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Youth and the Lynching Evil
By Juanita E. Jackson
It is a bright sunshiny morning in the hills
of Mississippi -- the little town of Carrollton. in one of the
crude cabins that dot the Negro section a nine year old boy
awakens to find that his clothes have been hidden from him.
He calls to his mother, busy in the kitchen.
"Go back to sleep an hour longer, son, and then you can get
dressed," she soothingly but firmly responds.
Finding no help from that quarter, the lad
tries his own ingenuity, finds the clothes, and slips out the
window.
Such a beautiful morning it is. The boy's
eyes shine as he gazes at the color all around. But there is a
noise in the air like the hum of a huge swarm of bees, only
louder. He turns in the direction of the sound and finds his way
down the dirt road toward the center of town. The noise
gets louder and louder, presently he is at the town square.
What a great crowd of people! Men are
slapping each other on the back with glee, swapping crude jokes
with raucous laughter. Women hold children on their shoulders to
see something which holds the gaze of the milling crowd. Young
men, with sweethearts clinging to their arms, thread their way
in and out of the throng, pointing to what the nine-year-old
can't see.
The youngster pushes his way between the legs
of tall men, around the skirts of women until he comes out on
the front fringe of the crowd, and looks up to see that which is
the object of the crowd's gleeful amusement and pride.
Why--that--that's Aunt Betsy, hanging to the
limb of that tree on the courthouse lawn! Aunt Betsy is dead!
Aunt Betsy who had the big beautiful carriages and the shiny
black horses, who owned more land than anyone in Carrollton
County. Aunt Betsy who was the joy of the colored folks and the
envy of all the whites. This couldn't happen to her!
But Aunt Betsy wasn't alone. there was her
son Dick beside her--Dick, who used to shoot marbles with this
boy of nine. And next to Dick--why, that's Mary! Mary, who used
to give such large brown cookies to all the children, for she
had no little one of her own.
He can't understand--the three of them, his
friends, all quiet and still, while white folks laugh. The
terror-stricken child, bursting into tears, slips through the
crowd and rushes down the road to his mother.
I always watch the light go out of my
father's eyes when he tells how his busy mother stopped her
work, took the sobbing boy in her arms and gently rocked him in
the old kitchen rocker. She told him what had happened.
Aunt Betsy owned much for a
"n-----r" woman. When hard times came in Carrollton,
mutterings were heard. "If n----rs didn't own everything,
white folks' children could have sump'n ter eat." Jealous
farmers, avidly eyeing Aunt Betsy's farms, stimulated these
murmurings. And white folks hated Aunt Betsy.
An old white man and a woman had been
murdered. The bloody axe was found in Aunt Betsy kitchen. And,
without the semblance of a trial, Aunt Betsy and her family, who
steadfastly denied all knowledge of the crime, had been taken
from their home, and had been strung up at sundown, on the
courthouse lawn.
"That's what Mama tried to save you
from, honey. But you had to see it for yourself. You got to
begin learning your lesson now, son. you're different. You're
colored. Black-skinned folks can't want to earn a decent living,
to educate themselves, to be intelligent and at the same time
live peacefully in Carrollton. Son, learn your lesson
well!"
And my father often remarks, "I've
learned it too well."
I count the years since my father was a
nine-year-old boy, 43-44-45 years. During the succeeding years
there have occurred nearly 5,000 such lynchings.
Facts about Lynchings
In fact, since 1882, 5,105 lynchings have
taken place there. Contrary to common impressions, less than one
sixth of the persons lynched have even been accused of any sort
of sex crimes. The great majority of the lynched victims were
accused only of minor offenses. No punishment was inflicted on
the lynchers in 99.2% of the lynchings; and in eighth-tenths of
one per cent of the lynchings where punishment of the lynchers
followed, the punishment was slight.
From 1919 to 1935, 25 persons were roasted
alive, and 20 more bodies were burned after the victims were
lynched.
Ninety-nine women have been lynched.
from 1890 to 1900 nearly one-third of the
lynched victims were white. But since 1900 scarcely one-tenth of
the victims have been white. So that lynching is a racial
phenomenon.
It happens in America -- nowhere else.
The Immediate Need
While we work toward the ultimate goal,
lynchings continue, preventing effective progress toward its
realization. if we believe that the way toward the permanent
eradication of lynching lies in the building of a better
economic society, and if we believe that this can be done
through
(1) Making the facts about race relations available to white and
colored citizens, developing interracial understanding between
them;
(2) Organization of Negro and white workers together, leading to
an understanding of their common interests and the need of
cooperation;
(3) Electing to office public officials who will help build a
new economic order;
than we must face the fact that mob rule
today is paralyzing most of these efforts. Mob rule closes all
avenues to understanding and widens the gap of hate between the
races, breading lawlessness and ruthlessness. Lynching is
systematically used to keep the Negro and white workers from
meeting or organizing together, as is seen in the lynching of
the organizers of the Southern tenant Farmers union. Lynching,
or the threat of mob violence, is one of the methods of keeping
the Negro away from the polls and therefore from voting into
office the type of public officials who will be interested in
the welfare of all the people.
Thus lynching is not only the effect of a
cause, but becomes the instrument of perpetuating that cause! Then
there is the immediate task of curbing the lynching habit now.
The National Association for the Advancement
of colored people, an interracial organization, realizing this
need, started out in 1909 to lead the first militant,
persistent, organized fight against lynching. So effective has
been its work that today over forty million American citizens
are backing the fight for an adequate federal anti-lynching
bill. this organization uses three main weapons: (1) the
education of public opinion through the newspapers through the
newspapers, pulpit, platform, radio, holding of mass meetings
and conferences, investigation of lynchings and the publication
of the proven facts about lynching; (2) the organized use of the
ballot to defeat those candidates for public office who are not
interested in the welfare of Negro citizens, and who are opposed
to anti-lynching legislation; (3) the endorsement of
legislation, as is seen in the present efforts for the enactment
of an anti-lynching bill.
Youth Joins The Fight
It is time for the youth of America to
participate in the fight against lynching. For, interestingly
enough, it is largely the young Negro Americans who are
the lynchers.
On February 12th, the birthday of the great
emancipator, Lincoln, white and Negro youth will unite with the
youth councils and college chapters of the national Association
for the Advancement of Colored people in the First National
Youth Demonstration Against Lynching. They will demand that the
youth of America be emancipated from lynching, urging the
enactment of an adequate federal anti-lynching bill.
Source: Interracial Review,
February 1937*
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update 30 April 2009 |
