The Race, Gender, And Murder Of Oklahoma During The 1920s ' Essay

During the early 1930s, African Americans weren’t allowed the same job opportunities and government benefits that whites were. For the black people that had jobs, hate groups would force them to stop working. Additionally, only three Southern states considered lynching an illegal activity. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird does a fantastic job of portraying these issues. The blacks of Maycomb, Alabama had the jobs that nobody else wanted. They were garbage men, maids and house cooks. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus and Scout are having a conversation regarding her classmate’s views on Atticus. “‘Do all lawyers defend n-Negroes, Atticus?’ ‘Of course they do, Scout’ ‘Then why did Cecil say you defended

In the words of Miss Ida B. Wells: The student of American sociology will find the year of 1894 marked by a pronounced awakening of the public conscience to a system of anarchy and outlawry which had grown during a series of ten years to be so common, that scenes of unusual brutality failed to have any visible effect upon the humane sentiments of the people of our land. She is depicting a period of time in American history stained with the blood of hundreds of free African American men, women and children. These people were unjustly slaughtered through the practice of lynching within the South. Wells was an investigative journalist and was involved in exploring, reporting, publishing literature on, and eventually campaigning against the

“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”(Lyndon Johnson). For generations in the United Stated, ethnic minorities have been discriminated against and denied fair opportunity and equal rights. In the beginning there was slavery, and thereafter came an era of racism which directly impacted millions of minorities lives. This period called Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system up in till mid 1960s. Jim Crow was more than just a series of severe anti-Black laws, it became a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were positioned to the status of second class citizens. What Jim Crow

2. One of the texts most focused on educating readers about race and the challenges it presents to American culture is Ida B. Wells’ “Lynch Law in All its Phases.” As discussed in previous reading responses, Wells’ speech is made up primarily of evidence due to the limitations placed on women of colors’ speech but even more so due to her “deep-seated conviction that the country at large does not know the extent to which lynch law prevails in parts of the Republic” (189). In this way, Wells endeavours to educate the US both about lynching and about the repercussions of allowing lynch law to prevail. That is, Wells forces audiences to acknowledge the fact that lynching, and thus white supremacy and racism, actively threaten the moral pillars that the United States is built on.

Wells provides a quote from the apologist John Temple Graves in which he claims lynch mobs are the only thing protecting white women from black men, and she uses strong diction to directly repudiate his reasoning. She claims that “All know [the apologists’ reasoning for lynching] is untrue”. This strong claim emphasizes her passion and knowledge in the reasoning behind the lynching. Furthermore, Wells clarifies that “The cowardly lyncher revels in murder, then seeks to shield himself from public execration by claiming devotion to woman. But truth is mighty and the lynching record discloses the hypocrisy of the lyncher as well as his crime,”. This claim confirms the racist reality of why many black people were lynched. Moreover, the use of the phrase “revels in murder” illustrates that the lynchers enjoyed the hangings, showing they were not for the punishment of crimes but, instead, for entertainment. To further elevate her claims and deny the lynching defenders, Wells provides a list of reasons why 285 people were lynched: “no cause, 10; race prejudice, 49;... making threats, 11...”. She asserts that these lynchings occurred mostly due to racial issues. By providing this list, Wells implies that few lynchings actually had to do with protecting white women; even further, she implies that many of the crimes were

First, ask yourself how would you feel after hearing the news that one of your family members had been lynched? Throughout the chapters 1-8, we can experience and observe the disheartening history of violence and lies. It is additionally an irritating depiction of a partitioned country on the very edge of the social equality development and an eerie contemplation on race, history, and the battle for truth. Throughout history, the conditions of the lynching, how it affected the legislators of the day, quickened the social equality development and keeps on shadowing the Georgia people group where these homicides occurred. During the 1900s until 19600s various African-Americans experienced various harsh conditions of violence, never being granted the right to vote and being segregated from whites based on their race and skin-color from their white masters. In general racism between whites and blacks can be seen throughout the globe during the era of slavery

Wells,“Lynch Law in America,”) Over a hundred of African Americans were lynched every year. The unwritten law was practiced for thirty years, inhumanly butchering thousands of men, women, children by either drowning, hanging, shooting, and burning them alive. By this point, the national law was irrelevant and the unwritten law was superior among the southern states. With every killing, white Americans would invent an excuse accordingly and to make matters worse, they realized it was sufficient to put anyone to death if the crime was against a woman, no matter if it were true or not, since it was under the unwritten law, which did not allow any sort of trial. This accusation was done in “the interest of those who did the lynching to blacken the good name of the helpless and defenseless victims of their hate. For this reason they publish at every possible opportunity this excuse for lynching, hoping thereby not only to palliate their own crime but at the same time to prove the negro a moral monster and unworthy of the respect and sympathy

The reading begins off with describing a mother, Dinah Kirkland and her traumatic experience with the concept of lynching. During the early 1930’s her son went missing after he was arrested and although Dinah knew that her son had been the product of a lynching, she could do nothing about it. She did not know where he was kept, who killed him, or even why he was killed. She contacted the head of the NAACP, and told him the fear she had regarding her son. Members of the African- American society came together to help Kirkland with her efforts, and eventually, Dinah did find the remains of her eighteen-year-old son.

. . but specifics [to him] didn’t matter because the victims were now symbols of injustice: a NAACP cause” (78). Especially given the long-past, over-60-years-old nature of the lynching, Wexler’s goal, and therefore also her writing, must more profound, and compelling, than this, and therefore she, unlike White, is interested in the specifics: “Roger and Dorothy Malcolm, and George and Mae Murray [the lynching victims] . . . I have tried to bring them to life” (266). Wexler succeeds in that, rather than merely mentioning these victims in the context of the lynching, she includes detailed biographies of each, as well as of their relations, and describes their actions long before and immediately leading up to the lynching, in an attempt to give the reader a better understanding of and greater empathy for them.

“American cities didn’t simply sparkle in the summer of 1925. They simmered with hatred, deeply divided as always” (Boyle, 2005, p. 6). Life was extremely difficult for African Americans during the early 1920s; a period of time that was better known as the segregation era. In the book Arc of Justice, written by Kevin Boyle, the words “racism” and “segregation” play a significant role. Boyle focuses in the story of Ossian Sweet, a young African American doctor who buys a house in a white neighborhood in Detroit back in 1925. After Dr. Sweet’s arrival to their new home, he and his family suddenly become threatened by a white mob that is formed against their arrival. Dr. Sweet and his

The discriminating social stratification in 1950’s developed a set of servile behavior on the blacks. They were thought to be inferior to whites, and were treated accordingly. Moreover, different parts of the country had various ranges of sensitivities while dealing with the blacks. For example, in Mississippi things were particularly tense after the Parker lynch case. No black man would dare look into any white man’s eyes in fear of the repercussions. On the bus, a man warned Griffin to watch himself closely until he caught onto Mississippi’s ways. In an extreme case like this, it was vital to learn about their roles and behave accordingly.

During the nineteenth century, lynching was brought to America by British Isles and after the Civil War white Americans lynching African American increased. Causing and bringing fear into their world. In the Southern United States, lynching became a method used by the whites to terrorize the Blacks and to remain in control with white supremacy. The hatred and fear that was installed into the white people’s head had caused them to turn to the lynch law. The term lynching means to be put to death by hanging by a mob action without legal sanction. So many white people were supportive of lynching because it was a sign of power that the white people had. “Lynching of the black people was used frequently by white people, their is no specific detail of how many times they had done it, but lynching of black people has lasted from 1882 to 1968. Lynching also is in fact a inhuman combination of racism and sadism which was used to support the south’s caste system,’’(Gandhi).

After reading/viewing the Jim Crow pieces, I conclude that people who supported the Jim Crow laws thought that African Americans were physically, mentally, and ethically inferior to Caucasians, They used awfully specific and hateful laws to express their “supremacy”. The picture “Jim Crow” supports my statement by showing animals dressed in better clothing than the African American man featured in the illustration. He seems cheerful and carefree in those tattered clothes, reinforcing Jim Crow’s supporters’ view that African Americans are naturally crazy and of a lower class. This steadfast belief provided the reasoning for the laws and punishments common with places under the influence of Jim Crow. Speaking of laws, the rules and “guidelines”

The great majority of people lynched between 1882 and 1930 were black. During that period there were almost 4800 recorded lynchings in the United States. There were many more, no doubt, but we know about 4800. 3400 victims of this mob justice were black. The period from 1889 to 1893 accounted for the worst years. 579 blacks were lynched as opposed to 260 whites. That is a ration of 2.2 blacks lynched for every white. This is a significant difference already, but only part of the story. By the end of the century the racial nature of lynching had revealed itself, completely and unmistakably. Between 1899 and 1903, 543 people were lynched in the United States -- men and women. Of that number only 27 were white. That is a ratio of 22 blacks lynched for every white.

The main excuse given for the mob lynchings of the Negroes was rape. Any blacks found to be involved intimately with a white woman were immediately accused of rape. Ida writes, “In numerous instances where colored men have been lynched on the charge of rape, it was positively known at the time of lynching, and indisputably proven after the victims’ death, that the relationship sustained between the man and the woman was voluntary and clandestine, and that in no court of law could even the charge of assault have been successfully maintained.” However, she also writes, “The Southern white man says it is impossible for a voluntary alliance to exist between a white woman and a colored man, and therefore, the act of an alliance is a proof of force.” Even though they know that the acts had been completely consensual, the white males continued this butchery of the blacks. Anything that could be thought up, even if it lacked truth or evidence, was used as excuses for these continued forms of slavery.