January Cartoons and Drawings

This January I've been kind of depressed about the news headlines, but hopeful as well. In spite of the bad news, I still look forward to seeing Barack Obama become President. At my work a coworker asked me to do a picture of Barack, so I did a picture of Barack surrounded by people who have been important in African American history. Barack couldn't have become President without the work of those who came before him. It was fun to do. While I was watching Obama during election night when he won the Presidency, I was deeply touched by a scene where Jesse Jackson was crying. Jesse Jackson had been at the scene where Martin Luther King Jr. had died, he was a part of the Poor People's Campaign, he ran for President twice in 1984 and 1988. He was a good reminder that Obama is following in the footsteps of Frederick Douglass, Soujourner Truth, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and others who came before him.

Here is another one of my cartoons with my character Elmira. I got the idea for this cartoon from a party my wife and I hosted to get to know people in my new church. We had checked out a Jack Black movie called Tenacious D and a woman related a story on how she sat in an airplane with a woman who looked exactly like her (footnote: Tenacious D is not the movie to show if you invite a group of church people to your home). Her story stuck to my mind.

I've always loved history and some of my favorite writers are historians. Doris Kearns Goodwin. Gordon Wood. Joseph Ellis. One of my favorite historian is Howard Zinn. His most famous book is A People's History of the United States, a history of our country from the point of view of the slave, of women, of workers, of Native Americans, and of the poor and marginalized. It's a wonderful book. My favorite books of his are You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, The Zinn Reader, and Artists In TImes of War. I just bought the book Voices of a People's History. I look forward to reading it when I find the time.

Comments (1)

Nora Thomason

You nailed the Obama caricature! You're awesome.

Posted by Nora Thomason | January 16, 2009 7:06 PM

Posted on January 16, 2009 19:06

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