Nearer My God To Thee
The victim, accused of
an incredulous crime, was unjustly killed by a rabid mob. The victim was poked
in the ribs, prodded, spit on, cursed at, and suffered violent tortures until
his resulting death. The body of this man was ravished by the mob that came in
droves yelling curses. The mob ran to gather materials to aid the violence at
hand. Soon the victim was taken to a prominent space in the city, a place where
people could see his open shame in the nakedness of his body. The victim,
although in grave pain, seldom cried out; when words passed from the victim’s
vocal box to the ears of the mob, it was words to God—a hymn. Here are the words
that flowed from the victim’s mouth:
Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
still all my song shall be,
nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
darkness be
over me, my rest a stone;
yet in my dreams I'd be
nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
There let the way appear, steps unto heaven;
all that thou sendest me, in mercy given;
angels to beckon me
nearer, my
God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
Then, with my waking thoughts bright with thy
praise,
out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise;
so by my
woes to be
nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
Or if, on joyful wing cleaving the sky,
sun, moon, and stars forgot, upward I fly,
still all my
song shall be,
nearer, my God, to thee;
nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
If one did not
know any better, the situation described above may lead one to think that the
death of John Henry Williams, the victim of the lynch mob on June 24th
1921, was the description of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion scenario almost 2000
years prior. John Henry Williams, an African American, and Jesus died much in
the same way. Their lives lost at the cost of an unjust system and kangaroo
court made up of an angry mob. This
paper serves to give credence to the lives of those unjustly killed in the Deep
South during the lynching era. I hope in this writing to exploit the folly of
humanity, which sought to take racial power, in the Old South, through religious
and political motivation—a false reality hoping to bring about social order and
godliness, but in turn only suppressed, insulted, and ultimately destroyed any
and all forms of godliness with the deaths of thousands of African Americans. In
this paper, I shall investigate the correlations and religious symbolism between
the types of lynching, popular during the lynching era (1880-1940), and that of
the crucified Christ. Moreover, I will explore the church’s current response to
past lynchings and current effect in race relations within the church. I hope
to offer a way forward in reconciliation through remembering the atrocities of
lynching and taking corporate responsibility. In addition, I shall also
investigate the role of blood sacrifice, atonement theory, and lynching rooted
in a stiffening morality and religious conviction of the Deep South during this
era.
The Building Blocks To Hate
Lynching occurred prior to 1880,
but the lynching era, 1880 – 1940, describes a time in which mob violence,
charged with racial indignation, was at a peak.[1]
The focus of this paper will examine the “lynching era.” During this time, it
is estimated that over 3,200 black men were killed by white mobs.[2]
The majority of these lynchings took place in the former slave / southern
states, but did occur, on occasion elsewhere. For purposes of this study, the examination of
lynching will take place in the southern states.
Why so much hatred and violence in
the southern states at the turn of the century? Most scholars agree that there
is no one complete reason for the lynchings of the Deep South, they recognize
the complexities of the war-torn South, adjusting to emancipation of slaves,
and the political race and gender struggles. The adjustments were difficult, and
people in the South did not adjust well.[3]
Amy Wood, in Lynching And Spectacle, sees the rise in connection to the
modernity of the nation.[4]
In urban areas where development and progression were happening, old forms of
racism were being left behind and people began adopting democratic and
egalitarian norms—racism was being fought, not encouraged. [5]
Wood does not believe the process of modernity pushed racial violence to its
limits, but rather it was an uncertainty from a war-torn area and an
uncertainty of home, government, and economy because of the Civil War.[6]
In addition, religion became popularized during this time and flourished under
a missionizing model to the South.[7]
With the rise of uncertainty and modernity, those in the Deep South felt their sense
of morality and “honor” challenged and in danger of shifting away from their
old standards, especially with a growing church attendance reinforcing greater
moral responsibilities. For example, this
can be seen in the many newspaper clippings of Ralph Ginzburg’s collection, 100 Years of Lynchings, in which the
African-American is often accused of taking away “honor” from women in the
south. [8]
The black man would often be accused of moral issues; rape, alcohol abuse, and
violence were a few characteristics that labeled the black man. When all of
these ingredients coalesce, scholars call this the “black-rapist-beast” myth.[9]
The Black-Rapist-Beast
The creation of the black man as
the “Black-Rapist-Beast” encouraged the social and political distance needed to
support growing desires of the Deep South for segregation. The black man was a
threat sexually and violently; he needed to be stopped and it was the job of the
southern man to protect the growing “abuse” of the black man. For example, a
mob put a sign on the chest of a lynched man that read, “We must protect our
ladies”.[10]
The man became the protector to reinforce his position of dominance racially
and sexually. By racially “protecting” women, the white man now had an excuse
to establish superiority over and against the black man. Moreover, in
protecting the sexuality of the Southern white women, which was deemed sacred
because of rising religious morality, the white man was able to establish his
supremacy over the women’s role politically and sexually—the white male fought
to retain the old ways of the South, which were slowly slipping out of the grip
of Southern white males. Crystal Feimster reinforces this point stating,
“Southern white men were not merely concerned with reconstructing and
maintaining a caste defined by race, they were also determined to preserve
traditional forms of racial patriarchy which allowed them complete control over
black and white women’s sexuality”.[11]
In James Allen’s book Without Sanctuary, Allen
records the many photographs of lynch victims during the lynching era.
Specifically in one photo, which happens to serve as a postcard as well, the
victim is fully charred, missing limbs, and hanging by his neck from a tree.
The writing on the postcard reads, “Warning, the answer of the anglo-saxon race
to black brutes who would attack the womanhood of the south”. [12]
The white men in the South believed that in some way they were providing
restitution to Southern female honor through segregation—by providing purity—and
lynching the accused, which put to death the sins of the black man. The
restitution, they believed, was restored through the suffering black man’s body.
In other words, the black man’s body became the object of sacrifice in
restoring dignity to southern womanhood and expiating the sins of the black
man. Rene Girard states,
Sacrifice plays
a very real role in societies, and the problem of substitution concerns the
entire community…The victim is not a substitute for some particularly
endangered individual…Rather, it is a substitute for all the members of the
community…The sacrifice serves to protect the entire community from its own
violence.[13]
Christ and Symbol
The current Christian church
corporately, similar to human beings, does not want to look at their past
failures. Sometimes it is easier to ignore failures because the guilt or
process of forgiveness is too difficult to cope with. There still exists a
serious issue within the Christian church as the lynching era has not been
properly confronted, dealt with, or reconciled. The shame of the church is no
excuse for making things right.
a. Mob Injustice: Modern Day Pilate
A battering ram crashes into the
door of a San Jose jail, demanding that an accused kidnapper be given over to the
mob, which happened to number 15,000 on this occasion,[14]
and like most stories recorded during the lynching era, the mob got what they
desired.[15]
A consistent theme runs throughout Ginzburg’s collection of news clippings in
which the victims of lynching are often never brought to trial, but instead are
stripped of any form of justice by the mob. In addition, often the mobs would
seek to “find” justice wherever they could, killing the accused family for
vindication.[16]
An example of this injustice is seen in the Alabama lynching of Elijah Clark,
as the newspaper clip reads, “The mob by this time had assumed alarming
proportions, and the sheriff, thinking to quiet the storm, appeared at a window
and announced that a special trail had been arranged for the prisoner.”[17]
Hours after the sheriff had announced the “fair” trial of the victim; the mob
overran the jail cell, put a rope around his neck, and lynched him. Often the
crowd would threaten the authorities if they were not complicit. In another
horrific story, accused men, Henry Askew and Ed Russ, are transferred from one
prison to another secret, and supposedly “secure,” location because of the
growing mob’s fury. Upon the arrival of the victims and sheriff, an angry mob took
the men from sheriff’s custody, strung them up with ropes, tying them around
their necks, shot them relentlessly, and burned them alive. The location of these
individuals was supposed to be secret; somebody told the mob. When the Sheriff
was asked if he saw members he recognized in the mob, his answer was, “we were
unable to recognize them on account of the trees casting shadows on their
faces” [18]
Like Jesus, numerous hanged victims were taken from them homes or jobs on
dubious charges. Jesus, in his dubious
trial, and accusation as an “insurrectionist,” was passed between the ruling
authorities [19]
and never given a fair trial outside of the mob screaming, “Crucify him.”[20]
In much parallelism, it was to the vocal determination of the screaming mob
giving the order to “lynch or burn” the accused victims.[21]
Moreover, those caring for the victims
while incarcerated or directly after arrest were not seeking justice, but
blood.[22]
In addition, the consensual injustice of the community left the mob free to
say, like Pilate, “I
am innocent of this Man’s blood.”[23]
Not many in these communities, or surprisingly their Christian churches, second-guessed
or even flinched at the injustice and ultimate murder of several thousand
innocent people; rather they enjoyed them through mockery and humiliation.[24]
b. Mockery And Humiliation
The Roman
cohort took Jesus, after his unfounded conviction as insurrectionist, to begin
the process of flogging and, ultimately, crucifixion. Only convicted criminals
of the worst kind would ever have a sentence, which led to crucifixion. Moreover,
the job of the executioner, not the king, was to inflict as much humiliation as
possible while freely living out all sadistic tendencies; executioners had the
freedom to inflict pain however they saw fit.[25]
To ensure the greatest amount of
humiliation for the victim convicted of a crime serious enough to demand the
ultimate form of barbarianism, they would be flogged and mocked by the mob. The
tradition of Jesus in the gospels tells of how the mob treated him; they spit,
hit, mocked, laughed, joked, publically humiliated, and stripped Jesus naked.[26]
In a similar experience, Lloyd Warner, attacked by a mob of 10,000 people in St.
Joseph, Missouri, was dragged and tied to a tree with a noose around his neck
while onlookers, leaning “calmly against walls,” erupted in laughter and jokes
as the executioner had put the noose around Warner’s neck wrongly breaking his
neck backwards; these joyful explosions and excitement overpowered the screams
of the dying Werner. Once they acknowledge his screams they immediately proceed
to throw seven gallons of gasoline on him and light him on fire—bringing about
more laughter.[27]
Often the crowds would refer to lynchings as “parties”[28]
or “barbeques,”[29]
bringing alcohol and shooting off guns.[30]
In relation to Jesus, one can see how black men encountered mockery and
humiliation prior to being killed by mobs. Often to add to the mockery, in
similar fashion to Jesus’s march of death, the accusers would choose a day of
significance for the victim.
c. A Bloody Sabbath
Jesus death occurs the Friday
prior to the Jewish holiday of Passover. The Passover is the story of the
Exodus and Moses in which God is said to have freed Israel from the slavery of
Egypt—God liberating his people. The message that Jesus’s accusers sent to Jesus’s
followers insisted that the person who claimed to bring them liberation would
no longer be fulfilling that promise because he was being subjected to death as
a criminal. The choice of day to execute a criminal can be intentional and
symbolic. Donald Mathews believes that symbol is a model and prescription of
“reality.”[31]
For the executioners of Jesus, the reality of the situation was Jesus’s own
slavery to the Roman system that he was understood to come and liberate. George
Hughes, an African American farmer, was accused of rape, and in the process of
jury deliberation, Hughes’s trial was interrupted by a belligerent mob who had
decided to lynch and burn Hughes regardless of guilt or innocence. The mob had
decided to burn and lynch Hughes on the birthday of abolitionist John Brown.
The reality of the mob’s actions fleshed out the “truth” that black equality is
unattainable, futile, and deadly. Moreover, the warning sign reinforced white
supremacy to the community. In another form of oppression by the mobs, lynching
locations determined new “realities” of white supremacy in political and
religious arenas to black and white communities.
d. The Golgotha Lynching (Sacred Ground)
The place executioners chose to
kill Jesus was known as Golgotha. Golgotha is believed to rest on the outskirts
of Jerusalem and is placed next to a busy road, and as the gospel of Matthew
records, “those passing by were hurling abuse at Him,
wagging their heads.”[32]
The executioners intention is to show their supremacy over Jesus, their power
in relation to his power. The Romans placed him on a busy road to make sure
everybody else understood the power struggle, and if they wanted to challenge
it, their fate would be no better than the insurrectionist Jesus. In the Deep
South, a power struggle between white supremacy and black power often became
settled in the death and lynching of the black man. The white man would lynch
the black man on populated, and sometimes, sacred ground, churches or public
squares.[33]
With this spectacle of power, white supremacy could easily rule and scare all
other “black perpetrators” that might think to gain equality or basic civil
rights of the white man. Churches would celebrate the deaths in the back of
their buildings after church services.[34]
This decisive power struggle can be seen in one news clipping in which, John
Foreman, an African American accused of killing a Deputy Sheriff, was taken
from Sheriffs by a mob, and upon abduction was taken to a church where a mob
member stated, “Let’s lynch the nigger on holy
ground.”[35]
The symbol turns the statement into a “reality” of power for the mob, and a stripping
of power from the black man. In addition, black churches and prominent
ministers would have their houses and churches burned down—relegating the
church to ashes, not sacred space.
e. A Tortured Body: Hanging On A Tree
“He was the target of hundreds of
missiles and several times he sank half conscious to the ground while the crowd
pressed forward striking at him with clubs, sticks, and whips until his head
and body were scarcely recognizable.”[36]
Jesus suffered a gruesome death by flogging and crucifixion, but the previous
quote is not about Jesus—it is the report of 20-year-old Richard Coleman who
suffered death under an infuriated mob. Coleman is not only beaten beyond a
pulp, but also dragged through the city, slashed with a knife, had cayenne
peppers thrown in his eyes, left naked, hung, and had a mob member cut out /
off pieces of his flesh, teeth, toes, and fingers.[37]
His body parts were then sold as souvenirs to adults and children.[38]
Members of the mob were encouraged to refrain from shooting Coleman in an
effort to sustain his painful death process. The death of Coleman and Jesus are
so similar in the effort of the mobs to show and retain their power over the
victim. Jesus suffered the infliction of the Roman flagellum, which often
brought the victim to succumb to death. The flagellum is a whip made of glass
shards, bone, and metal, it would stick into the sides of the victim and then
be ripped out violently by their executioner. Usually the blow would be so
impactful that pieces of rib would be ripped out along with flesh. Jesus is hit
with this tool thirty-nine times before walking to his death upon the cross.
Upon his march to Golgotha, hypovolemic shock probably sets in due to his scourging
with the flagellum—Jesus collapses. He arrives to Golgotha, his feet and hands
are nailed to the patibulum—he is then attached to the stipe and set in the
ground, jarring his whole body, and sending shocks of intense pain throughout
every nerve. He suffers several hours of mockery and shame upon the tree. Jesus
is lynched and suffers death upon a tree. The Apostle Paul states, “ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a
curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”[39]
For the black man, his own death symbolizes the “reality” of Jesus, his
suffering and redemption, but for the white man, the lynched black body is the
expiation of the sins of the community.
f. Christ And Black-Rapist-Beast: Expiation Of Sins
As mentioned
above, the Deep South had experienced change post-Reconstruction period. There
was a struggle between newly emancipated blacks and the white supremacy of old,
which those white southerners were trying to sustain. In addition, the rise of
moral standards, instilled by churches, led to a need to provide purity for
communities in the South. White southerners fought politically and religiously
to keep segregation in place, in order to retain their sense of “purity.” The
black-brute infected the white community with its sins and distorted white
purity and virtue. Specifically, this can be seen in the church reform of
sexual codes and the accusations of blacks as “rapists” or “sexually deviant.” Woods
states, “In the minds of many white southerners, black men came to personify
the moral corruption that they believed to be the root cause of social
disorder.”[40]
White southerners, while publically lynching black men experienced purity and
cleansing of their white community. For many white southerners, it was a
religious judgment, not an act of violence or criminal activity that needed to
be executed. God’s wrath needed satisfaction and without it, communities would be
allowing social disorder and moral corruptibility. For example, John Peterson,
an African American, was accused of assaulting a girl, and after clear evidence
proved his innocence, the news clipping wrote of the assaulted girl’s father,
“This man was so excited that he wanted to have the crime avenged at once, and
was not particular as to who should pay the penalty.”[41]
The father did not care who paid the
penalty, but “some-body” needs to “pay.” Another example of this is seen when
lynching mobs would cut off the testicles of their victims.[42]
By cutting off the testicles of the victims, white southerners could some how
“pay” the penalty of the black man’s crime and “justice” was served, honor and
virtue restored back to southern womanhood.[43]
The idea of legal expiation is seen in the salvation schema of the churches in
the South, during the lynching era. Moreover, “blood sacrifice” became the
dominant view in which the only way one could reconcile to God was through the
blood of Jesus.[44]
Divine wrath, the removal of sin, and salvation went hand-in-hand. The divine
wrath of God came upon Jesus and facilitated the reconciliation of the
disordered world back to order. So even God had to endure punishment, in Jesus,
in order to retain justice.[45]
If white southerners wanted order restored, they knew how God had achieved
it—and who would know better than God as to how salvation and purity is
ultimately accomplished. White southerners heard this message from their, now,
heavily attended churches and were justified for their lynchings in these
teachings. Moreover, preachers often taught dreadful messages of sin, eternal
damnation, and the coming wrath of God against impurity. In lynching African
Americans, white southerners believed they were fighting, as soldiers, the war
against the “demonic” black man—they were doing the “work of God.”[46]
White southerners dire fight to distinguish “black sin” and “white
righteousness” began and ended in the lynching of thousands of African
Americans.
African American men became,
unwillingly to violent mobs, like Christ, the surrogate victim of the community. Rene Girard makes the argument
that all communities, when peace and unity get disturbed and go into a full
force dove-tail of hatred and brokenness, the community seeks to find answers
yet because of the community’s chaos, which brings about disunity on all
levels, they are unable to afford answers. Girard continues that when all seems
lost, the community “hurls itself into the violent unanimity that is destined
to liberate it.”[47]
It is at this point that the hate of the
“enemy,” whoever hate that may represent in the community, can be transferred
from all members to focus in on one member—the victim can be the substitute for
the whole community, the surrogate. The surrogate victim, as Girard explains,
is the apex of the community’s hatred and problems.[48]
Girard continues, “Its members instinctively seek an immediate and violent cure
for the onslaught of unbearable violence and strive desperately to convince
themselves that that all their ills are the fault of a lone individual who can
be easily disposed of.”[49]
Girard’s evaluation of the surrogate victim lays perfectly the ground of
religion of the south and the natural inclination of mob mentality to create
the surrogate. In the lynching era, the surrogate happens to be represented as
the African American. In Jesus’s death, he represents the misguided hate of the
religious and political systems that sought to “restore” order, therefore
becoming the surrogate.
No Deceit Found In His Mouth
In America, the atrocities that
happened in the Deep South, just 50 years ago, should bring about shame, a
sense of responsibility and a desire to reconcile the grotesque injustice
against African Americans. Moreover, America’s response should be a recognition
and not forgetfulness of the heinous acts of lynching.
As the surrogate is forced to
confront the “sins” of the people unwillingly and unjustly—Jesus by religious
peoples and political elites and African Americans by mobs—revenge and not
reconciliation is the surrogate’s first natural response. Is revenge the route
America should take in moving forward? The words of Jesus offer the greatest
hope of reconciliation both for our nation and personal interracial
relationships. Jesus, after being unjustly beaten, mocked, and killed, states,
“Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do.”[50] Jesus chooses to respond in way that offers
hope to his aggressors. For those lynched victims who understood grace and its
implications could do the same as Jesus, understanding its effect. For example,
many lynch victims met death by either offering up a prayer for the mob or singing
a hymn.[51]
Jesus, on the cross “committed
no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he
suffered, he did not threaten.”[52]
Girard
also offers suggestions as to a way forward stating, “The injured parties must
be accorded a careful measure of satisfaction…the preferred method involves a
reconciliation between parties based on some sort of mutual compensation.”[53]
As a nation, America, cannot assume that the hate, which existed within the South
and other groups simply disappeared like vapor into thin air. The placement of
the hate is better understood metaphorically as a water hose temporarily
plugged waiting to burst. We see spurts of this hate, pressing pass the obstruction
of the hose, in criminal activity, failing social justice issues, and general
mindsets and words of average Americans. A way forward is needed and this next
section will challenge our current situation and offer new paths of
reconciliation.
A Way Forward: Seeking Reconciliation
One must first recognize
that levels of racism and white supremacy still exist within the United States.
That white supremacy can exist in society is hard to understand for those who
have never had to deal with racism or other forms of discrimination. Issues,
such as discriminatory college selection or racial profiling may not seem like
a big deal to those who never encounter that part of society, but it is a
living reality for African Americans. As
Americans, white individuals, and especially for Christians it is of utmost
importance that racism is identified, recognized, and taken responsibility for.
The failure of this first step has afforded no growth towards a reconciled
America. American racisms stems from failure, on the part of the United States,
recognize and reconcile the atrocities of slavery and the lynching era. For
example, two major botches of America history occurred in failing to apologize
and reconcile after the Civil War and Brown
vs. Board of Education.[54] A
step forward occurred in the giving of reparations, but reparation talks
usually only consist of monetary gain or apologies and very little have to do
with racial reconciliation.[55] In
addition, the church and school systems have failed in adequately teaching the
history of African Americans accurately leading to the masses receiving their
information from popular culture.[56] Film
and popular culture have also distorted what really happened to antebellum
South and have led America to believe that the South was comprised of white
southerners running fair plantations providing “good” lives for the slaves.
These inaccurate pictures painted for modern Americans only perpetuates and
supports their failure to take responsibility for current racial dissonance.
America could learn much from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in
South Africa; although no system is perfect, the government made recognition of
their failure and sought, through open forums, to bring about a collective inheritance of responsibility
seeking racial healing.[57]
From
Lynching to Beauty
Jesus
and others were victims of lynching on a tree. The lynching tree is the
greatest expression of injustice and beauty. For the Christian, the tree Jesus
was lynched on represents God transforming work of evil into beauty. It
represents the breaking of religious, racial and other socially constructed
boundaries. The tree of Jesus is the means by which the Apostle Paul can state,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus.”[58]
The tree represents the liberation of slavery into freedom.[59]
James Cone states, “God became a slave in Jesus and thereby liberated slaves
from being determined by their social condition.”[60]
As Christians need the cross, so all of America needs the lynching tree if they
hope to see a future of racial reconciliation. America must remember what
happened—to give voice to the murdered victims and not let their deaths be in
vain. The lynching tree, like the cross, is redeemable. The evil done against
African Americans in the Deep South, and the current effects of those
atrocities can be dealt with as to bring about healing. The cross and the
lynching tree are inseparable—they are symbols
to represent the true reality of
unity America so desperately needs. The question is if America is ready to give
account for her past and take responsibility for that past through reparations,
open forums, effective teaching, and an honest desire to see racial healing on
the political and religious levels.
Conclusion
This
paper has sought to give an account of the cross of Jesus and the lynching tree
of so many in the Deep South during the lynching era. This paper looked at the
history approaching the lynching era and gave insight into the complex issues
of lynching. There has been an exploration of the comparisons between the
lynching tree and the cross—how the symbolic representations are quite similar.
In addition, this paper looked at the issue of “blood sacrifice” and the
expiation of sins from the lynching communities. Lastly, the present state of
race relations was challenged to change in order to see future changes, which
bring about the greatest unity between all races.
Works Cited
Allen, James. Without Sanctuary:
Lynching Photography in America. Santa Fe, N.M.: Twin Palms, 2000.
Banks, Taunya. "Exploring White
Resistance To Racial Reconciliation In The United States." Rutgers Law
Review 55 (2003): 903-964.
Cone, James H.. The Cross and the Lynching
Tree. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2011.
ESV study Bible: English Standard Version..
ESV text ed. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Bibles, 2008. Print.
Feimster, Crystal Nicole. Southern
Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2009.
Ginzburg, Ralph. 100 Years of Lynchings.
Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 1988.
Girard, Rene.
Violence and the Sacred.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
Hengel, Martin. Crucifixion. Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1977.
Mathews, Donald . "The Southern
Rite Of Human Sacrifice." Journal of Southern Religion 3 (2000):
1-28. http://jsr.fsu.edu/mathews.htm (accessed May 10, 2012).
Miller, Robert . "The Protestant Churches and Lynching,
1919-1939." The Journal of Negro History
42.2 (1957): 118-131. Print.
Wood, Amy Louise. Lynching
and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890- 1940. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2009.
[1] Most
books generally label the lynching era either between 1880 – 1930 or 1940. The
inconsistencies are obviously in the number of those murdered, because of the
ten-year gap, but for this study I have decided to use the later date.
[2] Amy
Louise Wood. Lynching and Spectacle
(pg. 3). The numbers in this book seem to represent the most recent and
accurate.
[3]
Crystal Feimster. Southern Horrors: Women
and the Politics of Rape and Lynching (Pg. 62).
[4] Wood.
Lynching and Spectacle (Pg. 3).
[5] Wood.
Lynching and Spectacle (Pg. 3).
[6] Wood.
Lynching and Spectacle (Pg. 5).
[7]
Protestant Churches and Lynching (Pg. 118)
[8] Ralph
Ginzburg. 100 Years Of Lynching.
Throughout the collection there are numerous accusations of black men harassing
white women and being lynched for their “dishonor” of those white women.
[9]
Donald Mathews. “The Southern Rite of
Human Sacrifice” (Pg. 27).
[10]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
15)
[11]
Feimster. Southern Horrors. (Pg. 52)
[12]
James Allen. Without Sanctuary (Photo
59 & 60).
[13] Rene
Girard. Violence and the Sacred (Pg.
8).
[14]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pgs.
19, 24, 45, 46, 47, 80, 206). Many of the stories recorded include mobs of as
little as 25 people and as much as 15,000.
[15]
Allen. Without Sanctuary (Picture
84). Although the man accused is not black, it gives the reader a better
understanding as to how the crowd would demand “justice,” break down the doors
and snatch the accused perpetrator.
[16]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pgs.
22, 73, 166)
[17]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
34-35).
[18]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
32-33)
[19] ESV. Luke 23:6-12.
[20] ESV. Mark 15:14.
[21]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
103)
[22]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pgs.
23,33,34,35,74,89,141)
[23] ESV. Matthew 27:24.
[24]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
207). Stories of the crowds cruelness include cheering, laughing and making
jokes as one would hang on the lynching tree preparing to die. Page 207 of 100 Years of Lynching gives the most
heinous example of the cruelty the crowds had towards the lynched victim.
[25]
Martin Hengel. Crucifixion (Pg. 88)
[26] ESV. Mark 15:16-19. Jesus executioners
dressed him in torn and worn royal garb. They marched him around like a king,
putting in his hand a reed stick, representing a scepter, and a crown of thorns.
They beat him mercilessly and intentionally mocked him for the crowd.
[27]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pgs.
205-207)
[28]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
202)
[29]
Allen. Without Sactuary (Picture 25;
26)
[30]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg. 222)
[31]
Mathews. “The Southern Rite of Human
Sacrifice” (Pg. 7). Mathews discussion is more of a review of Clifford
Geertz social construction model of “symbol.”
[32] ESV. Matthew 27:39
[33]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pgs.
13, 49, 99, 103, 135, 162, 219, 221)
[34]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
135).
[35]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
109).
[36]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
27)
[37]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
27)
[38]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
168). In Ginzburg’s collection, there is a story of a family drug store that
displayed, in a large container of alcohol, the fingers and ears of two lynched
individuals. An inscription on the container read, “What’s left of the niggers
that shot a white man.”
[40]
Woods. Lynching and Spectacle (Pg.
49).
[41]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
22).
[42]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pgs.
90; 212)
[43]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pg.
90). Lynching mobs would often cut and destroy pieces of the body that caused
the violation of the accusation. For example, a young African American was
accused of kissing and hugging a white girl. A mob infuriated by the claims,
took the boy cut off his ears, slit his lips, and mutilated his genitals.
[44]
Mathews. The Southern Rite of Human Sacrifice
(Pg. 12)
[45]
Mathews. The Southern Rite of Human
Sacrifice (Pg. 27)
[46]
Woods. Lynching and Spectacle (Pg.
65).
[47]
Girard. Violence and the Sacred. (Pg.
78).
[48]
Girard. Violence and the Sacred (Pg.
79)
[49]
Girard. Violence and the Sacred (Pgs.
79-80)
[50] ESV. Luke 23:34.
[51]
Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynching (Pgs.
134, 145, 151, 225).
[52] ESV. 1 Peter 2:22-23.
[53]
Girard. Violence and the Sacred (Pg.
21).
[54]
Taunya Lovell Banks. “Exploring White
Resistance To Racial Reconciliation In The United States” (Pg. 908)
[55]
Banks. “Exploring White Resistance To
Racial Reconciliation In The United States” (Pg.905)
[56]
Banks.“Exploring White Resistance To
Racial Reconciliation In The United States” (Pg. 908)
[57]
Banks. “Exploring White Resistance To
Racial Reconciliation In The United States” (Pg.912).
[58] ESV. Galatians 3:28.
[59] ESV. Galatians 5:1
[60]
Cone. The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Pg.
160).
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