In the book, Benching Jim Crow: The Rise and Fall of the Color Line in Southern College Sports, written by Martin H. Charles. Charles H. Martin is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso. The book, is divided into different eras that range from 1890 to 1980. Charles’ reveals how southern colleges implemented their racially exclusive programs and then integrated to a diverse competition. The first section of the book is called “Gentlemen’s Agreement” which occurred from 1890 to 1929.
George Elliot Clarke’s Execution Poems are originals poems that work to unearth beauty during a bleak and dark historical Canadian past. The poems seek to exemplify the ‘shades of grey’ illustrating to the complexity of such a crime committed by two struggling African American men who sought refuge in a heinous crime. “The Execution Poems”, by Clarke does not condone the crimes of these brothers; rather Clarke explores the various factors that may have perpetuated a murderous crime. Clarke utilizes imagery and diction to captivate the readers and illustrate the oppressive social structures throughout the mid 20th century that countless visual minorities, specifically African Americans/Canadian endured in Eastern Canada, New Brunswick. The
and I never learned about it in my history classes are Bemidji State University that I took for my Liberal Education requirements. Before I read the book I assumed from the title of the book that it would be about lynching’s of black people living
Before we begin to dive into the crimes that occurred in the book, Blood Done Signed My Name, we must first ask the question, what is crime? According to Michael Lynch, crime can be defined as “exactly what the law states” (Lynch 2015). Like anything else a strict definition like this can have both positive and negatives associated with it. With using such a strict definition of crime it allows people to have no room to try and get around it. If we use a loose interpretation then it allows for people to use said definition on more of a case by case period.
I had known about lynching before this book however Dr. DeGruy goes into detail about the horrific acts. She explains how men that went though no legal process were brutally beaten burned and lynched simply because they talked or looked a white women or simply just stood up for them self. Its disgust me that people would take pictures and treat a lynching like a joyful ceremony. It is disturbing to think that another man would cut off another man 's body parts and keep them as a souvenir. This really made think about the atrocities that were committed in our country that no one has paid
Southern Horrors Lynch Law in All Its Phases Book Review Da B. Wells-Barnett has written the book under review. The book has been divided into six chapters that cover the various themes that author intended to fulfill. The book is mainly about the Afro-Americans and how they were treated within the American society in the late 1800s. The first chapter of the book is “the offense” band this is the chapter that explains the issues that have been able to make the Afro-American community to be treated in a bad way by the whites in the United States in the late 1800s.
There have been many cases revolving around lynching. For instance, the famous case of Emmit Till, a young African American boy brutally murdered. Before the murder, Till decided to whistle at a white woman named Carolyn Bryant. Consequently, little did Till know that the funny joke of a whistle would cause him great misery and agony. On the night of the tragedy, two men, Roy Bryant, and J.W. Milam, went to Till’s granduncle's house looking for Till.
Bryan Stevenson, who is an American lawyer, was being interviewed by The Times when he nonchalantly compared the modern day death penalty to lynchings that happened during the times of slavery. The interview was about Bryan’s opinion on lynchings and how he compared these lynchings to terrorism. Although Bryan has a strong opinion about this subject I have to disagree with statement where he compared the death penalty and lynching. The death penalty is made for people who have not followed the law and was arrested for something illegal, where lynchings were an thoughtless action slave owners did to make their slaves fear them and work harder.
McKay, Claude, “Enslaved” https://poemanalysis.com/claude-mckay/enslaved/, 23 April, 2024. McKay uses this poem to talk about racism and how African Americans are judged by people because of stereotypes and that they are different. This poem sheds the light on racism, and how African Americans are treated on a normal daily basis. McKay, Claude, “If We Must Die” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44694/if-we-must-die, 23 April, 2024. McKay uses this poem to explain that he wants to die in a way that is honorable and respected.
Richard Wright’s poem “Between the World and Me” mourns the tragic scene of a gruesome lynching, and expresses its harsh impact on the narrator. Wright depicts this effect through the application of personification, dramatic symbolism, and desperate diction that manifests the narrator’s agony. In his description of the chilling scene, Wright employs personification in order to create an audience out of inanimate objects. When the narrator encounters the scene, he sees “white bones slumbering forgottenly upon a cushion of ashes,” and a sapling “pointing a blunt finger accusingly at the sky.”
Very few whites showed any emotion or horror to these spectacles of violence. It was common to see white families with children gawking and cheering at the hanging and charred bodies. Mark Twain once said that about every white Southerner celebrated mob violence. Lynching was a crude and brutal tool used for white supremacy, used by many lynch mobs (Fitzhugh Brundage,4). Some tortures included cutting off of the fingers, toes, ears, and genitals which would be sold to the crowd as souvenirs (Robert L Zangrando, 1).
Racial tensions during the 1920s, in which “Incident” was written, were especially high, with a dramatic increase in membership of the KKK and Klan “manipulation of state and local politics” (3), an uptick in hate crimes, race rioting resulting in imprisonment or death for hundreds of black Americans, and the poor treatment of black soldiers coming home from WWI all contributing to one of the most racially charged time periods in American history. Despite racism being a daily and lifelong experience for the vast majority of African Americans during this time, Cullen depicts racism as solely singular throughout the duration of the poem, extending its singularity even to the title itself—“Incident.” So then, given the prevalence of racism at the time, why did Cullen make the decision to limit the experience to one isolated
Was It Right? Within the 1920’s there were approximately around 3,496 and counting reported lynchings all over the south, In Alabama there were 361, Arkansas 492, Florida 313, Georgia 590, Kentucky 168, Louisiana 549, Mississippi 60,North Carolina 123, South Carolina 185, Tennessee 233, Texas 338, and Virginia 84 lynchings (Lynching in America). These are just some of the numbers introduced during the 1920’s for the reported lynchings. Lynching was used for public appeal for the people to show justice on the blacks and to punish them so the whites could return to “white supremacy”.
“Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze”. (Meeropol 3). Abel Meeropol wrote this poem to show that it is bad to hang people. This poem gives my head horrible images of what people like me and everyone I know actually watched those lynchings and never got disgusted or did anything to stop them.
The lynching of Jube Benson The Short story, “The lynching of Jube Benson”, by the African-American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar, takes place in the southern parts of the USA in the 1900s, which is at the same time as the emancipation of the slaves. More accurately, the story takes place in Gordon Fairfax’s library, where three men were present; Handon Gay, who is an educated reporter, Gordon Fairfax, who is an library owner and Doctor Melville, who is a doctor. The author collocate these three men at jobs which is powerful in the society. The story is about a white narrator, Doctor Melville, who explains, to the two others, that he has been involved in a lynching of his black friend, Jube Benson.
