(CIVIL RIGHTS) Augusta He Only Made Page 5

Sale 2503 - Lot 232

Price Realized: $ 469

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(CIVIL RIGHTS.) Augusta--He Only Made Page 5. Poster, 22 x 17 inches, printed on verso of an uncut sheet of 4 New York University letterheads; minimal wear. New York, circa 1970

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On 9 May 1970, a 16-year-old prisoner named Charles Oatman was found dead in his Georgia jail cell. The official explanation was that he fell off his bunk, or was perhaps beaten by his two cellmates, but he was widely believed to have been killed by prison guards. This triggered widespread rioting in the city of Augusta, GA, which Governor Lester Maddox blamed on a Communist conspiracy. This poster's central image was a UPI photograph of an Augusta looter shot to death by the police. The photograph appeared in numerous papers across the country, including on page 5 of the New York Daily News on 13 May 1970. According to the UPI story in the Greenville (MS) Delta Democrat-Times, "the man fell among candy gumballs with a bullet in his heart. The patrolman who shot the . . . man explained, 'It looked like he went for a gun.' There was no gun on the man." One other example traced in OCLC, at the Museum of Modern Art; none found at auction.