The Law is too Slow

1923

Medium

lithograph

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-207699

Bellows made this lithograph to illustrate "Nemesis," a fictitious anti-lynching story written by Mary Johnston and published in Century Magazine in May 1923. In the story, a Black man is accused of attacking and killing a white woman; he is then lynched by a mob of white men, all of whom subsequently fall upon misfortune themselves. Bellows portrays the gruesome lynching by highlighting the Black man's strong, illuminated body and surrounding it with an unfeeling mob of white men, some of whom watch as if at a sporting event. The glow of the fire highlights the lynched man's physical as well…