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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
‘Scourged Back’ exposed the horror of slavery. Now it’s embroiled
in America’s censorship debate
By Oscar Holland, CNN
Updated:
9:30 AM EDT, Thu September 18, 2025
Source: CNN
Depicting a crisscross of welts and scars streaked across the body of a
formerly enslaved Louisiana man, “Scourged Back” is one of the 19th
century’s defining photographs. The image was so widely circulated in
America during the Civil War that it reshaped the abolitionist cause by
laying bare the abominable cruelty of slavery to a largely oblivious
northern public.
More than 160 years later, the influence of this visceral portrait —
whose subject may have been called Peter or Gordon — continues to be
felt. Musuems, libraries and universities across the US display
historic prints of the image, which is often used to educate audiences
in a country still reckoning with its past.
But amid growing political debate over how history is presented in
America’s museums, the 1863 photo has become a flashpoint in the
controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s efforts to
eradicate what it calls “corrosive ideology” from federally owned
sites.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post that officials at an unidentified
national park had ordered that the photo be taken down, along with
other signs and exhibits related to slavery. Citing unnamed sources,
the newspaper described the move as being in line with an executive
order Trump issued in March directing the US Interior Department to do
away with content that disparages “Americans past or living.”
The department, which oversees the National Park Service, has since
denied the report. Spokesperson Elizabeth Peace told CNN via email that
sites were not asked to remove the photo. She added: “If any
interpretive materials are found to have been removed or altered
prematurely or in error, the Department will review the circumstances
and take corrective action as appropriate.”
By then, however, the story had already sparked concern among artists,
activists and curators. The National Parks Conservation Association was
among those voicing disapproval, with senior director of cultural
resources Alan Spears that removing the photo would be “as shameful
as it is wrong.”
The dust-up comes as Trump escalates attacks on museums, going so far
as to slam the Smithsonian Institution for being overly concerned with
“.” In turn, the furor around “Scourged Back” has also
generated renewed interest in the story behind the photo and what it
means today.
“I find it all very strange,” movie producer and The Black List
founder, Franklin Leonard, CNN’s Abby Phillip in response to the
Washington Post report. “What more great American story is there than
the survival and triumph over enslavement, Jim Crow and (its)
repercussions?”
While there is limited historical consensus on Peter’s escape — or
even his name — the pictured man is thought to have fled a Louisiana
cotton plantation in early 1863. Traveling on foot to Baton Rouge, his
clothes torn and muddy, he eventually reached Union lines, which under
President Abraham Lincoln’s was enough to be considered permanently
free and eligible to join the US army’s “Colored Troops.”
According to one written record of his testimony, the man said he was
severely whipped by his former owner’s overseer after attempting to
“shoot everybody” (though he had no recollection of the alleged
incident). He was bed-bound for months following the beating.
After undergoing a medical examination, Peter seemingly sat for a
series of portraits at a photography studio owned by William D.
McPherson and J. Oliver. The studio produced at least three versions of
the image, adjusting their composition and Peter’s pose as they went
along, with the most famous variant — the third — taken some time
after the other two.
To David Silkenat, a historian at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh,
this assiduous approach suggests that whoever took the photo understood
how impactful it could be. “The most significant difference in the
final photograph is that Gordon’s neck is twisted more to the left
towards the camera, revealing his full profile and his beard, which is
either totally or partially obscured by his shoulder in the other
images,” Silkenat wrote in an influential 2014 research paper on the
photo. “The combined effect of these minor changes in the photos’
composition made the final image subtly, but noticeably more
arresting.”
The picture was originally produced as a “carte de visite,” a
relatively affordable kind of small-format photograph commonly sold,
shared and traded by Civil War soldiers. Unlike earlier forms of
photography, the negatives could be easily reprinted on paper, meaning
images could spread quicker than before (cartes de visite are often
dubbed the “social media” of their day).
As the photo gained traction in the summer of 1863, abolitionist
newspaper recounted an enlightening example of its spread: A surgeon in
an all-black regiment in the Union Army had sent a copy of “Scourged
Back” to his brother in Boston along with a note reading, “I have
seen, during the period I have been inspecting men for my own and other
regiments, hundreds of such sights — so they are not new to me; but
it may be new to you. If you know of anyone who talks about the humane
manner in which the slaves are treated, please show them this.”
The Liberator also directly disseminated the portrait, which is also
known as “whipped Peter,” to readers for 15 cents, or $1.50 for 12.
“If you look at abolitionist newspapers, they’re not only talking
about what this image means, they’re also selling the image to
subscribers,” said Matthew Fox-Amato, an associate history professor
at the University of Idaho and author of “Exposing Slavery:
Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in
America,” in a phone interview. He added: “It goes viral, if you
will, because it is that carte de visite technology that entails
reproducibility.”
By July 1863, “Scourged Back” had found its way onto the pages of
Harper’s Weekly, a more mainstream publication, where it appeared as
part of a triptych in an article titled “A Typical Negro.” While
the magazine claimed the three photos depicted the same man — whom
they called Gordon — historians believe each picture showed a
different individual. The magazine is also thought to have
sensationalized the subject’s story and conflated his account with
that of other escapees, writing that Gordon rubbed himself with onions
to throw bloodhounds off his scent (academics have since struggled to
independently corroborate details of his journey to Baton Rouge).
The hugely popular Harper’s Weekly was how many middle- and
upper-class Americans stayed up to date with the Civil War. In an early
demonstration of the power of photography as a medium, it was the
image, not the story itself, that captured — and horrified — their
imaginations. This was especially so in the north, where people had
largely been spared visceral depictions of slavery.
“The image, in many ways, visually confirmed things that
abolitionists — including formerly enslaved people — had been
saying for the longest time: that violence was at the core of American
slavery,” said Fox-Amato, adding “it also confirmed… what
photography could do — that photography can serve as a tool of
justice,” he added.
The sight of Peter’s scarred, beaten back continues to inspire and
inform. In 2017, celebrated Black artist Arthur Jafa appropriated the
photo for his sculpture “Ex-Slave Gordon.” Then, at the height of
the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the photo appeared in artist
Kadir Nelson’s George Floyd-themed collage for the New Yorker cover,
while also inspiring photographer Dario Calmese’s Vanity Fair shoot
with Viola Davis, her back turned to the camera. The formerly enslaved
man’s story was then retold in the 2022 movie “Emancipation”
starring Will Smith.
Meanwhile, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of
African American History and Culture are among several US institutions
that still own prints of the photo. Both museums are part of the
Smithsonian, which — according to a sent to its secretary, Lonnie
Bunch III, by White House officials last month — is now obliged to
present America’s heritage in ways that are simultaneously
“historically accurate” and “uplifting.” The Trump
administration has begun a wide-ranging review of Smithsonian
museums’ content, and the institution to start implementing
corrections around the end of the year.
Whether the resulting changes compromise the Smithsonian’s stated
mission of presenting “the complexity of our past” will undoubtedly
become a matter of debate. And what the president’s attempts to
restore “truth and sanity to American history” mean for future
displays of “Scourged Back” remains to be seen.
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