by si isa

“Bell’s conflation of the carved simulacrum of the nude female slave with the theatrically inspired concept of the mixed-race woman glosses the reality of slavery with a more broadly nuanced commentary on the role of race in the self-definition of an entire culture. Around the statue coalesce concerns about racial mixing in the real world and its effect on both sides of the Atlantic. Those who could move beyond Bell’s sentimental conception of the tragic mulatto might have contemplated the wider implications of this degree of miscegenation within the dominant social structures of the time. . . .

“In a far less theatrical sense, women in mixed-race relationships continued to suffer the combined opprobrium of state and society far into the 20th century. Landmark court cases in the Southern states eventually erased the legal proscription against such unions, but the legacy of Zoe’s predicament still casts its long shadow over the affairs of the heart.”

Source: Image of the Week (Sheldon Cheek, Image of the Black Archive & Library at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.)