Henry Ossawa Tanner Defying Stereotypes Through Banjo Lesson

Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain

In many ways, images are much more powerful than published words. While words are forgotten, images remain in our memories forever.

So imagine this: it is 1893. Literacy tests, poll taxes and grandfather clauses have been established in several southern states to disenfranchise African-American men. In popular culture, African-Americans are depicted with exaggerated facial features, eating watermelon and playing banjos.

And with a few strokes of a paintbrush, Henry Ossawa Tanner creates an image of an older African-American man teaching a young boy how to play the banjo. And through this image, Tanner is reinterpreting the symbol of being a banjo player: it is not something to be considered shameful--it is an image of pride and legacy.

Painter Henry Ossawa Tanner is the most acclaimed African-American painter of the 19th Century. His painting Banjo Lesson, created in 1893 was different than other depictions of African-Americans