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  • Seeing “As Others See Us”:The Chicago Defender Cartoonist Jay Jackson as Cultural Critic
  • Amy M. Mooney (bio)

In 1939, the Chicago Defender published a promotional booklet titled “The Inside Story of the Chicago Defender, the World’s Greatest Weekly” that presented founder Robert S. Abbott’s mission for the paper: generating “a vigorous campaign against segregation and discrimination, fearless fights against lynching, and equal rights for all” (10). Reflecting on its thirty-four years of progress, the pamphlet celebrated the Chicago Defender’s commitment to the inclusion of photographs and drawings that “change news into visual realism” (11). The pamphlet included a photograph of cartoonist Jay Jackson, noting his significant contributions to its editorial pages. Though his images had appeared in the paper and its associated illustrated magazine Abbott’s Monthly since the mid-1920s, Jackson did not formally join the staff of the Chicago Defender until 1933.

Ostensibly, Jackson’s contributions followed Abbott’s unique blend of conservatism and progressivism, seeking racial solidarity and espousing philosophies of self-help that reflected the lasting influence of Booker T. Washington. Though his paper purported to support the advancement of “The Race,” Abbott’s editorials frequently reinforced social conformity and class hierarchy for his African American readers. Believing that he had to address the “moral and ethical foibles every week and the cultural and intellectual bareness of our people” (“There”), Abbott commissioned Jackson to design a serial that would inspire “an introspective examination of the influences which have made it possible for malicious observers to label and libel us” (“Editor”).1 Titling the series “As Others See Us,” Jackson not only provided an opportunity for introspective self-evaluation, he also reinforced the understanding that the scrutiny of others contributed to the collective construct of the New Negro. The Chicago Defender’s correctives were directed largely to recent migrants who had been encouraged by its “Great Northern Drive” (Grossman 87), a campaign that by 1935 had moved [End Page 115] an estimated 250,000 African Americans to Chicago (79). Concerned that the behaviors of new migrants did not follow middle-class mores and thereby strained race relations, Abbott shifted the tone of the paper to encourage Southern economic and educational development.2 He also sought to inscribe a sense of superiority between new and old settlers by introducing evaluative satirical comics. While earlier cartoonists at the Chicago Defender, such as Daniel Day, condemned offenders as “Folks We Can Get Along Without,” depicting in a single frame a figure enacting offensive behavior,3 Jackson introduced a degree of ambivalence within his humorous critique, often sympathetically identifying with the complicated negotiations that his characters encountered. Each installment followed a similar format: a scene within a scene complemented by witty verse that provided biting critique of the immorality of “others.” Simultaneously, the cartoon was self-implicating, underscoring the ongoing psychological tension that marked “[t]he dialectic of disgrace and desire . . . over transforming mass consumer tastes, styles, and habits of urban migrants” (Baldwin 9). The narrative verse surrounding Jackson’s vivacious, svelte characters was a collaborative effort with Eleanor K. Poston, a secretary and writer at the Chicago Defender who later married Jackson.4 Through their “working partnership,” Poston wrote many of the “gages and verses” for Jackson’s cartoons and would later study art in order to become a cartoonist (“Jay”). Together, their interaction between the verbal and the visual brought a new level of aesthetic sophistication to the editorial page and expressed a modern understanding of the visual power of black subjectivity.

As a weekly serial, “As Others See Us” appeared in the Chicago Defender as well as the Baltimore Afro-American and the Pittsburgh Courier from 1928 into the 1930s. The selected portfolio represents three recurring themes that Abbott believed held “The Race” back: gambling, the privileging of lighter skin tones, and a lack of financial responsibility. In “As Others See Us: Number Pleeze!” (1934), Jackson addressed the detriments of policy gambling, where players tried for the best odds by picking three numbers, or a “gig,” drawn out of a lottery of twelve (see Figure 1). With the “numbers” man appearing at the door, enticing the mother to spend her last lunch dime...

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