Lynching can be defined as any extra-legal killing that is done by more than three individuals who claim that their actions are intended to uphold justice or tradition. Lynching has occurred throughout the American history, across all geographical regions, and it targets the individuals from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. It is important to understand the widespread patterns of lynching of the African American men by the white mobs to protect their white women. In this view, this paper analyzes the conflicts over the race and gender and the role they played in the emergence of the Lynching in the New South.
From the excerpt, after the dispute between the white and black men, the colored boys managed to win. It is obvious that the
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whites decided to retaliate on Saturday night by breaking into the colored grocery. To tighten the security, the colored men armed themselves to guard the shops.
It is surprising to note that white men were caught stealing, but what followed was the arrest and jailing of the colored. Many blacks were jailed for false vindications of raping white women. This is a clear indication that conflict over race negatively contributed to the emergence of lynching in the New South. Additionally, the author of the excerpt argues that she thought that lynching was unjustified, but the truth dawned on her when Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart were lynched in Memphis, one of the cities in the south, yet they were innocent. It is important to state that gender contributed significantly to the lynching cases in the South. The many cases of rape that were reported made many Negro men lose their lives. Although abuse cases were many, the way they were reported differed from the reality, “…the big burly was lynched because he had raped the seven-year-old daughter of the Sheriff.” (Wells, 355). Afterward, it was realized “…and saw a girl who was a grown woman more than seventeen years old.” (Wells, 355) The …show more content…
lynching was done because the person who was involved in the rape was colored. Nevertheless, the white man cannot imagine a white woman being with a colored man willingly, despite the fact that a white man can date a mulatto or colored girls. From the excerpt, it is stated that, “such as relationships between the white men and the colored women were notorious, and had been as long as the two races lived together in the south…” (Wells, 355) This is an indication of how race influenced the lynching that was taking place in the New South. Except whenever a white woman was found with a colored man, there was always a cry of rape. The race dictated how the murder would be conducted.
The southerners believed that Negros were a source of income and their servants. The Negros's political rights did not protect them, and the southerners viewed them as playthings. The situation was worsened by the lynch laws. The Negro rapists were characterized by torture. In fact, the Negro was branded as a race rapist, which targeted the white women. The conflict of race is explicitly brought out where the colored men were lynched, burned, and tortured for doing to the white women what the white men were doing to the Negro women. In addition, the conflict of the race resulted in the branding of the entire race as moral monsters and destroyers of the white womanhood and
childhood. In conclusion, gender and race played critical roles in the emergence of lynching in the New South. Evidently, the women in excerpt was demonstrating a womanhood who was put in exile because of trying to defend the manhood of her race, this is important in understanding how gender influenced the emergence of lynching. Most of the lynching resulted from gender, i.e., women because they were the victims of rape, and the extent of lynching was determined by one's race as it is revealed by the excerpt. The Negro man underwent severe torture compared with the white man who had the freedom to do what the colored man could not do. Thus, the race and gender conflict resulted in the emergence of lynching in the New South as portrayed in the excerpt.
The purpose of this essay is to compare three very similar cases, the Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and the fictional trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; and to prove why the defendant of the third trial never had a chance. Each took place in the rural South in the 1920’s and 30’s and involved the unfair conviction of young black males by all-white juries pressured by the threat of mob violence. Each lacked the evidence sufficient for conviction, most especially for the death penalty. Last, heroes emerged from each trial and made small but solid steps towards equal justice for all.
Prior to the Civil War, the young United States of America was in a period of rapid expansion. Hoping to find prosperity in new land acquired by the Louisiana Purchase, Americans ventured westward. Along with this expansion, however, came the increasing tension over slavery. Conflicts arose, and in one particular town, where a slave named Celia was accused of the murder of Robert Newsom, her owner, tested the ambiguous laws and human rights ideals of that age. In “Celia, A Slave,” Melton A. McLaurin identifies the moral dilemmas confronting Americans regarding slaves and conveys how the patriarchal system and “abused” usage of law benefited the powerful and disadvantage those outside of the group, especially people of color. By critically analyzing and cross examining historical events and evidence with records of Celia’s trial, McLaurin offers an enlightening view of the prominent issues of slavery that plagued antebellum southern society.
Interestingly, the book does not focus solely on the Georgia lynching, but delves into the actual study of the word lynching which was coined by legendary judge Charles B Lynch of Virginia to indicate extra-legal justice meted out to those in the frontier where the rule of law was largely absent. In fact, Wexler continues to analyse how the term lynching began to be used to describe mob violence in the 19th century, when the victim was deemed to have been guilty before being tried by due process in a court of law.
The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).
On August 28, 1955, fourteen year old Emmett Till was beaten, tortured and shot. Then with barbed wire wrapped around his neck and tied to a large fan, his body was discarded into the Tallahatchi River. What was young Emmett’s offense that brought on this heinous reaction of two grown white men? When he went into a store to buy some bubblegum he allegedly whistled at a white female store clerk, who happened to be the store owner’s wife. That is the story of the end of Emmett Till’s life. Lynchings, beatings and cross-burning had been happening in the United States for years. But it was not until this young boy suffered an appalling murder in Mississippi that the eyes of a nation were irrevocably opened to the ongoing horrors of racism in the South. It sparked the beginning of a flourish of both national and international media coverage of the Civil Rights violations in America.
By the end of the 19th century, lynching was clearly the most notorious and feared means of depriving Bl...
The concept of a white woman being touched, let alone raped by an African American male was an assumption in the little town of Maycomb Alabama, 1930’s. During this period Mayella is considered helpless due to being a female as well as lonely and afraid considering her status as a poor white piece of trash. She manipulates people by using her social class, gender, and race to her advantage. In particular, her accusations made against Tom Robinson, an African American man. These factors lead to her gaining power with the trial and conviction of Tom Robinson. Race refers to the categorization of people based on physical differences.(“Is Mayella Powerful?” 7) Mayella Ewell had perquisites due to her race, which helped her during the conviction.
Wexler, Laura. 2003. Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America. Scribner; 2004. Print
Southern Horror s: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells took me on a journey through our nations violent past. This book voices how strong the practice of lynching is sewn into the fabric of America and expresses the elevated severity of this issue; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching in the South. Wells examined the many cases of lynching based on “rape of white women” and concluded that rape was just an excuse to shadow white’s real reasons for this type of execution. It was black’s economic progress that threatened white’s ideas about black inferiority. In the South Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. Before I give it to you straight, let me take you on a journey through Ida’s
Franklin Zimring (2003) examines the relationship between the history of lynching and current capital punishment in the United States argueing that the link between them is a vigilante tradition. He adequately shows an association between historical lynchings and modern executions, though this paper will show additional evidence that would help strengthen this argument, but other areas of Zimring’s argument are not as well supported. His attitudinal and behavioral measures of modern vigilantism are insufficient and could easily be interpreted as measuring other concepts. Also missing from Zimring’s analysis is an explanation for the transition of executions from representing government control in the past to executions as representing community control in the present. Finally, I argue that Zimring leaves out any meaningful discussion of the role of race in both past lynchings and modern executions. To support my argument, using recent research, I will show how race has played an important role in both past lynchings and modern executions and how the changing form of racial relations may explain the transition from lynchings to legal executions.
Moores Ford Lynching On July 25, 1946, two young black couples- Roger and Dorothy Malcom, George and Mae Murray Dorsey-were killed by a lynch mob at the Moore's Ford Bridge over the Appalachee River connecting Walton and Oconee Counties (Brooks, 1). The four victims were tied up and shot hundreds of times in broad daylight by a mob of unmasked men; murder weapons included rifles, shotguns, pistols, and a machine gun. "Shooting a black person was like shooting a deer," George Dorsey's nephew, George Washington Dorsey said (Suggs C1). It has been over fifty years and this case is still unsolved by police investigators.
The population of African Americans from 1865 to 1900 had limited social freedom. Social limitations are limitations that relate “…to society and the way people interact with each other,” as defined by the lesson. One example of a social limitation African Americans experienced at the time is the white supremacy terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan or the KKK. The KKK started as a social club formed by former confederate soldiers, which rapidly became a domestic terrorist organization. The KKK members were white supremacists who’s objective was to ward off African Americans from using their new political power. In an attempts to achieve their objective, Klansmen would burn African American schools, scare and threaten voters, destroy the homes of African Americans and also the homes of whites who supported African American rights. The greatest terror the KKK imposed was that of lynching. Lynching may be defined via the lesson as, “…public hanging for an alleged offense without benefit of trial.” As one can imagine these tactics struck fear into African Americans and the KKK was achiev...
Wells, Ida B. Southern Horrors. Lynch Law in All Its Phase. New York: New York Age Print, 1892. Print. 6.
Between 1882 and 1952 Mississippi was the home to 534 reported lynchings’ more than any other state in the nation (Mills, 1992, p. 18). Jim Crow Laws or ‘Black Codes’ allowed for the legalization of racism and enforced a ‘black way’ of life. Throughout the deep-south, especially in rural communities segr...
Although abolition of slavery in the South coincided with the conclusion of the Civil War, a century of institutionalized racism was widespread in the former Confederacy. This institutionalized racism came in the form of the Jim Crow laws. It was a social norm to look at African Americans as inferior or even harmful to the White population. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan roamed around "defending" the white population from the African Americans. This defense came in the form of public executions (lynching) or intimidation.