Lynching - The Ultimate Hate Crime

The actions of Michael Eric Rudolph, bombing abortion clinics and gay establishments … brings to mind the fact that hate crimes have always been a part of life, as has terrorism. For African Americans, terrorism took the form of cross burnings and intimidation by members of white hate groups, and in the form of lynching.

Between 1882 and 1930, there are a documented 2,805 lynching's in ten southern states. The statistics indicate that, though some 300 white men and women were lynched in that time, the majority were African American men, women and children, and that on the average, a Black person was murdered once a week.

The reasons a person of African American descent could be lynched ranged from serious to ridiculous. Some recorded reasons:
• Acting suspiciously
• Adultery
• Quarreling
• Robbery
• Inciting trouble
• Inflammatory language
• Being disreputable
• Rape
• Arguing with a white man
• Spreading disease
• Courting a white woman
• Trying to vote
• Mistaken identity
• Throwing stones
• Insulting a white woman
• Voting for the wrong party
• Demanding respect

There were a lot of other reasons, decided upon many times by the whim of the executioners. The government, state, local and federal, sanctioned, or allowed the lynching's, and so they remained a part of our history for a very long time.

A noted lynching occurred in Waco, Texas on May 15, 1915. Jesse Washington, an illiterate 17-year-old farmhand, was accused of murdering a 53-year old white woman. Washington apparently confessed to both raping and murdering her, though it was not clear even at the time if he had committed the crime or was just confessing to save his life. Upon confessing, he was taken to the Dallas County jail to await trial.

A jury of 12 white men deliberated for only four minutes after hearing evidence in the trial, convicting Washington. Before he could be escorted from the courtroom, a group of white spectators rushed forward and grabbed the frightened youth. They dragged him outside, where about 400 people were waiting; they put a chain around his neck and he was dragged toward City Hall. Once he got there, the mob threw Jesse on a pile of dry-goods boxes and poured oil over his body,. They then threw the chain over the limb of a tree and hoisted him into the air and then lowered him into the pile and lit a fire.

Jesse Washington was burned alive, in front of City Hall.

Two hours later, his charred body, in a sack, was hung from a pole in front of a blacksmith’s shop for public viewing.

Though lynching was a violation of Texas law, no members of the lynch mob were convicted, or even arrested, for that matter. A black journalist, A.T. Smith, was arrested and convicted of criminal libel after he wrote a story which alleged that the woman’s husband had actually killed her.

This incident, known as the “Waco Horror,” is only one of many stories of lynching in this country. Terrorism has been a part of African American life for a long, long time.