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Race Relations

Alabama Code

by George Biddle

Biddle’s Alabama Code is a direct allusion to the Scottsboro Nine trial, where nine African American boys were falsely accused of raping two white girls. 

The girl in the lithograph represents one of the accusers, while the man on whose lap she sits symbolizes the white, male elite of the south.  Biddle shows the girl as promiscuous, hinting she may have been the seducer instead of the victim. 

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George Biddle - Alabama Code

George Biddle, Alabama Code. 1933.  Lithograph, 13 ⅜ x 9 7/16 in.

Museum Purchase, Derby Fund, from the Philip J. and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art 1930-1970

Within Race Relations...
George Biddle Adolf Dehn Jacob Lawrence Jacob Lawrence Julius T. Bloch George Tooker

Race Relations Anti-Semitism Lynching
Spirituality Civil Rights
Romare Bearden
George Biddle
Julius T. Bloch
Adolf Dehn
Joseph Delaney
Boris Gorelick
Robert Gwathmey
Joe Jones
Jacob Lawrence
Louis Lozowick
Elijah Pierce
Ben Shahn
George Tooker
James Turnbull


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