Excerpt from "The Little Book of Lynching"
Chapter One
CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE
“If it is necessary that every Negro in the state will be lynched, it will be done to maintain White Supremacy.”
-James K. Vardaman
Governor of Mississippi from 1904-1908,
and served in the United States Senate from 1913 to 1919.
“Ah, no crime in stringing people up in trees where I'm from. Burning crosses are a right of passage here! Come on down!” (TOPIX.COM, APPOMATTOX THREAD TITLE: “State of Virginia to issue public apology for Slavery." 2013)
“What about those niggers, what can be done about them? Forced showers and sterilization anyone?” (TOPIX.COM, APPOMATTOX THREAD TITLE: “Ignorant, Lazy Blacks in Lynchburg”)
“Lynchburg is a hive for biggoty lazy freeloading drug dealing stinky blacks on welfare. I am bringing in some hardcore soldiers with the KKK from surrounding areas to help clean up this ghetto city The klan is coming in from 5 districts to wage war on these monkeys.”
“The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers but not homosexuals."
Pastor Steven L. Anderson, of the Faithful Word Baptist Church
************
Why this book? Why write another book about lynchings in America?
Certainly, there are already dozens of books about the history of lynchings, describing in grisly detail both individual atrocities and the phenomena en masse. Eyewitness accounts, archived articles, and morbid postcards of lynchings long past haunt the 21st century internet. Hardly a high profile white-on-black crime hits the airwaves and undergoes pundit analysis, without us hearing the name of “Emmett Till” being invoked. And the vicious hate crimes perpetrated upon other ostracized groups also hearken back to unconscionable events of the recent past: No serious discussion of LGBT rights or harassment can transpire without mentioning the names of Matthew Shepard and Harvey Milk. (For our purposes, it is important to realize that the definition of lynching has expanded in modern parlance, from meaning a straightforward stringing up of some guilty or quite probably innocent human being, to any act of vigilante justice carried out extra-judicially by an angry mob, or a small band of murderous thugs.)
So, why this book? The topic is not new. Why, indeed:
Because, to quote Santayana--perhaps one of the most cited of all human caveats: “Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.” Surely, then, given the evidence, we must be in a constant state of forgetting, addled about not merely the crime, but also the ugliness that spins out from it, like ripples in Charon’s River Styx. Because we certainly seem to be perpetually dooming ourselves, as a society, to repeating the same hateful crimes again, and again, and again. Perhaps, then, the mythical metaphor of Sisyphus would be more apt.
Because most of you have probably heard of James Byrd, but I'm betting you haven't heard of Anthony Hill or Theresa Ardoin--both Afro-American victims of dragging deaths as well. Nor have you probably heard of Brandon McClelland, run over and then dragged by two white co-workers. Even though one of the white men admitted to purposely running over Brandon McClelland in the arrest affidavit, both killers were acquitted, and then the Ku Klux Klan showed up loud and proud at the courthouse, to give moral support to the guilty parties.
Because most of you have probably heard of Matthew Shepard, but not of Timothy Lee, the twenty-three year old gay black man who, on November 2nd, 1986, at about one a.m., "committed suicide" at a public bus stop, in spite of having just won a scholarship to study fashion in Milan. It was an odd suicide, with the victim leaving behind a suicide note in which he inexplicably misspelled the names of everybody in his family--including his own. Also, there were the screams, and then the sound of heavy footsteps running away, heard coming from the bus stop where his body was later found. What rendered this "suicide" even more dubious still was that it happened the same night that two hooded Ku Klux Klansmen were spotted nearby, in the unlikely suburbs of liberal San Francisco. The Klansmen had brutally attacked two other black man just blocks from where Lee's body was found. Tony Lamar Hall and Jeffrey Charles Miller were both stabbed, and their KKK attackers would later plead guilty. Timothy Lee's family was further distraught to learn not only that the mysterious strap which had been used to hang Timothy was destroyed by the coroner--an appalling and criminal act of evidence tampering--but the investigators who ruled it a suicide also chose to ignore the knife cuts that were clearly defensive wounds on Timothy's body.
Because most of you have probably heard of Matthew Shepard, but not of the 17 year old victim (minor, name withheld) of a Bronx gang who suffered a night of unimaginable terror: he was robbed, slashed repeatedly with a box cutter, and then sodomized for hours. Reported the New York Times, October 11th, 2012: “After he had been punched, kicked and stripped of his clothes and jewelry, the 17-year-old man was given a choice: the bat or the pipe. His attackers, part of a gang of nine young men, were in the midst of a night of savage assaults against three men they suspected of being gay … Before the night was out, the victims would be tortured with burning cigarettes, box cutter blades, plunger handles and more, prosecutors charged. But first, the 17-year-old had to make his selection. ‘I guess the bat,’ he said.”
Because many of you have no doubt heard the sad story of young Emmett Till, but you know nothing about the ongoing drama of Cequan Haskins--no, he was not brutally beaten, shot, and thrown into a river, as was fourteen year old Emmett. Instead, ten year old Cequan was punched, threatened, called names, forced to suck on his three hundred pound attacker’s nipples, burned repeatedly--and as if all that is not horrific enough, for the duration of the attack, a grandmotherly appearing school bus driver egged on the perpetrators for three quarters of an hour, having multiple opportunities to intervene, but choosing not to. And the county in which it happened has absolutely no explanation for why they did absolutely nothing for the long months building up to this ugly incident. Multiple instances of bullying by the same two boys upon Cequan had been ongoing, but nobody did anything, in spite of Cequan’s mother’s constant pleas for intervention--until this particular forty minute attack was captured on video and ultimately went viral. Perhaps that is what finally needed to happen: the images needed to get out of Appomattox, a town where, demonstrably, nobody cares.
Yet still, the trial has come and gone, the grandmotherly school bus driver was found guilty of nothing, and those people to whom Cequan's mother repeatedly turned to for help--who knew that Cequan was being bullied--have yet to even address their own apathy, much less be held accountable. Cequan's mother still seeks justice. Perhaps the reason that this story is so near and dear to my heart is that it happened in my own home town, a place where you could not walk down Main Street, patronize the local McDonald's, or attend a friendly coffee klatch without hearing people cheerfully throwing the word "nigger" around for public consumption.
And if the tourists visiting Appomattox happened to overhear this, too bad for them.
************
If we are to understand the extent to which racial hatred still foments in America, we must start to pay attention again. And by that I mean, don't merely watch the news, question it. Question everything. The question that I asked myself over and over again during the writing of this book was "Why is there so damn little coverage of these contemporary lynchings, these shameful atrocities?”
Even during the time it took me to compile “The Little Book of Lynching”, and its companion books, "Wigger" and “Liberty‘s Tyranny”, the race debate has ratcheted up again, with the fate of poor Trayvon Martin and the fate of rich Paula Deen being played out on a national stage. (Granted, Trayvon’s literal fate has been sealed; but whether or not he will be remembered as a neighborhood ne’er do well, or the tragic victim of an ill-conceived “Stand Your Ground” law, has yet to be determined--as has the final verdict on the actions and soul of the slippery, slimy George Zimmerman.)
Here is an example of how the modern American is comfortable with the short-circuiting of his or her own brain. For weeks after the famous Paula Deen imbroglio, self-aggrandizing bloggers and pundits who should have known better waxed on and on about this word she allegedly used some thirty years ago, many saying we should forgive her--on this point, I concurred; Lord knows I would not wish to be held accountable for things I did in in the 80’s. I danced to disco, for God’s sake, and proudly.
But had anybody bothered to actually read the infamous Bubba Restaurant EEOC deposition, they would have heard Paula Deen calling a young girl, an under-aged waitress, “a piece of pussy” , and not only calling her that, but corroborating it, almost proudly, under cross-examination--this act constituting an angry, ugly manifestation of misogynistic disrespect that I can’t even properly articulate. And I can articulate a great deal. That, and Paula’s own numerous veiled references to her contemporary racism within that same deposition should have changed the tenor of the national dialogue. But that would mean reading source material, (to wit, the actual text of the deposition), and it’s oh so much easier to read People Magazine and TMZ. In point of fact, I bet avid readers of TMZ (not to be confused with the 60’s DMZ) don’t even know what those three letters mean. Again, curiosity is dead, and with it, the memory of those things we must never, ever forget if we are to prevent them from happening again.
And even when Paula Deen was exonerated, and the case thrown out of court, many people went for the simple explanation: that Ms. Jackson's case simply contained no merit. After all, why should a capable and sensitive young woman be offended at hearing Bubba say "nigger" whenever he had a snootful (which was apparently all day, every day); it's not like she was a black person or anything. Nobody, and not one journalist that I could find on the world wide web, asked the obvious question: just who was this judge that chose to quickly and summarily throw out the case?
As it turns out, he is Judge William T. Moore, one of the most notorious judges in history, because of one decision he made. It was a decision handed down from his bench that was probably tragic, and most certainly unjust. In September of 2011, the state of Georgia executed a man by the name of Troy Davis. But up till the moment of his death, his attorneys had been frantically trying to get him a new trial. Why? In the time that had passed, seven of the nine witnesses had recanted. Most of the witnesses were black, and finally felt safe coming forward and saying that the police had harassed, intimidated, and threatened them during that ugly August of 1989, in steamy Savannah, Georgia. (Small points: in the original trial, no weapon was ever recovered, and the accused had multiple witnesses to his alibi. He willingly turned himself in when he learned he was being sought for questioning, sure that his proclamation of innocence would lead to his exoneration. Ultimately, the jury deliberated for a mere two hours.)
And for those who still believe Davis was guilty, bear in mind: nobody wanted the judge to declare the convicted man "Not Guilty," just grant him a new trial, as almost all of the witnesses had reversed their testimony. Oh--and another man had also confessed to the crime. That niggling detail might have influenced a different kind of judge, who takes seriously the reality of holding another man's life in his hands.
But Judge William T. Moore did not see the merit, and could not be bothered. Judge William T. Moore could not be bothered, even though the lawyers for the accused presented a petition signed by one million people. Judge William T. Moore could not be bothered, even though an international group, including Pope Benedict the XVI, the Reverend Desmond Tutu, Georgia's favorite son Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International, former U.S. Congressman from Georgia and presidential candidate Bob Barr, former F.B.I. Director and Judge William S. Sessions, and the NAACP all begged that the man who had been sitting in jail for two decades at least be granted a new trial, in light of the new circumstances and evidence.
But Judge William T. Moore said no. Said it was "all smoke and mirrors." And the execution went on as scheduled.
Not surprisingly, Troy Davis was a black man.
Anyone who had this information could have predicted how Judge William T. Moore would rule in the Paula Deen case. As for me personally, I think the judge should either resign and spend his days harmlessly golfing, or better still, be relegated to petty filings such as the famous one he opined formally upon, Matthew Washington’s “Motion to the Court to Kiss My Ass.” Moore gravely issued a judicial opinion on the motion. Oh, that he took the rest of his cases so seriously!
Why a book about contemporary lynching--you mean to tell me that lynching is still going on in America?
Because sure, we’ve all heard the name “Trayvon Martin”, but how many of us know the name “Everett Gant”? Gant was a 32 year old family man who stopped by his neighbor’s apartment to ask if his neighbor would please stop using racial epithets around the children in the building. By several accounts, Butler frequently called the kids in the apartment complex “little niggers” , taunting and frightening them with assorted threats. Irked and rankled about having Gant interrupt his dinner, Walton Henry Butler promptly shot his neighbor between the eyes. He returned to eating his dinner, and when the police came a-knocking, Butler seemed unfazed. He casually referenced the “Stand Your Ground” law and commented that he “only shot a nigger.” The tragic victim, father of a beautiful little girl, died in the hospital six weeks later.
Because of the ongoing injustice that is the Kendrick Johnson case. This is a case in which investigators claim that a strong teenage athlete "accidentally suffocated" because he crawled inside a large, six foot rolled up gym mat to retrieve his sneakers. Even a cursory look at Google Images of the crime scene (a high school gym) make it absurdly obvious that a broad shouldered young man like Kendrick could not have crawled into the gym mat, nor could he have suffocated, given the size of the opening just above his head.
GOOGLE IMAGES: KENDRICK JOHNSON CRIME SCENE
Investigators in the Kendrick Johnson case took their mint-julep sippin' sweet time, interviewing most of the involved parties--72 out of 111--four months after the death occurred, coincidentally, just when the world started to watch this investigation in the sleepy town of Valdosta, Georgia--a town made infamous a century earlier by the grisly lynching of Mary Turner and her unborn baby, along with some several dozen other innocent blacks whose names will never be known.
Four months before they bothered to ask the important questions. Not four hours, not four days, not four weeks, but four months. Among the witnesses they chose not to interview at all were the students last seen in the gym with Kendrick. Nor did they question the gym’s janitor till long after the fact. They also never did bother to question the first paramedic on the scene, who saw the deceased Kendrick's face, the massive bruising, and just assumed it would be treated as a homicide.
Investigators chose to ignore the medical evidence that Kendrick died from blunt force trauma. They were unfazed by the fact that somebody destroyed his internal organs, which might have offered more proof of murder, and which lead the funeral home to do the unthinkable--stuffing poor Kendrick full of newspaper for the viewing. There are two different coroner reports from two different coroners, also unheard of, and the reports do not jive. Investigators also seemed untroubled by the fact that out of the nearly 300 hours of surveillance footage gathered by four cameras trained on the high school gym where the death happened, the only six hours mysteriously missing are those from when several white students followed Kendrick into the gym--a damning point proven by the fact that hallway cameras captured those images of Kendrick being followed into the gym, but it seems that whoever doctored the gym surveillance footage forgot about the evidence shot in the hallway.
Now, we must ask ourselves, in a land that touts "liberty and justice for all." Are we still a country of lynch mobs?
Why this book, "The Little Book of Lynching"?
Because lynchings which take place in the United States are truly America's Holocaust. Only it is a different kind of genocide than the kind we saw in Nazi Germany: it is not orchestrated, documented, and conducted in large and efficient killing factories, as was the Final Solution concocted by the Führer's inner circle. No, unlike "die Endlösung der Judenfrage," the eradication and emasculation (often, literally) of American blacks is conducted in our country under cloak of darkness, and hood of anonymity. But that does not lessen nor mitigate the vastness of the numbers involved, nor the cruelty of the tortures perpetrated.
*************
Last but certainly not least, let me answer the obvious question: Why the abrasive and WTF-ish title, "The Little Book of Lynching"? (Besides the obvious explanation that it comes right after my Appomattox diary, "The Little Book of Bigots" and right before my chapbook, "The Little Book of Anger.")
Well, the truth from my heart is this: the title is not meant to abrade. It is not meant to offend. Nor is it meant to diminish a subject I have chosen to spend two years of my life researching; the only thing diminutive about my writing is when I write about my miniature museum, where it makes perfect sense to wax diminutive--but that is a different subject, for another time.
The title of this book is, however, meant to be provocative, to make you think. And to get people talking. I will do whatever it takes to get people talking, once again, about the crisis of lynching in America.
Let me repeat myself: I will do whatever it takes to get people talking, once again, about the crisis of lynching in America.
Just as the nation talked at length about the death of Emmett Till …about the shockingly tragic open casket funeral, and the infamous "Look Magazine" interview with the killers, in which they confessed all the grisly details of the murder. It was spellbinding: We the People watched and read and heard as two men sold their souls to the Devil, secure in the knowledge that that Double Jeopardy laws protected them from justice in this life.
And just as the nation talked in depth about the disappearance of three civil rights workers way down in Mississippi, and then talked with even more heated emotion when three bodies were found in a dam on Old Jolly Farm.
Just as the nation talked writ large about the slaughter of men like Harvey Milk, James Byrd, Matthew Shepard …
All that having been said, as regards the title: the truth of it, you see, is that a book which contains only about two dozen lynchings, past and present, is indeed, quite specifically, quite precisely, a "Little Book of Lynching."
In order for it to be a comprehensive book of lynchings, it would have to be a very large and very thick book--in truth, not even that would begin to cover it.
If this were to be the true and full History of Lynchings in America, I am very sorry to tell you that it would have to be an encyclopedia. A set of encyclopedias.
And that grieves me more than I can begin to convey.
Excerpt Continues:
CHAPTER FOUR
THE LYNCHING OF JESSE WASHINGTON:
"Haven't I one friend in this crowd?"
Of the thousands of lynchings that took place in the Old South, the torture and murder of seventeen year old Jesse Washington was one of the worst. Virtually all historians, black and white, agree on this sad truth.
The facts of the case:
--The body of fifty-three year old Lucy Fryer was found at sundown on May 8th, 1916.
-A neighbor saw seventeen year old Jesse Washington heading in from the fields. He was doing exactly what he should have been doing, he was exactly where he should have been, given his daily routine. But he was seen on the property at the same time that her body was found.
--When he was sought out after the body was found, suspected as the possible murderer, he was exactly where he should have been, back out in the fields, planting cotton, and Jessie made no attempt to flee. He had made no attempt to flee for the hours after the body was found, nor did he attempt to flee when he saw the authorities moving towards him.
--After being arrested, he seemed to not have any understanding of what was happening to him, as he curled up and fell asleep in the police car.
--Jesse Washington was illiterate and regarded as retarded by most who knew him, yet after his arrest, he was presented with a confession in legalese that he could not possibly have understood. He signed the confession without the help, or even the presence, of a lawyer.
--Although Jesse signed the confession, admitting to the rape and murder of Lucy Friar, the medical examiner found no evidence of rape. According to several eyewitness accounts, members of the sheriff’s department had coerced Jesse’s signing of this confession by telling him that if he signed it, he would not be lynched.
--No physical evidence was ever found on his body or connecting him to the murder. (In subsequent years and decades, cold case forensics experts have made salient arguments that Jesse did not commit any of the crimes of which he was accused.)
--Six inexperienced lawyers were chosen to represent him at his “trial.”
--NOT ONE of the six lawyers spoke to Jesse before the trial, which was held just one week after the murder.
--During the trial, NOT ONE of the six lawyers made any objection to any of the jurors chosen from the jury pool by the prosecution.
--NOT ONE of the six lawyers made any final argument for Jesse.
--The entire rape/murder trial took one hour. It took FOUR MINUTES for the jury to find Jesse Washington guilty.
In the days before the trial, crowds began pouring in from Waco and surrounding counties in excited anticipation of a lynching.
What happened next is explained in Wikipedia, in an exhaustive account compiled by those who are considered experts in what has come to be known as “The First Waco Massacre.” (Specifically, William Carrigan, Patricia Bernstein, Amy Louise Wood, James SoRelle, and Grace Elizabeth Hale.) What follows are their amalgamations of eyewitness accounts, newspaper stories as told in "The Waco Tribune", and the NAACP investigation conducted just days after the lynching.
Note the rampant sadism in the following eyewitness account: not only was Jesse Washington to be pulled in and out of the fire by a chain, to prolong his agony, but his fingers were methodically pruned off and distributed as souvenirs, so that when Jesse attempted to pull himself out of the fire by climbing up the chain, he had no fingers with which to do so.
Eyewitness accounts, compiled:
“After four minutes of deliberation, the jury’s foreman announced a guilty verdict and a sentence of death. The trial lasted about one hour. Court officers approached Washington to escort him away, but were pushed aside by a surge of spectators, who seized Washington and dragged him outside. Washington initially fought back, biting one man, but was soon beaten. A chain was placed around his neck and he was dragged toward city hall by a growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly beaten with blunt objects. By the time he arrived at city hall, a group had prepared wood for a bonfire next to a tree in front of the building.
Washington, semiconscious and covered in blood, was doused with oil, hanged from the tree by a chain, and then lowered to the ground. Members of the crowd cut off his fingers, toes, and genitals. The fire was lit and Washington was repeatedly raised and lowered into the flames until he burned to death … the executioners attempted to keep him alive to increase his suffering. Washington attempted to climb the chain, but was unable to, owing to his lack of fingers.
The fire was extinguished after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the lynching, including Washington's bones and links of the chain. One attendee kept part of Washington's genitalia; a group of children snapped the teeth out of Washington's head to sell as souvenirs.”
(end Wikipedia entry)
But nothing can replace eye witness testimony, and the investigations that were conducted by determined newspaper reporters, and representatives of the NAACP. Read the following collection of first hand accounts, gathered from those who had the courage to walk into the aftershock of this nightmare, so that the facts might be committed to history.
This particular account begins at the end of the one hour trial, and the four minute jury deliberation:
“All of a sudden, as the court officers were preparing to take Washington away, a young farmer in the back cried, ‘Get the nigger!’ A man standing by the judge said, ‘They are coming after him’, and then the thousands of bodies started rushing in unison to get their hands on Washington. The sheriffs had already silently exited the courtroom to avoid a confrontation with the wave of people.
The mob tackled a terrified Washington and carried him by the collar down the back stairs and out into alley, tearing off his clothes as they went. Once outside they strapped a chain around his neck and proceeded to drag him down Washington Street.
One of the most chilling descriptions came from an observing reporter, who said that Washington ‘became the plaything of the mob.’ As they dragged him down Washington Street, which now holds Waco’s shame in its name, the young black boy cried out, ‘Haven’t I one friend in this crowd?’ He didn’t. The crowd had already begun slashing him with their knives and he was covered in blood before the square was reached. Every man had his turn at the plaything, with shovels, bricks, clubs, and anything that could inflict pain.
The chainholders turned on Second Street to take Jesse to City Hall to burn him alive, in the direction of the iron benches and the Tree of Knowledge. At City Hall they threw the chain wrapped around Washington’s throat over a tree limb and pulled on it to hoist him up and dangle him before the crowd of 10,000 to 15,000 that packed into the city square.
Washington grasped at the chain around his neck; the men closest grabbed his arms and cut off his fingers so that he would stop. The Times Herald wrote: ‘Fingers, ears, pieces of clothing, toes and other parts of the negro’s body were cut off by members of the mob that had crowded the scene as if by magic.’ At least one onlooker testified later that the mob swept in to “unsex” Jesse Washington.
Stories abound from later years in which residents proudly show off parts of Jesse’s body to the young like souvenirs, saving them in attics or in jars of formaldehyde.
The hanging and the knifing were not enough for the incensed mob, though. A box of kindling was placed below Washington’s feet, and set on fire. The man holding the chain dipped Washington’s body, half alive and half dead, in and out of the blazing box for the enjoyment of the packed crowd. The Mayor watched from the window of his office in City Hall. Coal oil was poured over Washington’s body to intensify the fire, and as it overwhelmed his red body ‘shouts of delight went up from thousands of throats.’ Astonishingly, Washington was still not dead at this point; he was very strong.
After two hours nothing was left of Washington’s body but a skull, torso, and stumps of his former limbs. Everything else was either smoldering on the ground or tucked greedily away in coat pockets or hats.”
Reported the Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune:
“About mid-afternoon, a horseman came along, lassoed what was left of Washington’s body and began to drag it around the square and then through the streets of town while waving his hat in the air. Somewhere along the way the skull bounced loose from the rest of the body and was placed on the doorstep of a prostitute on Two Street, where it was picked up by a group of small boys who extracted the teeth and sold them for five dollars each.
The rest of the body, now tied behind a car, was dragged all the way back to Robinson (Washington’s home town), and hanged from a telephone pole in front of a blacksmith’s shop for everyone to see. Toward the end of the day, Constable Les Stegall went out and picked up the sack and brought it back to town, where the little that was left of Jesse Washington was buried in the local potter’s field.”
(End excerpts)
************
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I researched this American tragedy exhaustively, so that we might get a better idea of just who Jesse Washington was. As will be the case in subsequent chapters, I have struggled to put a human face on the doomed--to give the victim a family, a past, a present, hopes for the future, a personality, a soul. Yet virtually no information except for that offered above seems to exist about the sad victim of this lynching. Somehow, for me, that makes it even more tragic. To paraphrase Phillip Roth, he was, to the mob who murdered him, nothing more than “a human stain.”
I cannot imagine what I would have to add to this.
Unless, of course, I could attempt to answer the question of why bring up a horror which transpired so long ago?
Why not just forget it?
It is in the forgetting of it that we sow the seeds of the next atrocity. Have we not all, at some time or another, been reminded of the words of George Santayana: “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE
“If it is necessary that every Negro in the state will be lynched, it will be done to maintain White Supremacy.”
-James K. Vardaman
Governor of Mississippi from 1904-1908,
and served in the United States Senate from 1913 to 1919.
“Ah, no crime in stringing people up in trees where I'm from. Burning crosses are a right of passage here! Come on down!” (TOPIX.COM, APPOMATTOX THREAD TITLE: “State of Virginia to issue public apology for Slavery." 2013)
“What about those niggers, what can be done about them? Forced showers and sterilization anyone?” (TOPIX.COM, APPOMATTOX THREAD TITLE: “Ignorant, Lazy Blacks in Lynchburg”)
“Lynchburg is a hive for biggoty lazy freeloading drug dealing stinky blacks on welfare. I am bringing in some hardcore soldiers with the KKK from surrounding areas to help clean up this ghetto city The klan is coming in from 5 districts to wage war on these monkeys.”
“The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers but not homosexuals."
Pastor Steven L. Anderson, of the Faithful Word Baptist Church
************
Why this book? Why write another book about lynchings in America?
Certainly, there are already dozens of books about the history of lynchings, describing in grisly detail both individual atrocities and the phenomena en masse. Eyewitness accounts, archived articles, and morbid postcards of lynchings long past haunt the 21st century internet. Hardly a high profile white-on-black crime hits the airwaves and undergoes pundit analysis, without us hearing the name of “Emmett Till” being invoked. And the vicious hate crimes perpetrated upon other ostracized groups also hearken back to unconscionable events of the recent past: No serious discussion of LGBT rights or harassment can transpire without mentioning the names of Matthew Shepard and Harvey Milk. (For our purposes, it is important to realize that the definition of lynching has expanded in modern parlance, from meaning a straightforward stringing up of some guilty or quite probably innocent human being, to any act of vigilante justice carried out extra-judicially by an angry mob, or a small band of murderous thugs.)
So, why this book? The topic is not new. Why, indeed:
Because, to quote Santayana--perhaps one of the most cited of all human caveats: “Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.” Surely, then, given the evidence, we must be in a constant state of forgetting, addled about not merely the crime, but also the ugliness that spins out from it, like ripples in Charon’s River Styx. Because we certainly seem to be perpetually dooming ourselves, as a society, to repeating the same hateful crimes again, and again, and again. Perhaps, then, the mythical metaphor of Sisyphus would be more apt.
Because most of you have probably heard of James Byrd, but I'm betting you haven't heard of Anthony Hill or Theresa Ardoin--both Afro-American victims of dragging deaths as well. Nor have you probably heard of Brandon McClelland, run over and then dragged by two white co-workers. Even though one of the white men admitted to purposely running over Brandon McClelland in the arrest affidavit, both killers were acquitted, and then the Ku Klux Klan showed up loud and proud at the courthouse, to give moral support to the guilty parties.
Because most of you have probably heard of Matthew Shepard, but not of Timothy Lee, the twenty-three year old gay black man who, on November 2nd, 1986, at about one a.m., "committed suicide" at a public bus stop, in spite of having just won a scholarship to study fashion in Milan. It was an odd suicide, with the victim leaving behind a suicide note in which he inexplicably misspelled the names of everybody in his family--including his own. Also, there were the screams, and then the sound of heavy footsteps running away, heard coming from the bus stop where his body was later found. What rendered this "suicide" even more dubious still was that it happened the same night that two hooded Ku Klux Klansmen were spotted nearby, in the unlikely suburbs of liberal San Francisco. The Klansmen had brutally attacked two other black man just blocks from where Lee's body was found. Tony Lamar Hall and Jeffrey Charles Miller were both stabbed, and their KKK attackers would later plead guilty. Timothy Lee's family was further distraught to learn not only that the mysterious strap which had been used to hang Timothy was destroyed by the coroner--an appalling and criminal act of evidence tampering--but the investigators who ruled it a suicide also chose to ignore the knife cuts that were clearly defensive wounds on Timothy's body.
Because most of you have probably heard of Matthew Shepard, but not of the 17 year old victim (minor, name withheld) of a Bronx gang who suffered a night of unimaginable terror: he was robbed, slashed repeatedly with a box cutter, and then sodomized for hours. Reported the New York Times, October 11th, 2012: “After he had been punched, kicked and stripped of his clothes and jewelry, the 17-year-old man was given a choice: the bat or the pipe. His attackers, part of a gang of nine young men, were in the midst of a night of savage assaults against three men they suspected of being gay … Before the night was out, the victims would be tortured with burning cigarettes, box cutter blades, plunger handles and more, prosecutors charged. But first, the 17-year-old had to make his selection. ‘I guess the bat,’ he said.”
Because many of you have no doubt heard the sad story of young Emmett Till, but you know nothing about the ongoing drama of Cequan Haskins--no, he was not brutally beaten, shot, and thrown into a river, as was fourteen year old Emmett. Instead, ten year old Cequan was punched, threatened, called names, forced to suck on his three hundred pound attacker’s nipples, burned repeatedly--and as if all that is not horrific enough, for the duration of the attack, a grandmotherly appearing school bus driver egged on the perpetrators for three quarters of an hour, having multiple opportunities to intervene, but choosing not to. And the county in which it happened has absolutely no explanation for why they did absolutely nothing for the long months building up to this ugly incident. Multiple instances of bullying by the same two boys upon Cequan had been ongoing, but nobody did anything, in spite of Cequan’s mother’s constant pleas for intervention--until this particular forty minute attack was captured on video and ultimately went viral. Perhaps that is what finally needed to happen: the images needed to get out of Appomattox, a town where, demonstrably, nobody cares.
Yet still, the trial has come and gone, the grandmotherly school bus driver was found guilty of nothing, and those people to whom Cequan's mother repeatedly turned to for help--who knew that Cequan was being bullied--have yet to even address their own apathy, much less be held accountable. Cequan's mother still seeks justice. Perhaps the reason that this story is so near and dear to my heart is that it happened in my own home town, a place where you could not walk down Main Street, patronize the local McDonald's, or attend a friendly coffee klatch without hearing people cheerfully throwing the word "nigger" around for public consumption.
And if the tourists visiting Appomattox happened to overhear this, too bad for them.
************
If we are to understand the extent to which racial hatred still foments in America, we must start to pay attention again. And by that I mean, don't merely watch the news, question it. Question everything. The question that I asked myself over and over again during the writing of this book was "Why is there so damn little coverage of these contemporary lynchings, these shameful atrocities?”
Even during the time it took me to compile “The Little Book of Lynching”, and its companion books, "Wigger" and “Liberty‘s Tyranny”, the race debate has ratcheted up again, with the fate of poor Trayvon Martin and the fate of rich Paula Deen being played out on a national stage. (Granted, Trayvon’s literal fate has been sealed; but whether or not he will be remembered as a neighborhood ne’er do well, or the tragic victim of an ill-conceived “Stand Your Ground” law, has yet to be determined--as has the final verdict on the actions and soul of the slippery, slimy George Zimmerman.)
Here is an example of how the modern American is comfortable with the short-circuiting of his or her own brain. For weeks after the famous Paula Deen imbroglio, self-aggrandizing bloggers and pundits who should have known better waxed on and on about this word she allegedly used some thirty years ago, many saying we should forgive her--on this point, I concurred; Lord knows I would not wish to be held accountable for things I did in in the 80’s. I danced to disco, for God’s sake, and proudly.
But had anybody bothered to actually read the infamous Bubba Restaurant EEOC deposition, they would have heard Paula Deen calling a young girl, an under-aged waitress, “a piece of pussy” , and not only calling her that, but corroborating it, almost proudly, under cross-examination--this act constituting an angry, ugly manifestation of misogynistic disrespect that I can’t even properly articulate. And I can articulate a great deal. That, and Paula’s own numerous veiled references to her contemporary racism within that same deposition should have changed the tenor of the national dialogue. But that would mean reading source material, (to wit, the actual text of the deposition), and it’s oh so much easier to read People Magazine and TMZ. In point of fact, I bet avid readers of TMZ (not to be confused with the 60’s DMZ) don’t even know what those three letters mean. Again, curiosity is dead, and with it, the memory of those things we must never, ever forget if we are to prevent them from happening again.
And even when Paula Deen was exonerated, and the case thrown out of court, many people went for the simple explanation: that Ms. Jackson's case simply contained no merit. After all, why should a capable and sensitive young woman be offended at hearing Bubba say "nigger" whenever he had a snootful (which was apparently all day, every day); it's not like she was a black person or anything. Nobody, and not one journalist that I could find on the world wide web, asked the obvious question: just who was this judge that chose to quickly and summarily throw out the case?
As it turns out, he is Judge William T. Moore, one of the most notorious judges in history, because of one decision he made. It was a decision handed down from his bench that was probably tragic, and most certainly unjust. In September of 2011, the state of Georgia executed a man by the name of Troy Davis. But up till the moment of his death, his attorneys had been frantically trying to get him a new trial. Why? In the time that had passed, seven of the nine witnesses had recanted. Most of the witnesses were black, and finally felt safe coming forward and saying that the police had harassed, intimidated, and threatened them during that ugly August of 1989, in steamy Savannah, Georgia. (Small points: in the original trial, no weapon was ever recovered, and the accused had multiple witnesses to his alibi. He willingly turned himself in when he learned he was being sought for questioning, sure that his proclamation of innocence would lead to his exoneration. Ultimately, the jury deliberated for a mere two hours.)
And for those who still believe Davis was guilty, bear in mind: nobody wanted the judge to declare the convicted man "Not Guilty," just grant him a new trial, as almost all of the witnesses had reversed their testimony. Oh--and another man had also confessed to the crime. That niggling detail might have influenced a different kind of judge, who takes seriously the reality of holding another man's life in his hands.
But Judge William T. Moore did not see the merit, and could not be bothered. Judge William T. Moore could not be bothered, even though the lawyers for the accused presented a petition signed by one million people. Judge William T. Moore could not be bothered, even though an international group, including Pope Benedict the XVI, the Reverend Desmond Tutu, Georgia's favorite son Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International, former U.S. Congressman from Georgia and presidential candidate Bob Barr, former F.B.I. Director and Judge William S. Sessions, and the NAACP all begged that the man who had been sitting in jail for two decades at least be granted a new trial, in light of the new circumstances and evidence.
But Judge William T. Moore said no. Said it was "all smoke and mirrors." And the execution went on as scheduled.
Not surprisingly, Troy Davis was a black man.
Anyone who had this information could have predicted how Judge William T. Moore would rule in the Paula Deen case. As for me personally, I think the judge should either resign and spend his days harmlessly golfing, or better still, be relegated to petty filings such as the famous one he opined formally upon, Matthew Washington’s “Motion to the Court to Kiss My Ass.” Moore gravely issued a judicial opinion on the motion. Oh, that he took the rest of his cases so seriously!
Why a book about contemporary lynching--you mean to tell me that lynching is still going on in America?
Because sure, we’ve all heard the name “Trayvon Martin”, but how many of us know the name “Everett Gant”? Gant was a 32 year old family man who stopped by his neighbor’s apartment to ask if his neighbor would please stop using racial epithets around the children in the building. By several accounts, Butler frequently called the kids in the apartment complex “little niggers” , taunting and frightening them with assorted threats. Irked and rankled about having Gant interrupt his dinner, Walton Henry Butler promptly shot his neighbor between the eyes. He returned to eating his dinner, and when the police came a-knocking, Butler seemed unfazed. He casually referenced the “Stand Your Ground” law and commented that he “only shot a nigger.” The tragic victim, father of a beautiful little girl, died in the hospital six weeks later.
Because of the ongoing injustice that is the Kendrick Johnson case. This is a case in which investigators claim that a strong teenage athlete "accidentally suffocated" because he crawled inside a large, six foot rolled up gym mat to retrieve his sneakers. Even a cursory look at Google Images of the crime scene (a high school gym) make it absurdly obvious that a broad shouldered young man like Kendrick could not have crawled into the gym mat, nor could he have suffocated, given the size of the opening just above his head.
GOOGLE IMAGES: KENDRICK JOHNSON CRIME SCENE
Investigators in the Kendrick Johnson case took their mint-julep sippin' sweet time, interviewing most of the involved parties--72 out of 111--four months after the death occurred, coincidentally, just when the world started to watch this investigation in the sleepy town of Valdosta, Georgia--a town made infamous a century earlier by the grisly lynching of Mary Turner and her unborn baby, along with some several dozen other innocent blacks whose names will never be known.
Four months before they bothered to ask the important questions. Not four hours, not four days, not four weeks, but four months. Among the witnesses they chose not to interview at all were the students last seen in the gym with Kendrick. Nor did they question the gym’s janitor till long after the fact. They also never did bother to question the first paramedic on the scene, who saw the deceased Kendrick's face, the massive bruising, and just assumed it would be treated as a homicide.
Investigators chose to ignore the medical evidence that Kendrick died from blunt force trauma. They were unfazed by the fact that somebody destroyed his internal organs, which might have offered more proof of murder, and which lead the funeral home to do the unthinkable--stuffing poor Kendrick full of newspaper for the viewing. There are two different coroner reports from two different coroners, also unheard of, and the reports do not jive. Investigators also seemed untroubled by the fact that out of the nearly 300 hours of surveillance footage gathered by four cameras trained on the high school gym where the death happened, the only six hours mysteriously missing are those from when several white students followed Kendrick into the gym--a damning point proven by the fact that hallway cameras captured those images of Kendrick being followed into the gym, but it seems that whoever doctored the gym surveillance footage forgot about the evidence shot in the hallway.
Now, we must ask ourselves, in a land that touts "liberty and justice for all." Are we still a country of lynch mobs?
Why this book, "The Little Book of Lynching"?
Because lynchings which take place in the United States are truly America's Holocaust. Only it is a different kind of genocide than the kind we saw in Nazi Germany: it is not orchestrated, documented, and conducted in large and efficient killing factories, as was the Final Solution concocted by the Führer's inner circle. No, unlike "die Endlösung der Judenfrage," the eradication and emasculation (often, literally) of American blacks is conducted in our country under cloak of darkness, and hood of anonymity. But that does not lessen nor mitigate the vastness of the numbers involved, nor the cruelty of the tortures perpetrated.
*************
Last but certainly not least, let me answer the obvious question: Why the abrasive and WTF-ish title, "The Little Book of Lynching"? (Besides the obvious explanation that it comes right after my Appomattox diary, "The Little Book of Bigots" and right before my chapbook, "The Little Book of Anger.")
Well, the truth from my heart is this: the title is not meant to abrade. It is not meant to offend. Nor is it meant to diminish a subject I have chosen to spend two years of my life researching; the only thing diminutive about my writing is when I write about my miniature museum, where it makes perfect sense to wax diminutive--but that is a different subject, for another time.
The title of this book is, however, meant to be provocative, to make you think. And to get people talking. I will do whatever it takes to get people talking, once again, about the crisis of lynching in America.
Let me repeat myself: I will do whatever it takes to get people talking, once again, about the crisis of lynching in America.
Just as the nation talked at length about the death of Emmett Till …about the shockingly tragic open casket funeral, and the infamous "Look Magazine" interview with the killers, in which they confessed all the grisly details of the murder. It was spellbinding: We the People watched and read and heard as two men sold their souls to the Devil, secure in the knowledge that that Double Jeopardy laws protected them from justice in this life.
And just as the nation talked in depth about the disappearance of three civil rights workers way down in Mississippi, and then talked with even more heated emotion when three bodies were found in a dam on Old Jolly Farm.
Just as the nation talked writ large about the slaughter of men like Harvey Milk, James Byrd, Matthew Shepard …
All that having been said, as regards the title: the truth of it, you see, is that a book which contains only about two dozen lynchings, past and present, is indeed, quite specifically, quite precisely, a "Little Book of Lynching."
In order for it to be a comprehensive book of lynchings, it would have to be a very large and very thick book--in truth, not even that would begin to cover it.
If this were to be the true and full History of Lynchings in America, I am very sorry to tell you that it would have to be an encyclopedia. A set of encyclopedias.
And that grieves me more than I can begin to convey.
Excerpt Continues:
CHAPTER FOUR
THE LYNCHING OF JESSE WASHINGTON:
"Haven't I one friend in this crowd?"
Of the thousands of lynchings that took place in the Old South, the torture and murder of seventeen year old Jesse Washington was one of the worst. Virtually all historians, black and white, agree on this sad truth.
The facts of the case:
--The body of fifty-three year old Lucy Fryer was found at sundown on May 8th, 1916.
-A neighbor saw seventeen year old Jesse Washington heading in from the fields. He was doing exactly what he should have been doing, he was exactly where he should have been, given his daily routine. But he was seen on the property at the same time that her body was found.
--When he was sought out after the body was found, suspected as the possible murderer, he was exactly where he should have been, back out in the fields, planting cotton, and Jessie made no attempt to flee. He had made no attempt to flee for the hours after the body was found, nor did he attempt to flee when he saw the authorities moving towards him.
--After being arrested, he seemed to not have any understanding of what was happening to him, as he curled up and fell asleep in the police car.
--Jesse Washington was illiterate and regarded as retarded by most who knew him, yet after his arrest, he was presented with a confession in legalese that he could not possibly have understood. He signed the confession without the help, or even the presence, of a lawyer.
--Although Jesse signed the confession, admitting to the rape and murder of Lucy Friar, the medical examiner found no evidence of rape. According to several eyewitness accounts, members of the sheriff’s department had coerced Jesse’s signing of this confession by telling him that if he signed it, he would not be lynched.
--No physical evidence was ever found on his body or connecting him to the murder. (In subsequent years and decades, cold case forensics experts have made salient arguments that Jesse did not commit any of the crimes of which he was accused.)
--Six inexperienced lawyers were chosen to represent him at his “trial.”
--NOT ONE of the six lawyers spoke to Jesse before the trial, which was held just one week after the murder.
--During the trial, NOT ONE of the six lawyers made any objection to any of the jurors chosen from the jury pool by the prosecution.
--NOT ONE of the six lawyers made any final argument for Jesse.
--The entire rape/murder trial took one hour. It took FOUR MINUTES for the jury to find Jesse Washington guilty.
In the days before the trial, crowds began pouring in from Waco and surrounding counties in excited anticipation of a lynching.
What happened next is explained in Wikipedia, in an exhaustive account compiled by those who are considered experts in what has come to be known as “The First Waco Massacre.” (Specifically, William Carrigan, Patricia Bernstein, Amy Louise Wood, James SoRelle, and Grace Elizabeth Hale.) What follows are their amalgamations of eyewitness accounts, newspaper stories as told in "The Waco Tribune", and the NAACP investigation conducted just days after the lynching.
Note the rampant sadism in the following eyewitness account: not only was Jesse Washington to be pulled in and out of the fire by a chain, to prolong his agony, but his fingers were methodically pruned off and distributed as souvenirs, so that when Jesse attempted to pull himself out of the fire by climbing up the chain, he had no fingers with which to do so.
Eyewitness accounts, compiled:
“After four minutes of deliberation, the jury’s foreman announced a guilty verdict and a sentence of death. The trial lasted about one hour. Court officers approached Washington to escort him away, but were pushed aside by a surge of spectators, who seized Washington and dragged him outside. Washington initially fought back, biting one man, but was soon beaten. A chain was placed around his neck and he was dragged toward city hall by a growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly beaten with blunt objects. By the time he arrived at city hall, a group had prepared wood for a bonfire next to a tree in front of the building.
Washington, semiconscious and covered in blood, was doused with oil, hanged from the tree by a chain, and then lowered to the ground. Members of the crowd cut off his fingers, toes, and genitals. The fire was lit and Washington was repeatedly raised and lowered into the flames until he burned to death … the executioners attempted to keep him alive to increase his suffering. Washington attempted to climb the chain, but was unable to, owing to his lack of fingers.
The fire was extinguished after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the lynching, including Washington's bones and links of the chain. One attendee kept part of Washington's genitalia; a group of children snapped the teeth out of Washington's head to sell as souvenirs.”
(end Wikipedia entry)
But nothing can replace eye witness testimony, and the investigations that were conducted by determined newspaper reporters, and representatives of the NAACP. Read the following collection of first hand accounts, gathered from those who had the courage to walk into the aftershock of this nightmare, so that the facts might be committed to history.
This particular account begins at the end of the one hour trial, and the four minute jury deliberation:
“All of a sudden, as the court officers were preparing to take Washington away, a young farmer in the back cried, ‘Get the nigger!’ A man standing by the judge said, ‘They are coming after him’, and then the thousands of bodies started rushing in unison to get their hands on Washington. The sheriffs had already silently exited the courtroom to avoid a confrontation with the wave of people.
The mob tackled a terrified Washington and carried him by the collar down the back stairs and out into alley, tearing off his clothes as they went. Once outside they strapped a chain around his neck and proceeded to drag him down Washington Street.
One of the most chilling descriptions came from an observing reporter, who said that Washington ‘became the plaything of the mob.’ As they dragged him down Washington Street, which now holds Waco’s shame in its name, the young black boy cried out, ‘Haven’t I one friend in this crowd?’ He didn’t. The crowd had already begun slashing him with their knives and he was covered in blood before the square was reached. Every man had his turn at the plaything, with shovels, bricks, clubs, and anything that could inflict pain.
The chainholders turned on Second Street to take Jesse to City Hall to burn him alive, in the direction of the iron benches and the Tree of Knowledge. At City Hall they threw the chain wrapped around Washington’s throat over a tree limb and pulled on it to hoist him up and dangle him before the crowd of 10,000 to 15,000 that packed into the city square.
Washington grasped at the chain around his neck; the men closest grabbed his arms and cut off his fingers so that he would stop. The Times Herald wrote: ‘Fingers, ears, pieces of clothing, toes and other parts of the negro’s body were cut off by members of the mob that had crowded the scene as if by magic.’ At least one onlooker testified later that the mob swept in to “unsex” Jesse Washington.
Stories abound from later years in which residents proudly show off parts of Jesse’s body to the young like souvenirs, saving them in attics or in jars of formaldehyde.
The hanging and the knifing were not enough for the incensed mob, though. A box of kindling was placed below Washington’s feet, and set on fire. The man holding the chain dipped Washington’s body, half alive and half dead, in and out of the blazing box for the enjoyment of the packed crowd. The Mayor watched from the window of his office in City Hall. Coal oil was poured over Washington’s body to intensify the fire, and as it overwhelmed his red body ‘shouts of delight went up from thousands of throats.’ Astonishingly, Washington was still not dead at this point; he was very strong.
After two hours nothing was left of Washington’s body but a skull, torso, and stumps of his former limbs. Everything else was either smoldering on the ground or tucked greedily away in coat pockets or hats.”
Reported the Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune:
“About mid-afternoon, a horseman came along, lassoed what was left of Washington’s body and began to drag it around the square and then through the streets of town while waving his hat in the air. Somewhere along the way the skull bounced loose from the rest of the body and was placed on the doorstep of a prostitute on Two Street, where it was picked up by a group of small boys who extracted the teeth and sold them for five dollars each.
The rest of the body, now tied behind a car, was dragged all the way back to Robinson (Washington’s home town), and hanged from a telephone pole in front of a blacksmith’s shop for everyone to see. Toward the end of the day, Constable Les Stegall went out and picked up the sack and brought it back to town, where the little that was left of Jesse Washington was buried in the local potter’s field.”
(End excerpts)
************
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I researched this American tragedy exhaustively, so that we might get a better idea of just who Jesse Washington was. As will be the case in subsequent chapters, I have struggled to put a human face on the doomed--to give the victim a family, a past, a present, hopes for the future, a personality, a soul. Yet virtually no information except for that offered above seems to exist about the sad victim of this lynching. Somehow, for me, that makes it even more tragic. To paraphrase Phillip Roth, he was, to the mob who murdered him, nothing more than “a human stain.”
I cannot imagine what I would have to add to this.
Unless, of course, I could attempt to answer the question of why bring up a horror which transpired so long ago?
Why not just forget it?
It is in the forgetting of it that we sow the seeds of the next atrocity. Have we not all, at some time or another, been reminded of the words of George Santayana: “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."