Color Lines: 5 Racist Illustrations Printed in Newspapers Throughout the Years

The Trayvon Martin murder case has made national headlines in all forms of media since his death over a month ago at the hands of George Zimmerman. Earlier this week, the University Of Texas’s school newspaper, The Daily Texan, came under fire when its cartoonist Stephanie Eisner published a racially controversial depiction of a mother (represented as “the media”) reading her daughter (representing the general public) a story on the case. 

The cartoon reads, “And then…the BIG BAD WHITE man killed the handsome sweet innocent COLORED boy!!” with the mother holding a book titled Treyvon [sic] Martin And The Case Of Yellow Journalism. Although the college issued an apology, as well as firing Eisner, it still doesn’t change the reality that racism in the form of ‘art’ is something that isn’t new—and by the look of things isn’t slowing down in the least bit.

VIBE decided to conduct a search based around the topic and put together a list of racially driven illustrations throughout the years. While some, or rather all, of these are extremely offensive, we do it to draw attention to a form of media that needs to stop; not now, but right now.—Keenan Higgins