document
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

label levels:

This cartoon appeared several days after the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King. The title, "Civil Rights Report," is a grim play on words. It refers to the frequent reports on American race relations received by the U.S. congress but also the report, or sound, of a rifle shot. The slow process of institutional change, symbolized by the image of the capital building, is interrupted by the assassin's bullet. The influential cartoonist "Herblock" was a master of these dramatic contrasts.

top of page