Difference between revisions of "Hambone's Meditations"

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{{Infobox comic strip
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#REDIRECT [[About BlackWiki's Mission]]
|title= Hambone's Meditations
 
| image =HambonesMeditations.jpg
 
| caption = ''Hambone's Meditations'', by J. P. Alley from 1921.
 
|author= [[James Pinckney Alley]] (1915–1934)
 
| illustrator = [[Cal Alley]] (1934–1968) & James P. Alley, Jr. (1934–1965)
 
|current = Nona Lane Alley (1934–1968)
 
|website=
 
|rss=
 
|atom=
 
|status= Concluded gag-a-day strip
 
|syndicate= [[McClure Newspaper Syndicate]]<br />[[Bell Syndicate]]
 
| publisher = Jahl & Co.
 
|first= {{start date|1915}}
 
|last= {{end date|November 30, 1968}}; 53 years
 
| altnames = ''Hambone Says''<br />''The Meditations of Hambone''
 
|genre= Humor
 
}}
 
'''''Hambone's Meditations''''' was a [[comic strip]] produced from 1916 to 1968, and [[Comic strip syndication|syndicated]] initially by the [[McClure Newspaper Syndicate]] and later by the [[Bell Syndicate]].<ref name=Drew /> Produced by two generations of the Alley family, the one-panel cartoon originated with the [[Memphis, Tennessee]], newspaper ''[[The Commercial Appeal]]'', where it ran on the front page. The title character was a [[African-American stereotypes|stereotypical African-American]] man with  wide eyes and exaggerated large lips. He dispensed [[folk wisdom]] in caricatured dialect.
 
 
 
== Publication history ==
 
''Hambone's Meditations'' was created by [[James Pinckney Alley]], the first editorial cartoonist of ''The Commercial Appeal''. The character of Hambone was inspired by Alley's encounter with a philosophical former [[Slavery in the United States|slave]], Tom Hunley of [[Greenwood, Mississippi#Notable people|Greenwood, Mississippi]]. Hunley told a [[Works Progress Administration]] interviewer how he met J. P. Alley:
 
{{quote|Mr. J.P. really did stay here in Greenwood once. You say you heard dat an' didn't know whether to believe or not? Well, yes ma'am, he was here sho nuff. Dat's been somethin' like 25 year ago. He had an office over de Crumont&mdash;does you remember de Crumont? You mus' have been jest a li'l chile when it closed up. Well, upstairs, dat was where Mr. J.P. had his office&mdash;leastways his li'l room where he did his drawin' at. Twan't no regular office. I cleant up that place in dem days, an' I come trompin' up de stairs wit my mop an' bucket de fust time Mr. J.P. ever seed me. He cotch one glimpse of me, an' he jump an' holler: "Bless goodness, uncle! You stand right there 'til I can git yo' picture." Den he hole up his fingers like dis and squinch he eye at me, and fus' thing I knowed he had my picture. "Now," he says, "I got to get a name for you." And sho nuff, I'se comin' up de stairs one day a-gnawin' on a big ham-bone what a white lady had guv me. "I got it!" he hollers, "Hambone! From now on yo' name is Hambone!" An' dats what I been ever since, wit my picture in de ''Commercial Appeal'' ever' morning. Mr. J.P. he went on back to Memphis, and he dead now, but Young Mister an' his momma what was Mr. J.P.'s lady, dey draws my picture now. Hambone! Yassuh, Mr. J.P. Alley was sho one fine young white man.<ref>[http://msgw.org/slaves/hunley-xslave.htm MSG Web Library: Tom Hunley]</ref>}}
 
 
 
The strip and character were popular enough that Hambone's image was used on a variety of products, including sweets and cigars, in the 1920s and 1930s.<ref name=Hughes />
 
 
 
When the elder Alley died April 16, 1934, his wife Nona and sons [[Cal Alley]] and James P. Alley, Jr. took over the strip.
 
 
 
Four ''Hambone's Meditations'' strip collections were published, in 1917, 1919, 1934, and 1972.<ref name=Drew>Drew, Bernard A. "James P. Alley (1885–1934) and Calvin Alley (1915–1970)," ''Black Stereotypes in Popular Series Fiction, 1851–1955: Jim Crow Era Authors and Their Characters'' (McFarland, 2015), pp. 107–112.</ref>
 
 
 
== Story and characters ==
 
''Hambone's Meditations'' was inspired by cartoonist [[Kin Hubbard]]'s ''[[Abe Martin of Brown County]]'' (syndicated 1904 to 1930), a [[hillbilly]] antihero prone to wisecracks jokes and the utterance of popular sayings.<ref name=Hughes>Hughes, Franklin. [https://ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2015/december.htm "Hambone's Meditations,"] [[Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia]] website, Ferris State University (Dec. 2015).</ref> The thrust of ''Hambone's Meditations'' was essentially similar, transposed onto a Southern rural African-American stereotype. Hambone was depicted as disheveled in appearance, with wide eyes and exaggerated large lips.
 
 
 
The introduction to the 1919 strip collection, published by Jahl & Co., typifies the majority white readership's relationship to ''Hambone's Meditations'':
 
{{blockquote|The Negro of the South lives close to the soil and retains his racial originality — his superstitions, his quaint idiosyncrasies of thought and action. Such a Negro is Hambone, chosen by Mr. J. P. Alley as the original of his delightful cartoons. He is a clearcut type of the old time darky, unspoiled by the equality ideas of the younger generation about him.}}
 
 
 
== Controversy and cancellation of the strip ==
 
Historian [[Michael Honey]] described the humiliation felt by African Americans due to by ''Hambone's Meditations'':
 
{{cquote|The grinning simpleton Hambone, through his exaggerated lips, spoke in dialect, saying such things as, 'Ef tomorrow evuh ''do'' come, I reck'n Ole Tom gwine be de busies' man in de ''whole worl'''!!!' Judge and civil rights leader [[Benjamin Hooks]] related this image to 'total and colossal indifference to negroes and their accomplishments.'<ref>Honey, Michael K. '"Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign'' (W. W. Norton, 2007), p. 128.</ref>}}
 
 
 
Pressure from [[D'Army Bailey]] and [[Civil rights movement|civil rights]] groups — including marchers in the [[Memphis sanitation strike]] chanting "Hambone just go!"<ref name=Drew /><ref name=Hughes />  — brought the long-running cartoon series to an end in 1968.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://tri-statedefenderonline.com/articlelive/articles/4626/1/DArmy-Bailey-Once-a-radical-still-an-activist/Page1.html# |author=Henry, Wiley |title="D’Army Bailey: Once a radical, still an activist" | publisher = Tri-State Defender |date = February 11, 2010 |access-date=2010-11-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717100435/http://tri-statedefenderonline.com/articlelive/articles/4626/1/DArmy-Bailey-Once-a-radical-still-an-activist/Page1.html# |archive-date=2011-07-17 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
 
 
 
== In popular culture ==
 
[[Luther Dickinson]] released an album in 2012 titled ''Hambone's Meditations'' (Songs of the South Records). It was nominated for the [[2013 Grammy Awards|2013 Grammy Award]] for [[Grammy Award for Best Folk Album|Best Folk Album]].
 
 
 
== See also ==
 
* ''[[Ching Chow]]''
 
* [[Portrayal of black people in comics]]
 
* [[Uncle Tom]]
 
* [[Minstrel show]]
 
* [[Jim Crow]]
 
 
 
== References ==
 
{{reflist}}
 
 
 
== External links ==
 
* [http://historic-memphis.com/biographies/alley-hambones/alley-hambones.html "J. P. Alley - Cal Alley ... Editorials and Hambone,"] Historic-Memphis.com
 
* [https://ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2015/december.htm "Hambone's Meditations,"] Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia website, Ferris State University
 
* [http://www.cigarhistory.info/Frauds-Fakes-Fantasies/Hambone_fakes.html "Hambone Fantasies & Fakes: A National Cigar Museum Exposé,"] CigarHistory.info
 
 
 
[[Category:1916 comics debuts]]
 
[[Category:1968 comics endings]]
 
[[Category:American comic strips]]
 
[[Category:American comics characters]]
 
[[Category:Black people in comics]]
 
[[Category:Fictional African-American people]]
 
[[Category:Gag-a-day comics]]
 
[[Category:Male characters in comics]]
 
[[Category:Stereotypes of African Americans]]
 

Latest revision as of 05:27, 8 October 2020