Ideology Of Racism In The U.S.: Lynchings

Posted: 11/18/2013  Updated: 1/26/2017, 2/22/2015

Update Of 1/26/2017

Recently, the Smithsonian Magazine published this article: This Map Shows Over a Century of Documented Lynchings in the United States  Mapping the history of racial terror

Here again a government affiliated institution perpetrates and repeats the false ideology that black Americans were the only ones lynched. The interactive map covers the period 1830 - 1960 and allows you to see where these lynchings occurred.

Remarks:

1. According to the above article, there were only about one lynching of a black American per week during the period of 1873 - 1950 in the entire United States. Unlike, the prevailing official, ideological narrative supported by horrific pictures which suggests or creates the impression that these lynchings happened every day at every street corner
2. The article above makes a scarce mentioning that other people were also lynched during the 1830 - 1960 period. Just hinting at Hispanics or “dark skinned” Sicilians were lynched
3. The article does not mention at all whether any whites were lynched during this period. Fact is (see for details below) that also thousands were lynched! Probably, the accurate numbers of lynchings of whites during this period has never been as thoroughly researched as that of blacks. I may hypothesize that lynchings of whites could even be more difficult to document, e.g. horse thieves.
4. The article above contains the rather astonishing sentence “Finally, the accusations levelled against Mexican- or dark skinned Sicilian-Americans to justify their murder were typically different than the charges made against black Americans.” This is incredible!
5. In my opinion, the illegal, extrajudicial practice of lynching was quite common in the U.S. during this period of time. These lynchings were not exclusively directed at African Americans as we are made to believe by the official narrative

Here is another, more recent, related blog post of mine.

Trigger

Yesterday (11/17/2013), I watched “Making a Way Out of No Way (1897-1940)” at PBS.org from the “THE AFRICAN AMERICANS: MANY RIVERS TO CROSS” hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr.. Hurry, this video though paid for (not entirely) by our tax dollars will expire on 12/9/2013 (Why PBS videos expire online is a mystery to me).

Of course, Prof. Gates discussed lynchings and showed harrowing pictures of men and women being hanged from trees, bridges etc. I believe, the documentary also showed a poster etc. claiming that lynching happens every 24 hours or so.

Perception Matters

These gruesome pictures of lynchings have been shown so many times over and over again that the whole world believes that the USA first killed off the American Natives then the African Americans. Please excuse my hyperbole!

However, perceptions are not facts!

Actual Statistics

I bet you that few people in the U.S. nor in the rest of the world know how many people were actually lynched. I also bet you that this is not widely taught at public school in the U.S.

Please do not get me wrong! Every murder is one too many! The murderers should have been punished to the full extent of the law including capital punishment!

According to Wikipedia “The Tuskegee Institute has recorded 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites were lynched between 1882 and 1968.” (source). Here is a more detailed statistics also derived from the Tuskegee Institute showing lynchings by state over the same period. Here is the same statistics by year. “Tuskegee remains the single most complete source of statistics and records on this crime since 1882.” so Wikipedia. I cannot confirm this myself.

Salient features:

1. This translates into 40 lynchings of black people per year.
2. One may also note that whites were lynched too in significant numbers.
3. In 40 states considerably more whites were lynched than blacks
4. The record of black lynchings was set in 1891 with 161 or about 14 per months.
5. The decade of most black lynchings was 1890-99 with a total of 1,026 or 103 per year
6. In the following decade and later black lynchings were already significantly less. From 1900-1909 a total of 685 blacks were lynched.

Today (2/21/2015), learnt from Wikipedia here that the Tuskegee numbers of lynched whites represent actually all races and ethnic minorities other than African-American.

Global History Of Lynching

According to Wikipedia, lynching is by far not an North American phenomenon and that it dates further back in history. However, Wikipedia is very vague on the history of lynching in other parts of the world and committed before the 19th century.

This is regrettable since I suspect that mob killings have been committed since ancient times.

Previous, Related Blog Post

See here. There are more references in that blog post.