Introduction

The photograph prompts consideration of varying engagements with the US flag in African American culture. For some Black Americans, at least, the flag, along with other icons of US nationalism, has been an object of aspiration rather than something provoking anxiety or fright. An exemplary figure in this tradition is the intellectual and activist Anna Julia Cooper, who attempted in her 1902 speech ‘The Ethics of the Negro Question’ to convince sceptical whites of African Americans’ patriotic fervour and hence their civic entitlement. Yet while such gestures of Black patriotism should not be disregarded, it is undeniable that often for African Americans the US flag has been bound up instead with terror. The promise signified by the flag is immediately annulled by its association in Lee’s subversive montage with racist thuggery.