And you have blacks being lynched”is a catch phrase we use to denote the use of a rhetorical device known as tu quoque or ad hominem. In a literal sense, this phrase cites as an argument numerous cases of lynching of African Americans in the United States to prove that outbreaks of racism in the territory of a political enemy are worse than shortcomings imputed to the socialist system.
Many people know that the word lynching or "the lynch justice" (The Lynch justice) comes from the name of a person and this means the massacre of criminals without trial and investigation. However, there are several clarifications.
Firstly, the surname is not all versions of the origin of this word. Secondly, it is not always true that "without trial and investigation." In many cases, they were lynched after trial and investigation (although not always fair). And thirdly, you probably have no idea what scale all this has taken in the United States in certain years.
Let's find out more about this …
On September 22, 1780, the first case of lynching was recorded in the United States - a mass execution of a criminal without trial or investigation. Captain William Lynch subjected robbers and horse thieves to corporal punishment, after which the tradition of lynching became so widespread in the United States that in the 19th century it became already widespread and practically legalized. 70% of the people lynched were black, and many of them suffered for misdemeanors. The practice of lynching has been practiced for two centuries, with the last recorded in 1981.
The "know-how" of lynching is often attributed to others: for example, Colonel Charles Lynch, a participant in the War of Independence, who organized his own court. After the court hearing, he independently passed the sentence, as a rule, a death sentence, and immediately carried it out. If William Lynch punished black slaves, Charles Lynch sentenced deserters, marauders and embezzlers to be hanged, regardless of skin color. There is a third version: the word "lynching" did not come from a proper name, but from the verb to linch - "beat with a club", "scourge".
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Whoever was the legislator of this "fashion", the massacre took place according to the same scenario: the street crowd executed the criminal by hanging, burning at the stake, beating with sticks, etc. Most often, the disenfranchised black population of the United States became the victims of the lynching trial. In the period from 1882 to 1951. 4730 cases of lynching were officially established, of which 3657 concerned blacks. Only in 2005 did the US Congress apologize for its inaction in relation to the practice of lynching.
Lynching of three African Americans in Duluth, Minnesota, 1920.
One of the loudest was the lynching of Leo Frank, whom the crowd hanged for the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl. The suspect served as a manager at a pencil factory where Mary Fagan's body was found in a warehouse. The accusation was based on the testimony of just one witness who saw Leo Frank going somewhere with this girl. The court sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment, but an outraged crowd rushed into the prison, pulled Frank out of there and pulled him on a branch near the place where the girl was buried. Many of those present were photographed against the background of the hanged man. It wasn't until 1982 that it became known that another man was responsible for Mary Fagan's death. He has not been punished since he passed away 20 years ago.
Leo Frank.
Execution of Leo Frank.
As a rule, the massacres attracted thousands of spectators, turning into bloody performances. The massacre of 17-year-old black criminal Jess Washington was indicative. In 1916 he was tried for the murder of a white woman. In court, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death by hanging. But the angry crowd wanted to carry out the sentence right there. The convict was seized, dragged out into the street, stripped and beaten with sticks, shovels and bricks. And then, right in front of the building of the city authorities, they made a fire and burned the murderer in front of 15 thousand people. Fingers and toes were cut off and taken away for souvenirs.
Those present were happy to take pictures against the background of the executed victims. Photos with murdered Jess Washington became postcards. The Texas guy sent this card to his mother, writing on the back, “This is the barbecue we had last night. I am on the left at the pillar with the cross. Your son Joe. In the 1900s. postcards with the hanged became fashionable.
The federal government banned this type of postage in 1908, but it was illegally printed and circulated until the 1930s.
In 1919, Will Brown, a black man, was tried in Nebraska for raping a 19-year-old white girl. The crowd stormed the court, dragged the criminal out of there, immediately hanged him, then a hundred bullets were fired into the corpse, dragged through the streets, chopped off limbs, doused with gasoline and burned.
Such outrageous cases of mass atrocities became more and more. As a result, anti-lynching organizations emerged. Journalist Ida Wells conducted an investigation, during which she found that of 728 blacks, 70% were executed for minor offenses. At the beginning of the twentieth century. A campaign against the methods of lynching began, and gradually this practice began to decline, although isolated cases of lynching in the United States were recorded until the end of the 20th century.
Although lynching was often condemned by the federal government (especially the Republican Party), there was virtually no legal opposition to these actions: the authorities of the southern states and counties, as a rule, consisted of individuals who saw lynching as a traditional self-defense against the numerous atrocities of blacks. There were cases when the crowd immediately dragged a Negro who was acquitted by a lawful court and leaving the courtroom, and the judge did not interfere with this. In the first half of the 20th century, cases of conviction of participants in lynching are rare.
The fight against lynching under the pressure of public opinion (which was clearly expressed by the famous song by Billie Holiday "Strange Fruit") was launched by the Democratic presidents, FD Roosevelt (who in 1936 did not dare to pass harsh laws against lynching, fearing losing the support of southern voters) and especially G. Truman. After World War II, lynching became a completely isolated practice, usually associated with private terror by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and each time subject to investigation.
Here is more about the organization of the Ku Klux Klan.
Lynching no longer exists. In American society, moral support for this practice has disappeared. The abolition of the Jim Crow laws and the equalization of African Americans under Kennedy and L. Johnson deprived the mass actions against African Americans of legal support.
Lynching in Memphis
The following excerpt was written by Ida Wells-Barnett, who was the editor-in-chief of the Memphis newspaper for blacks and who witnessed the execution of a black man on July 22, 1893:
Memphis is one of the main cities in the south with a population of about 75 thousand people and one of the largest and richest cities in the United States. However, it was on its streets that events took place that do not honor even the Congo. The two women were traveling in a carriage into town when Lee Walker approached them and asked for food. The women raised such a cry that the negro hurried to hide, but they claimed that he tried to rape them.
Immediately, word spread throughout the city that a huge negro had attacked two white women. The crowd rushed in search of the villain, shooting another black man along the way, who refused to stop when he was ordered to do so. A few days later, the police captured Walker and placed him in a Memphis prison.
The July 23 Memphis Commercial newspaper contains a full account of the events that followed:
“At midnight this afternoon, Lee'Walker, who attacked Miss Molly McCadan last Tuesday, was released from the county jail and hanged from a telegraph pole north of her.
All the previous day, rumors spread around the city that an attempt would be made to attack the prison in the evening, and since no one doubted that the police would resist, this attempt threatened to develop into an open conflict between the crowd and the city authorities.
At 10 pm Captain O'Haver, Sergeant Horan and several patrol officers were at the prison, but could not help the crowd that launched an attack on the south gate. Sheriff McLendon and several of his men tried to stop the assaults, but two or three people managed to break into the prison, where they are all the same. managed to grab. The police did not use their batons, although using them, the entire crowd could be immediately dispersed by the forces of 10 law enforcement officers. However, the sheriff insisted on not using violence.
The crowd used a metal fence as a battering ram to storm the central entrance, Sheriff McLendon tried to stop it, and one of the attackers knocked him down, knocking a chair over his head. However, even now the sheriff insisted on abstaining from the use of force and did not order his subordinates to disperse the crowd with the help of clubs. This behavior of the sheriff inflamed the crowd, who decided that the police were afraid of them, and they redoubled their efforts. At 12 o'clock at night the door was knocked down
The two entered Walker's cell and ordered him to follow them. He desperately resisted, scratching and looking for his tormentors. On the way, the crowd punched and stabbed him with knives. As they walked him up the stairs, he grabbed the railing, but they stabbed him with a knife, and by the time they dragged him to the exit from the prison, his strength was exhausted, he stopped resisting and resigned himself to fate. He was dragged through a crowd of screaming, foul-mouthed men, each of whom did not miss the opportunity to spit at him or poke his fists.
John Richards 1916.
The crowd then headed for Front Street, stopping only at a grocery store in Sycamore Street, where they procured a rope.
“Get him to the iron bridge on Main Street,” shouted some of the crowd. However, those who were holding Walker were in a hurry to finish the case, and when they stumbled upon a telegraph pole in Front Street along the alley leading to Sycamore Street, they threw a noose over the unfortunate man's head, while others piled a pile of rubbish under the post. The rope was slung over a post in the post and Walker was lifted until his feet were three feet above the rubbish heap. Some guy grabbed his legs and pulled him so that his cervical vertebrae crackled. The unfortunate man's clothes were torn off and they began to stab and cut the already dead body with knives until the ribs appeared. Someone shot the hanged man in the head with a pistol, but a dozen voices demanded to stop shooting.
The body hung on the post for about half an hour, after which the rope was cut. The Negro fell down, and the crowd began kicking the prostrate body.
Someone shouted:
- Burn it!
The cry was picked up by hundreds of gulps. Detective Richardson begged and pleaded with the crowd not to burn the body and disgrace the city, since the rapist had already gotten his.
In the meantime, a fire was being lit in the center of the street, fortunately, firewood was at hand; kerosene was brought in from a nearby grocery store.
A half dozen men took the naked, bloody body and, swinging it, threw it into the fire. Firewood was thrown over the corpse, so that only the head, legs and one arm were visible. After a few minutes, the hand began to swell, burn blisters appeared on it, and soon the meat was burnt and bones appeared. It was a terrible sight, perhaps none of the participants in the lynching had seen anything like it before. It was already too much, and most of the crowd hastened to leave the place of execution.
However, many remained unafraid of the burning corpse. Two or three white women pushed their way through the crowd around the fire and calmly, without a shadow of horror or disgust, began to watch as the fire devoured the remains of the unfortunate Walker. A man and a woman brought an eleven-year-old girl with them, apparently their daughter, so that she could see the burning body. It didn’t seem to have occurred to them that this sight could have a detrimental effect on the child’s psyche and deprive him of sleep for many nights. The crowd accompanied the burning with various comments. Some suggested that they continue to deal with Negro rapists in the same way, while others complained that their wives and daughters might become victims of Negro attacks. Still others said that one could refrain from burning the body, and not a word of sympathy for the victim itself.
The rope with which Walker was hanged became a souvenir, and the hunters cut it to pieces and stuffed it into their pockets. Other lovers of souvenirs waited until the fire burned out and began to pull out terrible souvenirs from it with sticks: teeth, bones, nails, pieces of skin left over from the victim.
After the fire was finally extinguished, a piece of wire was tied to the charred body, dragged along Main Street to the courthouse and hung in front of him on the same telegraph pole. The crowd was making such a noise that police intervention was required. They called funeral home owner Walsh, who took the body to his office.
It should be noted that not only racists have resorted to lynching. This method of extrajudicial execution was widely used by members of self-appointed
"Committees of vigilance" that existed during the time of the Frontier (XIX, and very early XX centuries) in the conquered western states, Texas and Klondike and Alaska. Since in these places the few sheriffs could not adequately resist the revelry of bandits, horse thieves, gold hunters, etc. evil spirits, the inhabitants, who were brutalized by the lawlessness of criminals, began to organize unauthorized detachments, pursue criminals and their accomplices and, after a short trial, hang them.
The "vigilant" also often, like the members of the Ku Klus Klan, hid their faces under masks, fearing revenge from the criminals, however, they carried out justice and reprisals in crowded places, surrounded by a crowd of sympathizers. To their credit, it must be said that, unlike the clan members, the Vigilants almost never tortured or mocked their victims, although anything happened. It must be said that the authorities often tried to prevent these amateur judges of justice, who often grabbed and hauled innocent people, but for a very long time all these attempts were unsuccessful. It was possible to put an end to amateur judges only after the development of these states and the establishment of a modern civil administration.