In this piece, Allyson Hobbs ( journalist and assistant history professor at Standford), explores her personal views on using graphic historical images in the classroom - " Early in my teaching career, I made a conscious choice not to include photographs of lynchings in my course materials... My concern was that, if we merely looked at photographs of lynchings, we risked being complicit in those terrible acts, in their attempts to rob their victims not just of life but also of dignity, honor, and, above all, privacy. I worried that we couldn’t help but be voyeurs, observing spectacles rather than bearing witness to atrocities." Hobbs' article discusses how in two key US lynchings - the murder of 14-year old Emmett Till in 1955 and the recent murder of Philando Castile, whose death was captured on video and went viral - decisions were made to force people to "look" at what had happened. Hobbs presents her realization that there is a definite emotional and ra...
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