"Hang Time Circa 1923" by Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artwork that appropriates and recontextualizes a historical photograph to interrogate themes of race, violence, and American history. The work juxtaposes imagery associated with basketball and leisure against the traumatic legacy of lynching, forcing viewers to confront how language and visual culture can obscure or normalize racial terror. Through this deliberate collision of meanings, Thomas critiques the ways that African American bodies have been historically vulnerable to violence while exploring how contemporary popular culture intersects with historical trauma.