A Series of Statistical Charts Illustrating the Condition of the Descendants of Former African Slaves - Diagram shows relative number of African Americans in various businesses [LCCN2014645363]
The pattern
This still is filed under Data as proof.
Define
A chart, map, or count that is the argument, not an illustration next to the argument.
Mechanism
Sighted evidence. The reader is asked to believe their eyes: a bar, a share, a spread on a map.
Verdict
The claim is comparative or quantitative and the figure can be read without a caption doing the sell.
Why it works
The chart abandons a shared baseline and lets area alone carry value, so the blocks interlock into a single composition instead of a row of bars - the page is read as one mass of Black capital rather than eight separate small numbers. Thin leader lines to a quiet serif label column keep every block identified without printing a single number inside the field, which stops the reader from auditing the parts and keeps them on the whole. Stating the total in dollars and francs at the top does the persuasive work before any block is parsed. The flat unmodulated colour, applied by hand, is what makes a statistical table look like a claim.
Steal this when
Steal this when a set of small numbers is more persuasive as a single visual mass than as an itemised ranking. The leader-line label column is the right structure when categories have long names in two languages and you refuse to clutter the data field with them.