Examples Of Justification Of Lynching

A perfect example backing up what Wells-Barnett argues the cause of lynching is in Southern Horrors is the case of a lynching that occurred on March 9th, 1892 in Memphis, Tennessee. Tensions were rising in a Memphis neighborhood after three African American men; Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart, opened their own grocery store that was taking business away from a nearby white owned store. The three black men stayed overnight at their store to protect it from vandals that night. Sometime in the night they shot off some of the white men who came to attack. In retaliation for the white men who were shot, the storeowners were arrested and taken to jail. These men were never given the opportunity to defend their actions due to a lynch mob dragging them from their cell then murdering them. Additionally, Wells-Barnett informed the public that some of the cases, more often than not where black men that were lynched for raping white women, the sexual relations were consensual and not forced. Learning of the unjust treatment of the store owners, the other men who were falsely accused of rape, and countless other injustices Wells-Barnett became outraged to the degree of taking it upon herself to put her life at risk by traveling the south for two months gathering information on other lynching incidents

According to Sims, this recount of lynching gives African Americans an opportunity to come to terms with their initial hatred towards those who committed egregious acts upon them. There is a conscious decision “not to be controlled by internalized rage against persons who choose to behave inhumanely… a decision is made to redirect energy into areas that can yield a positive energy” (Sims 48). I think that this is a crucial point that really influenced and impacted the way that I conceptualized the reluctance to speak about lynching. African Americans who lived during the lynching society were able to forgive the people who acted inhumanely and, instead of seeking revenge and dwelling on the past, made a conscious decision to focus on other areas that could bring about a positive difference. This is incredibly important to understand and apply in our modern society as we seek to establish equality for all

In North America they lynch Negroes. Although the physical aspect of it is no longer being used in today’s society the mental part is still alive and well. Pathfinders and church members does anyone know who Willie lynch was? Anyone? You can raise your hand if you know about him. Nobody? Ok let me tell you who he was Willie lynch was a very vicious slave owner in the West Indies. The slave-masters in the America were having a lot of trouble controlling their slaves, so they sent for Mr. Lynch to teach them his methods. The word "lynching" came from his last name. His methods were very simple and easy, but they were really evil. The method was to keep the slave physically strong but psychologically weak and dependent on the slave master. Keep the body, take the mind.

Wells’ achievements in helping to end lynching in her time served to be significant. She recognized the social injustice that Blacks were subjected to by Whites through lynching. Wells became an anti-lynching activist because she believed that the way Blacks were being killed was inhuman and wrong. She set out to bring awareness to the injustice that were taking place in the south and also to advocate for social justice. She saw that everyone deserved equal economic, political, social rights, and opportunities in the Black community everywhere but especially in the south. Through her pedagogical manipulation of contemporary White assumptions regarding gender, race, and civilization; Wells was able to teach European Americans that lynching was uncivilized and primitive (Pinar,

This document connects to my storyline by giving an example of a lynching, it gives graphic details and makes you feel like you're actually in the moment. It also provides two sides of the story which is essential for someone to make an opinion about lynching. It gives the story of what the black person did and it shows why the white person did what he did. It can teach us what the white community in Mississippi thought about lynching at the time. It was either one of two options: 1) Either they approved of the lynching or else 2) The community didn’t disapprove enough to risk giving their "enemies" the satisfaction of a conviction.

According to the stereotypes exposed by Wells, white men understood the rape of a white woman by a black man to be an insult to their manhood [5] , whereas the rape of a black woman by a white man could not be a “punishable crime” because of her status as a “bad woman.” The racial ideology at the root of such thinking allowed white men to define lynching not as terrorism or race and gender control, but as the right action to avenge their manhood. [6] Through her reports, Wells challenged other women as well as men to join the anti-lynching campaign. The Association of Southern Women to Prevent Lynching was a subsequent group of white women that was established in the 1930s as a result of the events documented in A Red Record. Wells is also credited as one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization that began a widespread campaign against lynching and mob violence around 1910 and is the oldest civil rights organization in the United States. [7]

“The idea of you lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man's safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind—as long as it's daytime and you're not behind him” (133).

During the twentieth-century lynching was a form of punishment exercised frequently in the Southern states. "Lynching is the practice whereby a mob-usually several dozen or several hundred persons-takes the law into its own hands in order to injure or kill a person accused of some wrongdoing" (Zangrando). In several cases the mob would not really reason with the people they are punishing, most times there would not be a trial, like there would be if it had gone through the courts. The mob would dictate whether they were guilty or not and determine the punishment they would receive. People could be lynched for a crime they did not commit or because they were affiliated with someone who were guilty of something, and because the mob assumed they were guilty, they took matters into their own hands and those people would be lynched.

Whites did everything in their power to justify that lynching of black men was not murder, but suicide. One of the main points the author, Tameka Bradley Hobbs addressed in the book was that even after amendments, law, and movements that were created to help blacks gain equality, they were still viewed as being the lowest of all races. Blacks were being lynched behind crimes that they never committed. An insight of “Democracy abroad lynching at home” is the more the black lynching numbers climbed, black journalist started using their talents to grab the attention of the nation about the injustice of the extralegal murder. There were only 3,745 documented lynching between 1889 and 1932. The people who performed the lynches were never brought to justice even though multiple pictures by the corpse were being taking by the killers. However even though black males experienced racial violence black soldiers serving in Europe were treated with respect and admiration that they would never receive from the people in America. Lynchings were meant to send out a message to African

Recently, an L.A. Times article (dated 2/13/00) reviewed a new book entitled "Without Sanctuary", a collection of photographs from lynchings throughout America. During the course of the article, the author, Benjamin Schwarz, outlined some very interesting and disturbing facts related to this gruesome act of violence: Between 1882 and 1930, more than 3,000 people were lynched in the U.S., with approximately 80% of them taking place in the South. Though most people think only African Americans were victims of lynchings, during those years, about 25% were white. Data indicates that mobs in the West lynched 447 whites and 38 blacks; in the Midwest there were 181 white victims and 79 black; and in the South, people lynched 291

The concept of lynch law as invoked by Ida B. Wells-Barnett coordinates a specific relation between the violence of lynching and cultural institutions and practices. It comes to name the symbolic violence of the state, which, by maintaining recognition for the possibility of life without lynching on its own terms, precisely conditions the possibility for lynching’s endurance. By using the term lynch law, Wells-Barnett intervenes in the political situation by correcting what is really a misrecognition of the cultural logic that forms the relay between law and lynching, and moreover, that enables the endurance and proliferation of lynching violence. This is not to advance a historical claim that all events of lynching followed a strict or monolithic

Our exhibit reveals how the uninformed learn the issues regarding lynchings throughout history in the United States. My particular contribution to the exhibit would provoke visitors to examine past lynchings, later reflect back on these issues, and participate in the complete abolition of these types of issues.

As the author noted, “African-American studies treat whiteness as a species of terror.” He further went on to say that black thinkers “contend that whiteness is also experienced through terror by whites, who find and reproduce unity by committing, and more often by witnessing, acts of violence.” As noted by Roediger, ‘the mass experience of violence” in the form of “lynchings of African-Americans between 1890 and the Great Depression” have been embedded in the memory of blacks as well of whites. It is through this fear experienced from the inhumane violence of lynching why many whites have “initiated into

As I was reading the assigned text this week I was appalled to read the words in, “The Cause of Lynching.” (589) Then when I turned the page, my eyes were shocked to see the picture before me. As a very compassionate, emotional person I could never understand the act of lynching and the treatment of blacks. The man in the picture, Lige Daniels, was a son, and maybe a brother. I thought to myself what could this man have done to deserve such a death?

Lynching has been known as one of the worst things done from the cause of racism. It is the act of killing someone, especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal trial. This heinous act was committed many, many times for unjustified reasons. Reasons that would be viewed as today as innocent and unnecessary, because no harm was done whatsoever. People made it into a big event when they lynched someone, all gathering around to watch it happen, even bringing their children. They would make it seem like it was acceptable to do, as if it wasn’t wrong to do it, because of how big of an event they would turn it into every time. The impact this had on people back then, the way it promoted