Back. Im sure none of you remember what happened 60 years ago. Emmett till was a 14yearold boy from chicago, spending the summer with his uncle in mississippi. He had a son who was his age. They were done in mississippi, having a good summertime, two days before this day. 60 years ago on august 24, emmett till had gone into a local Country Store called meats and grocery. He was hanging with other guys. And he goes into the store to purchase something. He was that the he was at the cash register. He sees the Grocery Store owner with her husband. Something happened at that point. Theres only one person who is alive today who knows what happened. And that is carolyn bryant. Ok . And he purchases something, and he either whistles at her in a sassy way, a wolf whistle, that construction workers and others are known to do with women walk by, or, as he is leaving, he says Something Like, bye, baby, or, as his mother says, he started to Say Something and stutters. He would blow air out, stuttering like a whistle. Whatever he did, he crossed the line in the eyes of carolyn bryant. But also her husband. A couple of days later, lloyd bryant, and his brotherinlaw, showed up late at night at the door of moses wrights house. They demand to see the boy that was in the store. All these boys are sharing a big bed. Emmett till, half asleep, goes to the door. Bryant grabs him, and they take into a truck. You can hear them say, is this the boy that did that . A woman says, yes, that is him. , not to take him away be seen for several days. That was on the 28th. Two days from now, 60 years ago. Alright . Him to milams barn where they beat him, tortured him, and shot him. They took into the tallahatchie river, where they strapped barb wire and a cotton gin fan to his neck. They threw him in the water. He is missing and people are looking for him, even before the body surfaces. The spotlight turns to bryant and milam, who say, well, yeah, we did that. We showed up, took him, roughed him up, and whatever else happened, we had no hand in. Somebody else must have done it. He surfaces. What i will show you is a gruesome picture. At the time, it was only shown in the black press. It later made its way out to the larger press. The body was bloated beyond recognition. One eyeball dangling from its socket. His tongue was extended from its mouth, swollen to eight times its normal size. There was a bullet hole behind his left ear. He was recognizable only by the ring his mother gave him. She fitted it onto his finger. It was his fathers, louis till, and it had l. T. On it. They knew it was him. This is a civil rights cold case, unsolved, unpunished. As with many cases, there are small elements of the prosecution of it. Ultimately, this is the chicago defender, the black newspaper. He was a local kid to them. The entire front page was devoted to this. It was not just a black press that was interested. He became a national story. This is the Chicago Daily tribune. You can see a column here, to go on trial, for murder, to the top left of the cartoon. The Chicago Daily news, till case goes to jury for verdict. This is what happened as it went to trial. A mere three weeks after the body is found, it goes to trial. It seems like forever now between an arrest someone goes to trial. Milam and bryant are tried. It is in a courthouse in sumner, mississippi. If you come back with this kind of detail in a piece, we will of you. Love you. Guess what the slogan of the town was . You will not guess. That was a mean trick. No one knows . A great place to raise a boy. Totally ironic. And the detailed that you as writers are not to miss when you come across Something Like that. Milam and bryant were acquitted. The jurors were out only 67 minutes. In fact, when they came back, they said they would not be out except that they stopped for a drink. The prosecution did a very effective job according to the public. The judge was fair. I wont go into that. But we can at some other time. The one thing that is interesting, milam and bryant were not even convicted of the one thing that they did do. Him ofadopting abducting him. Which they admitted to. It was a few months later in which they sat with a journalist from alabama and told the story. In effect, they confessed to the murder. It was a piece that ran in look magazine. You can read the piece and know they never spoke to the reporter. He vowed not to reveal that they admitted it. He would have to write a story in a bizarre, contorted way that would tell the story without acknowledging. He agreed that they could go out in the world and deny it. Later, the writer couldnt take it and made sure everyone knew they confessed. We have copies of the documents were he paid the money for the interviews. It was an early example of checkbook journalism, you will need to take Journalism School to go into that. Emmett till was not a civil rights activist. He was 14 years old. Back then, he was seven years from being able to vote. That was not the case. He was killed for violating what scholars referred to primly as racial etiquette. Ok . He crossed the line, the social codes, with whatever he did or was believed to have done. This is a case from a different part of mississippi. They were trying to get people to vote and did it anyway even though they were warned not to. They had been warned not to do it, and they did it anyway. Will exploreter we a case that is more similar to george w. Lee and lamar smith. That is going to be the 1948 murder of isaiah nixon and the town of alston. Montgomery county, it is about three hours from here. He was shot dead for voting. And he voted in 1948. I will come back to this in a little bit and talk about the extraordinary period of time in Georgia History between 1946 and more probably, 1944 and 1948, the highlights of which were two statewide races for governor in 1946 and 1948. 2 or 3 black men were killed for voting in that time. That we know of. I will open the floor. Why would white people go to such lengths to stop black people from voting . Sot do you think was troubling to white people that then or anytime they would murder someone for voting . Yes sir . At that point, politics was a way to voice ones opinions. There was a power structure in the south. Black people voting would most likely obstruct that. I agree with that. At the time, politics, all the mayors were white men. If you have black men voting, they could change that. They cannot let that happen. People would have to give up their power, because they would go after white men killing people. Prof. Klibanoff absolutely. Yes, megan. If you have the right to vote, politicians have to cater to your needs because they are a part of getting you elected. I think that is a big part of it, too. Prof. Klibanoff you mean that white people would never want to cater to a black man . Yes. Exactly. It was a legal equalizer. It was one of the only things at the time that could equalize what was going on in society. Prof. Klibanoff it is worth knowing. And you may know this intuitively. But the details are what makes it so extraordinary. Absolute in the 1940s. And we are talking, some people would say it was more liberal atmosphere in the 40s leading up to the brown v. Board decision of the Supreme Court that hardened people. In the 1940s, liberals never believed for a minute that segregation would end. Name four liberal editors, prominent people who later worked in the roosevelt administration. Jonathan daniels was an editor in raleigh, North Carolina who said it segregation will absolutely never end in the south. You might as well believe they night will become day in the day will become night. All the armies of the world, axis and allies combined, said mark edwards of the roosevelt administration, will never end segregation. It was absolute. When we say why people did not want black people to vote, it was just one of the absolutes. Blacks were going to be barred from. Lets get to the technical detail. You may say they didnt want them to vote because they might elect a black person. Do you think a group of blacks in these counties could ever elect a black person in the 40s . No . Why not . They didnt have the structure there to get someone into office, to win political office. It would be hugely expensive, a timeconsuming campaigning endeavor. They were in such a situation where the main concern of their daytoday life is getting food on the table rather than putting somebody into a system that has never been beneficial for them. Prof. Klibanoff thats all true. Ok. But i would remind you that white people down there were very poor, too. White people were struggling daytoday. Ok . Here is what i want you to keep in mind. In georgia, alabama, mississippi, a population was heavily africanamerican. You can go into some counties, it would be 70 africanamerican. Maybe the voting age would be 60 . And you look at the voting rolls, in some counties, maybe seven people would be registered to vote. Maybe 100 in a really aggressive county. It was the structure that barred them from voting at all, because whites feared they would be the minority. Whites were the minority. If the majority rules, they lose power. Somebody else, quickly name one other important reason why the vote matters. What happens when you register to vote . I stumped you again. Year after year, what happens . How many of you are registered . You get a call once in a while for what, jury duty. With jury duty, what does that mean . You can make decisions. Prof. Klibanoff you have an influence on the criminal Justice System. Right . A widely overlooked consequence that white people understood. So many of these cases are about criminal justice. Given the fact that all white juries were looking into that. Normally i would not start off with emmett till, but i wanted to do it for the anniversary. I wanted to do it for another reason. Let me ask you a question. This gets really personal. Me, how old is your grandfather . 88. Prof. Klibanoff someone else . 92. Prof. Klibanoff anybody else . 70. Prof. Klibanoff how old would emmett till be . 60 years ago, he would be 74 years old. 60 years ago is not that long ago. I can name one person in this room who was alive at the time. [laughter] prof. Klibanoff i want you to know we are closer in time than you might think. Yes, emily. What was the influence from chicago. Is that why it was published more . Prof. Klibanoff yes, and the fact that he was 14. It crossed the line that did not make sense outside the south , for the most part. It drew massive press coverage. This town of sumner, mississippi was overrun by the reporters. The New York Times was covering it every day. Ap, upi. The only newspapers that didnt cover it were the mississippi papers. Ok. Now, just to go further here, as we go forward in these cases, we will examine not the whodunnit as much as the why. In most cases, we know who. What conditions, what forces, what states of mind were in place, social, political, economic . What forces would come together. Ense ofe all s all religious, precepts, all acceptable behaviors that would lead them to such means of widespread murder as control. Ok. This is the website that ive asked you to look at. It is the civil rights cold cases project. This began as a joint journalism and africanamerican studies class. It expanded to include history and american studies come across listed in all those programs. Students ite a quite a few students working during the summer. We had students do senior honors theses related to this. Ok. We are examining the history of the time. Of racially driven behavior not , just the murderous activists, these are racially motivated murders. Ok . You will use primary evidence at the eye level. We will give you a big stack of them. We will get this to you. We want you to dig out naacp records. Personal archives, we discovered a mother load of stuff over at the research library. It is a marvel upstairs. Rare book libraries. This is a real gold mine of opportunities. We want you to understand history that is little known from the inside looking out. And it is long forgotten from the outside looking in. That is our goal, for you to see it from a new, fresh perspective. This is a bunch of different cases. People who were targeted because of who they were. It wasnt even their beliefs, always. Ok . In most cases, these opted no local investigations. State investigations, prosecutions, or received inconsistent investigation by the fbi. As you will see, you need to be open to all the storable realities and possibilities. Things are not always what they seem or what you would expect. This is james brazier, he was 35 in 1958. He was 31 in 1958. He was a husband. He worked three jobs. His wife worked too. He had three children. He loved, with a great passion, new cars. In 1956, he bought himself a new 1956 chevrolet from his dealership where he worked. In 1958, he bought a chevrolet impala. Ok . We have examined, in this class, why it was that was so offensive to whites in boston, georgia, terrell county. A few months before this particular day he was arrested it1958 four, who knows, didnt matter. He was beaten up on his laundry his lawn and he was taken to the jail where he was examined by doctors. In the middle of the night, he was dragged out and beaten, all but dead. Then, he dies. He had been stopped by Police Officer, and they said, why are you stopping me again, why do you keep doing this . The Police Officer says you have a lot of nerve driving a car like that when we cant hardly live. I will get you yet. By the way, we know all of this. We have the paper, the records in which that whole dialogue took place. James brazier had no news coverage, not a word. Nothing in the press. Another, willie countryman was found with a knife in him, it was never his. It was planted. They killed him in the middle of the night, no coverage. His wife spent five years trying to get his case to a federal jury. She finally succeeded, but the consequence was that the jury, and the civil case never held the Police Officers responsible death. Es braziers we found this transcript at the national archives. This is just a portion. It really enlightened us, you know . Ok. Snipes, killed in 1946. G in butler two years before isaiah nexi xon, because he voted. Here is the detail that is interesting. When you study these things, you want to glom onto these interesting moments. He gets the hospital, the doctor examines him, and he says, will ell my gosh, he is going to need a blood transfusion. The family tells us this. The family says, give me a transfusion. The doctors said i cannot do it. The doctors were white. Were atut all doctors this time. They said, we cannot, we dont have any black blood. Youve heard me talk about the mythology that people operated on African Americans at the time. They adopted a lot of myths that were hard to break, even if they wanted to. By the way, the murder of maceo snipes really upset a student at morehouse college, who was provoked to write a letter to the atlanta constitution. Do you see it . See who wrote this letter . On the far right, in the middle . Who is it . M. L. King. Martin luther king. Ok . This happened within a couple of weeks of another murder. In georgia, a mass murder of four people. Ple i will click on through. This is a story about Clarence Pickett. Georgia, maybe a bit off. He had spent six months at the statement hospital. He returns to columbus. He would wonder around, drink a little bit, maybe a little too much. Took him asofficers the village idiot. Some were deeply offended by. Ok . He gets arrested on one particular day. 1957, around christmas. He cannot break out. He is yelling and screaming, calling the Police Officers names. The officers say, hey, that is pickett. That is preacher, that is what they called it. One officer decided not to take it. He goes in the jail cell and kicks him and beaten and it stomps him to neardeath. He has to be taken to a Columbus Medical Center where a white physician sees him. I will show you what the white physician examines him. There is a Police Officer in the room at the time. The Police Officers says to the doctor, what do you think . The doctor says, i think he is putting this on. Ok . The next day, he was dead. What students were able to do was look at the medical report from one day and look at the autopsy next day. And we set with a pathologist midtown,y university they said, well gosh, based on the autopsy, here is what the doctor should have seen and done. He should never have released him to go home. Which he did. By the way the doctor, who said , he was putting on when he released him, gave him 75 milligrams of a painkiller. It is an analgesic. Clearly, there is some problem here. He tells the Police Officer he is putting on. He just wants to be a part of the boys and the team. He gives him a painkiller on the way out. Whatever it is, Clarence Pickett died the next day. I want to Say Something else about how we learn to think counterintuitively here. I told you before you need to be aware not to jump to some assumptions about things. Ok . Goodtudent we had, a very one, was determined to betray the Police Officer as this southern, racist cracker. Right . White cop, stereotypical, straight out of central casting. Well, another student was looking into it and discover ed something. Where is he from . New york. We traced him enough to know that he came south from when he was in the military to be at fort benning. Ok . You, as athis to means to challenge some assumptions going into these things. A couple of more. Penn, in 1964, he was a highranking administrator in the washington, d. C. School system. He and two other africanamericans come south in the summer of 1964 for training. It is the summer freedom in mississippi. The three civil rights workers are missing. So on and so forth. They finish up with their military service at fort benning. Theyre driving home from washington to be with their families. Little do they know they get , near athens and cross paths with a group of three klansmen just looking for trouble. Out penn takes the , wheel. And within minutes, klan car pulls up, pulls out a shotgun, and blows them away. They are killed in 1964. There are two gruesome pictures i have to show you. I am telling you, it was just breathtaking. How brutal this murder was. I want to give you a detail that we learned. Itis a small detail, but helps you understand what things were like at the time. This comes from student research, some reading we have done. It helps you understand the in 1947,mind of people 1957, 1964. There was a trial. The three klansmen were caught. They were indicted and tried. Ok . In state court. Ok not federal, state. , we will go later into these distinctions. During the trial, two of the witnesses against the klansmen were the other two men in the car. Ok . With penn. Two African American men, who walked into the courtroom to testify. They were in their military uniforms. One was a major with the stripes to show it. The other was a corporal who also had stripes. And suddenly, the press took note of the fact that when they came into the courtroom, the white jurors, all men, all white, just suddenly had these expressions of disdain for these black men who had higher ranking than they did in the military. You know, they were privates, many of them. It ended up, maybe it was going to be influential, maybe it wasnt, but we understood the psyche at the time was that no black man should be in a military uniform in this country. Ok . This was in 1964, 16 years after trumans order. Something like that. Desegregating the military. By the way, the lawyer for the defendant, the klansmen, was very adamant that the white tree would be letting down the race were they to convict these men. He very much appealed to their anglosaxon tradition. They would have to answer to their neighbors. Of course, they did find the men not guilty. Ok a couple more. This is a young man who was 17 years old in 1962, when he walked home from the dance. A. C. Hall and his girlfriend had gone to a dance. They were walking past the school. They dont know that some hour earlier, a white woman has called the police and said, i just saw a black man in my carport reach into my glove compartment, and now my gun is missing. The police go, pick her up, and go looking for these people. They see a. C. Hall and the woman says, thats him. The only thing she knew was that he was wearing a white shirt, the guy shed seen was in a white shirt. The police come after him. He starts to run. Does this sound so much anything youve heard recently . A. C. Hall runs and the police shoot him. When they reach him, he is all but dead. He tries to right himself. He lifts his hands to surrender and falls dead. They look for a gun. They did not find one. 2 days later, they find the gun in a corners jury, its called. They have a gun. Somebody in the jury calls in the man and the wife. They say is this your gun . They say, no, this is not your gun. The jury, the coroners jury, which does not have the power to recommend whether or not a grand criminalld then being charges, they do a complete statement that says we believe this was murder. A group of white people meeting and examining the evidence concluded it was murder. It is picked up by a grand jury. The grand jury would not bring charges against the officers. Ok . As you can see, we have a lot of unrestrained agents of White Supremacy acting to enforce, what they believe, to be the social order of things. They brought injury and death to untold numbers of African Americans in georgia and the south. Ok . We are going to ask you, during this time, as i have said, to ask the questions about the why. Why would Police Officers be so offended that a black man had a nicer car than them that they would kill them . Why would a white physician examining black patients ignore the signs of great injury, withhold treatment, and send a patient home to die . The purpose of this course is clear. We want you to learn how to locate, how to dig out records, how to analyze the documentation of these crimes, find the truth, find the context. Beyond the primary evidence we will give you, and that you will dig out, we have a lot of secondary reading. Ok . Because there are others who have examined the issues more broadly. When a student was looking at why a man would be killed for driving a nice car. We have other examples. Some of these scholars have done the work that is the glue that helps expand our understanding. These were not isolated oneoff incidents. That is the work we will be engaged in. Professor gadsden will now discuss the broader context of the cases, and then we will we meet to discuss georgia. If you have questions, let me just ask that about what i just talked about. You mustve had questions, thoughts in your mind at the time. Yes . Please. I believe you mentioned one of the officers, one of the people that killed someone was from new york instead of the south. I dont think that would change much, because they did consider themselves, i mean, the north was more like, the mentality would not change depending on where he was from. That is a general thing. Prof. Klibanoff right. I think thats right. Theres a question of what people knew at the time. And thats part of the challenge, not to apply what we know in 2015 to what they knew in 1964 or 1948. What were the understandings then . You have a number of northerners who came south. They came south and decided to fit in. They would have to adopt southern ideologies on these things. Yes . So he was in the military, right . Thats another structure of group thinking and sitting in and ideology and brainwashing. That plays into his thoughts and actions. Prof. Klibanoff correct. Any other questions . Ok, good. Prof. Gadsden so how do we think about racial violence in American History . I think that is one of the underlying questions to this class, to this project. How violent is the United States . Who are the victims, who are the perpetuators . And how does the Justice System resolve this violence . These are some of things id like us to consider. I think a good place to start, when we think about the problem of violence in American Political Development is in, an american dilemma. He was a swedish sociologist who then was contracted by the Carnegie Commission to write a study of Race Relations in the 1940s. In 1944, he produced this magisterial, epic study of american Race Relations, called, an american dilemma. It is 1088 pages. It is one of the finest , comprehensive studies of american relationships ever published. Worked with a bevy of academics to discuss a variety of aspects of the south, including the biological and social foundations of race. He published population statistics and trends. He explored the institution of slavery and the evolution of the southern planter economy. He looked at the Economic Conditions and social stratification of africanamerican communities. He explored white, southern politics. Detailed studies of the Justice System, the police, prisons and jails. He looked at the problem of violence in the south. He explored at the problem of segregation, equality, and looked at a variety of different institutions in African American communities. Kind of uplifting institutions. Social protest institutions, he looked at the role of the press and the churches. He has created a study that we return to again and again. But i think in a very provocative way, myrdal offered a particular interpretation of southern culture. And by extension, American Political Development. He developed an argument that he called, the american creed. Right . In his telling, and this is a quote, theres a basic homogeneity in this nations evaluations. Americans of all origins, creeds, classes, colors, have something in common, a social ethos, political creed. He continued, it is difficult to avoid the judgment that this american creed is the cement in the structure of this great and disparate nation. Now the ideals contained included notions familiar with us if you have read our founding documents. Right . They include the recognition of the dignity of the individual human being. The fundamental equality of all men. Certain inalienable rights to freedom and justice. And fair opportunity. We can read these sentiments and the declaration of independence, and the u. S. Constitution, in various state constitutions. He recognizes the recurrence of these themes in all these documents. Now because he was doing a study of american Race Relations, he did concede that there was a kind of tension between this creed and to the everyday experiences of americans. Still, he maintained, and this is another quote, that the ideals of the american creed are the highest law in the land. They were expressed repeatedly by national leaders, thinkers, jurists, statesman, and it was myrdals opinion that it had triumphed as a guiding ideology of American Political Culture at the time. Now, in his assessment, he is studying american Race Relations, be constructed racism as a contradiction to the creed. Right . It was a kind of problem to which other people succumbed. It was a problem that demanded kind of moral redress of education. He was of the opinion that if americans understood the complexity of the problem, of these kinds of insults to the american creed, that they would discover quickly a remedy for these problems of segregation and equality and violence. And i think in many ways, he is telling an exploration of American Political Culture, providing the essential subtext for American History today. Right . So if you pick up the average u. S. History textbook from your high school or even university, i think you will see a kind of argument in bedded in the text about American History as an inexorable struggle towards greater levels of freedom and equality. Right . You can see kind of echoes of the argument, right, in arguments about american exceptionalism. That somehow america is different from the rest of the world, and we are better. That americans are kind of innately, inherently freedom loving democratic and gallatin egalitarian. We need to recognize the power of the sentiment. His critics offered a more sanguine take on the american creed, the notion that americans subscribed or had an abiding commitment to these notions of freedom and equality and democracy. They noted that myrdal demonstrated great skill in celebrity democracy as he detailed the breadth and scope of americas brand of racial apartheid. They charged that he underestimated the differences between all classes of whites upperclass and workingclass whites. And the swedish sociologist treated racism and racist acts as vestiges of the bygone era, marked by prerational, predemocratic, prescientific movements. In other words, the kind of rendered these problems of segregation as something kind of removed from the essence of american sentiment, something kind of not fitting with the american creed. Africanamerican sociologist oliver carton in particular chided him for treating it as something specific to American Culture and contended instead that the problem with race and racism was part of the american political and economic structure. And i think the debates that myrdal had with his critics are really interesting and frame a lot of discussions about American History. Right . And it creates an interesting interpretive tension, when we think about u. S. Political and economic culture as inherently democratic or something else. Right . It does a lot to shape our perspectives, right, of different events. But i think the tension between myrdal and his critics is i think interesting for the purposes of the class. Where we are thinking about the specific problem of violence, and the extent to which it is something central and intrinsic to u. S. History. Right . It is something that is out there, right, that people on the margins of society engage in, right, something that is kind of bound up and woven throughout, you know, a variety of different myriads american traditions and practices, right . I think that is embedded in the actions of different institutions. It is a really interesting way, really interesting problem for us to ponder over. So, i think when we think about racial violence in history, it is important to think about it as a kind of long arc, and think about it in its various iterations. Right . In many ways, we can look to the institution of slavery and see the kind of practice of violence as inherent and essential to the institutionalization of slavery in the american south. Right . Slaveowners went to Great Lengths to convince themselves and others that the institution of slavery was a kind of benevolent arrangement between masters and slaves. Right . They were the ones that provide, the masters provided a kind of shelter and food and civilization and religion for their slaves in exchange for labor and obedience and love. Right . But we understand a cursory review of american slavery reveals that the violence was an essential component of the masterslave relationship. Right . That masters frequently resorted to Corporal Punishment, to discipline the slaves and to maintain the essential imbalance between a master and slaves. Masters frequently whipped slaves. Im sure weve seen yet on a photograph of the gentleman with the crosshatched scars on his back, where he had been whipped repeatedly. Slaves were whipped and beaten for disobedience, when they failed to meet their quotas, they were subject to Corporal Punishment when they attempted to run away, or when they broke myriads rules that governed plantation life. It wasnt always clear that there was a logic to the violence, that sometimes it was unexpected and unanticipated. And so slaves lived in constant former ability to the masters. Slave women were subject to rape and other forms of exploitation. Right . And i think what is striking about the violence in the south is the fact that all of the violence short of murder, or serious maiming of the slave, was considered legal, the state regarded this as a purview of masters, as long as they did not kill their property, that was fine. Even in cases where masters were found, were determined to have killed their slaves or maimed them, they were rarely charged with murder or rarely charged and prosecuted for their actions. I think violence, it is interesting to think about it as a defining feature of the post emancipation south and we see a , continuation of that world which originated in the slave south. New constitutional amendments that establish rights for citizens, africanamericans, they gained a degree of freedom and independence unimaginable in the slave south. Thats not to be underestimated. I mean, it doesnt we have to think about the different gradations of freedom. I think the fact that emancipation mattered, that it did not result necessarily in equality of races, but was a profound change from the previous regime, created a for adeal of anxiety variety of different reasons. You see the rise of institutions like the ku klux klan. Right . That use violence and threats against free people to reassert the political, economic, cultural superiority of white southerners. It had been seriously undermined with emancipation. The ku klux klan were punishing criminals for their immoral behavior and resulted to violence and intimidation to prevent white southerners from competition from the newly freed people. Right . They would take night rides, take people from their homes, and many victims were killed execution style by shooting and hanging. They were raped and whipped and otherwise humiliated. And i think in these ways we can see the violence, right, as a continuation of patterns and traditions of racial domination that were endemic to racial culture. But i think it is also important to think about violence and is interesting tension between other pools of domination. Right . It is a question we discussed yesterday, that white southerners didnt necessarily turn to violence when all other methods of domination failed. Right . But that violence was a kind of tool in a large toolbox, right . It provided them the means to exert their power that they lost in the war, right . And we can see that kind of play out, played and replayed in different variations throughout the late 19th and 20th century. Now lynching is arguably the most conspicuous form of racial violence in the late 19th and early 20th century. What do you know about lynching . It is difficult to avoid if you know anything about u. S. History. Nobody knows anything about lynching . Yes . It was almost kind of a show. People would come and bring their families to watch a lynching. During different periods. Professor gadson yes, alan. It could get out of hand really quickly. Sometimes it would just turn into mob violence or anger not directed toward the individual but to whoever was on the street who could get caught up in this anger, this general, in towns there would be an anger of like, what are we doing, we are losing power, things are out of control. Society is changing, and we dont like. Prof. Gadsden yes. It was somewhat like a religious spectacle. People start as a churchgoer would see a sacrifice. It was something they believed in. There were showing an offering to the people. Prof. Gadsden yes. It has elements of all of that. I mean, for our purposes, is important to define lynching. It is killing perpetuated by a group of persons working outside the law to avenge a crime, real or imagined. Right . To impose a social order. And so the origin of the term lynch comes from the american revolution. Right . With colonel Charles Lynch of the virginia instituted an extralegal court that used flogging. This practice of lynching evolved over the 19th century. And initially, we are most associated with the west, with the frontier. Right . With white and mexicans and native americans were the primary victims. Right . The civile get into war and reconstruction, we see the practice of lynching becoming increasingly a southern phenomenon and and increasingly exercise perpetuated against africanamericans by whites. And it involves various kinds of beatings, of different forms of torture. But i think what is important and essential to understand is the extent to which it was a public ritual. Right questio . It was oftentimes carried out in town squares, right . Right . Was advertised, that lynchings were performed with the knowledge and understanding and permission of authorities, even if they were not actively participating, they stood by. They they allowed victims to be removed from jails to be taken by the mobs. S. This institution of lynching evolved handinhand with the segregation and disenfranchisement after the civil war. It is another kind of tool in the toolbox to politically and economically disenfranchised africanamericans. Between 18821950, we do not have exact figures of how many were lynched. But it is estimated that roughly 6000 americans died at the hand of lynch mobs, with mississippi, georgia, texas leading the way
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