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On the third floor of the Sterling C. Evans Library, in the west-wing of the building, lies a corridor of portraits depicting iconographies of historic African Americans. The exhibit showcases
By Jonah Raskin |
Jack London’s ashes, which are buried under a rock on Sonoma Mountain in Northern California, must be calling wildly to the living. In a new movie just out, that’s titled
Jack London’s Martin Eden, Russ Brissenden, one of the main characters, who also figures in the novel, Martin Eden, is an African-American. The film also features two women of color who are labor activists and socialists. In London’s 1908 book there are no Black characters or people of color. Brissenden is as white as can be.
In fact, there are no significant Black characters in any of London’s 50 books, though there are some Mexicans and some Asians. The author wanted the real world to be for whites only. He mostly populated his fictional universe with white men and white women.
On December 4
th, 1931, a Black man named Mark Williams was murdered by a mob in Salisbury, Maryland.
[1] Accused of killing his white employer, Williams was taken from his hospital bed, hanged from a tree until he died, dragged into Salisbury’s Black neighborhood, doused in gasoline and set on fire.
[2] Lynchings like these were not uncommon in many states and had become a national problem after the end of Reconstruction.
These kinds of “spectacle” lynchings almost always included a ritual similar to Williams’ murder, with the torture and public execution (by hanging, stabbing, shooting, and/or burning alive) of primarily Black men but also Black women and children. It often culminated with spectators taking pieces of the victim’s body as souvenirs and with pictures taken.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Groups that support President Trump and his fabricated claims about the election rallied over the weekend. There was violence. People were stabbed here in the nation s capital. And historic Black churches were targeted in what police are calling potential hate crimes. Black Lives Matter banners were torn down. They were set on fire. One of those banners was ripped from the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. That is one of Washington s oldest churches organized by African Americans. The pastor of Metropolitan AME Church, William Lamar IV, joins us now.
Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
WILLIAM LAMAR IV: Thank you so much.