In the United States, there were over 180 protests in 2014 alone. Many of these were focused around the idea of social and racial equality. While protests and riots are generally thought of as effective means for social change, they often can fall victim to unanticipated factors. In the case of a race driven riot such as the Tulsa Riot of 1921 framing can be viewed as the most important factor to consider when evaluating the potential outcome. Considering this, it becomes clear that the way in which a riot is framed is nearly as important to the overall outcome as the events of the riot itself. Taking this into account, one can hypothesize how various framing strategies might affect the result of a more recent incident such as the Ferguson …show more content…
In this case, an African American was arrested for the sexual assault of a white woman. Consequently, the neighboring white community planned a lynching for the day of June 1, 1921. On the night before the planned lynching the white members of the community gathered around the courthouse where the accused (Dick Rowland) was being held. In an effort to protect Rowland a group of African American men, both armed and unarmed, came to the courthouse as well. One African American man got into a confrontation with a white man and the white man was shot and killed. This event started a riot that would last two days, destroy a major part of Tulsa including the Greenwood District, the wealthiest black community in the United States, and kill approximately 300 people, most of which African American. Following the riots little was done, as the African American community was blamed for being responsible. Despite the clear attempt at exposing inequality demonstrated by this riot, little positive change occurred for the African American communities following the riots. This was due to strategic framing by local media and government …show more content…
“Tulsa Race War of 1921” by R. Halliburton, Jr. states that after the race riot ended a jury was formed to find out who was to blame for the incident. They concluded by stating there was no plan to lynch Dick Rowland and that a group of colored men were responsible. Specifically, they said, “We find that the recent race riot was the direct result of an effort on the part of a certain group of colored men who appeared at the courthouse on the night of May 31, 1921, for the purpose of protecting one Dick Rowland.... We have not been able to find any evidence... that any organized attempt was made or planned to take from the Sheriff 's custody any prisoner; the crowd assembled about the courthouse being purely spectators and curiosity seekers.... There was no mob spirit among the whites, no talk of lynching and no arms.” Halliburn confirms that this just further evidence of irresponsible decision making used to frame the riots in a favorable light for the white community. Unfortunately this both skewed facts and fueled the animosity between whites and blacks. A similar case can be seen in the decision not to indict Darren Wilson. If anything is clear, it is that the evidence in Michael Brown’s death is inconclusive. Considering this, the case should have been further investigated, yet it wasn’t, thus avoiding some level of responsibility. While this more
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).
In 1896, the Supreme Court was introduced with a case that not only tested both levels of government, state and federal, but also helped further establish a precedent that it was built off of. This court case is commonly known as the case that confirmed the doctrine “separate but equal”. This doctrine is a crucial part of our Constitution and more importantly, our history. This court case involved the analysis of amendments, laws, and divisions of power. Plessy v. Ferguson was a significant court case in U.S history because it was shaped by federalism and precedent, which were two key components that were further established and clarified as a result of the Supreme Court’s final decision.
Occurred on March 1, 1959. R. Jess Brown a well-known African American lawyer represented Parker. On April 13th an all white grand jury indited Parker for rape and two counts of kidnapping. On April 17th Parker pleaded not guilty to each charge. Next Parker’s trial date was set for April 27th. Then Brown asked Judge Sebe Dale’s to drop the case because a black man was not on the grand jury. Brown did this because of a recent ruling made by the 5th U.S. circuit court of Appeals. The ruling stated that it was unconstitutional for a jury of an all white people to convict a black man. The ruling went on to say that one African American had to be on a jury when an African American was on trial. This defense tactic by Brown was a legally intelligent thing to do but this actually became the motive for the mob to kill Parker.
On July 25, 1946, two young black couples- Roger and Dorothy Malcom, George and Mae Murray Dorsey-were killed by a lynch mob at the Moore's Ford Bridge over the Appalachee River connecting Walton and Oconee Counties (Brooks, 1). The four victims were tied up and shot hundreds of times in broad daylight by a mob of unmasked men; murder weapons included rifles, shotguns, pistols, and a machine gun. "Shooting a black person was like shooting a deer," George Dorsey's nephew, George Washington Dorsey said (Suggs C1). It has been over fifty years and this case is still unsolved by police investigators. It is known that there were atleast a dozen men involved in these killings. Included in the four that were known by name was Loy Harrison. Loy Harrison may not have been an obvious suspect to the investigators, but Harrison was the sole perpetrator in the unsolved Moore's Ford Lynching case. The motive appeared to be hatred and the crime hurt the image of the state leaving the town in an outrage due to the injustice that left the victims in unmarked graves (Jordon,31).
Emancipated blacks, after the Civil War, continued to live in fear of lynching, a practice of vigilantism that was often based on false accusations. Lynching was not only a way for southern white men to exert racist “justice,” it was also a means of keeping women, white and black, under the control of a violent white male ideology. In response to the injustices of lynching, the anti-lynching movement was established—a campaign in which women played a key role. Ida B. Wells, a black teacher and journalist was at the forefront and early development of this movement. In 1892 Wells was one of the first news reporters to bring the truths of lynching to proper media attention. Her first articles appeared in The Free Speech and Headlight, a Memphis newspaper that she co-edited. She urged the black townspeople of Memphis to move west and to resist the coercive violence of lynching. [1] Her early articles were collected in Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, a widely distributed pamphlet that exposed the innocence of many victims of lynching and attacked the leaders of white southern communities for allowing such atrocities. [2] In 1895 Wells published a larger investigative report, A Red Record, which exposed how false or contrived accusations of rape accompanied less than one third of the cases documented around 1892. [3] The statistics and literature of A Red Record denounced the dominant white male ideology behind lynching – the thought that white womanhood was in need of protection against black men. Wells challenged this notion as a concealed racist agenda that functioned to keep white men in power over blacks as well as white women. Jacqueline Jones Royster documents the...
On July 19, 1919, white men initiated a riot after hearing that a black man had been accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. The men beat random African Americans, pulling them off of streetcars and beating them on the streets. African Americans fought back after the police refused to get involved. African American and white residents fought for four days. By July 23, 1919, two blacks and four whites were killed in the riots. In addition, an estimated 50 people were injured.
On August 1, 1943, Harlem ?Boiled over,? according to NAACP leader Walter White (NY Times, 17). The start of the event was attributed to one, ?Private Robert Bandy, the 26-year-old Negro soldier?who is charged with attacking a white policeman who was arresting a Negro woman in a Harlem hotel? (New York Times, 17). Rumors soon spread that police officers had killed a black soldier who was trying to protect his mother. This caused a momentous outburst of rioting destroying much of Harlem. The statistics of the riot vary depending on the source, but around 500 persons were injured, five dead, 400-500 arrested, and property damage estimated at 500,000 to a million dollars. ...
There were no charges made against officer Wilson even with the suspects that claimed Michael Brown didn't do anything wrong . Police brutality has made black people take a stand and they formed the Black Lives Matter Movement.The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2012 after George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community, shot and killed Trayvon Martin. Following Martin’s death protests, rallies, and marches were held all across the nation. The Black Lives Matter movement includes all the ways in which black lives are less powerful at the hands of the state, it is a call for action against brutality by police and vigilantes, people who take the law into their own hands by trying to catch or punish someone in their own way. Politicians are also trying to straighten gun laws to prevent homicides like Bernie Sanders. Sanders wants stricter background checks so guns won’t be in the wrong hands. He also wants to ban assault weapons to citizens that were made to kill people. I personally think this can help improve our nation because it will give people with a criminal history less chances of owning guns but it also gives a right to people without a criminal background to be able to own guns for their own
The Chicago riot was the most serious of the multiple that happened during the Progressive Era. The riot started on July 27th after a seventeen year old African American, Eugene Williams, did not know what he was doing and obliviously crossed the boundary of a city beach. Consequently, a white man on the beach began stoning him. Williams, exhausted, could not get himself out of the water and eventually drowned. The police officer at the scene refused to listen to eyewitness accounts and restrained from arresting the white man. With this in mind, African Americans attacked the police officer. As word spread of the violence, and the accounts distorted themselves, almost all areas in the city, black and white neighborhoods, became informed. By Monday morning, everyone went to work and went about their business as usual, but on their way home, African Americans were pulled from trolleys and beaten, stabbed, and shot by white “ruffians”. Whites raided the black neighborhoods and shot people from their cars randomly, as well as threw rocks at their windows. In retaliation, African Americans mounted sniper ambushes and physically fought back. Despite the call to the Illinois militia to help the Chicago police on the fourth day, the rioting did not subside until the sixth day. Even then, thirty eight
Blacks were mistreated, they were subjected to biased laws and injustice. Blacks were the “victims of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality” according to Kings Speech (I Have a Dream). Police brutality includes, but is not limited to: false arrest, intimidation, racial profiling, surveillance abuse, sexual abuse, and tampering with
Though Americans have done their best to uphold the ideals and promises that this country was founded upon, there have been times when these principles were abandoned. Throughout America’s history, Jefferson’s ideals have been violated. “Succumbing to bad advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States.” During this time, Japanese-Americans were stripped of their rights, forcing them out of their homes and treating them horribly in ‘concentration camps.’ Despite many of these Japanese-Americans posing no threat or possibility of allegiance to Japan they were ostracized; treated
In 1931, on a freight train bound for Memphis, around twenty-five young men, both black and white, were hoboing, looking for work. The whites began to act spitefully at the blacks, picking up rocks to throw at them, stepping on their hands, and calling them names. The blacks, wanting to keep their pride, came back at them. In the brawl that followed, all but one of the whites were thrown off the train. These whites, sore about being beaten, ran back to the nearest rail station, who phoned ahead to the next station, in Paint Rock, Alabama. A mob of whites were waiting there, armed to the teeth. They took everyone off the train and rounded them up. Nine of them were blacks. These men: Roy and Andy Wright, Eugene Williams, Haywood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Charlie Weems, Clarence Norris, and Ozie Powell were brought to the Scottsboro jail, and charged with the rape of two young white women, also hoboing, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates (Patterson 13-17). They were tried for rape, convicted, retried, convicted again, retried again, and convicted a third time (Patterson 9). These trials and retrials of these nine young men, who became know as the “Scottsboro Boys,” were not fair.
Wells. In May 1892, whites envied three of her friends for opening a successful grocery store. Her friends were arrested, then taken from jail, and lynched. Lynching was a very public act that differs from ordinary murders or assaults because it is a killing that is against the boundaries of due process; the legal requirement that all states must respect all legal rights owed to a person. This horrific execution took place every other day in the 1890’s, but the mob killing of the innocent three men who owned the grocery store was extremely frightening. In protest 2000 black residence left Memphis that summer and headed West for Oklahoma, but Ida B Wells stayed and began her own research on lynching. Her editorials in the “Memphis Free Speech and Headlight” confronted the Lynch Law; which was said to be in place to protect white women, even though they leave white men free to seduce all the colored girls he can, yet black men were being lynched for having consensual relations with white women. Ida B. Wells states, “No one believes the old thread lies that Negro men assault white women, and if the southern white men are not careful they will overreach themselves and a conclusion will be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women”. Whites were outraged with her words and Wells was fortunately away in the East when a mob came looking for her, they trashed the offices
...sa” (60). The commission of Tulsa has been working since 1997 to create a better picture of the violence that led to the destruction the city’s black business district. The magazine the Jet report, “that the commissioners recommended restitution ranging from a memorial and scholarships to direct payments to survivors and their descendants” (9). There is also been a controversy about the number of deaths during the Tulsa race riot. In 1999 historians came to Tulsa trying to find the correct number of deaths. In a Goble-News article historians believe close to 300 people died during the violence of the Tulsa race riot (n.pag.). In all black citizen of Tulsa became very close do to this tragedy that accrued on June 1, 1921.
The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri became a controversial media sensation. The shooting created uproar and mistrust towards police officers. Many believed the shooting was unjustified and even an act of racism on the behalf of the police Officer Darren Wilson. The Department of Justice issued an investigation in order to understand the basis of the shooting and to decide whether or not to charge Darren Wilson in the shooting. Despite the evidence and the investigation which portrayed the shooting as an act of self- defense, the shooting still remains controversial.