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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBill Moyers: The Fiery Cage and the Lynching Tree, Brutality’s Never Far Away
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/06/fiery-cage-and-lynching-tree-brutalitys-never-far-awaySure enough, there it was: the charred corpse of a young black man, tied to a blistered tree in the heart of the Texas Bible Belt. Next to the burned body, young white men can be seen smiling and grinning, seemingly jubilant at their front-row seats in a carnival of death. One of them sent a picture postcard home: This is the barbeque we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe.
The victims name was Jesse Washington. The year was 1916. America would soon go to war in Europe to make the world safe for democracy. My father was twelve, my mother eight. I was born 18 years later, at a time, I would come to learn, when local white folks still talked about Washingtons execution as if it were only yesterday. This was not medieval Europe. Not the Inquisition. Not a heretic burned at the stake by some ecclesiastical authority in the Old World. This was Texas, and the white people in that photograph were farmers, laborers, shopkeepers, some of them respectable congregants from local churches in and around the growing town of Waco.
Here is the photograph. Take a good look at Jesse Washingtons stiffened body tied to the tree. He had been sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman. No witnesses saw the crime; he allegedly confessed but the truth of the allegations would never be tested. The grand jury took just four minutes to return a guilty verdict, but there was no appeal, no review, no prison time. Instead, a courtroom mob dragged him outside, pinned him to the ground, and cut off his testicles. A bonfire was quickly built and lit. For two hours, Jesse Washington alive was raised and lowered over the flames. Again and again and again. City officials and police stood by, approvingly. According to some estimates, the crowd grew to as many as 15,000. There were taunts, cheers and laughter. Reporters described hearing shouts of delight.
When the flames died away, Washingtons body was torn apart and the pieces were sold as souvenirs. The party was over.
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Bill Moyers: The Fiery Cage and the Lynching Tree, Brutality’s Never Far Away (Original Post)
eridani
Feb 2015
OP
Thanks for posting Without Sanctuary's site here. (WARNING: HORRIFIC IMAGES)
countryjake
Feb 2015
#8
napkinz
(17,199 posts)1. Obama had it right ... not just the Crusades, but RECENT American history!
Bill Moyers: The Fiery Cage and the Lynching Tree, Brutalitys Never Far Away
Yes, it was hard to get back to sleep the night we heard the news of the Jordanian pilots horrendous end. ISIS be damned! I thought. But with the next breath I could only think that our own barbarians did not have to wait at any gate. They were insiders. Home grown. Godly. Our neighbors, friends, and kin. People like us.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/06/fiery-cage-and-lynching-tree-brutalitys-never-far-away
Yes, it was hard to get back to sleep the night we heard the news of the Jordanian pilots horrendous end. ISIS be damned! I thought. But with the next breath I could only think that our own barbarians did not have to wait at any gate. They were insiders. Home grown. Godly. Our neighbors, friends, and kin. People like us.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/06/fiery-cage-and-lynching-tree-brutalitys-never-far-away
eridani
(51,907 posts)2. Without Sanctuary: lnyching photography
http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html
http://isbn.nu/9780944092699
The Disciples of Hatred, in Their Own Words and Images
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/opinion/22mon4.html?_r=0
Black American lives were viewed as expendable in the pre-civil rights South. The murderers who hanged, dismembered or burned black victims alive before crowds of cheering onlookers knew well that the law would not act against them. These savage rituals were meant to keep the black community on its knees.
The white men and women who flocked to these carnivals of death sometimes brought along young children, who were photographed no more than an arms length away from a mutilated corpse. These photos were often turned into grisly postcards that continued to circulate even after Congress made it illegal to mail them.
A particularly vivid lynching postcard depicts the charred and partially dismembered corpse of Jesse Washington, who was burned before a crowd of thousands in Waco, Tex., in 1916.
The card, which appears to have been written by a white spectator to his parents, is signed your son Joe. He refers to the horrific murder in which the victims ears, fingers and sexual organs were severed as the barbecue we had last night. He identifies himself in the crowd by placing a mark in ink about his head.
By permitting images like this one to move through the mail at all, the government tacitly endorsed lynching, along with the presumption that African-Americans were less than human. The mailings also aided a propaganda campaign that was intended to terrorize the black population in the nation as a whole, not just in the South.
http://isbn.nu/9780944092699
The Disciples of Hatred, in Their Own Words and Images
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/opinion/22mon4.html?_r=0
Black American lives were viewed as expendable in the pre-civil rights South. The murderers who hanged, dismembered or burned black victims alive before crowds of cheering onlookers knew well that the law would not act against them. These savage rituals were meant to keep the black community on its knees.
The white men and women who flocked to these carnivals of death sometimes brought along young children, who were photographed no more than an arms length away from a mutilated corpse. These photos were often turned into grisly postcards that continued to circulate even after Congress made it illegal to mail them.
A particularly vivid lynching postcard depicts the charred and partially dismembered corpse of Jesse Washington, who was burned before a crowd of thousands in Waco, Tex., in 1916.
The card, which appears to have been written by a white spectator to his parents, is signed your son Joe. He refers to the horrific murder in which the victims ears, fingers and sexual organs were severed as the barbecue we had last night. He identifies himself in the crowd by placing a mark in ink about his head.
By permitting images like this one to move through the mail at all, the government tacitly endorsed lynching, along with the presumption that African-Americans were less than human. The mailings also aided a propaganda campaign that was intended to terrorize the black population in the nation as a whole, not just in the South.
malaise
(269,155 posts)3. K & R for truth
Institutional racism was and is sanctioned by many
I already miss Moyers on television.
mountain grammy
(26,642 posts)6. Thanks for the links.
countryjake
(8,554 posts)8. Thanks for posting Without Sanctuary's site here. (WARNING: HORRIFIC IMAGES)
I just hope that many will click to it and actually view their sad and thought-provoking slideshow.
http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html
The burning corpse of William Brown.
September 28, 1919, Omaha, Nebraska.
mountain grammy
(26,642 posts)5. The case for reparations has never been stronger..
It is the only way to bring any sense of truth and justice in America. The only way we will ever face up to our nightmare past.
What will we ever do without the voice of Bill Moyers? There seems to be no one to take his place.
nt