Lynching Of Black America Essay

603 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The link between lynching and vigilantism

AT THE HANDS OF PERSONS UNKNOWN: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray, Amazon, $11.89
Philip Dray is an American author and historian. Dray is known for his analyses of racial and labor history in America. His book At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America won him the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and a spot as a finalist in 2003 Pulitzer Prize. Dray has written five books, with one being a children’s book named Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells: The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist.

Living in President Trump’s America, many immigrants are in fear that they will become America’s new negro. The fear of terrorist attacks on America’s soil has turn some citizen into reincarnation of the people that Philip Dray …show more content…

While researching, he found that the act of lynching was a way of restoring honor to a person that was wrong. Dray writes about the name lynch, coming from a Quaker named Charles lynch. Lynch was known for his foul mouth. He set up improvised courts that routinely sentenced suspected horse thieves and British sympathizers to beating during the war. Lynch was later sewed by the victims of his makeshift court system and he was exonerated. The court felt Charles lynch was appropriate given the stressful circumstances. Dray added this passage to demonstration America government’s Laissez-faire attitude when came to civil matters. Another key point, Dray added, was the assault on Sen Charles Sumner. Comparatively to Lynch victims, Charles Sumner was assaulted for allegedly insulting a Senator’s Butler. The attack was considered justified, even though the attack happened at Sumner's office. It was said to be the proper act, done in the proper place at the proper time . Dray's restating these events helps solidify his claim of lynching is not just in racism. Dray did not discredit Afro-American as victims in later years. However, in the south early years’ blacks was viewed as property. Because of that, Dray conclude that early lynching was psycho-cultural

Show More
Related

  • Jim Crow Laws Essay

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    Equality is something that should be given to every human and not earned or be taken away. However, this idea does not present itself during the 1930’s in the southern states including Alabama. African Americans faced overwhelming challenges because of the thought of race superiority. Therefore, racism in the southern states towards African Americans made their lives tough to live because of disparity and inhumane actions towards this particular group of people.

    Read More

  • Anti-Chinese Sentiment in 19th Century American Society

    1716 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America

    711 Words  | 2 Pages

    Interestingly, the book does not focus solely on the Georgia lynching, but delves into the actual study of the word lynching which was coined by legendary judge Charles B Lynch of Virginia to indicate extra-legal justice meted out to those in the frontier where the rule of law was largely absent. In fact, Wexler continues to analyse how the term lynching began to be used to describe mob violence in the 19th century, when the victim was deemed to have been guilty before being tried by due process in a court of law.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Blood Done Sign My Name By Timothy Tyson

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).

    Read More

  • Fire in a Canebrake

    1629 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wexler, Laura. 2003. Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America. Scribner; 2004. Print

    Read More

  • Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness By Michelle Alexander

    2147 Words  | 5 Pages

    Today, more African American adults are under correctional control than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began (Alexander 180). Throughout history, there have been multiple racial caste systems in the United States. In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander defines a “racial caste” as “a racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom” (12). Alexander argues that both Jim Crow and slavery functioned as racial caste systems, and that our current system of mass incarceration functions as a similar caste system, which she labels “The New Jim Crow”. There is now a silent Jim Crow in our nation. Mass incarceration today serves the same function as did slavery before the Civil War and Jim Crow laws after the Civil War - to uphold a racial caste system.

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Law Essay

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    Danny Thiemann Mrs. Fleetwood English I-C 13 April 2014 Separate but not equal Does the name Jim Crow ring a bell? Neither singer nor actor, but actually the name for the Separate but Equal (Jim Crow) Laws of the 1900s. Separate but Equal Laws stated that businesses and public places had to have separate, but equal, facilities for minorities and Caucasian people. Unfortunately, they usually have different levels of maintenance or quality.

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Act Of 1866

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • A Raisin in the Sun: The Duality of African-America, George Murchison and Joseph Asagai

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dubois, WEB. Comp. Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 694-695. Print.

    Read More

  • Understanding the 'Black Lives Matter' Movement

    1362 Words  | 3 Pages

    Today there are many controversial subjects discussed throughout the media. One of the most discussed is race and the Black Lives Matter movement. Recently, I came across an article titled “The Truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’”, written by The Editorial Board. The article was published on September 3, 2015, to the New York Times. In the article, The Editorial Board writes about what they believe African Americans are facing as challenges in society today, including the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country. The Editorial Board is right that some African Americans have been treated unfairly, but all ethnicities have been. Life is a precious thing that comprises all ethnicities. This brings us to ask; why

    Read More

  • Terrorism on African Americans in America

    1903 Words  | 4 Pages

    Barnett, Ida B., and Ida B. Barnett. Southern horrors and other writings: the anti-lynching campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900. Boston, MA: Bedford Books, 1997.

    Read More

  • Ida B Wells Anti-Lynching Movement

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the late 1800s to the late 1900s, lynching was a prominent atrocity in the Southern American Society. As Ida B. Wells once said “our country's national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.” Although there were many terrible cases of this, many notable anti-lynching activists, like Ida B. Wells, arose in an attempt to end the unlawful killings of African Americans. Along with this, many historical sites have been created and a memorial is in the process of being built to honor those who were slain during these devastating times.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law In All Its Phases

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Legacy of Lynching in the South

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    Part of the aftermath of lynching in the South was the psychological consequences on the rabbles involved. The entire culture of African Americans is marked by lynching because the root reason of 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.”

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Essay

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jim Crow, a series of laws put into place after slavery by rich white Americans used in order to continue to subordinate African-Americans has existed for many years and continues to exist today in a different form, mass incarceration. Jim Crow laws when initially implemented were a series of anti-black laws that help segregate blacks from whites and kept blacks in a lower social, political, and economic status. In modern day, the term Jim Crow is used as a way to explain the mass incarcerations of blacks since Jim Crow laws were retracted. Through mass incarceration, blacks are continuously disenfranchised and subordinated by factors such as not being able to obtain housing, stoppage of income, and many other factors. Both generations of Jim Crow have been implemented through legal laws or ways that the government which helps to justify the implementation of this unjust treatment of blacks.

    Read More

More about Lynching Of Black America Essay

Open Document