Learn about the history of lynching in America.
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Good morning,
Today's anti-racism daily was the most emotionally unsettling one for me to write. This is a cold and brutal part of our past AND our present, and we cannot continue to look away. I remember getting on the bus in 1st grade and another kid reminding me that "they still lynch people like me". I remember learning about lynchings for the first time in high school, watching our history teacher flip through slides of Black bodies hanging from trees, eyes stinging with tears as all the other students looked at me. And as the teacher couldn't meet my eyes. I was the only Black kid in the class. I share this today because we cannot look away from our history – we must face it, defiantly, and demand for it to change.
If you get anything from today's email, please realize that all of this is happening at the same time. The calls for justice for Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch. The updated tally of lynchings reported from the EJI. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act held up in the Senate. These are all current events that have occurred in the past few weeks. Events that also carry the weight of generations.
Thank you to everyone that has contributed one-time or monthly to make this possible. You can make a contribution via PayPal, Patreon or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza).
– Nicole
TAKE ACTION
1. Sign the change.org petitions for justice for Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch.
2. As you click through the articles linked below, reflect on the following:
Who was this article written by? A white man? A white woman? A person of color? Was this article written by a Black person?
GET EDUCATED
The history of lynching in America.
Please note: this is a gruesome subject. Some sources linked here include graphic imagery.
As racial tensions flare both in the U.S. and around the world, it is bone chilling to read the reports that two Black men were found dead hanging from trees in California. Malcolm Harsch, 38, was found outside a library in Victorville, California, on May 31 with a USB cord wrapped around his neck. Ten days later and only 50 miles away, Robert Fuller, 24, was found hanging from a tree in a square across from City Hall in Palmdale, California. Local authorities did not find foul play in either death and Robert Fuller's death was initially ruled a suicide, but families of both victims are rallying for deeper investigations. The FBI and the DOJ's Civil Rights Division announced Monday that they are "'actively reviewing' the investigations into the hanging deaths of Fuller and Harsch 'to determine whether there are violations of federal law.'"
This story offers more words and perspectives from family members of the two deceased men.
To fully understand how terrifying and unsettling these deaths are, we have to understand the terrible history of lynching in America. Lynching, by definition, is "to put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal approval or permission". (On Wikipedia, lynching is defined as a "practice" which sends chills down my spine). Although lynchings have happened to people of all races – it became a popular way for white people to show their outrage against new-found freedom of enslaved Black people in the late 19th century, particularly in the South.
Lynchings were often public murders of Black people hung by ropes in trees. A noose, or lynch rope, was a common symbol of white supremacy and hatred against Black people. Some lynchings would be done at night in secret, for a body to be discovered in the morning. Some lynchings were popular public events where people would gather for the occasion, buy souvenirs and take photos with the victim.
Although initial reports estimate that there were over 4,500 racial terror lynchings in the period between 1877 and 1950, a new report released last week by the Equal Justice Initiative, a 31-year-old legal advocacy group based in Montgomery, Alabama, has discovered an additional 2,000 more. You can read a review of the report here and the full report here.
“We cannot understand our present moment without recognizing the lasting damage caused by allowing white supremacy and racial hierarchy to prevail during Reconstruction.”
― Bryan Stevenson, Director of the Equal Justice Initiative
Despite all of this, lynchings are not considered a federal crime. But in February 2020, after over 120 years, the House of Representatives have approved a bill declaring lynchings a federal hate crime. As of last week, it is currently still stalled in the Senate. Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills have been rejected by Congress during the first half of the 20th century.
The name of the bill is the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, named after one of the most notorious lynchings in American history. Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy who, in 1955, was accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. The woman's husband and brother-in-law abducted Emmett and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the river. When his body was found and returned to his family, his mother held a funeral with an open casket so the world could see how horribly tortured and mutilated the body was, sparking the catalyst for the civil rights movement. Read more about his story here >
Emmett Till's murderers were acquitted by an all-white jury. The woman that accused Emmett Till, Carolyn Bryant Donham, admitted she made up the allegations that sparked the violence. She is still alive and has never been charged of a crime. Emmett Till would be 79 years old if he were still alive today.
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