). In Spivak’s time, the media were seen more

(and operated more) as watchdogs rather than lapdogs in service to the economic marketplace.

Spivak’s Fiction

The genres of muckraking exposés and creative nonfiction were not new in 1932 when Spivak decided to expose the Georgia chain gangs in the form of fictional narrative.

Indeed, the creative nonfiction genre continues to produce sparkling results in today’s book world (Gutkind, 2004; Sims & Kramer, 1995) and the muckraking genre appears to have new life in the fragmented and diverse computer blog world of dedicated and compassionate individualists and public service-oriented and special interest groups, such as civil rights, environmentalist, and feminist groups (McChesney, 2004).

Writing about African Americans has been a matter of concern and controversy in the United States for as long as there have been American authors. Early works tended toward stereotype and caricature and the image of African Americans that was conveyed was often demeaning and derogatory. In children’s books and stories, for example, there has been controversy about such images as that of the title character of Little Black Sambo, written by Helen Bannerman and published about 1900. It was not debated when first available, but it was later criticized when race consciousness became more prominent. By

1947, May Hill Arbuthnot felt she needed to defend Little Black Sambo as a meritorious story about an intelligent, lovable, and happy character (Arbuthnot, 1947). However,

Arbuthnot did note difficulties in many stories about African Americans. First, there was the matter of spoken language and the use of a broad, little understood dialect as supposedly issued from the mouths of African Americans, particularly those from the

South (also a concern of Mark Twain’s in his famous explanatory note about dialects used in his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, first published in 1885; see Hearn, 1981). Second,

Arbuthnot noted the increasing “natural sensitiveness of the Negro” (1947, p. 381) as individuals and groups strove toward better education and standards of living in a world of equal opportunity (she also might have noted the substantial opposition that countered progress toward those goals). Third, she noted the dearth of books about African

Americans, much less books that struck a positive chord or sought to portray other than caricatures of “less attractive and more backward members of the race” (p. 381). Donna E.

Norton’s (1991) more recent scholarship pointed out that a new set of terminology had come into use concerning realistic fiction:

Such terms as relevant books, extreme realism, problem novel, and everyday

occurrences are found in critiques and discussions of contemporary realistic fiction … (and this) implies that everything in a realistic story – including plot, characters,

and setting – is consistent with the lives of real people in our contemporary world.

(p. 408)

This type of literature tends to focus on conflict and problems and pits ordinary

people against antagonists in believable circumstances and settings. While it is true that

Spivak’s book addressed a mature, not a children’s, audience, Arbuthnot’s (1947) and

Norton’s (1991) observations apply equally as well. Considering Spivak’s textual genre as

extreme realism and his photography as documentary, then, requires an analysis of

character, dialogue, plot, setting, and pace as facets that will provide substance for a critical

analysis and understanding of Georgia Nigger.

Story about a “Monstrous” System

The main character of Spivak’s book, David Jackson, is an African American who tells his story in the first person. He is a polite, hard working young man, a “good nigger” eager to stay out of trouble. As he tells his father, who’d urged him to leave the sharecropper’s home they lived in for a mill job in the city:

If I stays here an’ minds my own bus’ness dey ain’ nobody goin’ tuh trouble me. I

ain’ fixin’ tuh get uppity roun’ here. I’ll jes’ mind my own bus’ness an’ ten’ tuh my

wuk right here wid you. Dis place’s plenty good fo’ me. (p. 38)

As the story opens, he is serving his final day of a six-month sentence on the county chain gang, serving as a laborer to work off a misdemeanor charge for a nonexistent crime. He hadn’t served particularly hard time and didn’t even wear chains during his final few months in the convict camp. Of course, the experience is no picnic and Spivak breaks the spell of David’s first person perspective from time to time as the author lapses into direct address to the reader, or “you,” with overt emotional propaganda, as in this early excerpt:

And when you sweat in a stinking cesspool all night you are too tired to pump

water to wash your face and hands even if you are given permission to go for it

yourself. It does not matter anyway. You soon forget that you want to be clean

when you dig dirt all day and sleep in it all night (pp. 10-11).

David has good-naturedly endured the travails of chain gang life and is well liked by inmate and warden alike. In fact, the warden gives him a ride to his parents’ home after he’s released. Idyllic descriptors are used to characterize his family’s sharecropper cabin: peace, security, tranquility, potted red geraniums on the porch with their air of cheerfulness, spotless rooms, and stove, pots and pans that are scrubbed shiny (a distorted perspective; see Raper, 1936; Raper & Reid, 1941). His parents and siblings are devoted to one another, but they suffer, as do all African Americans in those parts, from bad “luck.” Their farm crops often fail due to weather and lack of sufficient labor, technique, and machinery. The whites who essentially own them as a result of crooked financial deals cheat them. They get the brush-off from political, financial, and legal systems run by elite whites and that primarily exist for the benefit of plantation and farm owners. The African Americans blindly accept their fate, believing what happens to them is determined by the Lawd. Religion is their sole consolation, even though it is of the fire-and-brimstone variety.

However, before Sunday church meetings arrive, Saturday in town is a gala occasion, a time for rural folk to do some socializing, a little shopping, and to sample sinning.

There, a white planter named Deering, who has 70 acres of cotton that needs picking and a sheriff who owes his position to the planter and the political power of other elites, survey the African American crowd in late afternoon. They speculate on how the planter will get enough labor to pick his cotton crops before they have to move into the peanut farming season. The sheriff suggests that “Some o’ these young bucks’ll git into trouble befo’ the ev’nings over” (p. 53). The planter suggests that he needs at least four new workers to harvest his crop. The sheriff nods. There will be “trouble” from young, strong, “biggity” niggers before the night is through and there will be at least four arrests that could yield chain gang labor or, very attractively, those arrested may opt for the planter’s kind offer to let them work off their debts on his farm in lieu of his “taking care of the fines for them.” Of course, the African Americans are aware that his farm is an armed camp from which there was no escape, but that seems preferable to many than the horrors of the chain gang. David in particular was aware of the dangers. He had opted for the chain gang once before rather than risk the planter’s offer.

In the back streets of the town, sin offers itself to the rural folk in the form of prostitutes, gambling, drinking, and fighting. David ventures into the African American slum and watches a circle of gamblers shoot dice. Suddenly, explosively, a fight breaks out, stimulated by a gambling incident. A man is stabbed and everyone runs, but a sheriff’s deputy grabs David, although he was only watching the gamblers. The phony charges against him and four others are “gamblin’, fightin’ an’ resistin’ the law.” And the five men arrested won’t even be heard in court for another four months. As the sheriff breaks this news to the arrested men Sunday morning, the planter “happens by” and suggests that the expense, time, and likely chain gang sentencing will cost the men at least a year of their lives, perhaps more. Of course, if the sheriff would reduce the charges to disturbing the peace, the justice of the peace could hear their cases right away and probably would fine them $25 each and costs. The men protest that they don’t have the money. The planter offers to pay the fines as an advance against wages for picking cotton on his farm. The men know his reputation and know they are being conned. The sheriff endorses the planter’s scheme. The planter finally convinces them with these words: “It would be a shame to send these boys to the chain gang … especially now that the Prison Commission will restore the leather again” (p. 74). David and the others know this means that it will once again be permissible to whip convicts repeatedly with a leather strap across their bare buttocks, a horrific old practice that had been banned. The planter, they know, is a county commissioner and is in a position to be believed. All falls into place as the conspirators had planned the evening before and as the justice of the peace plays his proper role. The African

Americans are soon on their way to the planter’s and he makes sure they glimpse the revolver he packs on his hip in a smooth-worn holster.

Once at the plantation, the men find what resembles a convict camp stockade, minus the striped uniforms and chains. But the common, cramped living areas, the barbed wire fences, the armed guards, and the demands for hard labor were the same. They settle in and soon find out that others who preceded them had been cheated in the commissary with charges for materials and goods never received and an exorbitant 20% interest rate on the balance, which always exceeded the wages earned. Moreover, they also were charged for food, rent, shoes, clothing, and everything possible. “Dat’s how dey git you,” Limpy, formerly on the chain gang with David, says sourly (p. 91).

The fields were likewise fenced and patrolled by men with shotguns on horseback.

A breakout would locate the virtual slaves in a huge swamp and all agreed that life would be short there. Given the conditions of African Americans in Georgia and elsewhere in the

South, most workers at the planter’s farm were reasonably content and adequately provided for, given they did not slack up on their work. A steady yield of 250 lbs. of cotton was expected from each man each day he was in the fields. Spivak works African American culture into his narrative at this point through a singer whose repertoire covers the spectrum from good times to sorrows experienced on that very plantation. His song lyrics aptly summarize their exploitation.

After some time, David cautiously begins to explore the possibility of running away when it becomes apparent the planter will never willingly release him or any of the others. He learns what happened to two men who’d made the attempt earlier. One was dead of a shotgun blast and buried in the swamp. The other, Sam Lowie, was beaten and leathered.

However, he escaped again after two weeks of healing, reported his friend’s murder to the sheriff, and soon ended up back with the planter. Whipped again, he healed and was sent to the fields. But the man strangely disappeared shortly thereafter, with foul play suspected and whispered about.

Rumors about Sam Lowie’s disappearance were superseded by an event that takes place when Limpy gets sick (“the mis’ries”) and cannot work because of his fever. The planter confronts him in the mess hall, challenges him, and demands that he work. Limpy mouths a belief that the present plight of the African American is worse than that of former pre-Civil War slaves (Bryant, 1994): “Sho … if I was yo’ slave an’ you paid a t’ousan’ dollars fo’ me you’d tek care o’ me w’en I git de mis’ries but you kin git plenty mo’ niggers cheap if I die – ” (p. 98). And die he does, as the enraged Deering pumps two revolver bullets into him. The planter leaves the mess hall where the murder took place in full view of the other workers, with these parting words: “I want no impudence around here! … Remember that! And I’m not paying you to play sick. I’m paying you to work! …

Weight the son of a bitch and bury him in the swamp!” (p. 99)

David, shaken, concludes that the plantation is worse than the chain gang. He also believes that Limpy’s dying speech was correct. Privy to David’s thoughts, the reader learns that “Limpy had cost Deering only five dollars. Five dollars. That was all. And there were lots of five dollar niggers … Cheap niggers – and the south was full of them, ploughing the soil, chopping cotton, picking cotton, ginning cotton. And if Limpy were never seen again, why, he was just a nigger who owed Deering money and ran away, a runaway nigger afraid to show his face; and if someone told the sheriff – well, look at what happened to Sam Lowie” (pp. 100-101). The other African Americans have quietly come to conclusions similar to David’s. “No one spoke of Limpy. It was hard to believe that this noon he had opened his mouth and this evening he was in a dismal swamp, dead, with weights around his body” (p. 101). Eventually, however, those still alive begin to whisper and plot their personal escapes. One escape is accomplished. Then a brutal crackdown is put into operation. A savage beating is administered to another worker who merely left his cotton row for a drink of water. Any infractions of the rules or orders not immediately obeyed are immediately cursed or followed with beatings thereafter. David himself is threatened with a pick handle for a trivial matter. However, the fear and tension is only exacerbated with the subsequent escape of four more workers into the swamp where their fate is so certain that the guards don’t even bother to try to capture them. The planter goes to town and returns with “a new batch of six.” Limpy’s dying words ring true.

David weighs his options and decides to try an escape, hoping the landowner who

“owns” his family (and David too) will help him if he makes it that far. With the help of a friend with a wife, they scheme to ask the guard if David and the wife can rendezvous after dark for a supposed dalliance. The plot succeeds and David quickly covers as much of the 25 miles as possible on his way to his family’s cabin. When he cautiously arrives there, he quickly learns the sheriff and deputy had been to the cabin searching for him. David learns that “his master” is unlikely to stand up to Deering on his behalf. He returns to the woods while the family ponders what he might do, since he cannot stay in the area indefinitely. His father decides to approach another white elite, a former Southern aristocract who is known to the family and who has shown some kindnesses to African Americans in the past. The man, Mr. Ramsey, agrees to help David with money and transport out of the county.

Ramsey begins the trip to take David out of the county. The sheriff stops him and

Ramsey explains that he is on the way to Atlanta to prefer charges against Deering for murder. The sheriff takes David until bail can be set, but Ramsey stays with the sheriff and

David. Deering and his family’s “owner” (a man named Pearson) are sent for. The sheriff makes an obvious threat that if the “difficulty” can’t be straightened out, David’s family will be hurt. The sheriff continues trying to persuade Ramsey:

Even if the charge is preferred an’ a dead nigger’s body is found an’ even if you git

witnesses you’ve got to git a coroner’s jury to decide it was murder an’ not self

defense. An’ then you got to git the grand jury to indict. An’ even if the coroner’s

verdict is murder an’ the grand jury indicts, which is very doubtful, Mr. Deerin’ll

have to be tried in this county. How many whites do you figger’ll find him guilty?

I’m jes’ lookin’ at all this from the stan’point of arrest an’ conviction. There’s no

use goin’ off half-cocked. (p. 135) Even this impossible scenario doesn’t sway the aristocratic white man. Subsequent arguments about Deering’s bank that affects the economic health of everyone in town, including the stubborn white man, and the sheriff’s flat prediction that “it’d be almost impossible to convict Mr. Deerin, or even indict him” and extended arguments whether “all this trouble over a nigger” is worth the risks Ramsey is taking have no effect. The white man has dug in his heels and intends to see that justice is done, taking a chance on a miracle.

At this point in the story, Spivak provides some historical perspective made salient by his personal ideology that leans toward communism and his reading of the “excellent studies published by sociologists and penologists,” whom he respects but whose works are thought unavailable to the audience he is trying to reach (postscript, following p. 241).

Spivak’s treatise would have been a difficult burden to carry in a narrative through dialogue or action. However, Spivak inserts this heavy-handed section in order to make David’s plight and the behavior of his temporary white savior crystal clear. The break in the story is set against Ramsey’s falling silent and may be seen as his silent musings:

Georgia Crackers were in the saddle, a rising white trash class squeezing wealth

from blacks freed from slavery. Crackers had seized the power to vote so they were

the law, and by legal trickery had maneuvered the niggers into another bondage.

Trash who had lived like slaves were now building mansions on the bent backs of

niggers and those whites with contempt for Cracker thievery had to live there, carry on their businesses, raise their families. Protests would mean business pressure,

social pressure, community pressure, for most Ochlockonee whites dreamed of

riding to riches on the descendents of slaves. The Cracker was riding high, with the

law in one hand and the whip in the other. The proclamation to free niggers had

really only reduced prices for niggers. White trash who never had a thousand

dollars or fifteen hundred dollars to pay for a slave could get niggers now for a few

dollars a head by giving them an advance against wages.

Times change and new ways of getting slaves are cunningly devised. … Some steal

with a pistol and some with the law. (pp. 138-139)

Spivak, however, also wants a counterargument to appear. The sheriff’s thoughts, surprisingly cogent and concise, are revealed as the Cracker rationalization for making peons of African Americans. They also reveal smoldering resentment of the old South’s aristocracy:

No one could tell what might be stirred up when a respected citizen like Ramsey

wanted to create trouble. These old aristocrats thought they knew how to handle

niggers, thought it wiser for the South to keep them contented. Niggers had gone

north, a million of them, the papers said, and these whites thought the exodus bad.

They wanted to keep them in the South by giving them better treatment and more

rights. But many niggers were better off than whites. Whites had to worry about

planting, advances, picking and selling cotton, rain. Even a bumper crop did not mean profit. The whole country might have a bumper crop so prices drop, or some

outlandish country where workers live on a nickel a day might have a bumper crop

and sell cotton cheaper than the South could grow it. Niggers do not have to worry

about such things. (p. 140)

Ramsey, alone in his thoughts, is permitted the final internal musing:

Ramsey’s glance traveled to the worried boy. A nigger in the hands of whites, the

black South, needed for the planting and the reaping and these whites were driving

him away. Those two black hands planted the field and garnered the harvest, built

the roads and the mills, raised Georgia from a wilderness. Upon that back the South

had built its civilization. There was strength in that nigger, strength to destroy what

he carried on his back and these money-grubbing, nigger-trapping whites were too

short sighted to see where they were driving him.

“That nigra doesn’t know his own strength,” he thought. (pp. 140 –

141)

Spivak restrains from further ideological explication, although he does not side with

Ramsey, the sheriff, or Deering. But the reader who is aware of history as the communist explains and predicts it might well be stimulated to conduct his or her own internal dialogue that calls for mobilization of the proletariat masses in a revolution against the bourgeoisie.

As the action of the story resumes, Deering and Ramsey confront one another, with the sheriff trying to mediate. Deering owns up to the killing, but claims it was self-defense. The sheriff, trying to maintain the guise of legal procedure, mildly remonstrates Deering for not reporting the death. Deering makes his excuses. Ramsey continues to defend David as

Deering demands David’s return. Deering vaguely predicts a lynching in

David’s future (Raper, 1933). Ramsey will not back down and demands that the sheriff continue to hold David as a material witness to a murder charge, and not to release David to

Deering, who wants his return. Deering, seeing that Ramsey will not be cowed, confers with the sheriff and then offers to return David to Ramsey “for what he’s cost me.”

Ramsey agrees to pay, but “less what he’s already earned working” (p. 147). The sheriff breathes a sigh of relief and “cheerfully” closes the confrontation with “I hope everything’s settled now, gentlemen, an’ that there’s no hard feelin’s” (p. 148). Deering stomps away.

David says he prefers not to make charges of murder against Deering and is released to

Ramsey, who drives him to an adjoining county, gives him $10, and advises him to leave on the Americus bus to Macon where he has the chance of finding work among the “large nigra population.” At the bus station, David is approached by a white asking if he wants work, a scenario with which by now he is only too familiar. Frightened, he leaves the bus depot for the highway and finds a ride with a sympathetic “grizzled old nigger in an empty wagon.” The man warns him that the sheriff of that county gets $3 for every “foot-loose nigger” he can arrest because there is a labor shortage there too. The man advises David to catch a bus, because a paid ticket will protect him. David rides a bus to the next stop, but is told the connecting bus doesn’t leave until the next morning. Looking for the “nigger town” to get a meal and spend the night, he is picked up by the law, interrogated, and because he is honest and confides he has no relatives or job in Americus, is arrested for vagrancy and jailed. David refuses another offer by a white farmer to pay his fine. The sheriff says “We kin use’m. We’re short o’ convicts anyway to finish the road to Jeff Beacon’s place” (p.

155). David is fined $10 and costs or three months in the “Buzzard’s Roost,” Chickasaw county’s convict camp. He is back on the chain gang.

Bill Twine is the Buzzard Roost warden. His initial talk to David is friendly enough and Twine did not bother to manacle the prisoner for the ride to the camp. David is dazed.

On the way to the camp, “something snapped in the boy’s brain and without fully realizing what he did he flung the door of the car open and jumped” (p. 158). From that point, the warden loses all semblance of friendliness and despite the fact that David is hurt and bleeding from his fall, strikes him in the face with a big fist. David resists being tied and is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head from the warden’s pistol. He awakes in the county jail, is charged with a misdemeanor, and receives nine additional months to be served on the chain gang after serving his original three months.

At this point in the story, Spivak again interrupts the narrative to explain Georgia law and the Prison Commission and the Cracker politics that permeated the system that naturally worked to the benefit of local whites and to the disadvantage of African

Americans.

Returning to his story at Buzzard Roost, Spivak sets the scene with descriptions that conjure up images of high security precautions, filth and squalor, ugliness, tropical heat and stagnancy, swarms of droning insects, instruments of torture and death, swamp voodoo and monsters, and religious superstition and foreboding. The inmates there are smelly, unwashed, gas-belching, half-crazed creatures – “chained things” – who seem a much more desperate lot than David’s first chain gang companions. The white guards and warden seem nearly as demented.

The road work requires teamwork and a steady, rhythmic pace, controlled by the giant 20-year inmate “Smallpox Carter” who “sets the lick” with ancient songs and tunes like “the cry of his savage ancestors praying to their gods in a jungle” (pp. 179-180).

Smallpox is a kindly African American and David is puzzled by his behavior until he figures out that Smallpox wanted his “comfort” and recalls his father’s words that “to sleep with a man was as evil in the eyes of the Lord as sleeping with a beast of the field” (p.

182). David rebuffs Smallpox’s advances. Other convicts with long histories in various convict camps throughout the South tell stories of horrific treatment of prisoners elsewhere that make Buzzard’s Roost seem like an idyllic camp, a kindly rest haven. David’s prospects do not seem bright. Spivak sharpens this assessment with two horrible anecdotes about the Buzzard’s Roost medical doctor’s indifference to accident and sickness, his medical malfeasance and callousness, and the deaths of two inmates, one tortured and the other consumptive, followed by officials lying when completing state documents that after all would only be gathering dust on Atlanta shelves after a perfunctory glance. However, one of the deaths serves as an excuse for David and a fellow convict’s escape. The consumptive’s grave is located at the edge of the treacherous swamp. Spivak describes a touching, almost humorous burial scene and shows the African American convicts as superstitious souls who fervently believe in the hereafter as a release from the troubles of their world. A convict, Ebenezer, who sat up with the dead body in the blacksmith’s shelter during the night has stolen a steel file, secrets it by the grave, and tells

David he has a plan for escape, but that two need to go so one can watch while the other sleeps. He tells David he knows the swamps and that the hounds can’t track them if they stick to the water. They will visit the grave after dark on a pretext, relying on the warden’s knowledge of “the nigger custom of mourning the dead and decorating graves with broken crockery, cans, pots – anything sufficiently useless not to be stolen” and the warden’s belief that no one would be crazy enough to try to escape through the swamp, especially with chains and spikes on their legs. David weighs his chances of survival in the camp and survival in the swamp. “‘W’en you fixin’ to try?’ he asked eagerly” (pp. 220-221). The plan works and the two men slip into the “voodoo hell” of the swamp and “the darkness of the unknown” (pp. 224-225). An immediate hunt for the men is launched, but quickly abandoned. David and his fellow convict use the steel file to remove their spikes and chains. They flee as quickly and quietly as possible through the primeval slime, finding their way by moonlight. After sleeping, the swamp by daylight seems lush in its greenery, with chattering life and chirping birds, excitement, and shimmering sun on the water. There is a sense of the luxury of space and laziness and freedom. But it’s getting hot and the men need water, which means a trip to civilization will be necessary. Eventually they find water, but they also need to find clothing and get rid of their prison garb. His companion fails to return after reconnoitering for food and clothing. Fearing that he will be captured again,

David strikes out on his own in the swamp, traveling north for days, scavenging food from gardens and drinking water from mule troughs. He is a mass of sores from insect bites, his clothing is filthy and torn, he is tired, thirsty and hungry and his despair grows. He awakes to the baying of hounds and the sight of the warden and trusties. He tries to flee, but the unleashed hounds and shotgun blasts stop him. He is struck in the mouth by a guard.

Back in Buzzard’s Roost, his fellow escapee is trussed up in a “hog-tie” like a pig readied for the slaughter. He is unconscious and the ubiquitous red ants swarm over his face and body. David’s punishment is to be the most feared – the “sweat box:”

The thick door of the pine box was opened and he was thrust in. The padlock

snapped.

It was dark inside except for a small spot of light entering a two by four inch air

hole in the top. The box was too narrow to turn around in and he stood motionless,

a living mummy in an upright coffin. The tropic sun beat upon it. Sweat dribbled

down his face and body. His tongue was dry, thick, swollen. It was hard to breathe.

He heard Bill Twine’s muffled order to pour water over Ebenezer.

He became dizzy. He opened his mouth for air. The dried swamp filth and slime on his body and clothes dissolved and ran down his chest and legs. The striped suit

clung to him. His wrists expanded from the heat, swelled, and the handcuffs chafed

and irritated them. His head ached. A mosquito entered through the air hole and

fastened on his neck despite his spasmodic jerks to dislodge it. Flies whirred and

droned about his head.

He heard the warden order Ebenezer trussed up again. The nigger pleaded, his

words indistinct.

Sometime in the afternoon he could no longer restrain the demands of his bowels

and bladder and his excretions dribbled down his thighs.

The humid, stifling air in the sweat box filled with a sickening stench. Flies and

mosquitoes, attracted by the odor, swarmed through the air hole.

A merciful blanket of unconsciousness covered him.

He was awakened once by Ebenezer’s sobs:

“Oh, please, please, suh. I cain’ stan’ hit no mo’.” …

The sweat box was opened in the morning. The boy fell out, unconscious, bloated,

swollen (pp. 238-239).

The last scene depicts David in the cage during the aftermath of his day and night in the sweat box. Ebenezer is nearby, also recuperating from torture, and tells David he’d been caught and while being tortured by the stretching technique, had finally confessed to them where he’d left David. David doesn’t answer Ebenezer, but turns away from him toward the bars of the cage. Later, he gets another suit of stripes, another set of spikes, and a new iron collar, snapped around his neck with a padlock. He is attached to a five-foot chain anchored to the cage. It gives him just enough room to reach the pan used for bodily wastes. Spivak’s final paragraph reads:

From his bunk he could see the tiny red ants scurrying in all directions and the shadow of the cross dark on the red soil (p. 241).

Symbols and Solutions

Thus, the story ends on a pessimistic note with a fatalist theme. David Jackson, the nice young African American who wanted to be a “good nigger,” was bent by a system beyond his control that created a “bad nigger” of him, destroying his life through evil made all the worse because it was banal and beyond his ken. But Spivak cannot have intended the reader to accept the ending. He must have wanted the reader/viewer to protest, to become enraged, to want to take some action to correct the unfairness and injustice of

David Jackson’s life and the lives of hundreds and thousands like him.

The cross is a symbol throughout the novel. The book begins with a reference to two lanterns hanging from a wooden cross that is driven deep in the red soil of the convict camp stockade. The horrors of nighttime in the camp invariably make reference to this cross with its yellowish lantern lights in the distance as insects bite, wild animals howl, the common toilet beneath their cage stinks, and convicts stacked in tiers and rows on either side of the cage fart, snore, have nightmares, and babble and cry and moan. The cross stands for the religion and god that promises what most of the African Americans depicted in Georgia Nigger see as their only hope for a decent and peaceful life in the hereafter.

None appear to have much hope while suffering intense pain in the present, although the dream of a job and freedom in the North is dwelled upon from time to time. However, the light cast from the cross in the book is always feeble and illuminates only enough to create spooky shadows and bizarre shapes. Spivak implies that the cross, and hence religion, will not be enough to save them. From the muckraking era to the time Spivak wrote his book, the religious press had led in reporting racial injustice (Bannister, 1973; Dittmer, 1977;

Grant, 1993). Perhaps Spivak was aware of this and was impatient with the lack of progress in addressing those issues from a religious perspective.

Similarly, Spivak’s narrative often comments on Georgia’s red soil. His most poignant reference is communicated in the words of a grizzled veteran of convict camps,

Skillet Jones:

Skillet looked as though southern suns had dried him until there was nothing left

but a parched brown skin stretched tightly over small bones, and two close set eyes

darting furtively in cadaverous sockets. A long scar ran from his forehead to his

nose, hit with a skillet by a wench, he explained with a wide grin.

There was the day David sat near him during the dinner period. Water had spilled

from a pail and the wet clay was a deeper, darker red.

“Nigger blood,” Skillet said viciously. “All dese roads is red. All through de souf. So much nigger blood in ‘em dat no rain kin ever wash ‘em clean again” (p. 185).

Red ants, presumably the biting ants also known as “fire ants,” are often described crawling on the ground and on the convicts. A small insect’s bite is negligible; it is a spark landed on the skin from a campfire suddenly blown by the wind. Receiving hundreds of small bites simultaneously and continuously is a crackling forest fire that has one surrounded; it is a torture that is more terrible than one swift blow that has an initial pain but an eventual end to hurt. The convicts can never escape the ants, just as they cannot escape the Crackers’ scheming, punishments, and exploitation. That Spivak chooses to end his narrative with a description of David looking at all three symbols – the cross, the red soil, and the myriad of red ants scurrying every which way while he is trapped in one spot

– is a pessimistic scene that is unsettling and unfinished. It leaves the involved and empathic reader believing “Something must be done!” Spivak leads the reader right up to a conclusion that demands action; he implicitly recommends that the groups could increase their collective strength, if they would but put aside their differences, band together, and dedicate themselves to actions that will overthrow the existing, corrupt regime. The implication is that they would inevitably succeed. They don’t know their own strength because they don’t know their group’s past and they haven’t thought deeply about ways to achieve a more promising future.

And Then What Happened?

The book’s actual effects on American society was not perhaps what Spivak intended – there was a cycle that began with the exposé, there was public pressure for reform of the object of the exposé, there was national political pressure brought to bear on policymakers, there were well-publicized hearings and promises to “clean up the mess.”

There were new policies formulated and put into action, there was initial monitoring to see that the new policies were followed, and there was the slipping back into the old routine and status quo that came after the public spotlight had moved to other topics and issues.

This pattern has been observed many times in other eras and contexts (Morris, 1995;

Rothman, 1995; Rotman, 1995; Tannenbaum, 1924). No doubt there were improvements to the penal systems in the South; however, Spivak’s dream of a mass movement, a revolution of some intensity and action to create a new order that fostered new values, such as love, brotherhood, freedom, quality, opportunity, and justice, did not occur and modern journalism continues to investigate and report on racist corruption and crime as it undermines these values as they affect African Americans (Serrin & Serrin, 2002). Yet,

Spivak had made a start and when one reads Georgia Nigger and examines its photographs of convict camps and state documents nearly three-quarters of a century later, one is struck by the realization that great advances in civil rights and human relations have been achieved beyond the narrow spectrum of chain gang and peonage practices (Holmes, 1991).

Spivak placed race, class, economics, and power at the front of the reasons why humans torment and torture one another. These factors of broad sociological import still impact the psychology of day-to-day behaviors and beliefs. We may never know why Spivak decided to write this odd amalgam based on his muckraking impulses, risky

detective reporting and photography, and literary fiction that sometimes reads like the pulp

fiction articles that he produced for detective and mystery magazines by the score. But

unlike other forms of writing that he might have selected, his effort still speaks to a

contemporary audience.

At the time Spivak wrote Georgia Nigger, there were more than 8,000 chain gang convicts working on roads, ditches, and other projects throughout the state, of which three- quarters were African Americans (Lichtenstein, 1995, 1996, 2005). For most people of the times, contact with chain gangs probably was limited to a brief glimpse of men in striped clothing working with shovels and other tools. The brutality those men faced through torture was not public knowledge. As many in the South as in the North probably were shocked and dismayed to learn of such practices. Certainly, the book made a sizeable splash when it was released. The New York Times said it had “the weight and authority of a sociological investigation” and Walter White, Executive Secretary of the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called it “the most devastating exposé of the treatment of Negroes in the Georgia chain gang that has ever been written” (Lichtenstein, 2005).

However, Robert Elliot Burns’ I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang eclipsed Georgia Nigger in impact, especially since it was the basis for a Hollywood movie starring major actors (Burns, 1932; Minchew, 1992; O’Connor, 1981). Burns published his book using the first person voice in the same year that Spivak’s book came out, in

1932. After his first escape, Burns established himself in a successful career under a pseudonym, but his jealous wife betrayed his secret. Georgia officials used duplicity to again place Burns on the chain gang and he again escaped. As a white Northerner on the run after two dramatic escapes, Burns’ account of his chain gang experiences was written from a quite different perspective and point of view with which many white Americans perhaps were better able to identify. (Critics of Spivak’s book have questioned whether a white man was able to speak for African Americans and wondered about his motives

[Perreault, 2001]. Perhaps some of Spivak’s contemporary readers had the same questions and suspicions.) When Burns’ book came out, Georgian officials again pressed to return

Burns to Georgia and attended a public extradition hearing in New Jersey for that purpose.

However, the hearing was a sham choreographed to popularize New Jersey’s Governor, who had no intention of extraditing Burns, given public sentiment in his favor (Blackwell,

2004). The story made national headlines. Spivak was asked to testify on Burns’ behalf at the hearing and managed to become a media sensation as the circus unfolded. Georgia officials claimed Spivak’s photographs of the convicts were either posed as the result of payments to convicts or outright fakes. Spivak produced his photographic negatives; some showed convict camp wardens supervising torture. The negatives were solemnly held to the lights and viewed by the New Jersey Governor and other state officials, who pronounced them authentic and genuine (Burns’ Extradition, 1932). The view that photographs may not offer a factual representation of the world, (a belief increasingly advocated; see

Schwartz, 1999) was not considered at the hearing.

Any effects of Spivak’s book are commingled with the impact of Burns’ book and the Hollywood movie. It is impossible to sort out the relative and unique contributions of each to positive social changes that resulted. Anthropologist Luther P. Gerlach, who studied the neo-Pentecostal Church of African Americans, the Black Power Movement, and the social movements of other interest groups during the 1960s, pointed out that different interests and different approaches to trying to solve the same core problems often have mutually stimulating and beneficial effects, although the groups and individuals themselves may view one another as rivals and compete in conflict. Rather than seeing their efforts as “hopelessly fragmented,” Gerlach theorized about the positive impact of a

“dynamic, synergistic interrelationship of diverse groups in a total and very effective movement network” (Gerlach, 1970, p. 134). Applied to Spivak, Burns, Hollywood, and other principals (e.g., Heredon, 1937), we can see that while each constituency had its own goals and agenda, as well as approach to communicating their topic, their interactions and coming together to achieve common communication goals (e.g., sell a product to a mass audience; affect public opinion and effect social change through policy and practice reform), worked positively to achieve social change in the manner Gerlach described. Spivak’s unique decision to write fiction based on his detective style of reporting, supplemented with photographs, contributed to “imbuing the obscure with the aura of spectacle” (Hardt & Brennan, 1999, p. 18) and to placing the topic of penal injustice, and more broadly, to

fostering the civil rights movement, on American national front pages and nightstand

reading tables. Nor did it end at the country’s borders. Spivak’s Georgia Nigger was

published in England and was translated into French, Russian, and German, elevating

Spivak’s stature to that of a darling of international left-wing circles and his message to a

global level of conversation and concern (Lichtenstein, 2005).

A hooded prisoner stands on a box with wires attached to his hands. The prisoner was allegedly told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted, although the wires were not really connected to a power supply. (Photo: CBS/60 Minutes II)

From Chickasaw County to Abu Ghraib and Beyond

We find that Spivak’s analysis occasionally is eerily relevant to the contemporary world, particularly to issues raised by the Iraq Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba prison abuses by military guards (Andén-Papadopoulos, 2005; Feldman, 2005; Griffin,

2005; Grundberg, 2005). Even the methods of torture are similar. Whereas David Jackson suffered, claustrophobic in a sweat box, the tortured Iraqis suffered sensory deprivation.

The man in the iconic Abu Ghraib image was forced to stand motionless for long periods of time, wearing a hood, balancing on a small box, fearing for his life, since he had been told he’d electrocute himself if he moved. When one learns, not only of the abuses of Abu

Ghraib, Gitmo Bay, and the hush-hush secret CIA camps for interrogation (Meeropol, 2005), but also of the accusations against “rogue” U. S. Marines who allegedly went on a systematic house-to-house hunt killing rampage against up to two dozen civilians Iraqis

(many or most presumably innocent) in Haditha to seek revenge after one Marine was killed by a bomb (Hendawi, 2006), one also reflects upon the evil side of human nature that transcends time and expresses itself in different motives and techniques, but fundamentally is motivated by the same impulses. Similarly, the good side of human nature is evident and vigilant and tries to avoid complacency. There will always be those who rationalize the status quo, who defend wrong, and who selfishly look out for unfair, illegal, and corrupt benefits and rewards to satisfy their own greedy and ignoble impulses. Knowing this, and hoping for progress toward the values Spivak advocated, humans can strive for progress without accepting the means Spivak advocated toward those ends.

We have tried to provide a critical appraisal of Spivak’s role in the pivotal and nascent phases of the civil rights movement and to make a case that Spivak, warts and all, should not be forgotten by contemporary journalism and communication scholars (Katz &

Szecskö, 1981), whatever the reasons that have made it easy to dismiss and reject his contributions to American journalistic, literary, photographic, and public opinion/ policymaking history.

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Slides - Appendix A

(All slides from Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas-Austin, unless noted; Captions from Georgia Nigger, 1932)

The “Circus Wagon” 1. Circus wagon (unaltered) [P-04B]. “THE CAGE where convicts are herded like beasts of the jungle. The pan under it is the toilet receptacle. The stench from it hangs like a pall over the whole area. Flies and mosquitoes feed on the pan’s contents and then enter the cage through the holes in the screen” (book appendix). 2. Circus wagon (altered for publication, not in book) [P-04A]. “TWO lanterns hung from the wooden cross driven deep in the red soil of the convict camp stockade. They threw a pale, yellow light over the ground and the steel cage on wheels so like a huge circus wagon in which ferocious beasts of the jungle are penned. The guard, staring absently at the sky, sat in an old chair tilted against the mess hall shack” (book, p. 1).

3. Glimpse of convict inside circus wagon (unaltered, not in book) [P-05]. “There were thirteen men in the cage with David – nine Negroes and five whites – sprawled on thin mattresses covering the iron bunks ranging the length of the cage on either side in three three-decker tiers. The six nearest the solid steel door were reserved for whites. The fourteen men were naked to the waist. Their exposed bodies shone with sweat even in the semi-darkness” (book, pp. 1-2).

4. Sick men on bunks of circus wagon (unaltered) [P-09B]. “SICK CONVICTS IN CAGE. Stripped to the waist because of the intense heat” (caption for similar photograph, book appendix).

5. Spivak’s handwritten comment on back of photograph of sick men similar to P-09B, above (unaltered, not in book) [P-09A]. “Two sick convicts, stripped to the waist because of the intense heat, lying in cage at Camp No. 4, Sumter County chain gang – C. H. Wheatley, warden – a few miles out of Americus, Ga. October 24, 1931.” Inside Permanent Stockade

6. Convict in chains (neck, legs) (unaltered) [P-12A]. “A HALTER FOR THE NECK. The iron collar is locked to the bars of the cage” (book appendix).

7. Spivak’s comments on back of photograph (unaltered, not in book) [P-12A-Back]. “Chained by neck and feet to iron cage. Muscogee County, Ga., near Columbus, Ga. This convict had had the iron collar around his neck for 2 months, and was forced to lie in his bunk all the time except during working hours, where he was chained doubly and ‘left under the gun.’”

8. Thirteen Georgia niggers (altered, not in book) [P-13]. “A heavy, summer stillness hung over the camp. A trusty came out with two suits of stripes. ‘Git in ‘em,’ the deputy ordered. The change made David resentful. Ebenezer was sobered by the wrinkled convict suit that marked him so irrevocably as of the chain gang until his dying day” (pp. 166-167).

9. Semi-monthly bath (unaltered, not in book) [P-11A].

10. Spivak’s comments on back of photograph (unaltered, not in book) [P-11A-Back]. “Negro convict taking the semi-monthly bath. White and colored prisoners use same tub and water, including those with contagious diseases. Seminole County (Ga.) convict camp stockade.” 11. Drying off as bath concludes (altered, not in book) [P-11B]. “… some bathed in a large pan, less for cleanliness than for the cool feel of water and when they washed five or six used the same pan, for the pump was in the warden’s yard and it was too much trouble to carry water for each man. … David watched a strapping nigger with an open sore the size of a dime on his left leg bathe in water already used. ‘Syph’lis,’ the bather volunteered indifferently, noting the boy’s look. ‘Ah tol’ de Cap’n ‘bout hit w’en I fus’ come an’ Dr. Blaine, he come an’ look me ovah an’ said hit was syph’lis but he couldn’t afford to buy me injections an’ de Cap’n said he couldn’t affohd to sen’ a strong niggah away w’en he was shy o’ convicts. But hit doan hu’t. Ain’ no bother a-tall. Hit’ll go away in a li’l while” (p. 184).

12. Spivak comment, Daily Worker printing instructions, back of photograph (unaltered, not in book) [P-11B-Back]. “Negro convict taking bath in tub. Same water used by whites and blacks, the healthy and the sick. Seminole County (Ga.) convict camp stockade.” Crop ‌‌← ─ 2” ─ ) 55 screen 7/1000 deep [illegible] today 6 p.m. Daily Worker (editorial)

Chain Gang at Work

13. Seven men in shovel brigade, trusty (unaltered, not in book) [P-16E]. “‘One star in de east, One star in de west, An’ between de two dey ain’ neber no rest.’ Convicts working in unison by singing. Rhythmic movement is necessary to avoid injuring one another while bending or rising” (caption for similar photograph, book appendix).

14. Eight men in shovel brigade (altered, not in book) [P-18J]. “When the sweat rolls down your body and the clothes cling to it as though water had been poured over you, and the dust of a Georgia road gets in your nose and eyes and ears and covers you with a reddish film while you shovel fourteen times to the minute, minute after minute, hour after hour, -- it’s then that you go mad” (p. 172). “Let us cross over de river, Let us cross over de river, Let us cross over de river, An’ rest. O Lawd! Ain’ dey no rest fo’ de weary one?” (p. 203).

15. Three men in irons, leg spikes (unaltered) [P-16A]. “SPIKES. These 20 lb. weights permanently riveted around the legs are a drawn-out torture leading to exhaustion. During the day they rub against the legs, creating sores which often become infected. Such infections are known as “shackle poison.” At night the convict’s rest is repeatedly broken by the need of raising his legs whenever he turns in his bunk” (book appendix).

16. Four men shoveling, leg spikes (unaltered, not in book) [P-18F]. “Twenty pounds of steel bayonets riveted around the ankles. Ten inches of steel in front and ten inches behind so the convict can hardly walk without tripping, or sleep without waking when he turns. … The eye between the two steel prongs fitted closely around the ankle, with just enough space for pants to be pulled through when changing clothes. The weight on his feet was heavy when he rose. With his first step the projections clashed noisily against each other. ‘Spread yo’ laigs,’ the blacksmith cautioned. David gained the steps of the nigger cage walking straddle-legged. Spikes was the warden’s answer to his mad effort to run away, steel to remind him at each step that he was marked for special attention, sharp points of steel, bayonets of steel before him and bayonets of steel after him – because Chickasaw county wanted to finish a road for a white planter” (pp. 168-169).

17. Three men from same image (altered, not in book) [P-18I]. “His ankles hurt from the rubbing weight and he feared the irritation would bring shackle poison. Sam Gates had had shackle poison and he remembered how swollen the leg was. Sometimes, a convict’s leg has to be cut off if the swelling gets too bad” (p. 201).

Returning to Stockade

18. Ten convicts march in five rows of two each, white guard with rifle and dog in rear (unaltered, not in book) [P-20A]. “You forget to keep your eyes on the ground when the guard curses you and say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and in your madness you talk back or show the hate in your eyes. Then it means punishment when you return to camp” (pp. 172-173).

Convict Camp Discipline – The Stocks 19. Convict in the sun (unaltered, not in book) [P-24C]. “He walked between the warden and the guard to the stocks and sat on a flat board lying across the low supports. Bill Twine pulled an iron level and the boards opened, leaving curved spaces for the hands and feet. ‘Put ‘em in!’ The convict raised both feet at right angles from his body and placed his ankles in the hollows. His chains rattled against the wood. The warden threw the lever that locked hollows in the upper board over those in which the ankles rested. Wrists followed in the other grooves and the topmost board clamped over them. With a quick jerk the guard pulled the board from under the imprisoned convict. The body sagged to within three inches of the ground. His weight seemed to tear his shoulders from their sockets. The boards pressed tightly against the arteries of his wrists. The convict uttered a low, ‘Oh, Jesus!’ They … walked away” (p. 173).

20. Side view of convict “deep seated” in stocks (unaltered, not in book) [P-25B]. “STOCKS. The convict hangs by wrists and ankles two inches from the ground. He is left thus under the tropic sun. The position is an excruciating torture which quickly produces unconsciousness” (caption for similar photograph, book appendix).

21. Side view of same image (altered, not in book) [P-25C].

Discipline – “Restricted Movement”

22. “THE GEORGIA RACK. Known as ‘stretching’ and ‘restricted movement.’ The convict is laced to a post and the rope tied to the handcuffs is pulled around the second post until the arms are almost torn from their sockets. The ‘stretched’ convict is then left under the broiling sun. They frequently lose consciousness with an hour” (caption for photograph similar to those below, book appendix).

23. Convict’s lower torso bound to post, rope being tied to handcuffed arms (unaltered, not in book) [P-28B]. “The unresisting nigger, with his back to the post, was laced to it from ankles to hips with a rope and the one tied to the cuffs slipped about the second post” (pp. 208-209).

24. Beginning the arm stretch to a far post (unaltered, not in book) [P-29A]. “The guard pulled sharply. The convict’s torso jerked forward, bending at right angles, his arms outstretched. His head dropped between the arms. The sweat on his back and arms glistened in the light” (p. 209).

25. The full upper torso stretched forward, rope taut (unaltered, not in book) [P-29E]. “‘Stretch!’ the warden ordered harshly. The guard pulled until the rope was as taut as a tuned violin string. ‘Oh Jesus!’ The nigger screamed. ‘Yo’ pullin’ my arms out!’ The rope was wound around the post and tied, leaving the convict stretched so the slightest movement threatened to wrench his shoulders from their sockets. ‘One hour!’ the warden said curtly …” (p. 209). Bloodhounds

26. Nine hounds being prepared to sniff and track (unaltered, not in book) [P-31C]. “TEARING AT THE LEASH. A white and a black trusty chaining camp bloodhounds to trail two escaped convicts” (caption for similar photograph, book appendix).

27. Nine hounds being prepared to sniff and track (unaltered, not in book) [P-31C]. “TEARING AT THE LEASH. A white and a black trusty chaining camp bloodhounds to trail two escaped convicts” (caption for similar photograph, book appendix).

Discipline – Trussed for the Red Ants

28. Convict trussed on ground, pick axe pointed to his head (unaltered, not in book) [P-30C]. “Ebenezer was in the stockade. David saw him lying near the stocks in the blaze of sun, trussed up like a pig ready for slaughter. His head lay loosely on the red soil as though the neck had been broken. His eyes were closed. His legs and arms, tied with ropes, pointed to the sky, the whole body kept motionless by a pick thrust between the tied limbs. His mouth was open. The veins in his temples and arms stood out, swollen. And swarming over the face and arms and neck were myriads of tiny red ants. Bill Twine paused at Ebenezer’s form and rolled him over with a foot. ‘Let’m rest fo’ an hour,’ he instructed the guard, ‘an’ restrict’m again. We’ll see how he likes being free!’ While the guard removed the pick from between bent legs and arms the warden marched David to the sweat box. ‘You got a lot o’ dirt on you,’ he growled. ‘Nothin’ like a good sweat to git it off you’” (p. 237).

29. Iconic image used facing title page (unaltered, different convict from P-30C) [TrussedPrisoner-Sm]. “GEORGIA NIGGER.” [Syracuse University Special Collections Research Center].

30. John L. Spivak portrait in early 1930s (unaltered, not in book) [Portrait2]. [Syracuse University Special Collections Research Center].

31. Finis

. Spivak was said “not sympathetic to the white ruling class term, ‘nigger,’ but used it in order to bring forth the degrading system which operates against the Negroes. – Editor.” (“Georgia Nigger shows,” 1932). The term was in widespread use; for example, Rawlings’ Pulitzer Prize novel, The Yearling, used the phrase in 1939 (“Pulitzer Prize novel,” 1939; Rawlings, 1938). PAGE

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