Elizabeth Catlett, ..and a special fear for my loved ones, 1949, printed 1989

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw: This piece titled ..and a special fear for my loved ones, reflects the concern that Elizabeth Catlett and so many African Americans had for, not only themselves, but their children, their relatives, anybody who was related to them, any African American family members could be very quickly swept up into racist violence in the 1930s, ‘40s, [and] ‘50s. 

Narrator: Professor Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw. 

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw: The specter of lynching was a part of daily life. If we think about concerns today that African Americans have about being racially profiled, being stopped by the police, this was a very similar moment in the 1930s and ‘40s, for Black folks, but it carried an even greater sense of distress because of the frequency with which people were being lynched, were being murdered by extralegal violence in the United States.