''Hambone's Meditations'' was a

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

produced from 1916 to 1968, and syndicated initially by the

McClure Newspaper Syndicate McClure Newspaper Syndicate, the first American newspaper syndicate, introduced many American and British writers to the masses. Launched in 1884 by publisher Samuel S. McClure, it was the first successful company of its kind. It turned the mar ...

and later by the

Bell Syndicate The Bell Syndicate, launched in 1916 by editor-publisher John Neville Wheeler, was an American syndicate that distributed columns, fiction, feature articles and comic strips to newspapers for decades. It was located in New York City at 247 West 4 ...

. Produced by two generations of the Alley family, the one-panel cartoon originated with the

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...

, newspaper ''

The Commercial Appeal ''The Commercial Appeal'' (also known as the ''Memphis Commercial Appeal'') is a daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by the Gannett Company; its former owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, also ...

'', where it ran on the front page. The title character was a stereotypical African-American man with wide eyes and exaggerated large lips. He dispensed

folk wisdom Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also includes ma ...

in caricatured dialect.

Publication history

''Hambone's Meditations'' was created by J.P. Alley, the first editorial cartoonist of ''The Commercial Appeal''. The character of Hambone was inspired by Alley's encounter with a philosophical former

slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

, Tom Hunley of

Greenwood, Mississippi Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the rive ...

. Hunley told a

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

interviewer how he met J. P. Alley: 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. 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.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.

Story and characters

''Hambone's Meditations'' was inspired by cartoonist

Kin Hubbard Frank McKinney Hubbard (September 1, 1868 – December 26, 1930), better known as Kin Hubbard, was an American cartoonist, List of humorists, humorist, and journalist. His most famous work was for "Abe Martin (comic strip), Abe Martin". Introduce ...

's '' Abe Martin of Brown County'' (syndicated 1904 to 1930), a

hillbilly ''Hillbilly'' is a term historically used for White people who dwell in rural area, rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in the Appalachian region and Ozarks. As people migrated out of the region during the Great Depression, ...

antihero prone to wisecracks jokes and the utterance of popular sayings.Hughes, Franklin
"Hambone's Meditations,"
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia website, Ferris State University (Dec. 2015). 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'':

Controversy and cancellation of the strip

Historian Michael Honey described the humiliation felt by African Americans due to by ''Hambone's Meditations'': The presence of Hambone on the front page of the ''Commercial Appeal'' was noted unfavorably by journalist

Garry Wills Garry Wills (born May 22, 1934) is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Gener ...

while covering the aftermath of Martin Luther King's assassination. Pressure from D'Army Bailey and

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

groups—including marchers in the

Memphis sanitation strike The Memphis sanitation strike began on February 12, 1968, in response to the deaths of sanitation workers Death of Echol Cole and Robert Walker, Echol Cole and Robert Walker. The deaths served as a breaking point for more than 1,300 African ...

chanting "Hambone just go!"—brought the long-running cartoon series to an end in 1968.

In popular culture

Luther Dickinson Luther Andrews Dickinson (born January 18, 1973) is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the North Mississippi Allstars and the son of record producer Jim Dickinson. He is also known for being a guitarist for The Black Crowes. He hosts '' Guita ...

released an album in 2012 titled ''Hambone's Meditations'' (Songs of the South Records). It was nominated for the 2013 Grammy Award for

Best Folk Album The Grammy Award for Best Folk Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for releasing albums in the Folk music, folk genre. Honors ...

References

{{reflist

External links