[PROTEST] [BLACK AMERICANA]. Photo- collage poster in defense of convicted serial killer Lemuel Smith; first convict to kill an on-duty female corrections officer by Anonymous: With three variants of a smaller photocopied poster.

[Xerography] With three variants of smaller photocopied poster-fliers.

Appropriation Art/ Protest:

Photography: A striking folk art Poster created to protest the trial, treatment and sentencing of convicted multiple murderer Lemuel Smith, c. 1984, being a collage of photographs reprinting a detail from a grainy newspaper image of Smith being led in handcuffs.

Collage is made-up of glossy photographic prints, most approx. 9 7/8 x 5 3/4 inches, held together by office tape and edged with a type of binder's tape. This was likely created as a camera-ready maquette for a poster, with seams and some touch ups inked by hand.

Together with three photocopies in various sizes of a drawing based on this image, the larger one (22 x 15.5 inches) being two photocopied sheets pasted together.

Lot also includes a photocopied letter to Lemuel W. Smith from Gov. Cuomo's office, April 1, 1985, denying his request to reinvestigate "several criminal cases."

The photo-collage and smaller images are artifacts from the divisive murder trial of convicted serial killer Lemuel Smith, an African American man found guilty of multiple murders. While in prison, in 1981, Smith brutally murdered Donna Payant, the first female U.S. corrections officer to be killed on the job. He was sentenced to death and sat on death row until his attorneys— William Kunstler and C. Vernon Mason —successfully petitioned to have the sentence commuted to life in prison. For most of the time since his conviction Smith, now in his 80's, has been confined to solitary detention, by some measures a record length of time.

The case was a media sensation, with many convinced that Smith was not only guilty but something of a monster deserving to be put to death. These ephemeral pieces are rare examples of protest material sympathetic to Smith's cause, produced by NYC's Church of Humanism, where Joseph Ben-David, a lifelong social activist, became a vocal supporter of Smith, co-founding a defense committee, and even visiting him in prison. Smith was the subject of his sermon on December 29, 1984, The Case of Lemuel Smith - Justice and Truth. The crux of Smith's defense was that he suffered from mental illness and believed an unborn brother took possession of his body and committed the murders. As a Humanist, Ben-David was likely drawn to Smith's case at least in part through a heightened awareness of racial injustice, having been active in Civil Rights protests, and also a core belief that all life has value.

Condition is good with expected wear from the materials used, such as toning, tape burns, etc., creases from being stored folded. Decades later, after the Black Lives Matter protests and the murder of George Floyd, with the details of the case largely forgotten, the image of a handcuffed Black man seems newly relevant and impactful, & Ben-David's claims of systemic injustice and racial bias prescient.