At The Hands Of Persons Unknown By Philip Dray

At the Hands of Persons Unknown, is a novel written by Philip Dray. The story Dray tells is no less unsettling than a book of America’s past experience with the acts of genocide, however it consists of ordinary White supremacy perpetrating in the mass murder of Black African Americans. He uses this novel to explain America's past acts of lynching. To the extent of White Americans being seen as superior race compared to African Americans who were used for forced labor. Lynching gave the power that whites urged for, it gave them a superiority over oppressed minorities. The depressing act of lynching was avoided by the nation as a whole. Society didn’t relish in the idea, but still entertained it for some type of pleasure. Philip used the novel

as a way free the eyes of people and show how unsettling and undermined lynching was during this time. The historical question that the author is addressing, from my point of view, is “why was the issue of lynching overlooked as a nation, why did it take so long for a solution to come about?” I believe the author supports his question with testimonials from African American men who were sucked into the act of being an example of the lynching processes. Plus, the majority of these acts had little to no evidence to support its victims. It was just a way for privileged whites to feed their urges because they had the authority to do so. The arguments that the author portrays in the novel about the historical question is evidence, for example, court cases, where in the end, the people who performed the cruel act were basically commended for committing this crime. Dray uses these arguments to show the reader just how corrupt the court system and nation was with this issue.