Where are the names?
14
Acknowledging and learning from one's history is truly desirable in every culture; the sine qua non, however, is how we reflect in our daily actions and interactions the lesson learned. Judging by the proliferation of guns, the racial and religious prejudice, the growing economic inequality that are so evident in our society today suggests we have been poor students. A moment of personal reflection is called for. I must look at what I do not what I say/think.
15
There is precedent for this. In Europe they have the Stolperstein. They are small brass monuments placed in the street or sidewalk to mark and remember the last homes of victims of the Holocaust.
12
...and what have we as a people learned from this? These killings were motivated by hatred, fear and ignorance, much like the murders of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and countless others. Not to mention the "living" murders of incarcerated black men serving life destroying sentences for minor crimes. This won't get published. My comments are never published. In a way I am proud of that because I tell a truth the NYT censors out. I am not even an advocate.
25
Thank you for doing this and for letting us know about this. The time of these is not that long ago. I have heard that Germany makes some public efforts to come to some kind of terms with it's past. These lynchings ( and slavery as well) and our treatment of our indigenous peoples are part of our history. Will the history books for students write truthfully about these?
12
I am deeply grateful for this initiative. I have been subtly "punished" and occasionally shunned through the years for teaching this history to high school students and encouraging them to research it. One student discovered that postcards of lynchings used to be traded like baseball cards and that there are still people with old collections -- that it was a bloodsport of sorts -- that people liked to recount the details. We would take time to look in the faces of the people, in the crowd "enjoying" the spectacle. Always a strange blankness. We'd notice the young children brought along. As for the murdered, disfigured, tortured men and women -- I don't think we could take it in. Not really. Hard to contain in the mind. We could only allow a fraction of the awful pain of it to touch our hearts and consciences, and we had to look away. Perhaps markers, public controversies and conversation could help us all, together, bear to face it.
60
Statistics provided by the Archives at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) show that lynchings have occurred not just in the south, but in 44 states. Now, even though over 4 times as many occurred in southern states, the other 895 should not be left out, and to do so paints a distorted picture of the differences between the northern and southern states.
18
I don't hear the jingoistic chant of USA, USA. We americans are so righteous pointing out other counties civil rights, and moral deficiencies, but we rarely, if ever, take a hard look in the mirror, and acknowledge our own sordid history (and present). Important lessons and growth as a people can be gained from studying and discussing these events in our history. It's shocking to read, and see photographs of our own domestic ISIS-type behavior. But what is also so appalling is the passivity and carnival nature enjoyed by the locals.
24
Sickening. Sometimes doubled over in pain reading these details. Giving names to the victims returns some measure of dignity. The least we can do now. But, I must say, I was also shocked recently when someone showed me a postcard of a lynching in the deep South sent home by a doctor to his family, casually, and rather proudly. saying he attended this lynching. It was THEATHER. Photographers made a good living, it seems, recording it and selling it as souvenirs. Making this public is the least we can do now. Even the photograph you publish with people crowding to the windows of the store across the street gives one pause about the moral values of America - then. But not just then.
38
This morning I was listening to Diane Rehm interview Congressman John Lewis and I realized that, despite celebrating Black History Month, my elementary and high schools barely covered the Civil Rights Movement, much less the violence that came before. Not even in US History did we learn about the actual consequences of Jim Crow, although I certainly remember dry lessons about Plessy vs. Ferguson and the like.
Mr Stevenson is doing incredibly important work. Thank you for publicizing this.
Mr Stevenson is doing incredibly important work. Thank you for publicizing this.
42
I am so grateful for the work that Equal Justice Initiative is doing across the nation and especially the South. We need physical markers to jar us from our complacency; to make us pause and consider how the torture and murder of human beings could have been carried forth in a carnival atmosphere in front of crowds of hundreds. I hope these markers will cause people to pause and ask themselves the really hard questions, including "what makes me different than the people that stood in those crowds and watched?" and "what am I doing to make an impact on continuing racial inequality in this country?"
35
People of my generation who grew up in the south as I did, need to have their experiences documented just as those survivors of the Holacost needed to have their terror documented.
As a child growing up in rural Virginia, I was not directly affected by the terror of a lynching, but terrorized I was by the whispered conversations overheard from adults who knew of someone who had been lynched, brutally beaten or deliberately run over by car.
Fear of the wrath of someone who is White and the fear of acquiring poliomylitis becomes a stolen childhood for many children of the 1950's and early '60's.
As a child growing up in rural Virginia, I was not directly affected by the terror of a lynching, but terrorized I was by the whispered conversations overheard from adults who knew of someone who had been lynched, brutally beaten or deliberately run over by car.
Fear of the wrath of someone who is White and the fear of acquiring poliomylitis becomes a stolen childhood for many children of the 1950's and early '60's.
43
I'm trying to understand how this history has not 'been acknowledged'. It has been acknowledged since (at least) To Kill a Mockingbird was published.
What hasn't been acknowledged is the demographics of interracial violence since the 1960s (and perhaps before).
What hasn't been acknowledged is the demographics of interracial violence since the 1960s (and perhaps before).
9
If the names of Jewish residents sent to concentration camps by the nazis can be memorialized by markers in the pavement in front of their houses in German cities, then certainly an equivalent gesture can be decided for the victims of lynchings in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. And let no one say such a gesture would be divisive, stirring up old enmities. And while we are at it, how about financial compensation for slavery. Then, there's what we did to the Indians ...
12
What needs to be understood is African-American Hostory in America must be added into the history documentation of American history.No one has been taught about this in our curriculum and from the outlook no one is truly able to grip the reality that these events and thousands of others are apart of the history of this Country. The facts and the record must be set straight. With the technology of today we can see exactly how the timelines fit togetger alnost bringing it right in to the present. However,there are millions who haved lived through enough of these types of incidents that testimonies alone wpuld shock the world. We must find a way to bring our Countries out of the darkness and into the light. We must learn what has happened and why. We must learn what we must do to prevent such things from ever happening again.
9
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE. Spell it out in caps, shout it out, and give appreciation for this much needed work tabulating murders. Sadly, we need to be reminded about these awful events. Recently, the world reacted with outrage over the Jordanian soldier who was burned to death. Now, it's time to howl for these precious lives and their suffering. Markers are the least we can do.
20
I am astonished that this article does not mention the work of Ida B. Wells, who in 1895 published the first comprehensive history of lynching in a pamphlet called "A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States, 1892-1893-1894." Wells, a Chicago-based journalist, who sometimes wrote for a White newspaper, the "Daily Inter-Ocean," was a prominent agitator against injustice against Blacks and an equally strong advocate of suffrage for women.
30
Thank you for mentioning Ida B. Wells. I knew about her stamp, but I was not familiar with her history. What a fighter and a leader she was. Born into slavery, lived until March 25, 1931 and fought the good fight the whole of her life. I will read more. Hope others do as well.
14
Were there no lynchings in the North??
4
STOP!
I don't want to hear any more of it.
I am just sick of it. Drinking soda pop while a black man is hung. Now you know why slavery prospered in the South. And they did not care if he was guilty.
-The Colonel
I don't want to hear any more of it.
I am just sick of it. Drinking soda pop while a black man is hung. Now you know why slavery prospered in the South. And they did not care if he was guilty.
-The Colonel
8
Sorry, Colonel, but I don't believe this is why slavery "prospered". I believe that slavery "prospered" because the South was primarily an agricultural society. It might have "prospered" in the North as well if not for it being illegal.
What I don't understand is how these fine "moral people" could allow these things to be done to other humans regardless of anyone's race.
What I don't understand is how these fine "moral people" could allow these things to be done to other humans regardless of anyone's race.
5
There was never a federal law passed outlawing lynching in the US. Since the early 1900s, several bills making lynching a federal crime came up in the Congress, but none ever made it to become law.
6
There was never a law that said lynchings were legal in first place. It just seem odd that people would think such behavior was somehow kegal.
4
Yes, but there were lynchings up to 1950, according to the report.
2
I guess the weird thing for me is that the kind of people who were lynched are the kind of people I hang around with. Rather ordinary people, working at their jobs, raising their families, going to church, paying their taxes -- but for some reason we Americans have beaten and robbed and tortured and murdered them.
I look at my friends, I look at these pictures, and I am just unable to process. What about us Americans has made us to have such virulent, violent hate towards our fellow brothers and sisters who have done nothing except exist?
It is wearying. It is so easy to have compassion and understanding and acceptance. There are so many friendships to be had, so many relationships to enjoy, so much quiddity of humanness to explore. And yet there are some who have such ugliness in their souls that they kill others to resolve some great need for pain and destruction.
Saying "I'm sorry" isn't really enough. It will never be enough. But I am so sorry at all this, for all the destroyed lives, all the pain, all the hatred. I am so sorry that so much of it was done in the name of purity and holiness and righteousness. My own religion is involved here--many of these people committed these atrocities in the name of Christ.
It is all so wrong.
I look at my friends, I look at these pictures, and I am just unable to process. What about us Americans has made us to have such virulent, violent hate towards our fellow brothers and sisters who have done nothing except exist?
It is wearying. It is so easy to have compassion and understanding and acceptance. There are so many friendships to be had, so many relationships to enjoy, so much quiddity of humanness to explore. And yet there are some who have such ugliness in their souls that they kill others to resolve some great need for pain and destruction.
Saying "I'm sorry" isn't really enough. It will never be enough. But I am so sorry at all this, for all the destroyed lives, all the pain, all the hatred. I am so sorry that so much of it was done in the name of purity and holiness and righteousness. My own religion is involved here--many of these people committed these atrocities in the name of Christ.
It is all so wrong.
26
Forgive me, Stephen, but how do you know these people are "the kind of people you hang around with"?
Saying you're sorry or very sorry doesn't really change a thing. Besides, you didn't do it. To me, if a person is sorry about something like this the BEST thing to do is go out of your way to make sure it doesn't happen again to ANYONE.
Saying you're sorry or very sorry doesn't really change a thing. Besides, you didn't do it. To me, if a person is sorry about something like this the BEST thing to do is go out of your way to make sure it doesn't happen again to ANYONE.
3
Very unlikely that most of these people were folks that you would have 'hung out with'. Lynchings were not, for the most part, random events. They were directed at people accused of crimes. This is not to justify the lynchings, but let's not get carried away with the vicarious guilt.
3
Thank you for this article. I admire your country for what you are doing here.
I only wish white Australians had a fraction of your honesty and compassion. In Australia we need to talk openly and document the genocide of indigenous Australians. I hope we can learn from you.
I only wish white Australians had a fraction of your honesty and compassion. In Australia we need to talk openly and document the genocide of indigenous Australians. I hope we can learn from you.
10
Remember the first line of Dylan's "Desolation Row"?
"They're selling postcards of the hanging..."
There really was a macabre trade in lynching postcards.
"They're selling postcards of the hanging..."
There really was a macabre trade in lynching postcards.
18
The data spread in the map suggests that non-Southern states also had lynchings, albeit fewer. Was this the actual study area, or was the map a subset thereof?
Racism has no border.
Racism has no border.
8
We should acknowledge it.
We learn,forgive and grow.
We learn,forgive and grow.
5
Does this study seek to note all Lynchings or just those that had
Racial causes ?
Making note of all Lynchings would seem to be more accurate course of action.
Racial causes ?
Making note of all Lynchings would seem to be more accurate course of action.
7
Well, it wasn't only a Southern phenomenon. Omaha also had lynchings: Joe Smith (1891) and Will Brown (1919).
8
One of the reasons we even need Black History Month is how much pain and pride walk side by side. We have more than one museum in the US dedicated to a Holocaust that did not take place on our soil. Jewish roots are strong in this country, and it is right to honor the suffering and courage of those who were swept up in that terror, and of their descendents who live in the aftermath. How often do we recognize that lynching was frequent, not a few isolated incidents, and that loved ones and descendents of those who were tortured and murdered in the presence of hundreds live among us? The Holocaust has a name, but lynching has no capitalized name that signifies the systematic persecution that drove thousands North, fleeing for their lives. May we all offer prayers of healing, solace, forgiveness, and to never forget.
18
Mr. Stevenson's work is impressive and laudable. The 3,959 lynching from 1877 to 1950 that he documents must never be forgotten.
For his next project he should consider an investigation into the 6,261 African-American murder victims and 5375 African-American murderers of 2013. They constitute a more pressing contemporary problem of more than historical interest.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-...
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-...
For his next project he should consider an investigation into the 6,261 African-American murder victims and 5375 African-American murderers of 2013. They constitute a more pressing contemporary problem of more than historical interest.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-...
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-...
7
Bryan Stevenson writes of how lynching was a form of terrorism. In comparison, when the Ferguson Police Department left Michael Brown's body in the street for four hours it was also an act of terrorism. Seeing his corpse laying in the street must have been terrifying and sent the message that this is how the police disrespects the black community.
Thank you to EJI for your important and outstanding work.
Thank you to EJI for your important and outstanding work.
20
Give me a break! The ONLY "terrorism" in Ferguson took place in the rioting, looting and burning! I think you degrade the memory of the lynching victims by trying to compare them with Brown!
3
As a native Mississippian in the process of writing my memoirs, reluctant to stop even after sunrise, I suddenly feel drained and at a loss for words learning more details of the horrific story I'm trying to tell. Such is the pain of knowing how little African-American lives have meant, and mean, to so many people who claim to live by exceptional American values. We will never be able to watch the ISIS beheadings without thinking of these African-American victims of terror who were murdered by their fellow Americans as crowds celebrated and cheered.
27
4000!?
multiples upon multiples of this figure
there is #strangefruit
in unmarked graves lakes
and rivers, gulfs and oceans
...haunt this land
multiples upon multiples of this figure
there is #strangefruit
in unmarked graves lakes
and rivers, gulfs and oceans
...haunt this land
12
The majority of lynching victims were white, with the motive being revenge for a crime they were accused of. In the Arizona state museum there is (or was, when I was there) a photograph of two white men lynched c. 1900 after being acquitted of murdering several people, including a pregnant woman, in a botched armed robbery. There were even a number of cases of Negroes lynched by other Negroes.
It can be difficult to separate, a century later, racial motives from the motive of revenge. Some lynchings were clearly motivated by race hatred, but clearly not those in which perpetrators and victims were of the same race. If this study is limited to lynchings with Negro victims, it gives a distorted picture of lynching, a phenomenon that indicates a general breakdown of confidence in the criminal justice system, sometimes without racial hatred as an additional motive.
It can be difficult to separate, a century later, racial motives from the motive of revenge. Some lynchings were clearly motivated by race hatred, but clearly not those in which perpetrators and victims were of the same race. If this study is limited to lynchings with Negro victims, it gives a distorted picture of lynching, a phenomenon that indicates a general breakdown of confidence in the criminal justice system, sometimes without racial hatred as an additional motive.
11
"The majority of lynching victims were white, with the motive being revenge for a crime they were accused of."
Really? Seems like revisionist history to me and you're trying to conflate the point of the rigorous research accomplished by the EJI that resulted in this document. The article is History of Lynchings in the South, not a History of Lynching everywhere in the US. I seriously doubt that the majority of lynching victims were white, but Hey, I could be wrong. Regardless, thousands of blacks were lynched, dismembered, burned alive in the South in the years covered by this study.
Have you ever seen the film To Kill a Mockingbird? If not, you might find it enlightening.
Really? Seems like revisionist history to me and you're trying to conflate the point of the rigorous research accomplished by the EJI that resulted in this document. The article is History of Lynchings in the South, not a History of Lynching everywhere in the US. I seriously doubt that the majority of lynching victims were white, but Hey, I could be wrong. Regardless, thousands of blacks were lynched, dismembered, burned alive in the South in the years covered by this study.
Have you ever seen the film To Kill a Mockingbird? If not, you might find it enlightening.
13
Where do you find evidence for this broad assertion that "The majority of lynching victims were white"? That lynchings happened "sometimes without racial hatred as an additional motive" should not obscure the fact that racism was central to the whole pattern of lynching in the American South.
19
@Stephen... He is correct and it is NO "revisionist" look at all. ALL the lynchings should be recognized for the terrible thing they were. What Jonathan said was right on... If you ONLY shed light one group and ignore the others, you are distorting the picture.
4
The same areas of the country most in favor of all of our wars against "others" are responsible for almost all of these horrible acts, so much worse than those of ISIS, against which theirs are also the loudest voices today.
What's the matter with... the South?
A huge mansion in Charles Town WV recently changed hands. It was built, in 1891, 25 years after the war by a former Confederate colonel on the very site to which he had escorted and then hanged the abolitionist John Brown and 7 of his men, 3 or 4 of whom were Black, in 1859 after the Harpers Ferry raid (WV was still Virginia then). The good colonel told the local newspaper that this castle-like home, complete with Tiffany windows and Waterford chandeliers was "a monument to the mercy and fairness of Southern Justice". Everybody knew, but no one dared mention that he was really tap-dancing on Brown's grave.
Very few people today want to acknowledge this vindictive act of triumphalism by a failed despot, and much of the populace still celebrates and glorifies this "lost cause".
And why are we still busily protecting the site of every last meaningless skirmish of this national tragedy?
What's the matter with... the South?
A huge mansion in Charles Town WV recently changed hands. It was built, in 1891, 25 years after the war by a former Confederate colonel on the very site to which he had escorted and then hanged the abolitionist John Brown and 7 of his men, 3 or 4 of whom were Black, in 1859 after the Harpers Ferry raid (WV was still Virginia then). The good colonel told the local newspaper that this castle-like home, complete with Tiffany windows and Waterford chandeliers was "a monument to the mercy and fairness of Southern Justice". Everybody knew, but no one dared mention that he was really tap-dancing on Brown's grave.
Very few people today want to acknowledge this vindictive act of triumphalism by a failed despot, and much of the populace still celebrates and glorifies this "lost cause".
And why are we still busily protecting the site of every last meaningless skirmish of this national tragedy?
19
West Virginians lynched their fair share of blacks and whites. The
Brown and his sons were rebels no less than southerners who left the union.
Southerners living between 1876-1936 were certainly aware of these murderous crimes. What about the citizens of Kansas, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Delaware, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey? How many had to be lynched in your home state to make you guilty of the crime too even 50, 75 or a hundred years ago?
This is a national issue, not just a southern issue.
Brown and his sons were rebels no less than southerners who left the union.
Southerners living between 1876-1936 were certainly aware of these murderous crimes. What about the citizens of Kansas, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Delaware, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey? How many had to be lynched in your home state to make you guilty of the crime too even 50, 75 or a hundred years ago?
This is a national issue, not just a southern issue.
6
The fact that you equate lynchings with people supporting U.S. military action indicates to me that you're very biased. Also, don't forget that while John Brown was an abolitionist, he also was a cold-blooded murderer.
2
Tom, your apparent unquestioning acceptance of all uses of the US military to kill others represents another, more dangerous bias. Some folks in My Lai and Abu Ghraib, not to mention Dresden and the original inhabitants of this continent are witness to our own other outrages. This country is well-soaked in the blood of others. Do you think we ever fought a war we shouldn't have?
Brown's history, notably in Kansas is complex and sometimes even murky. But for the most part he was just extremely provocative, and in no case I'm aware of could he be unquestionably described as a cold blooded murderer. And yes, being an abolitionist, one determined enough to raise fighters and sacrifice sons for that truly noble cause does, to me, make him a true American hero, far superior to the much more cold blooded and truly cowardly murderers of 4,000 people in the article.
Brown's history, notably in Kansas is complex and sometimes even murky. But for the most part he was just extremely provocative, and in no case I'm aware of could he be unquestionably described as a cold blooded murderer. And yes, being an abolitionist, one determined enough to raise fighters and sacrifice sons for that truly noble cause does, to me, make him a true American hero, far superior to the much more cold blooded and truly cowardly murderers of 4,000 people in the article.
9
Why limit this list to the South? If as the article states, "that these brutal deaths were not about administering popular justice, but terrorizing a community." The list must include the Irish Catholic Molly Maguires who were lynched by the state of Pennsylvania in 1877.
8
Not just the South- at the age of four, my father was brought by his father to a lynching from the Stewart Bridge ( no relation) near the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia. Several years ago my family participated in a ceremony to install a memorial and headstone to the victim,.James Scott, who is buried in the same cemetery as my grandfather and many other participants in that mob.
10
I think Ida B. Wells-Barnett would be proud. She was writing about lynchings back in the 1800s when her own friends got lynched, and she didn't let a homegrown terrorist attack (re: bombing of her work place) stop her.
Germany, South Africa, and Rwanda have all recognized their pasts. We as Americans want to ignore ours and tell people who are inheritors of this brutality to move right along. Get over it. It's done. The thing is, all races are inheritors of this brutality. Both victim and perpetrator's humanity is lessened when such violent, hateful acts are carried out.
A child when James Byrd was dragged to his death in my home state, I can't separate what happened in my 1990s childhood from the more public lynchings that happened in the 1890s or 1870s for that matter.
Lynchings occurred all over this country. Many Asians were lynched in the West as were Caucasians who were bold enough to be allies instead of turning a blind eye.
Let those markers force us to look.
Germany, South Africa, and Rwanda have all recognized their pasts. We as Americans want to ignore ours and tell people who are inheritors of this brutality to move right along. Get over it. It's done. The thing is, all races are inheritors of this brutality. Both victim and perpetrator's humanity is lessened when such violent, hateful acts are carried out.
A child when James Byrd was dragged to his death in my home state, I can't separate what happened in my 1990s childhood from the more public lynchings that happened in the 1890s or 1870s for that matter.
Lynchings occurred all over this country. Many Asians were lynched in the West as were Caucasians who were bold enough to be allies instead of turning a blind eye.
Let those markers force us to look.
29
This might help you to separate the James Byrd dragging death from 19th century lynchings: Of the three people charged with Byrd's murder, one was executed, another is still on death row and the third man is serving a life sentence.
6
The verdict of time puts the lynchers and all who cheered them on in the shoes of the lynched. I hope our shame soothes the souls of the victims.
7
History is usually written by the victor. I did not learn about our true history on many different ethnic groups until I began reading, researching outside the usual curriculum that was taught in school from 1962-1970..
Thank you sir for beginning the process of setting the record straight. We have a president whose mother was white and father African, it is merely a beginning. We have a long way to go. I had to retrain my thinking to unlearn all the racist things I "learned" because it is learned reaction/behavior...
I believe it will take a fe more generations to get to a place where someone is judged by the character of they person vs. the color of their skin, religion, ethnicity....
Thank you sir for beginning the process of setting the record straight. We have a president whose mother was white and father African, it is merely a beginning. We have a long way to go. I had to retrain my thinking to unlearn all the racist things I "learned" because it is learned reaction/behavior...
I believe it will take a fe more generations to get to a place where someone is judged by the character of they person vs. the color of their skin, religion, ethnicity....
9
I'm not sure why Oklahoma wasn't included considering the almost 300 blacks who were killed during the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921. My dad used to complain about taking the train from Kansas to Oklahoma in the 1940s. The train would stop at the Oklahoma border and all of the black passengers would have to move to the last train car. "It was the Mason-Dixon Line." he'd say.
14
Why isn't Oklahoma depicted on the map?
4
Because it disrupts the narrative that all national evil is from the south. http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/classroom/lynchings_table_state.html
5
It's not considered part of the South by history scholars.
4
Not all the evil, just a very large percentage of it in this case, according to the website you cite.
2
Here is how far we have come.
Conservative commentator David Horowitz insists that he and his like are the victims now. “I mean, it’s not just the immigration issue,” he said. “It’s the race issue, too. We had a lynch mob out there in Ferguson for months that spread then to the rest of the country, and they were called protesters, and it’s like there was some hurt inflicted on them. What is the hurt in taking down a criminal like Michael Brown, who’s assaulting a police officer?”
Before it was real. Now lynching is a metaphor. Now the lynchers must rationalize a single instance of dispensing with due process. Now they feebly justify and backpedal from their own detestable arrogance. They were frightening before. Now they are frightened.
Conservative commentator David Horowitz insists that he and his like are the victims now. “I mean, it’s not just the immigration issue,” he said. “It’s the race issue, too. We had a lynch mob out there in Ferguson for months that spread then to the rest of the country, and they were called protesters, and it’s like there was some hurt inflicted on them. What is the hurt in taking down a criminal like Michael Brown, who’s assaulting a police officer?”
Before it was real. Now lynching is a metaphor. Now the lynchers must rationalize a single instance of dispensing with due process. Now they feebly justify and backpedal from their own detestable arrogance. They were frightening before. Now they are frightened.
7
Lynchings also took place in northern states like Ohio and Indiana but it would not serve the purpose of this article to mention that.
7
Can we also have markers for all the women who have been killed by men? Whether the killers intend it or not, their actions serve to instill fear in women such that we take more precautions than men do.
We know that most of the lynchings of African-Americans were NOT blamed on the rape or killing of white women. But when they were, present-day stories like this one have no interest in what happened to the women.
The majority of the victims of lynchings were men. But white men also raped and killed black women, and their terror is much less discussed, just as we talk less about all male killings of women.
We know that most of the lynchings of African-Americans were NOT blamed on the rape or killing of white women. But when they were, present-day stories like this one have no interest in what happened to the women.
The majority of the victims of lynchings were men. But white men also raped and killed black women, and their terror is much less discussed, just as we talk less about all male killings of women.
16
I think that will be where they will find the rest of the statistics. Adding women into the equation those numbers will be much higher. And then the children. I agree no one is even considering a conversatiion about this fact that you have pointed out .
3
Deaths from Ebola and executions by ISIS, both continents away, are so frightening to us that it makes them effective political scare tactics in regard to immigration, gay rights and climate change. Imagine how much more terrifying it was and still is to have friends or family by the hundreds from the farm, neighborhood or county where you were enslaved, lynched month after month, year after year, not by a few religious maniacs, but by an entire dominant community and done so amid an aura of festivity.
17
Once more high praise is due to Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Iniative. "...the lion will tell his story."
10
The unfortunately long but extremely imperative journey toward recognizing our country's terrible past also encompasses our media. Compare this article with the NYT coverage of the spectacle of "burly Negro" "fiend" Henry Smith's torture and murder in Paris, Texas. We are coming a long way.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F01E5DE103BEF33A25751...
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F01E5DE103BEF33A25751...
6
I find it ironic that black gangsters were responsible for killing more black people in Los Angeles in 1992 than the KKK did in the last 100 years. Food for thought.
7
Really???? And your documented sourced for this astounding piece of fantasy is?
13
"Food for thought" -- you mean the opposite, don't you? As in, "Hey, Those People kill each other more than we killed them, so let's all move on, racism is all in the past"?
11
I went to the exhibit "Without Sanctuary" when it came to Chicago years ago. Without Sanctuary is a comprehensive collection of photographs of lynchings. The photos were horrific but worse was the picnic-like atmosphere surrounding them. Imagine if a black or brown man was lit on fire in the middle of Wrigley Field. And people ate hot dogs while it happened. Anyway, one of the stories from the exhibit featured the story of a man in NC; he owned land, traded with other blacks. But when he became too successful, he was accused of a crime, lynched, his land seized, his family scattered. His descendants were at the Chicago exhibit and when they told his story their voices shook and they cried. This is what affected me: to this *day* his lynching has made a mark on their lives. In the same way, lynching has made a mark on America - and it will *never* go away until our country says the words white supremacy, takes accountability for them, and makes it right. I love America but our history and our cultural naivete regarding it makes me wanna holler.
30
Yeah, we didn't like that, so we put a stop to it.
2
A lynching every week for 73 years, but this should not have effect black? White people coming into homes like ISIS every weekend and grabbing up a black male or two, and head out to the old Oak tree!
Popcorn, peanuts, soda bring your kids cause there going to be a hanging today! ISIS cut off a head every couple of months, but every week like clock work the good old Christians on America were breaking neck while having eyes popping of their sockets as the victim or what they called it (entertainment) was kicking around until dead!
So how are we better than ISIS?
Popcorn, peanuts, soda bring your kids cause there going to be a hanging today! ISIS cut off a head every couple of months, but every week like clock work the good old Christians on America were breaking neck while having eyes popping of their sockets as the victim or what they called it (entertainment) was kicking around until dead!
So how are we better than ISIS?
22
The information provided is not historically accurate. One of the states on the map where the atrocities occurred was not a southern state. To be classified a southern state, one must have been a part of the Confederacy. There were only eleven states which seceded from the Union. Kentucky was not one of them.
Yes, but KY is Southern. They fought hard. Consider the Orphan Brigade from Western Kentuck
4
Though there are no stories of lynchings in the news in 2015, I believe that racial hatred and intolerance are still very much alive in America. I think that's at least part of the reason why much of our country despises President Obama and opposes him at every turn. l'd love to see the Map of 73 Years of Lynchings overlaid with a map showing the President's approval ratings. I suspect the areas with the most lynchings are also where he is the most unpopular, and it's not a coincidence.
43
Actually, the states where Obama has the least support is in the West -- Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. As far as the South's opposition to Obama, they voted more heavily against Bill Clinton in his '96 reelection even though he was from Arkansas and his running mate Gore was from Tennessee.
1
Spend some time with this chart by state and race. The story of lynching was a white issue as well with 1,300 whites killed. And the ratio by state of whites vs blacks also is quite revealing...shame on South Carolina. And guess which 7 state Han zero black lynchings from 1888 to 1968?
2
A History of Lynchings performed by all God-Abiding Christians and purportedly supported by Christian doctrine. But don't let the President mention that in a speech during the National Prayer Breakfast, because this all happened hundreds of years ago, or over 1000 years ago. Nothing recent. . .
19
Maybe only 4000 names can be found, but I'll never believe that's all there were.
31
When I was researching the murders of the three civil rights workers in Neshoba, I found out that the authorities dragged the rivers and lakes to find the bodies -- and found many bodies, just not theirs.
There were so many unknown victims of violence. They were Americans. They lived. They had meaning.
We need to remember them.
There were so many unknown victims of violence. They were Americans. They lived. They had meaning.
We need to remember them.
17
I don't see the harm in setting up some monuments to pay respects to victims of racial persecution. And by all means put them in the South and North, wherever the atrocities happened.
Unfortunately as always, whenever there's an attempt to discuss the history of inequality, we can look forward to complaints of "race baiting".
Unfortunately as always, whenever there's an attempt to discuss the history of inequality, we can look forward to complaints of "race baiting".
13
I am an American of Italian descent and have a surprising personal connection to the lynchings described in this article. Few may be aware of it, but mass lynchings of Italians in this sad chapter of American history took place in Louisiana, fueled by the same racial animosity directed at blacks. In fact, Italians, particularly southern Italians with darker skin were considered black and accorded the same vicious and intolerant treatment as were blacks at the time.
This knowledge has helped me forge a stronger, more empathetic association with those who still seek the eradication- if that is ever possible- of racial intolerance. It also shows that none of us are immune to hatred. Being different, as were my ancestors, might be reason enough.
This knowledge has helped me forge a stronger, more empathetic association with those who still seek the eradication- if that is ever possible- of racial intolerance. It also shows that none of us are immune to hatred. Being different, as were my ancestors, might be reason enough.
21
Aloha,
One of the greatest things that the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King did for Black people who lived under TERRORISM in the south for centuries was to get over our FEAR. We were supposed to not look a white person in the eyes. Just getting over the fear of standing up for ourselves has done so much for so many. There are still many of us who are conditioned into fear and self doubt as well as self hate.
One of the greatest things that the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King did for Black people who lived under TERRORISM in the south for centuries was to get over our FEAR. We were supposed to not look a white person in the eyes. Just getting over the fear of standing up for ourselves has done so much for so many. There are still many of us who are conditioned into fear and self doubt as well as self hate.
20
It would have been more accurate and helpful to document all lynchings, not just those in southern states. This was a shameful period in our country's history, not just the South's. However , I sense in the comments on here a willingness to connect the era of lynching to the development and growth of the Republican party in the south. Perhaps the growth of the party had less to do with the murders of 100 years ago than the patronizing attitude of those in other states who think they know us well and know better than us under any circumstances.
3
" I sense in the comments on here a willingness to connect the era of lynching to the development and growth of the Republican party"
You might want to read Lee Atwater circa 1981.
You might want to read Lee Atwater circa 1981.
3
I think the growth of the Republican party in the South might have more to do with the civil rights legislation of the '60s rather than 'patronizing' attitudes. You are probably too young to remember all the 'Impeach Earl Warren' billboards along Southern highways.
4
If the growth of the GOP had anything to do with "the patronizing attitude of those in other states" it is because Republican opportunists recognized a chance to exploit and feed your rank bitterness, and your willingness to have it exploited.
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy [...] All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "N-gger, n-gger, n-gger." By 1968 you can't say "n-gger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N-gger, n-gger.”
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy [...] All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "N-gger, n-gger, n-gger." By 1968 you can't say "n-gger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N-gger, n-gger.”
10
How many people in Paris, TX, were horrified and outraged last week about the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot by ISIS? How many people in Paris, TX, a hundred years ago were horrified and outraged at the burning alive of young, probably innocent black men by a racist mob? These are rhetorical questions.
18
In 2009 Richard Delgado documented in an article in the Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review over 600 lynchings of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Is Mr. Stevenson connected or in touch with the work by Mr. Delgado? http://harvardcrcl.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/297-312.pdf
I hope Mr. Stevenson succeeds in his efforts and that the report on lynching in the US includes this shameful chapter as well.
I hope Mr. Stevenson succeeds in his efforts and that the report on lynching in the US includes this shameful chapter as well.
8
I spent several months documenting the lynching of 9 black men in Phoenix, Greenwood County, SC in Nov. 1898. In 1974 there was still one eye witness alive and she described how the men were hanged, and where the bodies were tossed. Sadly there is no marker to these lives lost, simply because they attempted to vote.
32
And the GOP would do it again if no one was watching. Oh wait they do it by disenfranchising and gerrymandering and voter ID laws!!!!
28
Did you publish anything about your research?
Instead of always trying to defend the use of the confederate flag as one of their great social issues,southern state legislatures should take a moment from their prayer sessions to reflect on their unique geographic history. Then they should enact a legislative apology to those they persecuted for racial reasons.
Guess we'll have to whistle "Dixie" before that happens.
Guess we'll have to whistle "Dixie" before that happens.
22
An interesting footnote — there's a book out with the theory that "Dixie" was actually written by a black family of musicians in Ohio, the Snowdens. A white musician, Dan Emmett, was given credit for writing the song.
8
Compilations like this demonstrate how politicized, and twisted, history can become in the hands of people with an agenda. Simply listing the names of people executed by mob justice without also listing the crimes that the persons lynched were accused of, and the names/status of the victims of the people accused of the crimes, paints a very one-sided picture of this period in our nation's history.
Simply washing away the crimes of the accused because they were denied due process is hardly intellectually honest. It would also behoove us to know how many people of all races were accused of crimes, and how their trials turned out, over the same period of this compilation.
For those instances that Blacks were wrongly killed by lynching, this needs to be acknowledged. But honoring men who undoubtedly were guilty of the crimes for which they were accused and not honoring their victims is just wrong!
Simply washing away the crimes of the accused because they were denied due process is hardly intellectually honest. It would also behoove us to know how many people of all races were accused of crimes, and how their trials turned out, over the same period of this compilation.
For those instances that Blacks were wrongly killed by lynching, this needs to be acknowledged. But honoring men who undoubtedly were guilty of the crimes for which they were accused and not honoring their victims is just wrong!
8
I can't believe I am reading a post that seems to be defending lynching! Because the men lynched were guilty! Hey -- mob justice is perfectly o.k.!
7
I was flummoxed by your post. 'For those instances that blacks were wrongly killed by lynching, this needs to be acknowledged.' You brush aside the due process you mention as if it is only a pesky fly and not a core principal of our judicial system. If you believe that we are supposed to stand for due process, innocence until proof of guilt, a trial before a jury of one's peers, and that we are against cruel and unusual punishment, then you must be against extrajudicial "justice" by mob rule, whether or not a person is black or white, innocent or guilty. When we speak of intellectual honesty, it requires that we not be hypocrites and that we apply our rules of justice equally and fairly, without prejudice.
15
Except that we will never know if they were guilty of any crime, or if there actually were any victims. They were not allowed a trial. They were executed simply because they had been accused of a crime, and they were black. And guilty or not, they were wrongly killed by mobs. If we can't admit this is indisputably wrong, then there is little hope for healing these wounds.
12
Instead of always trying to defend the use of the confederate flag as one of their great social issues,southern state legislatures should take a moment from their prayer sessions to reflect on their unique geographic history. Then they should enact a legislative apology to those they persecuted for racial reasons.
Guess we'll have to whistle "Dixie" before that happens.
Guess we'll have to whistle "Dixie" before that happens.
3
Hate to beat a dead horse, but I recently went to the movies. American Sniper sold out 40 minutes before showtime. I went to see Selma instead, only 2 others in the theater. Americans want to believe they can do no wrong, and anything that reminds us of our misdeeds is not properly focused on. Nobody likes to feel bad about themselves. Obviously there are lessons to be had from misdeeds as well, hopefully the public recognizes that and acknowledge wrongdoings and learns from them.
22
And wasn't Selma a wonderful movie? I loved it...
2
I lived through the times of Selma, albeit separated by 3000 miles and too young at that time to understand what was happening. I remembered all the events, but the movie brought it back to life, helped me understand the very simple things King & others were trying to do: to simply be accepted as humans, as fellow brothers and sisters.
I don't think I could have done better at the time than the other whites in the film. I would have been equally bamboozled by my government and my society and my church to believe that there was something wrong for someone to say "I am a man" and "A man should not have to ask for something already his."
I can't change that past. White Americans, Christian Americans did some awful, terrible things. I can only change now, change me, change what I do.
And one of the things I can do is to speak the truth about what happened. It's wonderful to do so. It's really true -- the truth does set you free.
I don't think I could have done better at the time than the other whites in the film. I would have been equally bamboozled by my government and my society and my church to believe that there was something wrong for someone to say "I am a man" and "A man should not have to ask for something already his."
I can't change that past. White Americans, Christian Americans did some awful, terrible things. I can only change now, change me, change what I do.
And one of the things I can do is to speak the truth about what happened. It's wonderful to do so. It's really true -- the truth does set you free.
5
Someone made a comparison with ISIS barbarism. I wonder if they actually read the report. Even the recent act of depravity (Jordanian pilot) pales in comparison. I quote a random fun-filled activity from the report:
"In 1904, after Luther Holbert allegedly killed a local white landowner, he and a black woman believed to be his wife were captured by a mob and taken to Doddsville, Mississippi, to be lynched before hundreds of white spectators. Both victims were tied to a tree and forced to hold out their hands while members of the mob methodically chopped off their fingers and distributed them as souvenirs. Next, their ears were cut off. Mr. Holbert was then beaten so severely that his skull was fractured and one of his eyes was left hanging from its socket. Members of the mob used a large corkscrew to bore holes into the victims’ bodies and pull out large chunks of “quivering flesh,” after which both victims were thrown onto a raging fire and burned. The white men, women, and children present watched the horrific murders while enjoying deviled eggs, lemonade, and whiskey in a picnic-like atmosphere."
"In 1904, after Luther Holbert allegedly killed a local white landowner, he and a black woman believed to be his wife were captured by a mob and taken to Doddsville, Mississippi, to be lynched before hundreds of white spectators. Both victims were tied to a tree and forced to hold out their hands while members of the mob methodically chopped off their fingers and distributed them as souvenirs. Next, their ears were cut off. Mr. Holbert was then beaten so severely that his skull was fractured and one of his eyes was left hanging from its socket. Members of the mob used a large corkscrew to bore holes into the victims’ bodies and pull out large chunks of “quivering flesh,” after which both victims were thrown onto a raging fire and burned. The white men, women, and children present watched the horrific murders while enjoying deviled eggs, lemonade, and whiskey in a picnic-like atmosphere."
35
Lynching was more than just individual acts of racial violence, it was state-sanctioned terrorism against Americans of African descent, brought to the US against their will.
30
Writing "state-sanctioned terrorism" is stating that officials of the state are carrying out the lynching and that is not the case. What the state did was look the other way and not prosecute these killers. The Federal government, to a less extent, also chose to do nothing until well into the 20th century.
1
Sanctioned means approved. Ignoring lynching amounts to approving it.
9
So, Americans tortured and burned other Americans to death, sometimes barely 100 years ago.
We are not that much more highly evolved than the ISIS terrorists it seems.
We are not that much more highly evolved than the ISIS terrorists it seems.
19
Read the names. Look at the pictures. See the truth.
10
The new revision of a decades-old study on Southern lynching statistics seems calculated to distract modern readers from the changed reality of present-day racial violence. The 2013 FBI Uniform Crime Report (Expanded Homicide Data Table 6) shows that 409 blacks murdered whites (including Hispanics) while 189 whites (including Hispanics) murdered blacks. Extended over the same length of time covered by the lynching study, this would work out to 29,857 white victims and 13,797 black victims.
5
Do these statistical shell-games really ease the right-wing conscience?
Almost all right-wingers do this, and of course it's highly profitable to hatch out this kind of Through-the-Looking-Glass nonsense (Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh have certainly made a pretty penny from sophistries), but It's such an awful con--bad numbers, phony narratives, victim blaming, nonsensical extrapolations: all manner of rhetorical and statistical contortions designed purely to rewrite history, to reject moral responsibility, and to dodge coming to terms with our national Original Sin of slavery and racism.
This nation will never know reconciliation until even self-described conservatives figure out a way to get past these bizarre, dishonest apologetics when it comes to race matters. If your philosophy cannot coexist with history as it really was, then you need to reexamine your philosophy rather than trying to rewrite history.
Almost all right-wingers do this, and of course it's highly profitable to hatch out this kind of Through-the-Looking-Glass nonsense (Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh have certainly made a pretty penny from sophistries), but It's such an awful con--bad numbers, phony narratives, victim blaming, nonsensical extrapolations: all manner of rhetorical and statistical contortions designed purely to rewrite history, to reject moral responsibility, and to dodge coming to terms with our national Original Sin of slavery and racism.
This nation will never know reconciliation until even self-described conservatives figure out a way to get past these bizarre, dishonest apologetics when it comes to race matters. If your philosophy cannot coexist with history as it really was, then you need to reexamine your philosophy rather than trying to rewrite history.
14
Unfortunately ucr crime statistics are not all inclusive and thus unreliable. But institutionalized racism is not just about murder it is about abuse of power by one group over another, and such was the case with jim crow.
4
What could your point possibly be: that the history of public, extrajudicial murder of Southern blacks is insignificant when compared to the violence that gun culture exacts on modern US society nationwide? That the present is more important than the past and the history of lynching in the South deserves no attention? That blacks are more violent than whites? Your message doesn't seem to be very focused.
12
as a black man... all I can do is respond with tears...
22
I'm a white woman, and I feel the same way.
13
I just read Bryan Stevenson's powerful book, JUST MERCY, and am a huge fan of his tireless efforts on behalf of justice for the poor and marginalized. I hope his Equal Justice Initiative lynching tally included at least one non-African American: Leo Frank, a Jew, was lynched in 1915 in Marietta, Georgia, for a crime he did not commit. Of course, whether one commits a crime or not, there is never an excuse for vigilante justice.
12
I am American born but of Caribbean descent. These numbers are staggering and heart wrenching. Thank you for publishing this. I just emailed copies of this article to my own children. Let us embrace our horrible racial history in this country.
9
Public castrations, hangings and draggings. How is this display of barbarism in the service of intolerance any different than the beheadings perpetrated by ISIS today?
28
It would be a valid comparison if public castrations, hangings and draggings were still occurring in the south today. Jihadi's have been pretty consistent in their behavior for 1400 years
5
For those who are complaining about having these monuments shoved down their throat, they need to remember had these men not been lynched by their throats, these monuments would not be necessary.
29
On MLK Day, I attended a lecture during which a scholar from Harvard discussed the north's role in the slave trade. He recently discovered that one of his direct relatives (for whom he was named) was the biggest slave trader in the history of this country, not from the south, but making money on the slave trade in Bristol, Rhode Island. He discussed racism and the slave trade in the north. He also discussed the difficulties that blacks had in the north after the Emancipation Proclamation and after Reconstruction. I am wondering if there were similar lynchings and torturings in the north. He said that it is time that people in the north realize that they (and he included himself and his family in this) are not innocent when it comes to persecution of blacks. I grew up in Boston, and racism is very real in Beantown. This history of lynchings, as described in your article today, is a chronicle of terrorism in our country. I just heard Mr. Stevenson on NPR as well. This is certainly not the history we learned when we were ins chool in the 1950s and '60s in Boston...
105
Certainly there were lynchings in north: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Duluth_lynchings
4
What is the name of the Harvard scholar you heard?
Following the supposed end of slavery in the U.S.A., it is appalling that black citizens of our country, mostly in the South, still lived in daily fear of lynching without a trial, plus the danger of being accused of ridiculously petty charges, resulting in exile to brutal forced-labor camps, which enriched powerful whites.
See article - "America's Twentieth-Century Slavery" by Douglas Blackburn - washingtonmonthyly.com
This article presents an overview of "the entire epic tragedy of black life in the rural South in the time between the Civil War and World War II."
"By the end of 1865, every Southern state, except Arkansas and Tennessee, had passed laws outlawing vagrancy and defining it so vaguely that virtually any free slave not under the protection of a white man could be arrested for the crime."
"The forced labor camps they found themselves in were islands of squalor and brutality. Thousands died of disease, mal-nourishment and abuse. Mortality rates in some years exceeded 40 percent."
Oh, the sadness of the shadow side of our "enlightened society".
See article - "America's Twentieth-Century Slavery" by Douglas Blackburn - washingtonmonthyly.com
This article presents an overview of "the entire epic tragedy of black life in the rural South in the time between the Civil War and World War II."
"By the end of 1865, every Southern state, except Arkansas and Tennessee, had passed laws outlawing vagrancy and defining it so vaguely that virtually any free slave not under the protection of a white man could be arrested for the crime."
"The forced labor camps they found themselves in were islands of squalor and brutality. Thousands died of disease, mal-nourishment and abuse. Mortality rates in some years exceeded 40 percent."
Oh, the sadness of the shadow side of our "enlightened society".
19
In 1865, whites were not in charge in the south except if you count Northern Generals. Legislatures were disbanded and all white males were disenfranchised. Starvation came of most of the south in the year after the end of the war. The only legal authority in the south was the Union Army until the end of reconstruction some 12 years later.
2
Proof that ISIS like terrorists or even worse lived right here in the good ol' USA as recently as 1950s. Many of the lynchings described in the article are worse than what ISIS did to the Jordanian pilot.
We should forever be humble and vigilant. No country, no people, no religion has a monopoly on atrocity. What makes a country, its people and its religion(s) great is owning up to the past sins and guard against religious, political, cultural forces that will continually pop amongst our midst.
We should forever be humble and vigilant. No country, no people, no religion has a monopoly on atrocity. What makes a country, its people and its religion(s) great is owning up to the past sins and guard against religious, political, cultural forces that will continually pop amongst our midst.
27
I'm surprised that this article does not mention the early 20th century civil rights activist Ida B. Wells. Her tireless efforts to bring light to the many, many lynchings in the nation is detailed in her book the The Red Record. She meticulously detailed and tabulated these terrorizing tactics that ravaged the South in the early 1900's.
29
You might want to expand your view of lynching. About 75% of those lynched were black and there are few states in the where lynching did not occur. It is easy to say this is not our problem, but in reality this was a national issue. While it is clear these murderous acts had nearly stopped in the thirties, events continued to happen through the late fifties. At least 8-10% of lynchings occurred in non-confederacy and border states.
11
This highly valuable record of lynchings is yet another illustration that we don't know our own national history. The result is that we develop firm opinions, which we usually keep for life, that are not based on knowledge, but rather on presumption. This is especially true when it comes to the historic record of the repression of black people in American society.
It is clear now that following the Civil War, which ended in 1865, there was a 100 years war of repression against blacks that included many different forms of violence and intimidation. The conclusion is inevitable that the economic and social condition of blacks to this day was greatly influenced by this long period of repression, intimidation, terroristic acts, lynchings, excessive jailings along with milder forms of economic repression, like putting hazardous waste dumps in black areas and building freeways through areas with established, black owned and operated businesses. How would this change the average persons view of our history and the current state of matters?
These lynching events are not rare exceptions, but part of a pattern of terroristic intimidation. This was not taught in public high schools and, in fact, lynchings were barely if ever mentioned in most classrooms. Likewise, the compliant media in the southern states did not generally treat these events as outrages when they occurred.
My conclusion is that most of us have firm conclusions based on information we didn't have.
Doug Terry
It is clear now that following the Civil War, which ended in 1865, there was a 100 years war of repression against blacks that included many different forms of violence and intimidation. The conclusion is inevitable that the economic and social condition of blacks to this day was greatly influenced by this long period of repression, intimidation, terroristic acts, lynchings, excessive jailings along with milder forms of economic repression, like putting hazardous waste dumps in black areas and building freeways through areas with established, black owned and operated businesses. How would this change the average persons view of our history and the current state of matters?
These lynching events are not rare exceptions, but part of a pattern of terroristic intimidation. This was not taught in public high schools and, in fact, lynchings were barely if ever mentioned in most classrooms. Likewise, the compliant media in the southern states did not generally treat these events as outrages when they occurred.
My conclusion is that most of us have firm conclusions based on information we didn't have.
Doug Terry
56
My Great-great grandfather closed up his classroom and marched off with a couple of his students to answer Lincoln's call for troops. He led his company of the 9th Vermont over the parapets into Richmond in the last battle with the loss of only a couple of men. I think his generation should have sterilized every white male south of the Mason Dixon Line as a price for allowing the south to rejoin the Union.
15
Oh my! There were many northern sympathizers south of the MDL. There were many southern sympathizers north of that line. Moreover, some southern states didn't secede (Kentucky and Missouri).
8
Things were totally and irrevocably out of hand by 1860... Think instead what this country would be today if slavery had ceased to exist after July 4, 1776. Washington, Jefferson, Hamiltonon, Franklin... hypocrites all.
4
Your talk of "sterilizing every white male" as a solution to anything is the way people talk during the planning stages of genocide. It's unfortunate that the legacy of your great-great-grandfather's courage is that his great-great-grandchild is this very moment suggesting mass sterilization of human beings, just the way people in the south used to talk about people of colour (& still do, some of them, I'm sure).
5
Memorials should be built, with plaques telling the truth. This American holocaust could wither away into the vapors of history if not cut to stone and erected with a plaque and a tribute. It's one thing to read it, or to watch it in a well-made documentary--but to walk on the ground, to stand in the spot, that is something quite different.
21
I am grateful to the Equal Justice Initiative for doing this valuable work. Unitl we as a country own our own acts of brutal terrorism we will never gain an understanding of our own troubled culture. This past horror must not be buried. Let us as a community bear witness to this in the hope that we will learn from this past and be a better people.
69
There is no statute of limitations on murder. For the sake of justice in posterity maybe we could reform the legal system in a way that acknowledges these murderer's posthumously. It seems people believe very deeply in justice and equality and in a karmic way old injustices are as insulting as ones that occur during our lives.
7
Most people pictured in the old lynch mob photos are long dead. Most lynchings didn't involve mobs, nooses or public executions. Many were unsloved murders committed by persons unknown.
5
I am disgusted by the continuing glorification of the "Southern Cause". Naming streets and schools after domestic terrorists. Confederate flags displayed with impunity. I will find out how to give money to this organization, with the hope that in each and every place where these heinous terrorist acts were committed, there will be a statue. I'm no longer willing to just move on. Just moving on has been an unmitigated 150 plus year disaster. I want to cure this illness now. This is our Auschwitz, our Bergen Belsen, and just to round it out, how about Andersonville. These people of the South who yearn for the "Old South" need these constant reminders of the horror of their supposed glorious cause, to remind them to be human.
82
The 3,959 victims over 73 years works out to about 55 dearths per year. Today, there are far rmore interracial murders today. The FBI Uniform Crime Report (Expanded Homicide Data Table 6) shows that 409 blacks murdered whites while 189 whites (including Hispanics) murdered blacks in 2013. Multiplied by 73, this would wore out to 13,793 black victms and 29,857 white victims. Both numbers combined fall far short of the Auschwitz or Belsen Belsen totals for just a few years. Over 30,000 Union and nearly 26,000 Confederate prisoners died in Civil War prison camps during the five years of the Civil War. The number of lynbching victims over a 73 year period doesn't begin to compare.
1
If you think only 4000 African Americans died at the hands of racism and slavery then you are out of your mind. These are simply the ones they have on record. Lord knows how many people died at the hands of slavery.
If you think the current state of the African American has nothing to do with all this history of murder, slavery and oppression.
Then you are out of your mind or a foaming at the mouth racist ready to make any excuse he can for his hatred of fellow human beings based on the color of his skin.
Authoritarian kool-aid drinkers are a scary lot.
If you think the current state of the African American has nothing to do with all this history of murder, slavery and oppression.
Then you are out of your mind or a foaming at the mouth racist ready to make any excuse he can for his hatred of fellow human beings based on the color of his skin.
Authoritarian kool-aid drinkers are a scary lot.
16
Kind of missing the point. But good work with your statistics.
4
And to think that these racially motivated murders occurred in Blue States. I hope the plaques make clear when the crime happened and who was in charge.
2
It's difficult for me personally to read accounts of these disturbing acts of terror. My ancestors fought for the north in the civil war and I imagine it would be harder for someone whose ancestral identity is otherwise. However, it could be healing. More importantly, these atrocities HAPPENED. Just the fact that people fly the confederate flag and that there are memorials to the confederacy in these places... Provides reason why there should be public memorials to the victims of racial terror in our history. Thank you to the man working on this project!!! I am glad to appreciate what depravity we have left behind, though it upsets me. Perhaps on the memorials there could be a simple description, then a warning for triggers before more graphic depictions ("castrated and burned alive," etc)?
18
Some of the worst racial violence occured in Northern States. In 1863, New Yorkers lynched 11 African American from lamp poles during three days of rioting. They also drove thousands of bllacks a out of the city by burning black neighborhoods. In 1909, hundreds turned out to wath a white mob lynch two black men in Cairo, Illinois, although only one of them had been accused of raping a white woman. In July 1919, whites on Chicago stoned an African American youth to death for daring to sunbathe on a white beach. When blacks demanded justice, white mobs rioted, killing 23 African Americans. The study focuses on the South becasue Southern statesa had the largest blakc population.
11
So what's your point? The North is the same as the South? Does it matter? The fact is the Problem is within the community that's doing the killing!
3
The point is this is not just a Southern problem. The narrative is that we must continue to punish the south for these crimes. Yet NY, NJ, DE, OH, DE, PA, IN, OK, and MI all have the same blood spilled on their streets. Focusing just on the south allows the rest of the union to believe a great lie. The lie is that the black lives taken on their soil is not as precious as that spilled in Dixie.
1
Here is a link to a story of a lynching that my dad remembered well in my hometown of Greenville, SC: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/the-good-fight-zwnj-the-la...
The only silver lining is that cases like these helped to really push the Civil Rights movement along and gave it greater inertia.
The only silver lining is that cases like these helped to really push the Civil Rights movement along and gave it greater inertia.
7
Don't forget James Byrd who was lynched in Texas in 2000. Lynchings are still occurring during this century in the United States. What used to be known as extrajudicial killings are getting legal backing with stand your ground laws primarily in Southern states, with juries that will not convict and a nation that doesn't seem to care. What a step back in time we have taken. I pray it gets better.
55
Texas excuted two of the three men convicted of dragging James Byrd to death. The third got a life sentence. FBI data shows that blacks today are quicker on the interracial trigger finger than whites. The FBI Uniform Crime Report (Expanded Homicide Data Table 6) shows that 409 blacks murdered whites while 189 whites (including Hispanics) murdered blacks in 2013.
3
Your statistics are pure nonsense. Most crimes are committed by folks within the same ethnic/racial group. Whites commit more crimes against Whites and Blacks against Blacks. Your statistics has been reported across the blogosphere but it is untrue. However, what is true, there are no incidence of Black mobs lynching a White person or trading post cards celebrating that event. There are no Black mobs bombing and burning down White Middle Class neighborhoods like White mobs did in Tulsa Oklahoma to Black citizens. Your statistics perpetuate fear that is not real and does not justify the lynching of Black Americans or any American. These atrocious crimes need to be included in our history books so they can never happen again to anyone.
16
I would like to see the demographics on how the " Equal Justice Initiative" arrived at those figures.
Upon researching, it appears to this reader as just another very left organization, self-promoting another dubious racial issue.
Upon researching, it appears to this reader as just another very left organization, self-promoting another dubious racial issue.
1
"dubious racial issue"??? I'm astonished...
10
Another "dubious racial issue"??!? Wow, perhaps it is time you educated yourself.
Did you not read the (uninvolved) historian's characterization that lynching and racial terrorism is under-appreciated as a major event in our history?
Did you not read the (uninvolved) historian's characterization that lynching and racial terrorism is under-appreciated as a major event in our history?
17
My skin crawls when I see and hear such nonsense. This is not a left or right issue. It is the truth. Lynching was ubiquitous across the United States. You can look in Newspaper Archives, see pictures and post cards of these horrific events. Your very comment underpins its reality and shameful disregard of a painful event that happened to the black community and others communities due to intolerance.. There should be a monument in every State in the nation that practice extrajudicial killings. History must not repeat itself.
18
"offenses such as bumping up against a white woman or wearing an Army uniform"
This nation has always tried to minimize or evade the horrific violence inflicted upon blacks. Blacks were murdered by whites as the article states for violating racial hierarchies. Justice was never served. How can a society survive without a sense of justice for all of its inhabitants. One wonders why black men are "angry", who wouldn't be? Knowing that the lynching of yesterday has evolved into killing of unarmed blacks. Or imprisoning blacks at higher rates.
Many black families have stories of loved ones being murdered without receiving justice. Moreover, many times families were left without their primary breadwinner. Sinking the family further into poverty or uncertain futures.
Can you imagine the emotional and mental damage? So often whites say "get over it, it happened so long ago". Those people that have been affected and some of the perpetrators, are still alive. Do we wonder why blacks have distrust for law enforcement? Many times it was law enforcement that committed or sanctioned the lynching.
Families of whites, after leaving church worshipping God, lynched human being's for sport.
There will be some who will try to rationalize this. Blacks have suffered tremendously for simply being black. Long before the issues so many refer to today, or statistics; black lives didn't matter....
This nation has always tried to minimize or evade the horrific violence inflicted upon blacks. Blacks were murdered by whites as the article states for violating racial hierarchies. Justice was never served. How can a society survive without a sense of justice for all of its inhabitants. One wonders why black men are "angry", who wouldn't be? Knowing that the lynching of yesterday has evolved into killing of unarmed blacks. Or imprisoning blacks at higher rates.
Many black families have stories of loved ones being murdered without receiving justice. Moreover, many times families were left without their primary breadwinner. Sinking the family further into poverty or uncertain futures.
Can you imagine the emotional and mental damage? So often whites say "get over it, it happened so long ago". Those people that have been affected and some of the perpetrators, are still alive. Do we wonder why blacks have distrust for law enforcement? Many times it was law enforcement that committed or sanctioned the lynching.
Families of whites, after leaving church worshipping God, lynched human being's for sport.
There will be some who will try to rationalize this. Blacks have suffered tremendously for simply being black. Long before the issues so many refer to today, or statistics; black lives didn't matter....
72
Whites were lynched too.
1
Harrowing and poignant data! A sad chapter in essentially the souths history, and another reason, though not a person of color, I still make sure I don't speed when I drive through Georgia and Mississippi...I wonder how our youngsters of color, especially those between fourteen and twenty four years of age would react when presented with this?! Especially, when they encounter, their next white person?! I know this, as an educator, who grew up with Martin Luther King,Jr., as one of my role models, when I have presented his ideas of character, justice, and judging another human being by their actions (lofty concepts , I would think, many decent Americans would agree with), sadly, most of my students of color, and I have had many, couldn't care less.
8
The big clusters of lynchings are following the Mississippi River--which was, in fact, where many southern black people worked and lived. Especially before World War II.
So it does suggest the Great Migration was more than a job-hunting expedition. THe mass movements of Mississippi delta black people away from their homes appears to be a response to terrorism, especially in the Mississippi watershed.
So it does suggest the Great Migration was more than a job-hunting expedition. THe mass movements of Mississippi delta black people away from their homes appears to be a response to terrorism, especially in the Mississippi watershed.
18
Read Faulkner; he was from Mississippi and he wrote about the lynchings and violence towards black people. He left.
22
An excellent book "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson was written about this very subject. Well worth reading.
10
He died in Mississippi and spent most of his life there.
ISIS' tactics are appalling but mirror the terrorists acts inflicted on black Americans during the 1900s. This was a terrible period in American history that should see the light of day to make us better by remembering the pain inflicted on our fellow Americans. Germany, Rwanda and many other countries have a terrible past as well. We learn and grow when we acknowledge our past.
19
“Many of these lynchings were not executing people for crimes but executing people for violating the racial hierarchy,” [mr. beck] said...
most societies have an underclass or untouchables--and unwritten codes to violently enforce a social hierarchy if necessary. courts of law are supposed to temper hatreds and extra-judicial violence, but they, like humans in general, are imperfect.
most societies have an underclass or untouchables--and unwritten codes to violently enforce a social hierarchy if necessary. courts of law are supposed to temper hatreds and extra-judicial violence, but they, like humans in general, are imperfect.
5
We should see maps of such occurrences in states like Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma. America's Heartland has its own 'shadow.' Ghoulish mutilation, often for trophies, of white Union dead was suppressed only by major efforts by Confederate officers in the early years of the war. All bets were off when Black men in uniform appeared. Too bad 'The Three Stooges,' Davis, Lee and Jackson have been worshiped, while white southerners like Longstreet, Mahone, George Thomas and the remarkable Cassius Marcellus Clay have been swept under the rug. These latter heroic personalities tried to make it REAL, compared to WHAT!?
5
Americans have been terrorized since Colonial days. First, Native American peoples, then the largest population of slaves - the irish (over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were sold as slaves in West Indies, Virginia, and New England, and 30,000 Irish men and women were transported to the highest bidder, Catholism was outlawed, and priest were executed); then Jews, Blacks, Gays, Muslims. All of our biases, prejudices, and hate, can be redirected to building quality shelters, food kitchens, transportation, schools -- all with memorials to the 'not forgotten'. Building million dollar memorial statues, hundreds of them yet, does nothing to help the families and childen of those who have suffered injustices.
3
Cite your sources for selling Irish children as slaves in New England? Scottish prisoners of War were sold into New England as servants for fixed terms, but most who survived the normal vicissitudes of New England life in the 17th century eventually owned farms.
3
Don't jump to conclusions. At some point in world history, 90% or more of the population lived in slavery or virtual slavery because of economic conditions. Those who could truly be said to have been free were probably the hunter/gatherers who lived apart from organized "civilization", but they, too, were prisoners of hunger, disease and lack of adequate, protective places to live.
While I see many flaws in America's story, I think it is a sad, unfortunate and massive mistake to convict our ancestors after the fact and to view them only through the lens of current moral standards.
While I see many flaws in America's story, I think it is a sad, unfortunate and massive mistake to convict our ancestors after the fact and to view them only through the lens of current moral standards.
1
Bill@ The only difference with those statistics on the Irish was that they didn't remain slaves. They are now and have been classified as White.
In fact wasn't it INDENTURED SERVITUDE? A far cry from slavery.
Never mind that, the Irish were also the ones during the NYC Draft Riots who burned a "colored orphanage" down with children in it. Fortunately, they escaped out of the back of the building.
What you are attempting to do is minimize the ignominies inflicted upon blacks. Many times whites whenever the topic goes to blacks and injustice ( well recorded) they seek to water down the impact it had by stating that "others experienced the same thing and they aren't talking about it". Well , Jews smartly say "never forget".
Any society that forgoes justice, is a doomed society. A cancer of hate, resentment ,and pain gone unaddressed.
So your comment is meant to deflect the object of this article. For America to own up to its evils. For America to right its wrongs. For America to admit it oppressed a segment of their citizen for the color of their skin. Ridiculous but true.
Anyone that pretends this stuff is overblown, wouldn't accept the reality of it if it were "hanging" directly in their face....
In fact wasn't it INDENTURED SERVITUDE? A far cry from slavery.
Never mind that, the Irish were also the ones during the NYC Draft Riots who burned a "colored orphanage" down with children in it. Fortunately, they escaped out of the back of the building.
What you are attempting to do is minimize the ignominies inflicted upon blacks. Many times whites whenever the topic goes to blacks and injustice ( well recorded) they seek to water down the impact it had by stating that "others experienced the same thing and they aren't talking about it". Well , Jews smartly say "never forget".
Any society that forgoes justice, is a doomed society. A cancer of hate, resentment ,and pain gone unaddressed.
So your comment is meant to deflect the object of this article. For America to own up to its evils. For America to right its wrongs. For America to admit it oppressed a segment of their citizen for the color of their skin. Ridiculous but true.
Anyone that pretends this stuff is overblown, wouldn't accept the reality of it if it were "hanging" directly in their face....
15
Interestingly, statistics from http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ah-lynching11.html show that while nearly 4000 blacks were lynched, another 1,297 whites were lynched. Statistics are included for all states, although they don't match the new study. This is a horrific period in our history, and it needs to be discussed at length.
5
I was surprised that the study only counted the lynchings that occurred in the South. A little research on my part found that 79% of lynchings occurred in the South. So about another 800 happened in the North. Why not memorialize those individuals as well?
58
Agreed, but that may have been a decision made by Stevenson as a result of bandwidth rather than neglect or dismissal of those individuals' deaths. Many people don't know about the lynchings of Mexicans in the West when many Southern white men moved that way to claim land that belonged to natives and Mexicans who had originally pioneered that territory.
2
I think that many of "lynching" occurring outside of the South and involving other racial groups, especially caucasions, was likely capital punishment for crimes in which some form of due process had occurred, which is what differentiates those killings from lynching, which was just a violent mob mentality against members of a racial class.
http://www.eji.org/files/EJI%20Lynching%20in%20America%20SUMMARY.pdf
http://www.eji.org/files/EJI%20Lynching%20in%20America%20SUMMARY.pdf
2
Concur w/ Ron, except they were not all in the North. I remember seeing a photo of a Latino strung up to a telephone pole in San Jose, CA by a white mob. According to the caption, and this was I think in the 1950s). Seen in a private archives in Hollywood in the early 200s.
1
I came across this web site a while back--it is a collection of images of post cards, repeat quietly, post cards of lynchings, in case there is anyone who doesn't think we need to educate and remember. Very, very powerful, moving, and haunting. http://withoutsanctuary.org/
12
I came across that site, too, quite by accident. I was looking for a photographer who had taken early photos of fossils, and it turned out he had the same name as a man who was lynched in Fort Scott, KS, around 1920. I would not have known anything about Fort Scott except that I'd just read the NYT article about Gordon Parks, who was from Fort Scott and went back as an adult to take photos of his classmates and neighbors. It was sickening to look at the lynching *postcard* and realize that some of the faces in Parks's photos had probably seen the lynching and maybe knew the people.
10
Good point! I'd be very interested in this. Fact is, kkk was present nationwide and for those of us who do not spend time in the south, we could benefit from awareness. A serious reckoning for all of us!
Maybe this could lead to our finally Apologizing for slavery?
Maybe this could lead to our finally Apologizing for slavery?
5
Thank you for this link. the historical photos there are indeed haunting. We as white Americans did (and do?) the same as ISIS .
4
My mother told me that her best friend witnessed a lynching in Ville Platte, LA some time between 1913 and 1915. They were around 4-6 years old and he was so traumatized that he never spoke again. How could I find out more about this. My mother has been dead for over 40 years now.
11
My aunt used to tell a story of a black man lynching by the KKK at a stop over house when they were traveling through Arkansas in a covered wagon in the early 1920's. How many of these type of lynching occurred without record?
5
Unfortunately, the EJI doesn't seem to have put their detailed data online. However, lynchings were often documented in newspapers, so I would suggest asking your public library for information about Ville Platte, LA, newspapers.
3
A good addition to this good article would be a mention of Ralph Ginzberg's 1962 book, 100 Years of Lynchings. It is a collection of newspaper articles, presented without narration, showing once again not only the awfulness, but the widespread geography of lynching. Amazon has it.
26
Add the genocide of Native Americans and you get an exceptional country.
81
Any country that wants to believe it is exceptional, has a blindness problem. And in our case, especially considering what Europeans and Americans did the the native populations of the Western Hemisphere, we have a shame so deep it's not yet enough on the surface to deal with. That one also continues to this day.
9
I am grateful for Equal Justice Initiative work even though it made my stomach churn. My paternal forebears settled in Georgia and I am well aware of the pernicious racist attitudes in my own family's history, and now I live in the south. It is stunning to contemplate the terror blacks in particular experienced under white domination anywhere in this country but particularly in the south. Thank you for this story. I hope it will close the mouths of those who would deny it happened and open their hearts. IT makes the insanity of ISIS in the middle east more comprehensible.
159
How many hundreds of lynchings occurred since 1950? Emmett Till, the 3 civil rights workers in 64, Medgar Evers, MLK jr. and on and on and on.....
16
In this ISIS dominated media environment, it helps to look at our own history to find a comparable level of savagery and brutality that rivals the most abhorrent acts of violence in human-kind. White Americans killing black Americans while those in power did little to stop it - and even encouraged it.
35
The poem by teacher Abel Meeropol and famously performed by Billie Holiday in the song "Strange Fruit" captures the painful heartache...the year was 1939.
"Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop."
"Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop."
21
A certain comfort arises from regarding these acts as history. But isn't it a lynching to kill a man in the street for selling black market cigarettes? Or to kill any unarmed person? Just because the mobs of yesteryear have delegated their task to the police, the effect is the same--generating fear.
26
Few Americans are aware of the scope and duration of lynchings that took place during this period of time. This is the backdrop against which the civil rights movement rooted and came to fruition, and thus important for America to understand to place the civil rights struggle into the proper historical perspective. It is a sad historical legacy, but at the same time, with a black man holding the office of President of the United States, it demonstrates how far we have come as a nation.
As some commenters have noted, lynchings did not happen exclusively in the South, and the history of the South does not exclusively bear the shame for this tragic part of American history. I do not know what is even known about violence against blacks in other parts of the country. But it would be a worthy goal to collect it and organize it as the EJI has done so for the deep South. Nor does the report appear to mention other racial or ethnic violence - against Asian immigrants, for example.
The purpose of understanding history is to avoid repeating it. To honor those who died, we should all dedicate ourselves to making a better society, and in ending racial, ethnic, and other hate violence, finally take to heart the tragic lessons of history, as exemplified by so many deaths, so that these people did not die in vain.
As some commenters have noted, lynchings did not happen exclusively in the South, and the history of the South does not exclusively bear the shame for this tragic part of American history. I do not know what is even known about violence against blacks in other parts of the country. But it would be a worthy goal to collect it and organize it as the EJI has done so for the deep South. Nor does the report appear to mention other racial or ethnic violence - against Asian immigrants, for example.
The purpose of understanding history is to avoid repeating it. To honor those who died, we should all dedicate ourselves to making a better society, and in ending racial, ethnic, and other hate violence, finally take to heart the tragic lessons of history, as exemplified by so many deaths, so that these people did not die in vain.
122
Sadly many Americans are painfully aware of our history - but we work to deny/coverup/repeat - as a new chapter of racism expresses itself in America itself, and in our hyped war on terrorism.
1
This is American History and should be acknowledged accordingly. This a great country, and it is certainly great enough to own up to some of the awful things our citizens and various levels of government did on the way to greatness. Let's give our collective history a full accounting, and if someone's feelings get bruised along the way, then so be it.
The truth is the truth is the truth. Let's have it.
The truth is the truth is the truth. Let's have it.
13
I have looked at those places where lynchings took place and then examined those same places with respect to present day phenomena. I know.
5
Unfortunately there is a high degree of correlation between this map, or one that extended to the full US map, with the underlying red Republican base maps.
It would be sad to think a reputable political party would be mining these sorts of repressed biases.
I mean with stances like everything the first black President of these United States presents is wrong and threatening the people of this country.
It would be sad to think a reputable political party would be mining these sorts of repressed biases.
I mean with stances like everything the first black President of these United States presents is wrong and threatening the people of this country.
19
Nixon went South to mine for votes from closet bigots. He knew what he was doing; it now turns out that he was also a bigot. Eventually history unearths these truths and they are hard to bury after exposure.
8
First came secession, which was NOT about state's rights. The South lost the war, but never stopped fighting it. A hundred or so years later came the Southern Strategy. The Republican Party, led by Mr. Nixon et al, and including such illustrious figures as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush, sought to attract the racists of the South away from the Democratic party. They've got 'em now. It's pretty clear, isn't it? It was entirely conscious on their part, and deliberate.
12
So you are complaining that democrat racists were displaced with republican racists?
This seems to me to be an extremely worthwhile effort that people could support in memory of Leo Frank and a few other people like him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank
7
What can never be counted or measured is the psychological impact of these murders and the effects on Black families over the longer term, some of which may still be playing out. In my family it is lightly discussed that my grandmother's father was lynched (it is too painful for us to really talk about). But what is known is that it destroyed her family leading to her being raised by her half-white grandmother. My great grandmother remarried and so there is a split in the family. My grandmother felt thrown away by her mother after this and it affected how she saw herself. Some of this lead to her being a very determined person, but in other ways she was deeply wounded. I am sure many other Black families have stories to tell about how this affected their families and maybe even their life opportunities and choices to this day.
22
G. Harris@ Well stated....
1
These monuments are a morally-driven necessity, and should be large, and placed conspicuously where these murders took place. They should serve as a reminder that there were people in our country (or at least a portion thereof) that acted no better than ISIS does today. Perhaps in some ways worse: ISIS claims, however fraudulently, that they act within their religiously derived laws (Sharia), while lynchings took place in blatant violation of the laws of the day.
16
America has many ISIS moments in its history.
46
Most Americans were shocked when ISIS brutally executed a Jordanian pilot by burning. But as this article mentions, it was common in the 19th & early 20th Century for white people in the South to burn African-American people alive and even to auction off their bones afterward. Lynchings often occurred in a carnival like atmosphere. Most white people do not fully acknowledge the extent of terrorism required to subjugate African-American people in the not so distant past.
139
Of course these markers need to be in place. Everyday you remember what took place may be a way to search your soul for compassion to humanity.
9
I find it shocking that I am only the second person to comment on this tragic reminder of our country's inclination to bury such violent history. To be sure, today's Americans are not guilty of these excruciatingly violent acts, but we all share the responsibility to remember, memorialize, and strive to confront the very real racial injustice that still endures.
96
It's not all in the past. It's still with us. When parents no longer have to give their sons (and daughters) "the talk," maybe then we can consider it past. The purpose of "the talk" has been to teach the next generation the "proper" behavior to avoid being lynched. Now it's to avoid being shot.
When the Southern Poverty Law Center no longer has anything to do, we can consider it past.
When the Southern Poverty Law Center no longer has anything to do, we can consider it past.
7
When the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act are respected in ALL states, including Texas, we can consider it past. How many black voters were kept from voting in Texas? In Ohio? And, how many Hispanics will suffer the same fate? Whites are becoming a minority in this country, and they don't like it. I am old and white and I welcome the diversity. I had friends who left university to go South and ride Freedom Buses. Their parents were terrified for them. One came home with a lovely Quaker wife.
7
Today's White Americans are in many cases direct and present beneficiaries of these acts because they backstopped the economic terrorism and exploitation that Black American suffered which are related to the wealth disparities between Blacks and Whites today. Lynching backstopped segregation, red-lining, denial of the right to vote, and the poor quality of education historically offered to Black people in the country. I am not saying this to make anyone feel guilty or argue for reparations, but to point out the whole story and it current manifestations.
4
Wow, look at that concentration on the Arkansas/Mississippi border! I always thought of lynchings as being more centered around the southern parts of Alabama and Mississippi. I didn't realize they were as prevalent that far west/north.
7
It's about time we addressed American on American terrorism. I've often done (albeit informal) polls to see how many Americans can tell me how many slaves/lynchings occurred in the US and no one seems to know. We all seem familiar with the atrocities the Germans committed during WWII and the number of Jews killed in concentration camps (as well we should) but when it come to our own racial history we are woefully ignorant.
That such a small tribute to such atrocious crimes is being met with resistance in some towns just shows me how far we have to go.
That such a small tribute to such atrocious crimes is being met with resistance in some towns just shows me how far we have to go.
41
Documenting the crimes and memorializing the victims of the Jim Crow era are valuable steps for establishing truth and reconciliation. Every location of a lynching should be permanently marked, regardless of local sentiment.
The same should be done for massacres of Native American peoples, immigrants, labor unionists, and political protestors.
Doing this does not bring shame on anyone today, but not doing this does.
The same should be done for massacres of Native American peoples, immigrants, labor unionists, and political protestors.
Doing this does not bring shame on anyone today, but not doing this does.
17
Imagine driving through your town today and seeing a body hanging from a lamp post, or a bridge. Imagine watching your neighbors burn a person to death in the public square. If we think this is shocking, then we must take steps to acknowledge our past, commemorate those who died, own responsibility for acts that have informed attitudes to this day. This is our holocaust. It's past time to own it, examine ourselves, and change.
Who are we if we refuse to look, refuse to acknowledge?
Who are we if we refuse to look, refuse to acknowledge?
20
Imagine taking photographs of the crime and publishing the photographs as postcards:
"Without sanctuary : lynching photography in America" / James Allen, Hilton Als, John Lewis, Leon F. Litwack.
2015-02-10 19:59:40 UTC
"Without sanctuary : lynching photography in America" / James Allen, Hilton Als, John Lewis, Leon F. Litwack.
2015-02-10 19:59:40 UTC
11
Postcards. The depth of horror this creates. As though one would want to send a friend such a thing through the mail, or create a scrapbook. It speaks even more to the illness among us.
5
In all fairness, being from the North. let us map the lynchings In New York City, Boston and other northern cities.
56
What motivates someone to erect monuments to bigotry, racism and murder? Would we visit such a places? We can make better monuments. Why not erect monuments on inner city street corners to contemporary issues such as children without fathers or drug-invested neighborhoods? Perhaps such monuments would do some good.
1
They aren't monuments to bigotry, racism, and murder. They are monuments to those who have suffered and died. We keep their memory alive so that we can continue to combat the very present racism of today.
21
Bill@ It seems you found nothing wrong with what occurred. You seek to justify evil, why? It wouldn't matter who the victim was, the act of lynching someone, burning someone alive, is wicked.
You infer that some of that had mitigating circumstances.
What you're really doing is showing the readers of the NYT how there are still attitudes that influenced lynching back then, even today. So if you don't want to seem ignorant and despicable it may be best to leave this one alone....
You infer that some of that had mitigating circumstances.
What you're really doing is showing the readers of the NYT how there are still attitudes that influenced lynching back then, even today. So if you don't want to seem ignorant and despicable it may be best to leave this one alone....
9
At this time in our history, there is probably no more important public service that could be performed as the one undertaken here. The denial and/or outright ignorance of our own historical behavior is causing us great harm even today, and acts as an anchor around our ability to progress as a nation. I hope this effort will have a substantial effect on opening our nations eyes when it needs it so desperately.
68
Well stated!
The prison industrial complex, racist sentencing are just two examples of ways we have not learned from our past.
What a blessing if becoming more aware of our past and truly reckoning with it might bring honor and respect to those whose appearance and ancestry has caused such suffering.
The characterization of Racial Terrorism is one that should be included in the history books, and recognized at the federal level as well.
The prison industrial complex, racist sentencing are just two examples of ways we have not learned from our past.
What a blessing if becoming more aware of our past and truly reckoning with it might bring honor and respect to those whose appearance and ancestry has caused such suffering.
The characterization of Racial Terrorism is one that should be included in the history books, and recognized at the federal level as well.
5
I love my country and recognize the great things we have contributed to the world but there is nothing exceptional about this.
33
This is as exceptional as the holocausts against the American Indians or the Jews.
11
@Mike. Yes. Our country, our history, is quite overflowing with bigotry and holocaust. The arrival of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere did not bring about something uplifting. Our very own foundations are soaked in blood, built on death. We won't heal as a people until we confront, examine, and atone for these acts in some way. We, personally, may not have performed them, but we all share the legacy. The past isn't going to heal itself. It's up to us--present, living people--to attend to it.
9
This is one part of our history that brings shame, more so from a modern perspective when such acts of barbarism usually come from ISIS or their friends. Black Americans were considered property and unworthy of any consideration other than their dollar value. To hang one publicly was matter of fact, to abuse and exploit them an every day occurence. After a very long struggle, black Americans no longer fear public lynchings but have other fears whites do not have. The road is long and still unending.
203
Wasn't a young black man found lynched from a swing set? I can't recall the state but the rumor was he was dating a white woman. He was hung without his shoes (wearing shoes that were not his). There were other strange things about this lynching but I can't quite remember.
13
North Carolina was the state, it was disgusting.
5
Vicki,
Yes, recently. I don't remember where that was, but the boy was hung in a trailer park playground, if I have that right, and not one where he lived.
Yes, recently. I don't remember where that was, but the boy was hung in a trailer park playground, if I have that right, and not one where he lived.
4
This was a worthy and sobering effort by the Equal Justice Initiative. My one concern is: Why was the research restricted to the South? In my own state of Utah in 1925, a crowd of hundreds gathered to watch as 11 men, mostly KKK members, lynched Robert Marshall, accused of shooting and killing a mining company guard during a labor dispute. Two other men, both white, were tried during the mid-1920s for the same offense; one got life in prison, the other 20 years. Lynching was an American problem, not just a Southern one.
98
Thank you for providing an example of lynching outside of the South. This study is incomplete as it needs to include every state in the United States.
7
I almost feel that no coment should be needed. The facts of this shameful domestic terrorism speak for themselves. All Americans need to face up to the crimes of the past and how not facing up to them honestly makes those of us living today complicit with the crimes committed by past generations. We must also face up to the consequences for today of a society that denies or ignores past events and behavior.
118
Ferguson is an example; Missouri was a Southern border state, and what we saw in Ferguson is an example of that history. St. Louis used its black neighbors to collect money from traffic tickets and fines; and then it used that money to keep itself in power. Very current that.
10
We will not be able to do that without comment.
I can't believe that lynchings only took place in the South during these years.
15
It wasn't just in the south. There was a lynching in Duluth, MN in the 1920s.
4
You're right, it happened in the north, too. Even Canada.
2
What I find interesting is the correlation of the lynching with the people who live in those same places today. Is it the water or the DNA?
Yes, a marker is needed everywhere these horrific crimes were committed. Let this country learn and remember its entire history and continue to evolve from how it violently began with the massacre of Indians and enslavement of blacks as much from its highest ideals outlined in the Bill of Rights.
31
It's not a matter of reminding. I'm sure that many, like me, knew that lynching happened and had no idea of the number. Your map has all the appearance of a disease eating away at the country.
40
Until we acknowledge the sordid parts of our history, we will continue to fall short of our stated ideals. The potential remains for more crimes against our neighbors, the veneer is thinner than we wish to think. The voices that call for a return to the barbarity are still out there; I hear them rising above a whisper. We have to remain vigilant.
192
Germany has acknowledged its holocaust. We can visit memorials there. Lest we forget what human beings are capable of, we need markers, museums, and history kept alive. We have a terrible side to our own history. To refuse to acknowledge it perpetuates it. The 20th century ended 15 years ago. Much is still in memory. Lynching has been replaced with sanctioned forms of murder. People of courage and wisdom don't turn from a terrible past, but seek to take responsibility, learn from it, and change for the better. Are we not such people?
328
It was interesting to me to learn that the Japanese internment camp at Manzanar, CA was dismantled soon after the war. Apparently the lumber "was needed elsewhere." There IS a permanent exhibit there to remind us of that dark chapter in US racial history.
It is crucial, and sobering to keep forever in-mind that you judge a People's dedication to their founding principles and the Rule of Law when their society is under pressure. We will forever chase our values, of course, but that was a particularly tragic pratfall in the pursuit.
It is crucial, and sobering to keep forever in-mind that you judge a People's dedication to their founding principles and the Rule of Law when their society is under pressure. We will forever chase our values, of course, but that was a particularly tragic pratfall in the pursuit.
10
Gee and the government supported this process? Answer is NO!! And of course we have done all those things already.
My own town had Japanese residents. When we rounded up the residents to move them to Manzanar, we razed their homes, ploughed their yards, and erased every sign of them having lived here. I only found out by reading a book of historic photos of the time, and I recognized the location of where the Japanese *American citizens* used to live.
We took American citizens and we put them in prison camps, destroyed their homes, stole their businesses -- and we were the "good guys."
We took American citizens and we put them in prison camps, destroyed their homes, stole their businesses -- and we were the "good guys."
5
Why are they trying to decide which sites deserve a monument? It should be at every site where a lynching took place. If the people who live in those areas complain that it's being shoved down their throat, maybe that's exactly what is needed.
131
I agree, wholeheartedly. And I'd argue that -- without confronting the fear and hatred that lies at the heart of perpetrating and ogling these horrendous crimes -- it will be impossible to move forward.
7
They are probably trying to deploy the art of the possible rather than the ideal. Nothing would stop memorials in the other places, too, if anyone else wants to do it.
1
A site is necessary for a monument and someone has to pay for it. How successful would a bill providing for such monuments be in the Republican controlled Congress?
The southern states generally still treat the Civil War as a heroic battle against an evil national government. In fact, it is even referred to in some schools as "the war for southern independence". It is going to take another 500 years before people give up on this fiction and mythology.
I visited a museum once in Leesburg,Virginia, a little more than 30 miles from Washington. A narrative of Civil War battles there listed the exact number of Union casualties and then said, "southern casualties were significant". Almost 150 yrs after the war, they wouldn't even give the number.
Across the entire south, I have read that there is only one monument to dead Union soldiers. Hundreds of such monuments stand to memorialize southern dead. Highways and schools are named for southern generals and other "heroes". The south lost the war, but they didn't give up.
Doug Terry
The southern states generally still treat the Civil War as a heroic battle against an evil national government. In fact, it is even referred to in some schools as "the war for southern independence". It is going to take another 500 years before people give up on this fiction and mythology.
I visited a museum once in Leesburg,Virginia, a little more than 30 miles from Washington. A narrative of Civil War battles there listed the exact number of Union casualties and then said, "southern casualties were significant". Almost 150 yrs after the war, they wouldn't even give the number.
Across the entire south, I have read that there is only one monument to dead Union soldiers. Hundreds of such monuments stand to memorialize southern dead. Highways and schools are named for southern generals and other "heroes". The south lost the war, but they didn't give up.
Doug Terry
8