"Memories which had better be forgotten?" Harry Roseland, "To the Highest Bidder," The Crisis, January, 1916.

This dramatic painting by Harry Roseland vividly illustrates the human pain caused when the sale of slaves broke up families. Here one sees the determination of the mother to remain with her very young daughter, and the fear in the eyes of the child as she clings to her mother.

The Crisis' use of the image on the cover in 1916 follows an earlier controversy about the painting.

In May 1913 the New York Times reported that the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences had rejected an offer of Harry Roseland's painting "To the Highest Bidder." "The artist was informed that the picture could not be accepted because it tended to keep alive those memories which 'had better be forgotten,' according to the article (titled "Slave Picture Refused").