Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

I just love this picture. I run this every year.

From 2016: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

From 2013: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

From 2012

From 2011

Itself a rerun

April 12, 1945. The picture of Graham Jackson is the image of that event that I always think of.



The caption of the original photograph starts out:

On the afternoon of the day he died President Roosevelt was scheduled to attend a barbecue at Warm Springs. That afternoon he would have heard Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson, a Georgia Negro, play his accordion. The President had enjoyed Jackson's songs many times in the past. The next day when the President's body was borne slowly past the main dormitory at Warm Springs, where often he used to wave at the patients convalescing in the sun's rays, Jackson stepped out of the watching circle, sadly fingered the strains of Going Home. As he played, C.P.O Jackson wept open-eyed to the mournful phrases of his own lament.

Graham Jackson, from the wonderful Atlanta Time Machine.

60 White House Drive SW

Many more links on Graham Jackson

Please go to Google Books to see the coverage in the April 23, 1945 issue of Life magazine. You will be amazed. (I can't make the link directly.)

Roosevelt's Death:

http://books.google.com/books?id=wEkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA19&dq=Roosevelt+funeral&hl=en&ei=TirDS4iHOIT7lwfx96jaBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Roosevelt%20funeral&f=true

[Angry Dragon]

1. Kick for exposure

[heaven05]

2. Negro

I just never understood that word as related to a race of human beings. A word based in hate and was a short, very short jump to that other nword still widely in use by 66+millions of people, FOR SURE, here in this country alone. JEEZ!!!!!!!!!!!

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Oxford dictionary explains that the origin of the word predates the first settlers here.

The word Negro was adopted from Spanish and Portuguese and first recorded from the mid 16th century.

It remained the standard term throughout the 17th–19th centuries and was used by prominent black American campaigners
such as W. E. B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington in the early 20th century.

Since the Black Power movement of the 1960s, however, when the term black was favoured as the term to express racial pride, Negro (together with related words such as Negress) has dropped out of favour and now seems out of date or even offensive in both British and US English.

from Latin niger, nigr- ‘black’. ( whence came the N word )

[heaven05]

6. The original meaning(s)

of the 'n' word and origins and meanings can be found 'Race and History', News and Views or at least this is where I get one some understanding of where the description of negro and n***** came from. Lots of AA used the word Negro, as I did until I understood it's root. It was the only word people knew until 'pride' in ones skin color was finally achieved.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. What about "black"?

"negro" is just Spanish/Portuguese for "black".

[heaven05]

7. OK nt

[Aristus]

5. I first saw this pic when I was very young.

I didn't know until just now that Mr. Jackson had known FDR personally. I thought his grief reflected that of the entire nation, even people who hadn't known him.

This scene was depicted in the TV movie bio of FDR, with Edward Hermann as FDR.

[LiberalLoner]

8. What a beautiful human being

I am humbled in the presence of the man in this photo.