[Booker T. Washington standing on a stage in Mound Bayou, Mississippi] (1912)

The only rights-clean frame of Washington at Mound Bayou found this pass, and the reason matters.

Rights verified 2026-07-31 against the LOC JSON API. This item reads “No known restrictions on publication.”

🔴 Two sibling images of the same event are NOT usable and must not be substituted for this one. Both are by A. P. Bedou (1882–1966) and both carry, in the LOC’s own words, “Rights status not evaluated.”

Item	Rights	Verdict
loc.gov/item/98500615	No known restrictions on publication	✅ usable
loc.gov/item/2004669246 (Bedou)	Rights status not evaluated	❌ refuse
loc.gov/item/2007676240 (Bedou)	Rights status not evaluated	❌ refuse

Under WR_IMAGE_RIGHTS_DOCTRINE_v1, unverifiable is never — worse than no candidate. A photographer who died in 1966 can carry a live estate interest, which is presumably why the Library declined to evaluate. Do not reason “it’s from 1912, so it’s public domain.” POSTPONED’s hero was pulled on exactly that reasoning: plausible is not a licence.

The two Bedou frames are the more dramatic images. That is precisely the temptation this note exists to refuse.

⚠️ Date discrepancy, unresolved. The LOC dates all three 1912. Washington’s known Mound Bayou visit and his World’s Work article on the town are usually placed in 1907–08, and the Bedou captions reference an oil mill dedication. This record does not resolve which event these frames depict. Do not assert a year in a caption beyond what the LOC record states.