People & Events: Lynching in America
For many African Americans growing up in the South in the 19th and 20th centuries, the threat of lynching was commonplace. The popular image of an angry white mob stringing a black man up to a tree is only half the story. Lynching, an act of terror meant to spread fear among blacks, served the broad social purpose of maintaining white supremacy in the economic, social and political spheres.
Pervasive Threat
Author Richard Wright, who was born near Natchez in southwest Mississippi, knew of two men who were lynched -- his step-uncle and the brother of a neighborhood friend. In his book Black Boy, he wrote: "The things that influenced my conduct as a Negro did not have to happen to me directly; I needed but to hear of them to feel their full effects in the deepest layers of my consciousness. Indeed, the white brutality that I had not seen was a more effective control of my behavior than that which I knew."
Author Richard Wright, who was born near Natchez in southwest Mississippi, knew of two men who were lynched -- his step-uncle and the brother of a neighborhood friend. In his book Black Boy, he wrote: "The things that influenced my conduct as a Negro did not have to happen to me directly; I needed but to hear of them to feel their full effects in the deepest layers of my consciousness. Indeed, the white brutality that I had not seen was a more effective control of my behavior than that which I knew."
Rise in Black Prominence
Although the practice of lynching had existed since before slavery, it gained momentum during Reconstruction, when viable black towns sprang up across the South and African Americans began to make political and economic inroads by registering to vote, establishing businesses and running for public office. Many whites -- landowners and poor whites -- felt threatened by this rise in black prominence. Foremost on their minds was a fear of sex between the races. Some whites espoused the idea that black men were sexual predators and wanted integration in order to be with white women.
Although the practice of lynching had existed since before slavery, it gained momentum during Reconstruction, when viable black towns sprang up across the South and African Americans began to make political and economic inroads by registering to vote, establishing businesses and running for public office. Many whites -- landowners and poor whites -- felt threatened by this rise in black prominence. Foremost on their minds was a fear of sex between the races. Some whites espoused the idea that black men were sexual predators and wanted integration in order to be with white women.
Public Events
Lynchings were frequently committed with the most flagrant public display. Like executions by guillotine in medieval times, lynchings were often advertised in newspapers and drew large crowds of white families. They were a kind of vigilantism where Southern white men saw themselves as protectors of their way of life and their white women. By the early twentieth century, the writer Mark Twain had a name for it: the United States of Lyncherdom.
Lynchings were frequently committed with the most flagrant public display. Like executions by guillotine in medieval times, lynchings were often advertised in newspapers and drew large crowds of white families. They were a kind of vigilantism where Southern white men saw themselves as protectors of their way of life and their white women. By the early twentieth century, the writer Mark Twain had a name for it: the United States of Lyncherdom.
Headlines and Grisly Souvenirs
Lynchings were covered in local newspapers with headlines spelling out the horrific details. Photos of victims, with exultant white observers posed next to them, were taken for distribution in newspapers or on postcards. Body parts, including genitalia, were sometimes distributed to spectators or put on public display. Most infractions were for petty crimes, like theft, but the biggest one of all was looking at or associating with white women. Many victims were black businessmen or black men who refused to back down from a fight. Headlines such as the following were not uncommon:
Lynchings were covered in local newspapers with headlines spelling out the horrific details. Photos of victims, with exultant white observers posed next to them, were taken for distribution in newspapers or on postcards. Body parts, including genitalia, were sometimes distributed to spectators or put on public display. Most infractions were for petty crimes, like theft, but the biggest one of all was looking at or associating with white women. Many victims were black businessmen or black men who refused to back down from a fight. Headlines such as the following were not uncommon:
"Five White Men Take Negro Into Woods; Kill Him: Had Been Charged with Associating with White Women" went over The Associated Press wires about a lynching in Shreveport, Louisiana.
"Negro Is Slain By Texas Posse: Victim's Heart Removed After His Capture By Armed Men" was published in The New York World Telegram on December 8, 1933.
"Negro and White Scuffle; Negro Is Jailed, Lynched" was published in the Atlanta Constitution on July 6, 1933.
Newspapers even printed that prominent white citizens in local towns attended lynchings, and often published victory pictures -- smiling crowds, many with children in tow -- standing next to the corpse.
Thousands of Victims
In the South, an estimated two or three blacks were lynched each week in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Mississippi alone, 500 blacks were lynched from the 1800s to 1955. Nationwide, the figure climbed to nearly 5,000.
In the South, an estimated two or three blacks were lynched each week in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Mississippi alone, 500 blacks were lynched from the 1800s to 1955. Nationwide, the figure climbed to nearly 5,000.
Killed for Being "Insolent"
Although rape is often cited as a rationale, statistics now show that only about one-fourth of lynchings from 1880 to 1930 were prompted by an accusation of rape. In fact, most victims of lynching were political activists, labor organizers or black men and women who violated white expectations of black deference, and were deemed "uppity" or "insolent." Though most victims were black men, women were by no means exempt.
Although rape is often cited as a rationale, statistics now show that only about one-fourth of lynchings from 1880 to 1930 were prompted by an accusation of rape. In fact, most victims of lynching were political activists, labor organizers or black men and women who violated white expectations of black deference, and were deemed "uppity" or "insolent." Though most victims were black men, women were by no means exempt.
One Woman's Crusade
According to black journalist and editor Ida B. Wells, who launched a fierce anti-lynching campaign in the 1890s, the lynching of successful black people was a means of subordinating potential black economic competitors. She also argued that consensual sex between black men and white women, while forbidden, was widespread. Thus lynching was also a means of imposing order on white women's sexuality. Wells, who would later help found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was forced to flee Memphis after her offices were torched.
According to black journalist and editor Ida B. Wells, who launched a fierce anti-lynching campaign in the 1890s, the lynching of successful black people was a means of subordinating potential black economic competitors. She also argued that consensual sex between black men and white women, while forbidden, was widespread. Thus lynching was also a means of imposing order on white women's sexuality. Wells, who would later help found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was forced to flee Memphis after her offices were torched.
Total Repression
With lynching as a violent backdrop in the South, Jim Crow as the law of the land, and the poverty of the sharecropper system, blacks had no recourse. This triage of repression ensured blacks would remain impoverished, endangered, and without rights or hope. Whites could accuse at will and rarely was a white punished for a crime committed against a black. Even for those whites who were opposed to lynching, there was not much they could do. If there was an investigation, white citizens closed ranks to protect their own and rarely were mob leaders identified.
With lynching as a violent backdrop in the South, Jim Crow as the law of the land, and the poverty of the sharecropper system, blacks had no recourse. This triage of repression ensured blacks would remain impoverished, endangered, and without rights or hope. Whites could accuse at will and rarely was a white punished for a crime committed against a black. Even for those whites who were opposed to lynching, there was not much they could do. If there was an investigation, white citizens closed ranks to protect their own and rarely were mob leaders identified.
Violence Tapered Off
Violence against blacks would taper off during the second World War and rise again after the passage of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that nullified the country's separate-but-equal doctrine. Armed with hope, blacks began to register and organize people to vote. Local NAACP chapters began sprouting up in small towns.
Violence against blacks would taper off during the second World War and rise again after the passage of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that nullified the country's separate-but-equal doctrine. Armed with hope, blacks began to register and organize people to vote. Local NAACP chapters began sprouting up in small towns.
Shock Over Till
When Emmett Till was murdered, the head of the NAACP, Roy Wilkins, lambasted Mississippi and called Emmett's murder a lynching. "It would appear from this lynching that the State of Mississippi has decided to maintain white supremacy by murdering children."
When Emmett Till was murdered, the head of the NAACP, Roy Wilkins, lambasted Mississippi and called Emmett's murder a lynching. "It would appear from this lynching that the State of Mississippi has decided to maintain white supremacy by murdering children."
The brutal slaying of a 14-year-old boy was shocking, and when the killers later confessed to the crime in an article published in Look magazine, African Americans and others who supported civil liberties realized they would have to organize en masse and risk their lives in order to bring change.
Lynching Law Has Unintended Results
From the time his son was old enough to understand, Kamau Marcharia has been telling him the story of an ancestor who was tied to the bumper of a Model T Ford and dragged to his death.
Like it or not, lynching is part of any black Southerner's heritage.
But Marcharia was not prepared for the call that came three years ago when his son and three other black boys got into a fight with a white boy at middle school and were summoned to court -- to answer charges of lynching.
"I didn't even know there was a law like that," the veteran civil rights activist says. "I was outraged. See, a 13-year-old fighting because somebody either pushed him or punched him is not lynching. . . .
"When I hear that term, psychologically I cannot get that out of my mind, the picture of some horrible event."
South Carolina's lynching law, the only one of four in the nation that is still routinely used, was enacted to end the state's long history of white vigilante justice against blacks. But that law has borne strange fruit.
Today in South Carolina, blacks are most often the ones charged with lynching -- defined in the statute as any act of violence by two or more people against another, regardless of race.
Though they make up just 30 percent of the state's population, blacks account for 63 percent of the lynching charges, according to an Associated Press analysis of crime statistics.
For every 1,000 blacks in South Carolina, 2.07 were charged with lynching, compared with 0.46 charged per 1,000 whites -- meaning blacks are charged with lynching at 41/2 times the rate for whites.
In all but two of the state's 46 counties, blacks are charged with lynching out of proportion to their representation in the population. In Oconee County, for instance, blacks make up 8 percent of the residents but 44 percent of those charged with lynching.
Prosecutors and police argue there is no racial profiling behind the law's application, noting that blacks are charged with other violent crimes more often than whites. But its use of the word "lynching" trips Marcharia and others.
"Obviously, the law has outlived its purpose," said J. Wayne Flynt, a professor of Southern history at Auburn University. "Its intent was to stop extralegal violence, essentially aimed at blacks."
For many, the term "lynching" conjures specific images -- of black men, accused of some real or perceived crime, pulled from jail cells by torch-carrying white mobs, strung up from trees and mutilated.
When South Carolina's legislature passed its anti-lynching law in 1951, it was responding to just such a case -- the highly publicized murder of Willie Earle, who was dragged out of jail by a white mob and gunned down in retaliation for the death of a cabby.
It was in Greenville County in the state's western Appalachian foothills that Earle's slaying occurred -- and that is where the statute is invoked most often today.
Between 1998 and 2002, 446 people in Greenville County were charged with lynching. Blacks make up 18 percent of the county's population; they made up 47 percent of the lynching defendants whose race was specified.
At the other end of the state lies Charleston, where nearly half of the black slaves entering the country arrived. Charleston County charges more blacks with lynching than any other -- 271 in the past five years. That county is 34 percent black; blacks accounted for 69 percent of those charged.
Of the nearly 4,000 adults charged by police with lynching since 1998, only 136 have been convicted of that offense. Most such charges are amended to assault or dismissed in court. But of those convicted, blacks account for 67 percent -- twice the rate of whites.
During the same five-year period, nearly 1,400 juvenile lynching charges were filed; it was unclear how many of those ended up in adult court.
Still, the statistics suggest the racial gap among minors is even wider than for adults. In 2002, the only year for which a breakdown was immediately available, 231 black youths were charged with lynching -- more than 10 times the number of white juveniles.
"It's ironic at least," says William Gravely, a University of Denver history professor who was a 7-year-old living in Greenville County when Earle was lynched. "In one sense, it's a kind of denial of the large historical record going back to the late 19th century."
It is worse than ironic to Tom Broadwater, a former lawyer who travels the country with an exhibit of photographs showing the horror of lynchings.
When Broadwater practiced law in South Carolina, he represented many fellow blacks on lynching charges. Most, he says, stemmed from what he considered simple assaults.
"There's an attempt to minimize the seriousness which the word 'lynching' carries with it," Broadwater says.
Some lynching charges in South Carolina have involved brutal attacks, and the penalties for convictions are stiff -- as many as 40 years for first-degree lynching, involving a death, and 20 years for second-degree. (The statute allows for the death penalty in first-degree cases, but prosecutors could not remember the last time it was pursued.)
In 1996, a white couple in Clarendon County was charged with lynching after allegedly tying a 9-year-old black boy to a tree, shooting a gun past his head, punching and kicking him, and tying a belt around his neck until he passed out. The couple was convicted of aggravated assault and served less than two years.
Three years later in North Charleston, several black high school students wielding pipes and trash cans were arrested on lynching charges after a 35-year-old white man was beaten into a coma and eventually had to have a portion of his brain removed. One of the attackers was allegedly heard saying: "Yeah, we're going to get us a white boy." Six pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In Beaufort County last year, two middle-schoolers were charged with second-degree lynching when a 14-year-old boy collapsed after being repeatedly punched in the chest as part of a new-kid initiation. When the boy died, the charges were upgraded to involuntary manslaughter.
The only other states with lynching statutes still on the books are California, Virginia and West Virginia, though the laws are rarely used.
South Carolina's law was adopted amid the Truman administration's efforts to pass a federal anti-lynching statute -- and under the long shadow of Willie Earle's slaying.
On Feb. 15, 1947, taxi driver Thomas W. Brown was found outside Pickens, S.C., about 500 yards from his cab. He had been stabbed three times and robbed. Earle was picked up the next day and lodged in the local jail.
The following day, a mob of white men -- many wearing taxi drivers' caps -- stormed the jail and took Earle. He was found about two hours later in neighboring Greenville County; he had been beaten, stabbed and shot in the face with a shotgun.
Then-Gov. Strom Thurmond ordered a vigorous investigation, and 31 men were quickly rounded up and charged. Despite confessions from 26 of the defendants, all were acquitted.
Federal officials launched a civil rights investigation, but nothing came of it. Earle's widow received $3,000 in state compensation.
Although Greenville County is home to civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, it remains the only county in the state without an official Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Whites there are charged with lynching more often than blacks, but a 1994 case involving black youths is notable.
Kevin Garnett, who would go on to star in the NBA, was 1994's Mr. Basketball when he and four other black youths at Mauldin High School were charged with second-degree lynching for a fight in which the white victim suffered a fractured ankle. After they went through a pretrial intervention program for first-time offenders, the charges were dropped. Soon afterward, Garnett's mother moved her family to the Chicago suburbs.
So when Garnett became the first player in 20 years to go straight from high school to the NBA, it was from Chicago's Farragut Academy, not Mauldin High.
Betty Strom, deputy solicitor for Greenville County, said many of the charges are amended or dropped before trial because of the difficulty in proving premeditation.
"If I'm prosecuting it, obviously I feel they meet the elements of the statute," she said. Race plays no role in the decision, she added.
Charleston Police Chief Reuben Greenberg is not surprised that blacks are charged with lynching twice as often as whites. In his jurisdiction, it is that way with just about all crimes.
Greenberg -- a descendant of Southern blacks and Russian Jews -- said he was surprised at the local usage of the term "lynching" when he arrived in Charleston 22 years ago. But now he has been enforcing the law for two decades, mainly as a tool against gang activity.
"I'm not consumed by the race issue," Greenberg said. "The historical meaning of the thing has no effect on me whatever. We're beyond it."
Gravely thinks the state's anti-lynching law was passed as a preemptive strike against the federal government, as much a "states' rights move" as a moral imperative.
Marcharia has approached legislators about amending the lynching law to better reflect the word's historical meaning, but to no avail.
Trey Walker, a spokesman for state Attorney General Henry McMaster, said that while McMaster is "sensitive and sympathetic to feelings associated with the term," there is nothing racial about the lynching law's construction or its application.
"There no reference to race in the statute, so it applies to anyone, any two or more people who commit an act of violence," Walker said. "The law is colorblind."
But Marcharia says the law as it has come to be used in South Carolina is an affront to blacks.
"That law was passed, in my judgment, to make sure that African Americans, two generations from now or two decades from now, will lose the memory of their history, what happened to them," said Marcharia, whose full name is Swahili for "black warrior." "That kids born in that period of time will see lynching as a fistfight, when we know that lynching is murder and killing, burning people and evil."
Kamau Marcharia, right, and son R'amon, 17, talk about R'amon being charged with lynching after a fight with a white boy. South Carolina is one of the few states with lynching laws on the books.Tom Broadwater shows an oversized poster depicting a 1935 lynching. Broadwater, a former lawyer, represented many blacks on lynching charges.
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