July 26, 1865---“If we are to die, in God’s name, let us perish like men and not like bales of hay.” *

JULY 26, 1865:          

Samuel Curly, a Virginia Freedman, attempted to claim his son from his former Master, who was still holding the boy in bondage. For his impertinence Curly was whipped and his life was threatened.

Slavery did not end as quickly and completely as the history books would have us believe. Documented cases in which white private citizens engaged in wrongful detention and forced labor of blacks --- per se enslavement --- were officially recorded as late as July 1867. In many areas of the postwar South slavery did not end until Emancipation was enforced at gunpoint by garrisoned Federal troops. Even after all the slaves were freed, black agricultural workers, most often sharecroppers, were subject to abuse, beatings, and forced labor by their landlords.

Killings and beatings --- lynchings --- of blacks were a daily occurrence in the early postwar period. There is no real estimate of the number of African Americans killed in the immediate postwar period, but one study speculates that at least one former slave --- man, woman, or child --- was killed every day in the Confederate and Border States in the Reconstruction period --- 4,380 black lives lost to violence between 1865 and 1877.**

Lynchings continued unabated after Reconstruction. 4,743 recorded lynchings took place in America between 1882 and 1968. Many of these lynchings were mass entertainments, the dates and times of which were advertised in the newspapers. The lynching of John Hartfield, suspected (but never accused, tried, or convicted) of murder took place in Ellisville, Mississippi, in 1919, sixty years after Ellisville had served as the capital of the pro-Union, pro-Abolition "Kingdom of Jones" during the Civil War. Hartsfield's gruesome death was accompanied by speechmaking, flag-waving, and brass bands. Over 10,000 whites came to watch a black man burn.

The lynching of accused murderer Henry Smith, in Paris, Texas on February 1, 1893, is considered the first “event” lynching. 10,000 spectators took part. The photograph is reminiscent of an outdoor rock festival of the 1960s.

In Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, Jesse Washington, a cognitively-challenged field hand was convicted by an all-white jury of murdering a white woman. They deliberated for four minutes before finding him guilty and recommending death. It is not known if Washington was actually guilty.

After sentence was pronounced, the courthouse spectators dragged Washington outside, where he was lynched right on the courthouse steps. After being castrated, he was strung up on a chain around his neck from which he was raised and lowered repeatedly into a large bonfire built beneath him. When he tried to climb the chain to escape the flames his fingers were hacked off. He suffered alternate bouts of asphyxia and burning for four hours before dying.

A crowd of 16,000 gathered to watch the lynching, including the Judge, the Police Chief, and children released early from school for that purpose. A photographer took a series of photographs of the killing. These (along with Washington’s body parts) were sold as souvenirs of the event. They also reached the national papers under the rubric of “The Waco Horror.”

In this picture, Jesse Washington’s head can clearly be seen amidst the ashes of his pyre.

Before Washington was burned alive he had coal oil poured over him. It is most likely he was still alive when this photograph was taken.

The photos of Washington’s burnt, mutilated body were sold as souvenir postcards both to those who were present and to collectors throughout the nation. The back of this postcard reads: 

“This is the barbecue we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it.

Your son,

Joe”

The “cross” in Joe’s photo has turned to a smeared blob of ink with the passage of time, but Joe can clearly be seen, a hat-wearing young man in the front row with a face nearly devoid of expression.

In this shot, the immense crowd at Waco is seen from above. Jesse Washington’s body is still smoking.

Although many decent citizens were shocked, the outcry was rather muted overall for although the practice of lynching was concentrated in the deep South, lynchings were not unknown in the North.

 

The lynching of Thomas Shipp (L) and Abram Smith (R) took place in Marion, Indiana on August 30, 1930. It was the last recorded lynching in the northern United States. The two men were accused of raping a 16 year old white girl, Mary Ball, who insisted publicly that she had not been raped at all.

 

Duluth Minnesota saw its first lynching during World War I. Olli Kinkkonen, a Finnish immigrant was tarred, feathered and burned for evading the Draft. His death was listed as a suicide.

Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie were seized on the night of June 15, 1920, and lynched in Duluth for the rape of Irene Tusken. The three men were simply grabbed at random from a crowd of African-American workers and were killed. Tusken later admitted she had invented the story to cover up sex out of wedlock with her boyfriend.

 

An angry crowd watches the lynching of William Brown in Omaha, Nebraska, on September 25, 1919. Brown, severely disabled by arthritis, was lynched on the courthouse steps for being a suspect in the assault of Agnes Loeback. A young Henry Fonda, though not in the picture, watched the burning of Brown’s body from across the Courthouse Square, and was deeply traumatized by the event. In his long acting career, his characters always championed social justice.

James Sullivan, William Howard, and Benjamin Payne were lynched in Seattle, Washington on January 18, 1882. Sullivan and Howard had been convicted of murder, but Payne was in jail on a minor charge. Although photographers were present, pictures were not taken, possibly because the men were white.  Nobody was prosecuted for these deaths. Most lynchings went unpunished.

In 1944, at Fort Lawton in Seattle, an Italian P.O.W., Gugliemo Olivotto, was found hanged in his cell. Military Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, who later became the famed Prosecutor of the Watergate scandal, sought convictions against the prison guards (all of whom were blacks) on the basis that they had lynched Olivotto. Although Jaworski managed to convict 28 of 44 Defendants, President Harry S. Truman pardoned them all in 1945. Jaworski was found to have made “egregious errors” in handling his prosecution of the African-American soldiers. No one remarked on the irony of the charges.

Roughly 25% of all lynchings (1,297) were of white people (including females), most of whom were considered too friendly to blacks. Interracial love affairs were a prime cause for the lynching of white women. 

In 1889, news-hungry Americans were suddenly titillated by lurid tales coming out of Wyoming about a notorious Outlaw Queen by the name of Cattle Kate. Kate was said to be a thief, a shameless prostitute, and, worst of all, a cattle rustler. Her deeds were so despicable, so the stories went, that a crowd of her God-fearing neighbors took it upon themselves to lynch her in order to save every soul in Christendom. Everybody who read about Cattle Kate agreed --- she had it coming.

There was only one problem. Cattle Kate never existed. The woman who died, Ella Watson, was a businesswoman, a landowner, and a rancher. She was also decently married, at least in the eyes of God since Wyoming did not allow married women to hold land titles.  Her successful independent ranch drew the attention of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association who first tried to buy Watson out, and when she refused, to force her to sell. Watson resisted.

Rather than argue with a woman, the WSGA had her lynched along with her husband, Jim Averell. Realizing after the fact that the lynching of a well-placed white woman might be looked upon in certain squeamish quarters as cold-blooded murder, the WSGA spent thousands of dollars buying type in newspapers near and far in order to create the myth of the irredeemable Cattle Kate, a name Ella Watson probably never heard in her lifetime.

The WSGA plan ultimately backfired. Though the WSGA seized Ella Watson’s lands and herds, enough people in Wyoming knew the truth of the story to spur the passage of a gender-equality Act in 1890 that also granted women the unprecedented right of suffrage. Ella Watson, fiercely independent and smart, sadly comes down to us through history as a feminine denizen of evil, but her death began the process that won women the vote. 

 

The lynching of Mary Turner, eight months pregnant and African-American, is of particular note. Turner’s husband had been lynched on May 18, 1918 as part of a cycle of violence surrounding the death of Hampton Smith, a plantation owner notorious for his abuse of blacks, who was killed by a black farmhand. When Mary spoke out against her husband’s random and meaningless killing, Mary was hanged. As she slowly strangled to death, her abdomen was cut open. The baby dropped to the ground, cried once, and was stomped to death by the mob. Her child’s death was the last thing Mary Turner ever saw. Her hanging body was riddled with gunfire and she was buried with her child at the roots of the hanging tree with a whiskey bottle as a grave marker.   

Immigrants and Jews were also lynched by enraged mobs.***

   

Of Jewish lynchings, the killing of Leo Frank in 1915 is the most well-known.  Frank, Texas-born but Brooklyn-raised, was the manager of an Atlanta pencil factory, and was accused by James Conley, a black employee, of raping and murdering Mary Phagan, a fourteen year old girl who likewise worked for Frank. It is telling that Conley was the State’s chief witness, as blacks were not allowed to testify against whites at the time (Frank, being Jewish, was not considered white).

This angelic photograph of pretty Mary Phagan, the rape-murder victim, was widely circulated to raise white Southern ire. Frank was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, but the evidence pointed toward Conley being the perpetrator, and the Governor of Georgia commuted Frank’s sentence to life in prison. Two months after the commutation, Frank was seized from the prison (with the connivance of the staff) and was hanged by a cheering crowd that included the Judge who had convicted him. The ringleader of Frank’s lynching was Joseph Mackey Brown, a past two-term Governor of Georgia. Frank’s death led to a massive Jewish exodus from Georgia.****

Though they are not called lynchings such killings continue even today.

Trayvon Martin, carrying candy and soda, died on February 26, 2012 after an unauthorized pursuit by a neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, who shot him claiming self-defense. Zimmerman was not convicted of murder. 

Eric Garner (d. July 17, 2014) was selling loose cigarettes on a New York City streetcorner when he was approached by police officers. One officer placed Garner in an unauthorized chokehold. He suffocated. Although the entire incident was captured on video, the officer using the excessive force was not indicted.

 

The unarmed Michael Brown (d. August 9, 2014) was gunned down by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri who claimed self-defense. Brown’s body remained lying in the street for four hours before it was taken to the morgue. His death led to weeks of protests in Ferguson and other cities. The media decried “street violence” and “thugs,” but the officer involved in the incident was not prosecuted.

Walter Scott (d. April 4, 2015) was fatally shot in the back by a police officer after being pulled over for a broken taillight. The officer, who had had excessive force complaints levied against him in the past, was indicted for murder.

 

 Freddie Gray (d. April 19, 2015) died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody for carrying a switchblade. Baltimore police later stated it was an illegal weapon, but Maryland State authorities disagreed. Within twenty minutes of being placed in a police van Gray’s spine was broken and he was paralyzed. The arresting officers were subsequently indicted for manslaughter and depraved-heart murder. 

On June 9, 2015, police were called to a gated community in Kinney, Texas.  Upon their arrival, they discovered that a large number of young African-American guests were using the predominantly white subdivision’s pool. Although the youngsters explained that they were present for a pool party, one officer became exceptionally bellicose, cursing at the children, and ordering them onto the ground. He sat on one young lady, forcing her face into the dirt. He also pulled his gun, but was hustled away by other officers before he could fire. The entire incident was captured on video. No one was killed, fortunately, but the officer’s abusive behavior led to an investigation which, as of this writing, is ongoing.

  

On June 17, 2015, a self-described white supremacist named Dylann Storm Roof entered “Mama” Emmanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the oldest black churches in the nation dating back to 1816, and shot ten parishioners at Bible study, nine of whom (Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Clementa C. Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson) were killed. 

Roof escaped, but was captured in North Carolina. Some news outlets reported that Roof was provided with restaurant food by the police after his arrest.

Roof’s racist manifesto and his embrace of the Confederate flag have sparked a debate, long overdue, on the appropriate use and display of Confederate symbols in the United States.

While no one today condones “lynchings,” these shootings and killings (often by police) are usually explained away as being perpetrated against “thugs.” It is astounding how many young black men (in particular) fit this convenient description. Few of those responsible for such killings are called to account in any way. Race-based violence remains a staple of American society.

*The title of this post is taken from a 1911 article W.E.B. DuBois’ periodical The Crisis. DuBois writes: “If we are to die, in God’s name, let us perish like men and not like bales of hay.”

**The number of people lynched in the United States can never be known with certainty. In the early 19^th Century, lynching was used as a form of rough frontier justice against people who had committed antisocial acts, whether criminal or not. Adulterous women were frequently lynched, as were runaway slaves, “uppity” free blacks, horse thieves, and shopkeepers (often Jewish) suspected of “fixing” their scales. After the Civil War, militarily defeated and socially marginalized southern whites used the lynching of blacks to vent their impotent rage at the larger society. The usual rationale that underlay many a lynching included a sex crime against a white woman, whether true or not. However, lynchings were perpetrated for minor incidents as well. One recorded lynching took place when a black man purchased the last Nehi Cola at a country store. Lynching statistics were first kept in 1882, but lynching was clearly a large enough issue to warrant recordkeeping prior to that date. Most Reconstruction Era lynchings are calculated through anecdotal evidence. Between the formal end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the final withdrawal of Federal troops from the South in 1882, figures for lynchings do not seem to exist, but the four year period mentioned likely saw several hundred lynchings. Of course, these figures do not include one-on-one murders of blacks by whites.   

***Most lynchings of whites (or races other than blacks) were perpetrated against new immigrants or against foreign nationals visiting the United States. 1892, the peak year for lynchings (230) in the U.S.,  saw the Federal Government pay out over $480,000.00 in hard currency to the governments of the United Kingdom, France, China, Japan, Russia, and other nations as indemnification for the wrongful deaths of their citizens in that year alone. In the last decade of the 19th Century, most overseas countries issued travel advisories regarding the dangers of being a foreigner in the United States.   

****Like most thinking Americans this blogger had presumed that lynchings occurred under cover of darkness and in remote and isolated areas, perpetrated by drunken mobs of ne’er-do-wells. This self-deception also allowed me to believe that while privately tolerated, lynchings and lynchers were publicly disdained. That vast crowds of responsible citizens and civic leaders would openly embrace and even lead these vigilante mobs, participating happily in the riotous carnival atmosphere and ghoulish souvenir-collecting of lynchings was a horrifying discovery for me. The images in this post are shocking, and they should shock. If you take away any lesson from this post, I hope it is that black lives, white lives, yellow, red, and brown lives matter; that all lives matter. As Americans, as members of the human race we can, and must, do better.

Lynchings, by Year and Race, 1882-1968*
Year	Whites	Blacks	Total
1882	64	49	113
1883	77	53	130
1884	160	51	211
1885	110	74	184
1886	64	74	138
1887	50	70	120
1888	68	69	137
1889	76	94	170
1890	11	85	96
1891	71	113	184
1892	69	161	230
1893	34	118	152
1894	58	134	192
1895	66	113	179
1896	45	78	123
1897	35	123	158
1898	19	101	120
1899	21	85	106
1900	9	106	115
1901	25	105	130
1902	7	85	92
1903	15	84	99
1904	7	76	83
1905	5	57	62
1906	3	62	65
1907	3	58	61
1908	8	89	97
1909	13	69	82
1910	9	67	76
1911	7	60	67
1912	2	62	64
1913	1	51	52
1914	4	51	55
1915	13	56	69
1916	4	50	54
1917	2	36	38
1918	4	60	64
1919	7	76	83
1920	8	53	61
1921	5	59	64
1922	6	51	57
1923	4	29	33
1924	0	16	16
1925	0	17	17
1926	7	23	30
1927	0	16	16
1928	1	10	11
1929	3	7	10
1930	1	20	21
1931	1	12	13
1932	2	6	8
1933	2	24	28
1934	0	15	15
1935	2	18	20
1936	0	8	8
1937	0	8	8
1938	0	6	6
1939	1	2	3
1940	1	4	5
1941	0	4	4
1942	0	6	6
1943	0	3	3
1944	0	2	2
1945	0	1	1
1946	0	6	6
1947	0	1	1
1948	1	1	2
1949	0	3	3
1950	1	1	2
1951	0	1	1
1952	0	0	0
1953	0	0	0
1954	0	0	0
1955	0	3	3
1956	0	0	0
1957	1	0	1
1958	0	0	0
1959	0	1	1
1960	0	0	0
1961	0	1	1
1962	0	0	0
1963	0	1	1
1964	2	1	3
1965	0	0	0
1966	0	0	0
1967	0	0	0
1968	0	0	0
Total	1,297	3,445	4,742