Lynching

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Lynching, a felony in some states in the U.S.A. is defined by some codes of law as "Any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person which results in the death of the person," with a 'mob' being defined as "the assemblage of two or more persons, without color or authority of law, for the premeditated purpose and with the premeditated intent of committing an act of violence upon the person of another." Lynching in the second degree is defined as "Any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person and from which death does not result."[1] To sustain a conviction for lynching at least some evidence of premeditation must be produced, however "The common intent to do violence" may be formed before or during the assemblage."[2]

The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill was first introduced to United States Congress in 1918 by Congressman Leonidas Dyer of Missouri. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in 1922 and in the same year given a favorable report by the Senate Committee; however, passage was halted by a Senate filibuster. The Dyer Bill has since influenced other anti-lynching legislation including the Costigan-Wagner Bill[3]. The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill as it appeared in 1922 stated: "To assure to persons within the jurisdiction of every State the equal protection of the laws, and to punish the crime of lynching...Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the phrase "mob or riotous assemblage," when used in this act, shall mean an assemblage composed of three or more persons acting in concert for the purpose of depriving any person of his life without authority of law as a punishment for or to prevent the commission of some actual or supposed public offense."[4]

In the United States, lynching is also a hate crime.[5]

Lynch mobs, which typically require a large number of participants, can be considered vigilante terrorists.[6]

Lynching during the late nineteenth century in the United States, Great Britain and colonies, coincided with a period of high imperialism violence and religious inspired protest which denied people participation in white dominated society on the basis of race or gender after the Emancipation Act of 1833.[7]

Pogroms against Jews in the early twentieth century in Russia and south-eastern Europe were another form of community policing, similar to the ethnic cleansing that characterized lynchings in the United States. (See Pogrom and [9].)

Contents

[edit] United States

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Main article: Lynching in the United States

Lynching, as a form of punishment for presumed criminal offenses, performed by self-appointed commissions, mobs, or vigilantes without due process of law took place in the United States even before the American Civil War and after all over the nation from southern states to western frontier settlements. The term 'lynching' is believed to have originated during the American Revolution when Charles Lynch, a Virginia justice of the peace, ordered extralegal punishment for Tory acts. In the South, members of the abolitionist movement or other people opposing slavery were usually targets of lynch mob violence before the Civil War. After the war, lynching was a method of terrorism used to intimidate freed blacks who were voting and assuming political power. A study of vigilante justice during the period of 1868 to 1871 estimates that the Ku Klux Klan was involved in more than 400 lynchings. Blacks were lynched often because they were accused of crimes committed against whites, however, journalist Ida B. Wells showed in her investigations that many presumed crimes were exaggerated or didn't occur at all.[8]

Mob violence became a tool for enforcing white supremacy and verged on systematic political terrorism. "The Ku Klux Klan, paramilitary groups, and other whites united by frustration and anger ruthlessly defended the interests of the Democratic party, the avowed party of white supremacy. The magnitude of extralegal violence during election campaigns reached epidemic proportions, leading the historian William Gillette to label it guerilla warfare."[9][10][11][12][13]

During Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan and others used lynching as a means to control African Americans, force them to work for planters, and prevent them from voting.[14][15] [16][17] [18] White Republicans were often victims of lynching as well in the post-war period. Federal troops operating under the Civil Rights Act of 1871 largely broke up the Reconstruction-era Klan. By the end of Reconstruction in 1877, white southerners regained nearly total control of the region's governments and courts. In the late 19th century, Southern legislatures acted through constitutional changes and laws to effectively disfranchise African Americans through devices such as poll taxes or property requirements, and literacy and interpretation tests in which a registrar would judge a candidate's fitness.

Lynchings declined briefly, but the practice took hold again with a vengeance by the end of the 19th century. Tuskeegee Institute records of lynchings between the years 1880 and 1951 show 3437 African-American victims, as well as 1293 white victims, nearly all of whom were registered Republicans. The largest single lynching incident in America's history was the murder of 280 African Americans in Colfax, Louisiana in 1873 known as The Colfax Massacre.

The number of lynchings peaked at the end of the 19th century, but these kinds of murders continued into the twentieth century. African Americans resisted through protests, marches, writing of articles, rebuttals of so-called justifications of lynching, organizing women's groups against lynching, and organizing integrated groups against lynching. In addition African American playwrights produced fourteen anti-lynching plays from 1916-1935, ten of them by women. The frequency of lynching dropped in the 1930s. Most but not all lynchings ceased during the 1960s, but there were some dramatic cases of civil rights workers lynched in Mississippi.

After the 1915 release of the movie The Birth of a Nation, which glorified lynching and the Reconstruction-era Klan, the Klan re-formed and re-adopted lynching as a means to socially, economically, and politically terrorize and paralyze black populations. Victims were usually black men, and sometimes black women, often accused of assaulting or raping whites. Lynch Law declined sharply by the 1950s.

Image:Lynchedmen.jpg
This memorial to the 1920 Duluth lynchings was described by its artist as attempting to "reinvest [the victims] with their unique personalities", to counteract the way the lynchings "depersonalized" them.

In The Strange Career of Jim Crow, the historian C. Vann Woodward wrote of the post- World War I period:

"The war-bred hopes of the Negro for first-class citizenship were quickly smashed in a reaction of violence that was probably unprecedented. Some twenty-five race riots were touched off in American cities during the first six months of 1919, months that John Hope Franklin called 'the greatest period of interracial strife the nation had ever witnessed.' Mobs took over cities for days at a time, flogging, burning, shooting, and torturing at will. When the Negroes showed a new disposition to fight and defend themselves, violence increased. Some of these atrocities occurred in the South—at Longview, Texas, for example, or at Tulsa, Oklahoma, at Elaine, Arkansas or Knoxville, Tennessee. But they were limited to no one section of the country. Many of them occurred in the North and the worst of all was in Chicago. During the first year following the war more than seventy Negroes were lynched, several of them veterans still in uniform." [19]

The executions of 4,743 people who were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968 were not often publicized. It is likely that many more unrecorded lynchings occurred in this period. Lynching statistics were kept only for the 86 years between 1882 and 1968, and were based primarily on newspaper accounts. Yet the socio-political impact of lynchings could be significant. In 1901 the state of Colorado restored capital punishment, in response to an outbreak of lynchings in 1900. The state had abolished capital punishment only in 1897.

Most lynchings were inspired by unsolved crime, racism, and innuendo. 3,500 of its victims were African Americans. Lynchings took place in every state except four, but were concentrated in the Cotton Belt (Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana). [20]

Members of mobs that participated in these public murders often took photographs of what they had done. Those photographs, distributed on postcards, were collected by James Allen, who has published them in book form and online [21], with written words and video to accompany the images.

Retaining incriminating evidence is not uncommon for sadistic criminals and in a study conducted by Robert R. Hazelwood, M.S. it was reported that of the sadistic criminals studied: "Forty percent of the men took and kept personal items belonging to their victims...which included...photographs...and some of the offenders referred to them as "trophies"."[22]

[edit] Civil rights and the color of law

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees persons the right against unreasonable searches or seizures. Under the "color of law", a law enforcement official under certain circumstances is allowed to stop people and search them and retain their property if necessary. Abuse of this discretionary power is a violation of a person's civil rights. Unlawful detention or illegal confiscation of property are examples of such abuse. In deprivation of property, the color of law statute is violated by unlawfully obtaining or maintaining the property of another person. Fabricating evidence or conducting false arrest is a violation of a person's rights of unreasonable seizure and due process. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution secures the right to due process. The Eighth Amendment prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment. These rights prohibit the use of force in an arrest or detention context which would amount to punishment or summary judgment and provide that a person accused of a crime is not subject to punishment without legal process and a trial.[23] Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 is the civil rights conspiracy statute which makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same) and further makes it unlawful for two or more persons to go in disguise on the highway or premises of another person with intent to prevent or hinder his or her free exercise or enjoyment of such rights. Depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and any resulting injury, the offense is punishable by a range of fines and/or imprisonment for any term of years up to life, or the death penalty.[24]

[edit] Europe

In Europe early examples of a similar phenomenon are found in the proceedings of the Vehmgerichte in medieval Germany, and of Lydford law, gibbet law or Halifax law in England and Cowper justice and Jeddart justice in Scotland.

In 1944, Wolfgang Rosterg, a German prisoner of war known to be unsympathetic to the Nazi regime in Germany, was lynched by Nazi fanatics in POW Camp 21 in Comrie, Scotland. After the end of the war, five of the perpetrators were hanged at Pentonville Prison - the largest multiple execution in 20th century Britain. [10]

There are also some personal accounts of lynching in Budapest, Hungary, during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the occupying Soviets.

[edit] Mexico

On November 23 2004, in the Tlahuac lynching, three Mexican undercover federal agents doing a narcotics investigation were lynched in the town of San Juan Ixtayopan (Mexico City) by an angry crowd who saw them taking photographs and mistakenly suspected they were trying to abduct children from a primary school. The policemen identified themselves immediately but were held and beaten for several hours before two of them were killed and set on fire. The whole incident was covered by the media almost from the beginning, including their pleas for help and their murder.

By the time police rescue units arrived, two of the policemen were reduced to charred corpses and the third was seriously injured. Authorities suspect the lynching was provoked by the persons being investigated.

Both local and federal authorities abandoned them to their fate, saying the town was too far away to even try to arrive in time and some officials stating they would provoke a massacre if they tried to rescue them from the mob.

[edit] Dominican Republic

Anti-black and anti-Haitian bias has long been a part of Dominican identity and culture. [25] According to an Amnesty International report, lynchings of Haitians and black Dominicans have continued to occur as late as 2006.[26]

[edit] South Africa

The practice of whipping and necklacing offenders and political opponents evolved in the 1980s during the apartheid era in South Africa. Residents of black townships lost confidence in the apartheid judicial system and formed "people's courts" that authorized whip lashings and deaths by necklacing. Necklacing is a term used to describe the torture and execution of victims by igniting a rubber, kerosene-filled, tire that has been forced around the victim's chest and arms. Necklacing was used to punish numerous victims, including children, who were alleged to be traitors to the black liberation movement as well as relatives and associates of the offenders. Of course sometimes the "people's courts" made mistakes, or used the system to punish those to whom leaders were opposed. [27] There was tremendous controversy when the practice was endorsed by Winnie Mandela, wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and a senior member of the African National Congress.[28]

[edit] India

Untold thousands of low-caste villagers have been lynched by upper-caste villagers throughout rural India. In November 2007, Kailash Bagri was lynched and burnt alive by upper-caste villagers in his village in Madhya Pradesh. [29]. He was reportedly lynched by an upper-caste mob for shooing away cattle that belonged to an upper-caste villager with a stick[30] His body had been burnt so badly that his bones could not be recovered. Villagers were threatened not to tell anyone about the incident, but Mr. Bagri's son leaked the story to news sources.

In September 2007, a low-caste woman was burnt alive by upper-caste villagers in Uttar Pradesh because her son had eloped with a girl from a higher-caste.[31] In August 2007, a policeman in Bihar beat and drowned two young low-caste girls in a river for stealing firewood from his orchard.[32] A United Nations committee equated violence against low-caste Hindus with racial discrimination and has questioned India’s record on treatment of the socially marginalized.[33]

[edit] See also

[edit] Sources and external links

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[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ S.C. Code of Laws Title 16 Chapter 3 Offenses Against the Person [1]
  2. ^ State v. Barksdale, 311 S.C. 210, 214, 428 S.E.2d 498, 500 (Ct. App. 1993)
  3. ^ Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, pp. 43-44, 54
  4. ^ Anti-Lynching Bill [2]
  5. ^ FBI hate crime page
  6. ^ "Exploring Roots of Terrorism" Dipak K. Gupta, Department of Political Science & Fed J. Hansen, Institute for World Peace San Diego State University[3]
  7. ^ The Discourse of Violence: Transatlantic Narratives of Lynching during High Imperialism, Smith, Thomas E., Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Volume 8, Number 2, Fall 2007 [4]
  8. ^ Lynching [5]
  9. ^ Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930 by W. Fitzhugh Brundage (University of Illinois Press: 1993) ISBN-13: 978-0252063459
  10. ^ Barry A. Crouch, "A Spirit of Lawlessness: White violence, Texas Blacks, 1865-1868," Journal of Social History 18 (Winter 1984): 217–26
  11. ^ Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. 119–23;
  12. ^ J.C.A. Stagg, "The Problem of Klan Violence: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1868-1871," Journal of American Studies 8 (Dec. 1974): 303–18
  13. ^ Allen W. Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction Harper & Row, 1979
  14. ^ Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930 by W. Fitzhugh Brundage (University of Illinois Press: 1993) ISBN-13: 978-0252063459
  15. ^ Barry A. Crouch, "A Spirit of Lawlessness: White violence, Texas Blacks, 1865-1868," Journal of Social History 18 (Winter 1984): 217–26
  16. ^ Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. 119–23
  17. ^ J.C.A. Stagg, "The Problem of Klan Violence: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1868-1871," Journal of American Studies 8 (Dec. 1974): 303–18
  18. ^ Allen W. Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction Harper & Row, 1979
  19. ^ C. Vann WoodwardThe Strange Career of Jim Crow, 2nd edition, p. 114–15
  20. ^ Dahleen Glanton, "Controversial exhibit on lynching opens in Atlanta" May 5, 2002, Chicago Tribune. Reproduced online
  21. ^ Musarium: Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. Accessed 6 November 2006.
  22. ^ FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, February 1992 [6]
  23. ^ Color of Law [7]
  24. ^ Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 - Conspiracy Against Rights [8]
  25. ^ http://www.thepriceofsugar.com
  26. ^ http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/dom-summary-eng
  27. ^ 4. Background: The Black Struggle For Political Power: Major Forces in the Conflict, in The Killings in South Africa: The Role of the Security Forces and the Response of the State, Human Rights Watch, January 8, 1991. ISBN 0-929692-76-4. Accessed 6 November 2006.
  28. ^ Row over 'mother of the nation' Winnie Mandela, The Guardian, January 27, 1989
  29. ^ http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/November/subcontinent_November535.xml&section=subcontinent&col=
  30. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7093388.stm
  31. ^ http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/November/subcontinent_November535.xml&section=subcontinent&col=
  32. ^ http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/November/subcontinent_November535.xml&section=subcontinent&col=
  33. ^ http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/November/subcontinent_November535.xml&section=subcontinent&col=

[edit] Books and Articles

  • Allen, James (editor), Hilton Als, John Lewis, and Leon F. Litwack. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (Twin Palms Pub: 2000) ISBN 0-944092-69-1 accompanied by an online photographic survey of the history of lynchings in the United States
  • Bancroft, H. H., Popular Tribunals (2 vols., San Francisco, 1887)
  • Bernstein, Patricia, The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of the NAACP, Texas A&M University Press (March, 2005), hardcover, ISBN 1-58544-416-2
  • Brundage, W. Fitzhugh, Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, (1993), ISBN 0-252-06345-7
  • Barry A. Crouch, "A Spirit of Lawlessness: White violence, Texas Blacks, 1865-1868," Journal of Social History 18 (Winter 1984): 217–26
  • Cutler, James E., Lynch Law (New York, 1905)
  • Dray, Philip, At the Hands of Persons Unknown : The Lynching of Black America, New York: Random House (2002). Hardcover ISBN 0-375-50324-2, softcover ISBN 0-375-75445-8
  • Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. 119–23.
  • Ginzburg, Ralph 100 Years Of Lynchings, Black Classic Press (1962, 1988) softcover, ISBN 0-933121-18-0
  • J.C.A. Stagg, "The Problem of Klan Violence: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1868-1871," Journal of American Studies 8 (Dec. 1974): 303–18
  • Stewart E. Tolnay and E.M. Beck, A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, (1995), ISBN 0-252-06413-5
  • Allen W. Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction Harper & Row, 1979
  • Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 1900 Mob Rule in New Orleans Robert Charles and His Fight to Death, the Story of His Life, Burning Human Beings Alive, Other Lynching Statistics Gutenberg eBook
  • Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 1895 Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases Gutenberg eBook
  • Wood, Joe, Ugly Water, St. Louis: Lulu (2006). Softcover ISBN 978-1-4116-2218-0


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