J’Accuse No. 5

Born on the South Side of Chicago, Charles White explained of his artistic inspiration, “My work takes shape around images and ideas that are centered within the vortex of a black life experience, a nitty-gritty ghetto experience resulting in contradictory emotions: anguish, hope, love, despair, happiness, faith, lack of faith, dreams.” (as quoted in Three Graphic Artists: Charles White, David Hammons, Timothy Washington, Los Angeles, California, 1972, p. 5) The present work is from White’s famous J’Accuse series, named after French author Émile Zola’s 1898 letter denouncing the anti-Semitic conviction of Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus. “His invocation of Zola’s ‘J’Accuse…!’ was a searing indictment of the United States and its seeming inability, notwithstanding landmark legislation, to recognize black humanity.” (E.M. James, “Charles White's J'Accuse and the Limits of Universal Blackness,” Archives of American Art Journal, vol. 55, no. 2, Fall 2016, p. 5) In the present work, J’Accuse No. 5, “A young black man--presumably unemployed--walks forward on an empty landscape toward the viewer. He has a short, massive coat, which is thrown capelike over his shoulders so that its stiff voluminous sleeves protrude, but they are empty of arms and hands. Leafless branches overhead emphasize the barrenness of the environment. In this fashion White dramatizes the plight of black youth in a world of discrimination, posing the question for the viewer: What are you going to do about this?” (R. Bearden, H. Henderson, A History of African-American Artists: From 1792 to the Present, New York, 1993, p. 415)