Lynching and Resistance, Class 5

Ken Gonzales-Day (2002), Erased Lynchings

(St. James Park, CA. 1935)
Recap

Letter, Reconstruction

Lynching: Reality and Resistance

Song, Billie Holiday

Recap: Black Codes
Jourdan Anderson, “A Letter from a
Freedman to His Old Master”
– Bob Dylan – “The Death of
Emmett Till”
Group Activity
- 6 Groups

- Use primary sources and other secondary sources to

understand and discover aspects of lynchings, the
dynamics surround it, and other related issues

- Examine the primary sources

- Ascertain the facts and details

- Interpret the meaning of these facts, how this impacted

African Americans and American society in general
Group Activity
- Discuss in groups

- Present to class

- You are responsible for all of this information

- Important to listen
Group Activity, 4
Group Activity, 5
“The scale of this carnage means that, on
the average, a black man, woman, or child
was murdered nearly once a week, every
week, between 1882 and 1930.”

E. M. Beck and Stewart E. Tolnay, A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern

Lynchings, 1882-1930 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995), ix.
 “It is important to understand that years of racist
propaganda had, in the minds of whites, lessened
blacks to simplistic and often animalistic,
stereotypes. These debasing images, further
depersonalized and dehumanized the victim,
reducing him or her to a hated object devoid of
worth.”

- E. M. Tolnay and Stewart E. Beck, Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings 1882–1930
(Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 29.
Conclusion
Conclusion
- Crime or alleged crime
- Often not a “crime” in any real sense
- Almost always without a trial (extrajudicial)(violation of 5th/14th
Amendments)
- Often involved mutilation of bodies, torture
- Often carnival/festival-like atmosphere
- Complacency or complicity of authorities
- Unwillingness on the part of many officials to act
- General acceptance of violence
- Display of violence
- Commodification of death → postcards, souvenirs
- Mechanism of social, political, even economic control
Conclusion
- Lasted from roughly 1860s to 1960s?
- Many were unreported
- 4,743 (official number of recorded lynchings)*
- The phenomenon of lynchings sparked a fierce
and concerted resistance on the part of African
Americans
- Tremendous effort of documentation, research,
writing, activism

* “History of Lynching,” NAACP,

https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynching-america
Conclusion
- Unwillingness to prosecute, hold people
accountable → crowds, children

- The threat of violence hovered over the lives of

many African Americans

- Lynching existed alongside constitutional

protections

* “History of Lynching,” NAACP,

https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynching-america
 From Emmett Till Antilynching Act, Sec. 2, 2019
Conclusion
National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Alabama

2018

805 steel
rectangles, hanging
=
805 countires
where documented
lynchings took place
Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit,”
1939

written by Abel Meeropol

Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the
root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern
breeze
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar
trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather
For the wind to suck
For the sun to rot
For the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit”
By the rivers of Babylon we
sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

There on the poplars

we hung our harps,

for there our captors asked us

for songs,
our tormentors demanded
songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of
the songs of Zion!” –Psalm
137, 1–3