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On Lynchings by Norm R. Allen, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Patricia Hills Collins, Patricia Hill Collins
tangleroot_eli's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
A gruesome but vital history of racist killings in the US South in the late 1800s. A history every US citizen should know.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Racism, Racial slurs, Police brutality, and Murder
Minor: Sexual assault and Rape
dreamybee's review against another edition
4.0
I picked this up after reading [b:The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America|17196508|The Defender How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America|Ethan Michaeli|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1422320316s/17196508.jpg|23670469] because Ida B. Wells-Barnett's writings and her activism were cited throughout, and I wanted to get a more in-depth look at her work. After three of her acquaintances were lynched for standing up to an attack on their store, Wells-Barnett became very active in her anti-lynching campaign. She took on the then-popular notion that lynching was only done to protect the honor of women who had been "outraged," the term that Wells-Barnett uses throughout her writings--I'm not sure if this meant rape or if it was meant to cover physical assaults in general, but the implication often seemed to be of rape. Of course, it wasn't women's honor, but white women's honor that everyone was hell-bent on protecting, as very few white men ever went to trial or were sentenced for outraging black women or children. Wells-Barnett cites many cases illustrating this fact, like the lynching of Eph. Grizzard, a black man charged with raping a white woman. "He was taken from the jail, with Governor Buchanan and the police and militia standing by, dragged through the streets in broad daylight, knives plunged into him at every step, and with every fiendish cruelty that a frenzied mob could devise, he was at last swung out on the bridge with hands cut to pieces as he tried to climb up the stanchions." As Wells-Barnett points out, "At the very moment when these civilized whites were announcing their determination 'to protect their wives and daughters,' by murdering Grizzard, a white man was in the same jail for raping eight-year-old Maggie Reese, a colored girl. He was not harmed." (118) And why would he have been? As "[a] leading journal in South Carolina" pointed out, "'it is not the same thing for a white man to assault a colored woman as for a colored man to assault a white woman, because the colored woman had no finer feelings nor virtue to be outraged.'" (117).
The prevailing mentality at the time insisted that no consensual relation could exist between a white woman and a black man. One case cited from 1892 reads "If Lillie Bailey, a rather pretty white girl, seventeen years of age, who is now at the city hospital, would be somewhat less reserved about her disgrace there would be some very nauseating details in the story of her life. She is the mother of a little coon. The truth might reveal fearful depravity or the evidence of a rank outrage. She will not divulge the name of the man who has left such black evidence of her disgrace, and in fact says it is a matter in which there can be no interest to the outside world." (111). So those were the only options when a mixed-race baby was born, mental illness on the part of the mother or rape. Ida B. Wells-Barnett called bullshit on that and put forth the theory that some white women might willingly be with black men. This got her paper, The Memphis Free Speech, burned to the ground and probably would have gotten her killed as well had she not been out of town at the time of publication.
She then proceeded to lay out her case, often using newspaper reports from white writers in white publications (in other words, reports that other white people couldn't refute), that not only were there cases of white women willingly engaging in relations with black men, but that rape was not the only accustion that could get someone lynched (only about a third of lynchings reported were rape-related). Lynchings were also linked to other serious crimes like murder and arson, but were also carried out for things like "enticing servant away," "writing letter to a white woman," "conjuring," or for "no offense." So...that excuse about the honor of women and children...a little shaky. Wells-Barnett goes on to excoriate the hypocrisy of this excuse with the following (on which my notes just say, "Daaaaaaaamn!"): "To justify their own barbarism they assume a chivalry which they do not possess. True chivalry respects all womanhood, and no one who reads the record, as it is written in the faces of the million mulattoes in the South, will for a minute conceive that the soutern white man had a very chivalrous regard for the honor due the women of his own race or respect for the womanhood which circumstances placed in his power. That chivalry which is 'most sensitive concerning the honor of women' can hope for but little respect from the civilized world, when it confines itself entirely to the women who happen to be white." (62). It is striking to me that "protecting our women and children" is still the refrain that gets trotted out whenever people want to pass laws which blame targeted groups for criminal activity while ignoring that same activity amongst its own.
While lynching itself was not legal, many people were willing to look the other way when they thought that it was only being done to the most heinous criminals, but Wells-Barnett's reporting forced people to admit that perhaps vigilante justice was getting a bit out of control. She addressed the subject of vigilante justice itself as well. She was not arguing that white people should not be able to exact justice for wrongs done to them by black people, but she did insist that it be done within the scope of the law. Not only did many lynchings take place based on the mere charge of a crime having been committed, before any sort of legal trial had taken place, but they were often advertised in the local papers (so they were not surprise attacks that nobody knew to guard against); and in the case of Henry Smith, "[e]xcursions were run by all the railroads, and the mayor of the town gave the children a holiday so that they might see the sight." (199). "The sight" was a man who had been deemed an imbecile being burned alive after the father, brother, and uncle of his victim spent nearly an hour using red-hot irons to burn out his eyes and cook his toungue. You know, good old-fashioned, wholesome family fun.
The last section of the book focuses mainly on an event in New Orleans where a black man was sitting on a stoop when a police officer approached him and became abusive. He shot the officer in what was claimed to be self-defense. He ran away from the scene, the cop later died, and a manhunt was on. The town went insane and numerous black citizens were brutally murdered; some were just unfortunate enough to be present when a vindictive mob rolled through and some were actively sought out for abuse. The man was eventually found and gunned down after having shot many others in pursuit, and while many people would say, "Why didn't he just cooperate with the cop?" or "If he hadn't run in the first place, none of this would have happened," this case exemplifies the worst of what can happen when citizens don't think they will receive a fair trial and when vigilante justice is allowed to run amok. This man knew that as a black man who had shot a white cop in 1900 New Orleans there was NO WAY he was going to receive a fair trial if he even got a trial at all. From that point on, he was running for his life.
When Wells-Barnett tried to bring attention to lynching in America, it fell on many deaf ears. Thinking that international pressure would help, she began to plead her case abroad. While she did gain some support, she also ran up against "criticism of the movement appealing to the English people for sympathy and support in our crusade against Lynch Law that our action was unpatriotic, vindictive and useless." (121). It seems to me that when pointing out atrocities being done to your people gets you labled as unpatriotic and vindictive, it's a fairly good indication that you're on the right path.
This book is a compilation of three of Wells-Barnett's writings that were published between 1892 and 1900, so there was a lot of overlap--one case might be listed in one writing as an example of mob rule and in another as a case of a human being being burned alive. By the way, there's an entire section called "Burning Human Beings Alive" because that was a thing that happened often enough to earn its own category. There also seem to be some discrepacies in numbers. For example, the Chicago Tribune's lynching records from 1882-1899 show 2,533 lynchings (201-2). Near the beginning of the book, Wells-Barnett claims there were about 10,000 lynchings between 1864-1894 (58). In another section she breaks out 1894's lynchings by offense (134 total) and by month (197 total), neither number of which agrees with the Chicago Tribune's number of 190. So, I wish there had been some more explanation to how she came up with these figures, but given the time and manner of this publication and the importance of its subject, I'm willing to allow some leeway here.
This is one of those points in history that I know about...generally. I know lynchings happened, I know they were brutal, I know they were outside the law, but anytime I read about the specifics of these cases, it is shocking, not because I don't think that people are capable of this kind of thing or because I am surprised that it happened, but because I think that people are still capable of this kind of thing, because I can't imagine telling somebody who comes from this type of history to "get over it already." White people did this shit. While none of us today can be held personally accountable for any of the things that happened 100 years ago...or 50 years ago for that matter--well, OK, maybe some of us COULD be held personally responsible--we also need to be much better about acknowledging that it happened, acknowedging that it was awful, understanding that while your history might consist of stories of your great-great-grandfather who was a decorated general in the Civil War, other people's history is that their ancestors, the people of whom they are a part, were brutally beaten, burned alive, and had pieces of their bodies cut off and taken away as souvenirs because of the color of their skin and that the attitudes that allowed it to happen then are not that far below the surface in a lot of places now.
The prevailing mentality at the time insisted that no consensual relation could exist between a white woman and a black man. One case cited from 1892 reads "If Lillie Bailey, a rather pretty white girl, seventeen years of age, who is now at the city hospital, would be somewhat less reserved about her disgrace there would be some very nauseating details in the story of her life. She is the mother of a little coon. The truth might reveal fearful depravity or the evidence of a rank outrage. She will not divulge the name of the man who has left such black evidence of her disgrace, and in fact says it is a matter in which there can be no interest to the outside world." (111). So those were the only options when a mixed-race baby was born, mental illness on the part of the mother or rape. Ida B. Wells-Barnett called bullshit on that and put forth the theory that some white women might willingly be with black men. This got her paper, The Memphis Free Speech, burned to the ground and probably would have gotten her killed as well had she not been out of town at the time of publication.
She then proceeded to lay out her case, often using newspaper reports from white writers in white publications (in other words, reports that other white people couldn't refute), that not only were there cases of white women willingly engaging in relations with black men, but that rape was not the only accustion that could get someone lynched (only about a third of lynchings reported were rape-related). Lynchings were also linked to other serious crimes like murder and arson, but were also carried out for things like "enticing servant away," "writing letter to a white woman," "conjuring," or for "no offense." So...that excuse about the honor of women and children...a little shaky. Wells-Barnett goes on to excoriate the hypocrisy of this excuse with the following (on which my notes just say, "Daaaaaaaamn!"): "To justify their own barbarism they assume a chivalry which they do not possess. True chivalry respects all womanhood, and no one who reads the record, as it is written in the faces of the million mulattoes in the South, will for a minute conceive that the soutern white man had a very chivalrous regard for the honor due the women of his own race or respect for the womanhood which circumstances placed in his power. That chivalry which is 'most sensitive concerning the honor of women' can hope for but little respect from the civilized world, when it confines itself entirely to the women who happen to be white." (62). It is striking to me that "protecting our women and children" is still the refrain that gets trotted out whenever people want to pass laws which blame targeted groups for criminal activity while ignoring that same activity amongst its own.
While lynching itself was not legal, many people were willing to look the other way when they thought that it was only being done to the most heinous criminals, but Wells-Barnett's reporting forced people to admit that perhaps vigilante justice was getting a bit out of control. She addressed the subject of vigilante justice itself as well. She was not arguing that white people should not be able to exact justice for wrongs done to them by black people, but she did insist that it be done within the scope of the law. Not only did many lynchings take place based on the mere charge of a crime having been committed, before any sort of legal trial had taken place, but they were often advertised in the local papers (so they were not surprise attacks that nobody knew to guard against); and in the case of Henry Smith, "[e]xcursions were run by all the railroads, and the mayor of the town gave the children a holiday so that they might see the sight." (199). "The sight" was a man who had been deemed an imbecile being burned alive after the father, brother, and uncle of his victim spent nearly an hour using red-hot irons to burn out his eyes and cook his toungue. You know, good old-fashioned, wholesome family fun.
The last section of the book focuses mainly on an event in New Orleans where a black man was sitting on a stoop when a police officer approached him and became abusive. He shot the officer in what was claimed to be self-defense. He ran away from the scene, the cop later died, and a manhunt was on. The town went insane and numerous black citizens were brutally murdered; some were just unfortunate enough to be present when a vindictive mob rolled through and some were actively sought out for abuse. The man was eventually found and gunned down after having shot many others in pursuit, and while many people would say, "Why didn't he just cooperate with the cop?" or "If he hadn't run in the first place, none of this would have happened," this case exemplifies the worst of what can happen when citizens don't think they will receive a fair trial and when vigilante justice is allowed to run amok. This man knew that as a black man who had shot a white cop in 1900 New Orleans there was NO WAY he was going to receive a fair trial if he even got a trial at all. From that point on, he was running for his life.
When Wells-Barnett tried to bring attention to lynching in America, it fell on many deaf ears. Thinking that international pressure would help, she began to plead her case abroad. While she did gain some support, she also ran up against "criticism of the movement appealing to the English people for sympathy and support in our crusade against Lynch Law that our action was unpatriotic, vindictive and useless." (121). It seems to me that when pointing out atrocities being done to your people gets you labled as unpatriotic and vindictive, it's a fairly good indication that you're on the right path.
This book is a compilation of three of Wells-Barnett's writings that were published between 1892 and 1900, so there was a lot of overlap--one case might be listed in one writing as an example of mob rule and in another as a case of a human being being burned alive. By the way, there's an entire section called "Burning Human Beings Alive" because that was a thing that happened often enough to earn its own category. There also seem to be some discrepacies in numbers. For example, the Chicago Tribune's lynching records from 1882-1899 show 2,533 lynchings (201-2). Near the beginning of the book, Wells-Barnett claims there were about 10,000 lynchings between 1864-1894 (58). In another section she breaks out 1894's lynchings by offense (134 total) and by month (197 total), neither number of which agrees with the Chicago Tribune's number of 190. So, I wish there had been some more explanation to how she came up with these figures, but given the time and manner of this publication and the importance of its subject, I'm willing to allow some leeway here.
This is one of those points in history that I know about...generally. I know lynchings happened, I know they were brutal, I know they were outside the law, but anytime I read about the specifics of these cases, it is shocking, not because I don't think that people are capable of this kind of thing or because I am surprised that it happened, but because I think that people are still capable of this kind of thing, because I can't imagine telling somebody who comes from this type of history to "get over it already." White people did this shit. While none of us today can be held personally accountable for any of the things that happened 100 years ago...or 50 years ago for that matter--well, OK, maybe some of us COULD be held personally responsible--we also need to be much better about acknowledging that it happened, acknowedging that it was awful, understanding that while your history might consist of stories of your great-great-grandfather who was a decorated general in the Civil War, other people's history is that their ancestors, the people of whom they are a part, were brutally beaten, burned alive, and had pieces of their bodies cut off and taken away as souvenirs because of the color of their skin and that the attitudes that allowed it to happen then are not that far below the surface in a lot of places now.
tieflingkisser's review
4.75
this ought to be required reading for every white person, especially every white american. the reality of this history and its legacy must necessarily be acknowledged and understood for progress toward justice.
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