Pictures of Lynching Sell for 50 Cents Each — 1920 Newspaper Clipping

Virginia, June 18. — A newspaper dispatch reports that photographs of the Duluth lynching — showing two bodies still hanging from a light post and one on the ground — had appeared in Virginia and were selling for 50 cents each.

The Duluth lynchings of June 15, 1920 claimed the lives of three Black circus workers: Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie. They were accused without evidence, pulled from police custody by a white mob, and murdered. Postcards and photographs of their bodies were sold as souvenirs.

This clipping is not an anomaly. It is documentation of a practice. Lynching photographs were widely circulated, displayed, and sold across the United States during the height of racial terror — used to intimidate Black communities and celebrate white mob violence with impunity.

This Receipt preserves that record.

Available in three sizes. Framed or print only.