Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

I just love this picture. I have made this post every year for a long time.

Tue Apr 12, 2022: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Mon Apr 12, 2021: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Sun Apr 12, 2020: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Fri Apr 12, 2019: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Thu Apr 12, 2018: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Tue Apr 12, 2016: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Fri Apr 12, 2013: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Thu Apr 12, 2012: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Tue Apr-12-11: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Mon Apr-12-10: Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

Wed Apr-12-06: Today is the day in 1945 that Roosevelt died

This picture of Graham Jackson is the image of that event that I always think of. As the caption notes, it was taken on April 13, 1945, as Roosevelt's body was being taken away that morning.



The caption of the original photograph starts out:

On the afternoon of the day he died President Roosevelt was scheduled to attend a barbecue at Warm Springs. That afternoon he would have heard Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson, a Georgia Negro, play his accordion. The President had enjoyed Jackson's songs many times in the past. The next day when the President's body was borne slowly past the main dormitory at Warm Springs, where often he used to wave at the patients convalescing in the sun's rays, Jackson stepped out of the watching circle, sadly fingered the strains of Going Home. As he played, C.P.O Jackson wept open-eyed to the mournful phrases of his own lament.

Graham Jackson, from the wonderful Atlanta Time Machine

60 White House Drive SW

Many more links on Graham Jackson

Please go to Google Books to see the coverage in the April 23, 1945 issue of Life magazine. You will be amazed. (I can't make the link directly.)

Roosevelt's Death:

http://books.google.com/books?id=wEkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA19&dq=Roosevelt+funeral&hl=en&ei=TirDS4iHOIT7lwfx96jaBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Roosevelt%20funeral&f=true

Goin Home from Eleanor and Franklin
6,462 views Jun 11, 2019

Taps Bugler
37.3K subscribers

Goin Home from Eleanor and Franklin

FDR's Final Journey Home
2,329 views Jan 17, 2021

NPS Hyde Park
371 subscribers

What happened the day FDR died and his journey back to his home on the Hudson in Hyde Park. NY.

Tue Apr 12, 2022: Here are photographs of FDR taken two days earlier and the day before.

More private photographs taken of the very sick President Franklin Roosevelt at Little White House, Warm Springs, Georgia, April 10, 1945, two days before he died—FDR’s doctors and staff had been concealing crucial facts from Americans about gravity of his cardiovascular illness:

Link to tweet

At age 63, President Franklin Roosevelt was secretly photographed today 1945 while posing for a portrait at "Little White House,” Warm Springs, Georgia. The next day, he died.

This haunting end-of-life photograph of FDR, taken for private use by the portrait artist, Elizabeth Shoumatoff, was not shared with the public for decades after FDR’s death.

Link to tweet