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“Strange Fruit: An Overview of Lynching in America,” essay
“Strange Fruit: An Overview of Lynching in America,” essay
“Strange Fruit: An Overview of Lynching in America,” essay
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In Incognegro, lynching is a gruesome image that is portrayed. It was portrayed as a social gathering that everyone in the community attended. The community was filled with men, women, children, and a member of the Klu Klux Klan. They would tie a rope around black man’s head and hang him from a tree. “After they beat him near to death, they usually cap it off with some ritual de-masculation” (Johnson 8). They would even sometimes dress the black man in a humiliating uniform if he were a soldier (Johnson 7). This social gathering was a day of remembrance where pictures were taken and postcards were sent to their families. These postcards were also a part of the ritual (Johnson 9). The graphic novels in this book express the mistreatment and cruelty that the black people endured.
Lynchings were so commonly held that it meant nothing to the white people in the community. “Now, since the beginning of the 30’s, most of the white papers don’t even consider it news” (Johnson 7). It was not a story to them (Johnson 7). However, the point of this book was to make the lynchings a story. Johnson wanted to let all know what was happening and how horrible these conditions were. There would be many reporters who would risk their lives to find out information about these lynchings. These reporters would gather information and publish it to keep everyone in the communities aware of what was happening.
Lynching began when Charles Lynch worked the practice of lynching (Rushdy 24). “It began quickly to spread throughout the rest of the Southern states” (Rushdy 24). Lynching came to bring capital charges against an individual. It was said that African Americas suffered more from the lynchings than white people did. “Although white c...
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...ching in Incognegro was essentially accurate. The history of the lynchings and the lynching portrayed in the book are very similar. The actual killing was very similar to the killing in Incognegro. The criminal was hung by a rope on the tree. Also, the lynching could have been burning at the stake. The torture was also very similar. “The victim might be beaten, choked, or mutilated, and it was common for fingers and toes to be cut off and distributed to the crowd as good luck charms” (Buckser 18). The torture showed the brutality of the lynchings. The lynchings according to the white people were very similar. In Incognegro, lynching to the white community was no new news. It happened constantly. In Buckser’s journal, he states that the lynchings were a community activity for the white people. It happened so often that it became a hobby for most people.
“Hellhounds” in the Trouble in Mind by Leon Litwack: In this reading the author graphically describes lynching as punishment and deterrence for “high-falutin’” blacks. In page 292, distinctions were drawn between a “good” and “bad” lynching – depending on who executed the sentence and the atmosphere of the punishment.
One of the most appalling practices in history, lynching — the extrajudicial hanging of a person accused of a crime — was commonplace in American society less than 100 years ago. The word often conjures up horrifying images of African Americans hanging from lampposts or trees. However, what many do not know is that while African Americans certainly suffered enormously at the hands of a white majority, they were not the only victims of this practice. In fact, the victims of the largest mass lynching in American history were Chinese (Johnson). On October 24th, 1871, a white mob stormed into the Chinatown of Los Angeles.
By the end of the 19th century, lynching was clearly the most notorious and feared means of depriving Bl...
Wexler, Laura. 2003. Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America. Scribner; 2004. Print
In 1860-1960 there was lynching in the United States. When the confederates (south) lost the civil war the slaves got freedom and got rights of human beings. This was just to say because segregation wasn 't over in the South and didn 't go away for over 100 years. Any black person in the South accused but not convicted of any crime of looking at a white woman, whistling at a white woman, touching a white woman, talking back to a white person, refusing to step into the gutter when a white person passed on the sidewalk, or in some way upsetting the local people was liable to be dragged from their house or jail cell by lots of people crowds, mutilated in a terrible
The killings made by the slaves are saddening, too. Mutilating the whites and leaving their bodies lying is inhumane. It is such a shocking story. This book was meant to teach the reader on the inhumanity of slavery. It also gives us the image of what happened during the past years when slavery was practised.
Lives were lost based on claims that were never found to be completely accurate. The author’s speak about how Hoke Smith, who was running for President at the time, used his power and raised tensions among Whites and Blacks. His power was superior and he was able to use it to sway and impact the newspapers into releasing certain stories. Smith wanted Blacks to stay stagnant and didn’t want them becoming too smart or powerful. Hoke created and initiated Jim Crow laws that were known to support and encourage the separation and exclusion of Blacks. He did this by ensuring literacy tests that were meant to discourage Blacks from prospering and gaining rights. The author’s said “The eventual winner, race-baiting Hoke Smith, might have conspired with ruffians who masqueraded as blacks and assaulted white girls, while Atlanta editors published unsubstantiated accounts of black beasts raping white women.” “739:52”. Editors and writers didn’t bother to investigate or confirm if these allegations were true. Since this was the early 1900’s most people were for the idea of Blacks being inferior to Whites and Whites being superior. They also didn’t care to hear whether of not Blacks were right or
The mob had to make a point to follow Meredith Lewis and kidnap him and hanged by his neck for a murder which her was not convicted. I feel that the white people felt that the blacks were getting to close to be like an equal. With that on mind, the whites felt that they need to show the blacks that they still run things. For instance, on page 107, it clearly states, "There are friends of humanity who feel their souls shrink from any compromise with murder, but whose deep and abiding reverence for womanhood causes them to hesitate in giving their support to this crusade against Lynch Law, out of fear that they may encourage the miscreants whose deeds are worse than murder."
Slavery started in the early 1600’s and lasted until 1865.l Back in t eday, African Americans was treated like hairrible animaLS. They were not only derived of their freedom, but they were menally,pbysically, ans emotionally abused.”They were not considered human, let alone beautiful”(Zadeah). The African Ameican slaves were beaten, sexually assaulted, and killed by their s...
...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.
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
...f execution by the state, blacks also faced vigilante justice by lynching. According to statistics given by the Tuskegee Institute, 3,446 blacks were lynched between 1882 and 1968 . Lynching was not court sanctioned execution, it was mob justice. Jefferson was accused of murder and robbery, and his fate was sealed.
Braziel, Jana Evans. History of Lynching in the United States. 2013. 27 April 2014 .
The story of the five-year-old boy is reminiscent of Emmett Till, the teenager lynched in 1955, his body was sunk in the river. Both of their bodies were found “ravaged” (209) and left in the water for days. Tommy Odds shared a story with Lynne of the nine-year-old black girl raped by a white man, “they pulled her out of the river, dead, with a stick shoved up her” (179). There is a habitual pattern of mourning, the tears building up, waiting for the next black person to die unjustly. The women at Saxon college act similarly, by retelling the stories of Wile Chile, Louvinie and Fast Mary they are “ritualizing their suffering, the Saxon women recognize that their own lives are part of a continuum. Their circle includes those women that have suffered before them.” (43 Downey) Although, the black community is always looking for something to stop this cycle, they protest violently and non-violently, attempting to vote, sharing stories or praying. Meridian, when the activist Medgar Evers was assassinated, planted a wild sweet shrub bush in the gardens at Saxon College and when she carried the body of the five-year-old boy “it was as if she carried a large bouquet of long-stemmed roses” (209). As if she was taking flowers to a grave of a
Teenagers feel a desire to never be singled out and to be perfectly in line with one another otherwise they may feel as if they are staring death in the face. The “in crowd” is a burning supernova everyone aspires to be a part of. Simply just sitting around drifting away from the supernova; being alone in the void of space. Being drawn towards that black hole which you never can escape its ensnaring gravity. Space in this situation describes the incredibly complex world of the teenager. The supernova is the popular guy who every boy wants to be, or that powerful clique every girl yearns to be a part of. Teens are having to pray that he will stay in orbit, and never fall into social angst. When teenagers change themselves to be a part of this