Watching and reviewing All The Way the other night led to some web-surfing about the civil rights struggles of 1964, which in turn led to a Norman Rockwell painting that I’d somehow never seen before. It’s a depiction of the infamous Mississippi murders that year of three civil-rights workers (James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner). Called “Murder in Mississippi” or “Southern Justice”, it appeared in Look magazine. I’ve never thought of Rockwell as a painter as much a gifted illustrator with a sentimental streak. (A painter friend derided Salvador Dali as “Norman Rockwell on acid.”) So yes, it’s an illustration, but an exceptional one. Those shadows sink right in. (Note: Chaney is on his knees because he’d been savagely beaten before being shot.)
