The main explicit argument found throughout this film is that the time of lynching was a terrible time for African Americans in the south. This is clearly supported by the multiple accounts of lynching told by the decedents of people present during these episodes of lynching along with well-educated historians who have reputable knowledge of these events. These people tell stories of different lynching events that happened along with giving insight as to how terrifying it was to be an African American during this time period. For example, Thelma Dangerfield talks of how when a white man would come to her door when she was a child, her dad would answer the door with her brother hiding behind him with a gun just in case because they were so fearful for their lives. In Thomas W. Wilson's passage about reconstruction he talks about the various organizations that were spreading throughout the south around this time to oppress former slaves. He talks of various different Ku Klux Klans that were formed to attack and intimidate the blacks. They participated in the lynching of innocent African Americans. …show more content…
This brings us to one of the implicit arguments of the film, that the blacks who lived during this time were strong and would not back down. They were equal to white people and were strong enough to show it. Many of the people in the film talked about how their ancestors would not back down from fighting for their rights. For example, Kimberly Wilson talked about how her ancestor Jon Mitchell Jr. was targeted after he wrote about the horrors of lynching in his newspaper. Instead of running away to the north to escape the death threats he was getting, he stayed in town. Wilson said "this was a test [to] show them that he will come here and confront him" which is exactly what he
...lot of the historical events that took place in the report in the movie. He could have made them a little more accurate but I feel like that would have taken away from the movie. It would have made it more historical instead of making it grab my attention as it did. After reading the article The Rosewood Massacre and watching the film Rosewood, I learned that blacks were very easily subject to racial prejudice. Whites were gullible and persuaded to do things no matter how wrong or what harm it could cause to others. I knew the justice system was unfair but it seemed as if they did not have one at all or justice was only for whites. The Rosewood Massacre time period was not one I would wish anyone to be a part of; it was horrible.
Through every single obstacle a person went through no one gave up. Colored people did not lose hope in becoming equal to white people because they knew they were capable. What the author was trying to prove was exactly that. Although blacks were slaves and were always belittled by white they proved to be more than what the whites thought they were capable of. They stood up for themselves and they did it in several events that occurred in the book. For example, in the chapter a black teenager, James Crawford, was not slightly intimidated by a deputy registrar that attempted to sound intimidating. In the conversation the registrar made some menacing remarks to this young African American teenager saying he would put a bullet through the teenagers head. Not afraid at all, Crawford valiantly told him if it happened he would be dead, but people would come from all over the world. This young man was not afraid to stand up for himself and was not going to tolerate it in any way. Malcolm X was another inspiration to African Americans for the way he stood up for them. He had a strong connection with the people who were influenced by him. In late 1964, Malcolm X told a group of black students from Mississippi, “You’ll get freedom by letting your enemy know that you’ll do anything to get your freedom; then you’ll get it” (Zinn 461). This quote connected to how
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
The black communities thought that when slavery was abolished everything would change. That, however, did not happen. Some things did change but not as many as what was thought. There were still some things that would no be changed for many years. Men still could not own property, vote for their own leaders, or go anywhere the white men were allowed to go. As was the same for the black women. These men and women suffered through wars, beatings, and small rations of food, only to be treated no differently when they were supposed to be free.
Emancipated blacks, after the Civil War, continued to live in fear of lynching, a practice of vigilantism that was often based on false accusations. Lynching was not only a way for southern white men to exert racist “justice,” it was also a means of keeping women, white and black, under the control of a violent white male ideology. In response to the injustices of lynching, the anti-lynching movement was established—a campaign in which women played a key role. Ida B. Wells, a black teacher and journalist was at the forefront and early development of this movement. In 1892 Wells was one of the first news reporters to bring the truths of lynching to proper media attention. Her first articles appeared in The Free Speech and Headlight, a Memphis newspaper that she co-edited. She urged the black townspeople of Memphis to move west and to resist the coercive violence of lynching. [1] Her early articles were collected in Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, a widely distributed pamphlet that exposed the innocence of many victims of lynching and attacked the leaders of white southern communities for allowing such atrocities. [2] In 1895 Wells published a larger investigative report, A Red Record, which exposed how false or contrived accusations of rape accompanied less than one third of the cases documented around 1892. [3] The statistics and literature of A Red Record denounced the dominant white male ideology behind lynching – the thought that white womanhood was in need of protection against black men. Wells challenged this notion as a concealed racist agenda that functioned to keep white men in power over blacks as well as white women. Jacqueline Jones Royster documents the...
...howing the true race relations throughout the south during that period. Jim Crow laws might not have been in effect and might have been though unnecessary by a portion of southerners, but it would be interesting to find out how many African Americans were lynched during the period before Jim Crow laws became prominent for ‘offenses’ which would later be illegal under Jim Crow. Just as Woodward quoted President Eisenhower as saying “you cannot change people’s hearts merely by law”(163), so the lack of Jim Crow legislation does not necessarily mean that some southerners wanted it and lived as though it existed.
Her race wants him to win and overcome the pain and sufferance they had till then. The description of the men staying away from the walls, and the women clenching onto their babies, showed fear. No one could breathe, or blink as it was the moment of suspense which could go in either way was a turning point where black people felt it was all over.
Even though slaves had been free for almost sixty years, it was still hard to find well paying jobs in other areas nationwide. The lives of African Americans were so well established, the area was coined the “Black Wall Street of America”. You’d think with such well-rounded men and women that something like this would not happen just based on their skin tone, but that is far from true. Whites of the time were still extremely prejudice towards African Americans, despite the reputation they had. It was only a matter of time before something ignited the flame that had been burning for years.
One excuse that whites use to justify lynch campaigns were that blacks raped their women or wives, which in some cases were not true. For instance, on page 54, it explains that on January 16, 1982 a white woman of highest respectability accused an African American man of raping her. So, with Mrs. Underwood testimony, they placed the man in the penitentiary, not knowing that in a few years she would confess that he was innocent. Their were many situations were if innocent or not were lynched to make a statement that whites were more dominant of the races.
Part of the aftermath of the lynching in the South was the psychological consequences of the rabbles involved. The entire culture of African Americans is marked by lynching because the root reason why white mobs lynched Southern African Americans was skin pigmentation. This means the blacks were lynched based on ignorant intolerance; however, the supposed basis for the white southerners’ hatred is internalized by every black person in their skin color. In the words of Lee H. Butler, Jr., “Unlike a single traumatic event that has been experienced by one person, lynching is a trauma that has marked an entire culture and several generations because it spanned more than eight decades.” Specifically, realizing the psychological effects of lynching on African Americans and those African Americans who have had family members lynched is important.
Times were looking up for African Americans, their new freedom gave them the option to go down a road of either criminal actions or to make something out of themselves. But the presence of racism and hatred was still very much so alive, Klu Klux Klan, although not as strong as they were after the Civil War was still present. Laws like Jim Crow laws and “separate but equal” came into play and continued to show how racism was alive. Besides these actors of racism, blacks still started gaining a major roll in American society.
One of the things that was the most prominent after the Reconstruction and that takes a major role in “They Say”, was the lynching of African Americans. In “They Say”, Ida B. Wells must rush back home to Memphis, because of a riot, in which deputies were shot by negroes (Davidson, 124). After the shooting of these deputies, the negro men were put in jail, and later taken out by people, which then lynched them (Davidson, 125). Lynching of negroes was becoming so common, that people expected to see them in newspapers even if they took place in small towns (Davidson, 114). Blacks would be hanged and tortured for petty reasons that caused no one any real harm. Ida B. Wells did some research on lynching and found that many, were supposedly because of rapes to white women. However, Wells discovered that there were no rapes, rather the relationships were consensual, and it was just white men that tried to maintain the “purity” of their white women (Davidson, 155). Wells was an activist against lynching and she tried to show her views on her newspaper. She first realized that government did not take care of them and urged her fellow African Americans to leave town and try to settle in another place (Davidson, 150). She later wrote a speech against lynching and said that relationships between black men and white women were consensual not rape (Davidson, 156). Whites were outraged and even threaten to kill her. Although Wells’s accusation were true, she was not able to make any drastic
...dation and violence, including lynching, were an ever-present danger. Northern African Americans were not unaffected and suffered the same widespread discrimination and school and residential segregation.
One being that they acknowledged the fact that they were black and that 's just how the world perceived them to be, “not worthy of respect nor worthy of equality”(Hudson) . Or they simply felt as though they succeeded in making their selves blend in with the darkness, for if you put on black clothing in the night it will certainly blend in. This story undeniably portrayed the different emotions and cruelties that the majority of African-americans had to face whether or not the lived in the fanciest neighborhood or the projects. This dilemma unfortunately still exists in today 's society, and it up to the black community to either accept the discrimination or choose to speak and work against
affect our memory. It is important to be aware of these factors and to question the accuracy of our own memories. commit due to inaccurate eyewitness testimony. Cognitive psychologists have conducted extensive research on the reliability of eyewitness testimony and have found that it can be influenced by a variety of factors, including stress, leading questions, and post-event information. In fact, studies have shown that eyewitnesses are often inaccurate in their descriptions and identifications, which can have serious consequences for the accused.