Negro 1960s Violence Focus on Lynching - Report Example

Negro 1960s Violence Focus On Lynching [Insert Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction and Background 3 A Brief History of Lynching in America 4 The Lynching of African Americans 5 The Lynching of African Americans in the 60s 7 The Response of African Americans to Lynching, Racial Oppression and Discrimination 10 Conclusion 11 Introduction and Background The American Negro community experience was not a very peaceable one through the many repressive years of slavery and after the abolition of slavery. In particular, racial contempt created a social and political encounter in which the African Americans were deprived many rights and privileges. Nevertheless, they thrived and sometime undertook great exploits in agricultures, commerce and other ventures which made them envied. Lynching laws therefore thrived because state authorities that implemented the rule of law were sometimes biased and mostly incapacitated by lack of capacity, logistical inadequacies and deprived political autonomy. The source base of this paper is particularly suitable on the basis that they derive evidence about the lynching of African Americans from the primary documents. They particularly analyze the organization of lynching mobs; they analyze the social labels of race and superiority as a determining factor for lynching and give evidence on the account of legislations which perpetuated racial hatred and oligarchic tendencies among the White Americans.  Lynching is the experience whereby an irate mob takes the law in its hands to punish a perceived wrong or potentially imagined ill intentions by hanging, beheading or other forms of killing1. Lynching has a long history in the American experience. However, the history of organized vigilantism and lynching laws is traceable to Col. Charles Lynch in Virginia during the American Revolution. It is recorded that whenever there were unsettled circumstances and the Colonel’s associates felt the threat of menacing opponents, criminals or Tories, they responded by simply making their own ruling and enacted swift punishment. Lynching rapidly got entrenched as a mechanism of swift justice deployed for reducing anticipated or imagined criminal behavior and mob rule thrived mainly as a result of the fact that systems of governance occasionally collapsed when a society is constrained by turbulent social encounters among the populations. A Brief History of Lynching in America In the beginning stages, lynching laws were rampant and they targeted principally any persons considered dangerous by the definition of white dominant classes. In this regard, the principal culprits were horse thieves, cattle rustlers, gamblers and other forms of ‘desperadoes.’ During the Pre-Civil War times, the social and political circumstances never essentially singled out any social segment of the society to be the diminished segment. Nonetheless, historical events in the later eras altered the social and political terrain considerably and spelled broad social and political divides among races and societies. After the abolition of slavery, and in the later years after 1880s, lynching and many other forms of mob violence reflected concrete racial and social-political agendas2. It was during this time that white Americans began to feel themselves as the dominant segment of the society and that other people like the Jews, Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian or European newcomers as the problem of the American society. The American society of the time was thriving in many ways. Nonetheless, since race got entrenched as a defining social consideration and the white Americans sought to impress their imperialism, lynching and mob violence became very prevalent chiefly as the sole means of impressing the mercantilist and social superiority of the white Americans3. Success in trade or commerce was an important consideration and the society of the white Americans felt intimidated whenever an African firmer thrived or other race made progress. Profit motive therefore dictated that a black firmer making progress would take away useful opportunity from the whites. Once lynching proved effective through the many years of its trial, it became a useful tool and became indiscriminately deployed by various social groups. The economic superiority of the whites reinforced their capacity to deploy covert operations which targeted persons they thought were not advancing their agendas. It went to a stage when lynching therefore was deployed to target other persons branded as demeaning economic opportunity for the white Americans. At this stage, lynching targeted union organizers, civil rights advocates and political radicals with views that were unpopular among white Americans. Later, even persons who criticized America’s involvement in the First World War were targets. The Lynching of African Americans Lynching cannot be presumed to have been merely a method of punishment separate from the social and communal discourses in the American turbulent ethnic and social relations among the people. Therefore, lynching occupies a symbolic and social status in history as a mechanism of social and political perpetuation of the hegemonic influence of the dominant social classes in the society. The symbolic status of the perpetrator was an authority above the law. Such an authority either regarded the law as sluggish or incapable or examining their moral authority against that of their victim and therefore disregarded the necessity of the law to examine the moral engagement and responsibilities that existed between them and the potential victim4. African Americans were predominantly on the receiving end first because of the historical fact of slavery and secondly as a result of the fact that the African Americans tended to thrive, particularly after the abolition of slavery. This was perceived as a threat to white supremacy. The United States has a long history of abidance in the laws and of law violation. In fact, the proclamation of independence was an event in contravention of the British imperial law governing the colony. Nevertheless, throughout the experiences of slavery, African Americans were primarily chattels, sold and bought in auctions and therefore, despite the fact that their labor was extracted through inhumane conditions, they were before the law chattels. The white Americans, who owned the slave, had very little regard for the law on the manner they prescribed to handle their slaves let alone when such slaves were to face punishment5. The disregard for the law therefore had a historical handle among the white whenever there were issues of conflict to address. The federal government thrived and legislations were passed but several clauses still tended the African American and other minority races a second place before the law. After the emancipation, several amendments of the law made it clear that the blacks were equal to the white. In fact, the thirteenth amendment, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments and a number of other federal reconstruction laws included clauses that the African Americans particularly in the south would be equals before the law. Nevertheless, the southerners were just as determined to defeat the law at every instance and still largely practiced white supremacist ritual deaths of African Americans. In such a social climate, ritual race terror were undertaken at a time when the laws were also being amended that denied black people the right to vote. Notwithstanding, legislations were passed in the same period that designated separate civil and social facilities. The Jim Craw laws and civility went on with misgivings on either sides of the social divide to a land mark case that settled the grounds for inequality once more. In the famous case of Plessy v. Ferguson [1896], a defining clause of the racial arrangement was inserted which shed light as the nature of relation between the races was ‘equal but separate’6. During the period of the last fifteen years of the 19th century, there had been 2, 500 lynching and of the total, the African Americans accounted for the most of the victims. Nonetheless, on the social and the political front, progress had been attained and many blacks thrived and had dignified lives. During the new century, a number of African Americans were lynched for various reasons of disobedience and misconduct as perceived by the white community. A great other number were victims for reasons that they thrived economically or socially which was interpreted as a loss of opportunity for the white Americans. In total, before the outbreak of the First World War, about 1, 100 African American had been lynched and a lot other cases vanished without any reports7. During the war, a lot many blacks were lynched by German Americans and an additional number were lynched as they returned from the war. The Lynching of African Americans in the 60s The terrain racial engagement in the American South always remained racially heated. It is the tensions of race and laws that proscribed a subservient state of existence for African Americans in the south that prompted extensive agitation among the community to demand for civil rights. Nonetheless, whereas civil rights movements were underway in the south, many African Americans frequently became victims of white high handedness in many occasions8. Lynching continued in earnest first to dissuade Africans from organizing themselves and secondly for the expression of economic and political power of the white community. Despite the progress achieved through legislations and in overall social advancement in the inter-racial interaction in America, labeling nonetheless thrived and was evoked whenever any aspects of interracial conflict surfaced. Since African Americans recognized themselves are the primary target, a lot of campaign was initiated by elite African Americans to raise awareness about lynching in the South9. The Lynching of blacks, particularly in the South was characterized by the show of White American prestige and power. It was characterized by sloth and was meant to institute, for the white community a social interpretation popularly termed the Jim Craw laws. These laws primarily served to designate racial boundaries and designated the white community as the dominant and superior and consequently a second-class status to the African Americans. These laws and social order was meant to establish further a social and political order which supported the economic control of the states by the white. The economic motive was an overriding interest in almost all of the lynching instances in the south. For instance, after the lynching of an African American farmer, or an immigrant merchant, all their economic facilities would be pillaged by the white community. Unlike in the period of racial disenfranchisement when terror would be deployed to keep the other races from voting, the consideration of race was not a key issue in the later 20th century10. In the 1960s, voting was not very principle demand which warranted terror by the white supremacist. An act that often evoked white rage was the agitation among black community for equal representation and equal rights. During the later years of the 20th century, the amount of government deployment everywhere to control excessive civil violence was enormous. In this respect, lynching deployments were very calculated and the whites would never show pride for their actions. Most of the incidences of lynching were witnessed around the end of the year. These incidences were evoked as a result of tensions in business and when the vulnerability of the lives of the African tenants was brought to the fore with the white landlords. At this stage, most of the racial violence was the result of economic difference and was undertaken particularly when the blacks defaulted to pay their rent and the white landlords had really nothing of economic value to salvage from such households. Other times lynching were done was when a black could not settle debts owed to white merchant and the white merchant though that the due process of the law would delay justice. On the western front, most of the lynching was done when the white perceived that some black desperadoes were a threat to their property or their peaceful lives and homes11. In particular, whenever blacks were suspected as horse thieves, they would be lynched. In many instance, cattle wrestlers were lynched by merely suspecting them because the whites perceived the rule of the law to be a bit distant. Inter-racial relationships were another motivation to the lynching of African Americans. Rivalry for mates, particularly among whites who desired black females often resulted in a possible lynching of the black youths who had close proximity to the female in question. In other instances, black male youths who had sexual relationships with the white were often lynched as a result of perceived racial encroachment and infraction. It is important to link occasional murder cases with lynching in this era because they emanated from almost similar social and economic circumstances even if the methods of deployment differed12. A lynching spree is often done with not much concealment while a murder case is often perpetrated in total concealment. Nonetheless, in the scenario in the south particularly, if it was perceived that there was any rivalry between some section of the white community and the black community, it often ended in the murder of the black victim in circumstances that echoed lynching. The Response of African Americans to Lynching, Racial Oppression and Discrimination African Americans organized themselves and rallied extensively through various methods and avenues to counteract oppression. While civil rights activists organized demonstrations and civil disobedience in many instances to counteract oppressive laws, there were other leaders and elites arranging for various methods to uplift the African Americans from their status of poverty and servitude. In addition, there were methods deployed by African Americans to counteract lynching. In particular, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) led a lot of campaigns to defeat lynching laws. Among African American women organizations, funds were collected to advance the cause of the Black society. In total, between 1882 and 1968, about 200 anti-lynching laws had been passed and a great number of them defeated. The Republican Party supported laws in the burgeoning period that defeated the lynching practices due to the fact that the north always opposed the south due to the many economic differences13. In the period of 1940s to the early 1970s, a huge number of blacks migrated from the south into the North as a way of escaping the hostility in the south. In addition, many African Americans sought better educational opportunities and as result crossed the line of segregation by attaining better livelihoods and progressive status. Through mass mobilization and mass action, many Africans organized themselves into gangs to protect their interests and these gangs had legitimacy on the account that the condition of the African Americans was deteriorating rapidly. A few African elites published widely and travelled all over the world agitating for fairer treatment of the blacks in the United States. Literary engagement of the white was another avenue where Africans proved themselves equally capable. In other quarters, a few African Americans were getting richer and would never be oppressed by whatever laws the states enacted. This is the time that gradually African voices started getting noticed as a proper section of the American society14. Conclusion The act of lynching is not an isolated aspect in the entire typology of racial encounter and the broader American social and civil experience. Since incidences of lynching have been eliminated through legislations, African Americans can only hope that race will one time become a thing of the past. Every person who is violated and discriminated often finds himself motivated to defeat the discriminating agent and often finds moral justification to all manners of mechanism to counteract discrimination. Nonetheless, if the discriminating agent is too powerful, it leads to annihilation and then a people may resort to long cast approaches to gradually escape and attain safety against their oppressor. The African Americans who have lived with oppression and brutal means of the oppressor are socially and politically annihilated to some extent because any legal, structural methods of reaction are often defeated historically. In many instances, the social systems gradually adjust to acceptance and forbearance of the adverse conditions as given particularly when they can be survived through gradualism. Racial prejudice and discrimination is an aspect African Americans will handle with forbearance for many years to come because it has thrived long enough and despite many attempts to realize total emancipation and total equality, not so much popular acceptance of such a state is foreseeable. The annihilation of racial violence can be endured occasionally; however, the issues of lynching and extreme violence are now considerably eliminated through laws and social progress. Both in the south and the American north, laws and social safeguards are in place to at least protect the dignity of all persons. Historical social and economic inequality may remain for much longer; however, Americans have changed gradually to appreciate multi-culturalism and diversity particularly with the onset of the Obama presidency. Bibliography 1. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013. 2. Bright, Stephen B. "Discrimination, death and denial: The tolerance of racial discrimination in infliction of the death penalty." Santa Clara L. Rev. 35 (1994): 433. 3. Brown, Anthony, and Keffrelyn Brown. "Strange fruit indeed: Interrogating contemporary textbook representations of racial violence toward African Americans." The Teachers College Record 112, no. 1 (2010). 4. Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and Vincent P. Franklin, eds. Sisters in the struggle: African American women in the civil rights-black power movement. NYU Press, 2001. 5. Feagin, Joe R. "The continuing significance of race: Antiblack discrimination in public places." American Sociological Review (1991): 101-116. 6. Lawson, Steven F. Running for freedom: Civil rights and black politics in America since 1941. John Wiley & Sons, 2011. 7. Luders, Joseph. "The Economics of Movement Success: Business Responses to Civil Rights Mobilization1." American Journal of Sociology 111, no. 4 (2006): 963-998. 8. Massey, Douglas S. American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Harvard University Press, 1993. 9. Mayeri, Serena. "" A Common Fate of Discrimination": Race-Gender Analogies in Legal and Historical Perspective." Yale Law Journal (2001): 1045-1087. 10. Miller, Jerome G. Search and destroy: African-American males in the criminal justice system. Cambridge University Press, 1996. 11. Omi, Michael. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. Psychology Press, 1994. 12. Russell-Brown, Katheryn. The color of crime: Racial hoaxes, white fear, black protectionism, police harassment, and other macroaggressions. NYU Press, 1998. 13. Sigelman, Lee. Black Americans views of racial inequality: The dream deferred. CUP Archive, 1994. 14. Smith, J. Douglas. Managing white supremacy: Race, politics, and citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2002. Read More