A black American man killed by hanging in a lynching in 1925
Lynching
The legal and cultural antecedents of American lynching were carried across the Atlantic by migrants from the British Isles to colonial North America. Collective violence was a familiar aspect of the early modern Anglo-American legal landscape. Group violence in the British Atlantic was usually nonlethal in intention and consequence but it occasionally shaded, particularly in the seventeenth century in the context of political turmoil in England and unsettled social and political conditions in the American colonies, into rebellions and riots that took multiple lives. During the Antebellum, assertive free-Blacks, Latinos in the South West and runaways were the object of racial lynching. But lynching attacks on U.S. blacks, especially in the South, increased dramatically in the aftermath of the Civil War, after slavery had been abolished and recently freed black men gained the right to vote. Violence rose even more at the end of the 19th century, after southern white Democrats regained their political power in the South in the 1870s. States passed new constitutions or legislation which effectively disfranchisedmost blacks and many poor whites, established segregation of public facilities by race, and separated blacks from common public life and facilities. Nearly 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, mostly from 1882 to 1920.
Lynching during the 19th century in the British Empire coincided with a period of violence which denied people participation in white-dominated society on the basis of race after the Emancipation Act of 1833.
Today lynching is a felony in all states of the United States, defined by some codes of law as “any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person which results in the death of the person,” with a “mob” being defined as “the assemblage of two or more persons, without color or authority of law, for the premeditated purpose and with the premeditated intent of committing an act of violence upon the person of another.” Lynching in the second degree is defined as “any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person and from which death does not result”. To sustain a conviction for lynching, at least some evidence of premeditation must be produced, but “the common intent to do violence” may be formed before or during the assemblage.
The Origins of Lynching Culture in the United States
How did the practice of lynching begin and evolve in American history? How did Ida B. Wells, a black female investigative journalist, start to challenge some of the entrenched practices of the South? Watch Paula Giddings, professor of Afro-American Studies at Smith College, explore one of the most challenging topics in U.S. history: the history and origins of lynching. Find out more:
Overview
As Scout and Jem confront the issues of difference and belonging embedded in their community, Harper Lee’s choice to tell the story through the eyes of Scout becomes more crucial to the story. Scout’s wide-eyed naiveté heightens the impact of both the social expectations she resists and the injustices she sees unfold. Indeed, one of the primary narrative arcs of the novel is Scout’s “coming of age” through these experiences. At the same time, Scout’s lack of life experience and knowledge about the world she inhabits leaves readers with gaps to fill in their own understanding of several important events and characters in the book.
Scout’s reliability as the narrator is important to understand because of what it shows about both the value and limitations of attempting to “walk in someone else’s skin.” As students simultaneously grapple with Scout’s limited perspective and observe it slowly expand as the story unfolds, they might reflect on the ways in which their own perspectives are limited, as are everyone’s. By wrestling with these challenges, students can begin to strengthen their understanding and practice of empathy. them to back down?
BBC’s Racism: History- A lynching in Texas in 1916
A vid from BBC’s Documentary racism this seen tells the story of a boy who was lynched and burned alive in Texas in 1916 it is very shocking! (I do not own this vid)
