A Daring BLM-esque Banner from the Civil War

Image courtesy of National Archives.

Even in the Union Army, I am amazed that Philadelphia artist David Bustill Bowser got away with making this banner for a colored regiment during the American Civil War. 

I stumbled across Bowser while interviewing Tim Winkle, a historian and curator at Smithsonian's Museum of American History for a short article about a firefighting exhibit that Winkle had put together. Winkle mentioned a fireman's hat that Bowser had hand-painted. 

"He was creating these works of art for a white fire company even when" he wasn't allowed to join because of the color of his skin, Winkle said. "Fire companies mirrored society at the time."

After getting off the phone with Winkle, I started researching Bowser, who was black, and came across the image of the banner shown here (image courtesy of the National Archives). I'm not sure where the original is today, or if it still exists.

The 22nd Regiment (or "22th", as the banner reads) was raised in Pennsylvania in 1864. They were black soldiers led by white officers. The image of a black man with a rifle pointed at the chest of a white man on the ground is powerful and arresting. Note how Bowser (presumably with instructions from members of the Regiment?) has borrowed and subverted the motto of The Commonwealth of Virginia -- "sic semper tyrannis," which is Latin for "Thus always to tyrants."

The banner may express an attitude in common with today's Black Lives Matter movement. We see a black man who does not tolerate violence against his people and is pointing a gun at a white officer who had oppressed him. Thankfully, the gesture appears to have resulted in the officer's surrender rather than his death.

The resulting article for Smithsonian mentioned Bowser only in passing. Because the assignment was to write about the fire fighting exhibit, there wasn't a good reason to include the image of this banner in the article.