Mod: I guess the Republicans in Georgia are being pretty clear about where it is they stand.Georgia governor signed Jim Crow-style voting legislation beneath painting of notorious slave plantation (Raw Storylink): Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed Georgia's stifling election bill into law beneath a symbol of white supremacist oppression.
The new law, which many have compared to voter suppression tactics imposed during the
Jim Crow era, grants state officials new powers over local elections boards and limits access to the polls for many voters, and
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist
Will Bunch pointed out the racist symbolism in photos of
Kemp signing the legislation.
"Notice the antebellum-style portrait behind Kemp as he signs the suppression law?"Bunch tweeted. "Thanks to Twitter crowdsourcing and particularly @TheSeaFarmer, I can report the measure to limit Black voting was signed under the image of a notorious slave plantation in Wilkes County, GA."
The painting by
Siberia-born artist
Olessia Maximenko depicts the plantation, which exists today as a 56-acre historic site where tourists can get "a glimpse into the by-gone era of working plantations in the agricultural
South," but promotional materials put a cheery face on its grim history.
"The promotional sites gloss over the fact that by the time of the
Civil War, the
Callaway Plantation only thrived because of the back-breaking labor of more than 100 slaves who were held in cruel human bondage,"
Bunch wrote.
The harsh reality of slave life is recounted in an oral history from
Mariah Callaway, who was born into bondage at the plantation in
1852 and recalls the jail where the plantation owner kept "unruly" slaves and the hounds that bit escaped slaves -- but modern-day visitors barely catch a glimpse of such historic inhumanity.
"Callaway Plantation is a monument to Georgia's history of brutal white supremacy that unfortunately didn't disappear when Mariah Callaway and the other slaves were emancipated in 1865,"Bunch wrote.
Mod: More on this is available at the link.
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