Have any of you ever heard of the lynching of Mrs. Mary Turner of Valdosta, Georgia... It epitomizes the devaluation of Black Life in the United States, and the sudden swift, and merciless brutality of White Folks... Read it, and pour a virtual libation for our sister, and the many thousands of African Americans who lost their lives in this savage and barbaric land...

Georgia, 1918

Hampton Smith, a white farmer, had the reputation of ill treating his Negro employees. Among those whom he abused was Sidney Johnson, a Negro peon, whose fine of thirty dollars he had paid when he was up before the court for gaming. After having been beaten and abused, the Negro shot and killed Smith as he sat in his window at home He also shot and wounded Smith’s wife.

For this murder a mob of white men of Georgia for a week, May 17 to 24, engaged in a hunt for the guilty man, and in the meantime lynched the following innocent persons: Will Head, Will Thompson, Hayes Turner, Mary Turner, his wife, for loudly proclaiming her husband’s innocence, Chime Riley and four unidentified Negroes. Mary Turner was pregnant and was hung by her feet. Gasoline was thrown on her clothing and it was set on fire. Her body was cut open and her infant fell to the ground with a little cry, to be crushed to death by the heel of one of the white men present. The mother’s body was then riddled with bullets. The murderer, Sidney Johnson, was at length located in a house in Valdosta.

The house was surrounded by a posse headed by the Chief of Police and Johnson, who was known to be armed, fired until his shot gave out, wounding the Chief. The house was entered and Johnson found dead. His body was mutilated. After the lynching more than 500 Negroes left the vicinity of Valdosta, leaving hundreds of acres of untilled land behind them...

Peace!
Isaiah
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Words would fail to describe my outrage at this! :maddd:

Words would fail to describe my outrage at this! :maddd:

Well, Pan, I'm gonna keep on posting stuff to make folks speechless(smile!) Seems we need that constant reminder of the fact that we live in the lair of savage beasts...

Peace!
Isaiah

On a Sunday afternoon, April 23, 1899, more than 2,000 white Georgians, some of them arriving from Atlanta on a special excursion train, assembled near the town of Newman to witness the execution of Sam Hose, a black Georgian. Hose had thrown an ax in self-defense when his white employer, Alfred Cranford, had threatened him with a gun, and the ax had buried itself in Cranford's skull, killing him. Within two days, the newspapers had dreamt up an altogether different scenario: Cranford had been eating dinner when Hose - "a monster in human form" - sneaked up on him, buried an ax in his skull, and after pillaging the house, dragged Mrs. Cranford into the room where her husband lay dying and raped her. Mob justice would mete out the punishment for this mythical crime: After stripping Hose of his clothes and chaining him to a tree, the self-appointed executioners stacked kerosene-soaked wood high around him. Before saturing Hose with oil and applying the torch, they cut off his ears, fingers, and genitals, and skinned his face. While some in the crowd plunged knives into the victim's flesh, others watched "with unfeigning satisfaction" the contortions of Sam Hose's body as the flames rose, distorting his features, causing his eyes to bulge out of their sockets, and rupturing his veins. The only sounds that came from the victim's lips, even as his blood sizzled in the fire, were, "Oh, my God! Oh, Jesus." Before Hose's body had even cooled, his heart and liver were removed and cut into several pieces and his bones were crushed into small particles. The crowd fought over these souvenirs. Shortly after the lynching, one of the participants reportedly left for the state capital, hoping to deliver a slice of Sam Hose's heart to the governor of Georgia, who would call same Hose's deeds "the most diabolical in the annals of crime."

PEACE!
ISAIAH

July 19, 1935 Ft Lauderdale FL Rubin Stacy was being escorted to the Dade County jail to serve time for an accused violation against a white woman Marion Jones. En route a white mob took Mr. Stacy from the six white deputies whereupon they went to the home of Marion Jones and hung Mr. Stacy, still wearing the handcuffs from earlier in the day. It was later discovered upon investigation that Mr. Stacy had in fact only come to the house asking for food and marion jones seeing the Black man at her door screamed and later had him arrested. None of the people involved in the lynching ever stood trial for the murder of the innocent man.

These are some of the names of reported lynchings in the year 1935

Jerome Wilson, Franklington, Kentucky (January 11 1935)

Anderson Ward, Maringuoin, Louisiana (March 3 1935)

Abe Young, Slayden, Mississippi (March 12 1935)

Daughter of Rev. A. B. Brookins, Poinsett, Arkansas (March 21 1935)

Rev. T. A. Allen, Hernando, Mississippi (March 21 1935)

Mary Green, Mississippi County, Arkansas (March 22 1935)

R. J. Tyrone, Lawrence, Mississippi (March 25 1935)

Unidentified African American, Hernando, Mississippi (March 28 1935)

R. D. McGee, Wiggins, Mississippi (June 22 1935)

Dooley Morton, Columbus, Mississippi (July 15 1935)

Bert Moore, Columbus, Mississippi (July 15 1935)

Reuben Stacy, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (July 19 1935)

Govan Ward, Louisburg, North Carolina (August 3 1935)

Bodie Bates, Pittsboro, Mississippi (August 5 1935)

Elwood Higgenbotham, Oxford, Mississippi (September 17 1935)

Lewis Harris, Vienna, Georgia (September 28 1935)

Bo Bronson, Moultrie, Georgia (October 17 1935)

2 unidentified African Americans, Gretna, Louisiana (November 1 1935)

Baxter Bell, White Bluff, Tennessee (November 4 1935)

Ernest Collins, Columbus, Texas (November 11 1935)


Mississippi Red

Mississippi's lynching legacy is extensive. From 1882 through 1968, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 539 blacks and 42 whites were lynched in the Magnolia State. Our state was the per capita leader in lynching murders and mob violence, and today there are many surviving family members who were alive when loved ones were lynched. Remember these records became funny after 1968 ...when a lot of lynchings then became suicides and accidental deaths...

Did you know?
Did you know that the pictures from lynchings were sold as souvenir postcards sometimes in sets showing the victim before during and after the lynching with peckerwoods smiling posing and such in shots with the lynching victim....
Funny how white folk and some Black folk now all want to say 9/11 we'll never forget all the while telling us to forget the lynchings that followed jubilee, the black codes and jim crow justice....lynchings that still happen now today in my own backyard to people that my parents know and knew....personally I've forgotten 9/11 already but will never forget our legacy of lynching it's victims call me at night and whisper in my ears during the day always saying the same thing.....don't forget us don't forget us Red never never!!!!!!

Mississippi Red
I'm not from Mississippi I am Mississippi


:maddd:

June 16, 2000 Kokomo Mississippi Raynard Johnson was found hanging from a pecan tree in the front yard of his family's home. Ruled a suicide. Funny thing is he had white friends and dated a white girl...He was 17 years old at the time of his death.

Mississippi Red

His name was Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old black youth who was born in rural Texas in 1897. He worked on a farm outside Waco which belonged to George and Lucy Fryer. In May, 1916, Washington was convicted in City Court of murdering Lucy Fryer. During the proceedings, he apologized and confessed to the crime. At the end of the trial, Washington was sentenced to death by hanging. Residents, however, were already in an uproar over the crime. A black man who attacked a white woman in any way whatsoever during that era in the South evoked little sympathy from the public. Within five minutes of the sentencing, dozens of court spectators jumped the railing, fought with officials and seized the terrified defendant. He was immediately set upon by a vicious gang using clubs, shovels and bricks. He was stripped naked and dragged kicking and screaming to the lawn directly in front of City Hall. Townspeople had already built a giant bonfire underneath a large tree. The crowd was later estimated to be as large as 15,000 people. Included in the cheering multitude was the Police Chief and the Mayor of Waco. Other police officers also stood by during the sickening ordeal which played out in the symbolic shadow of City Hall Washington was immersed in coal oil, hoisted up onto the tree and slowly lowered into the fire. Some of the spectators cut off fingers and toes from the corpse as souvenirs . His remains were dumped into a burlap bag and hung from a pole while many in the crowd cheered

James Irwin was lynched on January 31, 1930. Irwin was accused of the murder of a white girl in the town of Ocilla, Georgia. Taken into custody by a rampaging mob, his fingers and toes were cut off, his teeth pulled out by pliers and finally he was castrated. It still wasn’t enough. Irwin was then burned alive in front of hundreds of onlookers .

One of the reasons that has been listed for lynching and this is true was unpopularity...

I got a link for yall to check out I know it should probably be on the links section but it's relevant to this tread..


http://www.maafa.org/

http://www.americanlynching.com/photos-old.htm

Mississippi Red

Hello Family,

Brother Amun-Ra wrote a short article titled, " The Lynched (http://destee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2737)".

Just thought i'd share.

:heart:

Destee

Thanks for that ...good read...

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop."

Yes, I second that Red! Good reading, Destee - and you too, brotha man! Keep it coming!

Peace!
Isaiah

Nease Gillepsie
John Gillepsie
"Jack" Dillingham
Henry Lee
and George Irwin

All hung together August 6, 1906. Salisbury, North Carolina.

Other interesting facts...
Lynchings of Blacks by State (known and /or recorded)

Alabama 299
Arizona 0
Arkansas 226
California 2
Colorado 2
Delaware 1
Florida 257
Georgia 491
Idaho 0
Illinois 19
Indiana 14
Iowa 2
Kansas 19
Kentucky 142
Louisiana 335
Maryland 27
Michigan 1
Minnesota 4
Mississippi 538
Missouri 69
Montana 2
Nebraska 5
Nevada 0
New Jersey 1
New Mexico 3
New York 1
North Carolina 85
North Dakota 3
Ohio 16
Oklahoma 40
Oregon 1
Pennsylvania 6
South Carolina 156
South Dakota 0
Tennessee 204
Texas 352
Utah 2
Vermont 0
Virginia 83
Washington 1
West Virginia 28
Wisconsin 0
Wyoming 5

Total 3,442

Most hangings were in states of the Old Confederacy, with Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas the worst of the bunch.

Nease Gillepsie
John Gillepsie
"Jack" Dillingham
Henry Lee
and George Irwin

All hung together August 6, 1906. Salisbury, North Carolina.

Sister CarrieMonet, this is kinda heart-rending as it appears that this was probably an entire family that was viciously murdered... What in the world could an entire family have done to warrant that they all be rounded up and lynched??? Just a buncha devils being their demonic selves...

Peace!
Isaiah

Land Often The Motive For Attacks On Blacks, Lynchings
By DOLORES BARCLAY, TODD LEWAN and ALLEN G. BREED
Dec 4, 2001
The Associated Press

As a little girl, Doria Dee Johnson often asked about the man in the portrait hanging in an aunt's living room - her great-great-grandfather. "It's too painful," her elderly relatives would say. A few years ago, Johnson, now 40, went to look for answers in the rural town of Abbeville, S.C. She learned that in his day, the man in the portrait, Anthony P. Crawford, was one of the most prosperous farmers in Abbeville County. That is until Oct. 21, 1916 - the day the 51- year-old farmer hauled a wagonload of cotton to town. Crawford "seems to have been the type of negro who is most offensive to certain elements of the white people," the wife of J.B. Holman would say a few days later in a letter published by The Abbeville Press and Banner. "He was getting rich, for a negro, and he was insolent along with it." Crawford's prosperity had made him a target. Racial violence in America is a familiar story, but the importance of land as a motive for lynchings and white mob attacks on blacks has been widely overlooked. And the resulting land losses suffered by black families have gone largely unreported. The Associated Press documented 57 violent land takings in an 18-month investigation of black land loss in America. Sometimes, black landowners were attacked by whites who just wanted to drive them from their property. In other cases, the attackers wanted the land. For many decades, successful blacks "lived with a gnawing fear ... that white neighbors could at any time do something violent and take everything from them," said Loren Schweninger, a University of North Carolina expert on black landownership.

SPLITTING A FAMILY

While waiting his turn at the gin that fall day in 1916, Crawford entered the mercantile store of W.D. Barksdale. Contemporary newspaper accounts and the papers of then- Gov. Richard Manning detail what followed: Barksdale offered Crawford 85 cents a pound for his cottonseed. Crawford replied he had a better offer. Barksdale called him a liar; Crawford called the storekeeper a cheat. Three clerks grabbed ax handles, and Crawford backed into the street, where the sheriff appeared and arrested Crawford - for cursing a white man. Released on bail, Crawford was cornered by about 50 whites who beat and knifed him. The sheriff carried him back to jail. A few hours later, a deputy gave the mob the keys to Crawford's cell. AT SUNDOWN, THEY HANGED HIM FROM A SOUTHERN PINE. No one was tried for the killing. In its aftermath, hundreds of blacks, including some Crawfords, fled Abbeville. Two whites were appointed executors of Crawford's estate, which included 427 acres of prime cotton land. One was Andrew J. Ferguson, cousin of two of the mob's ringleaders, the Press and Banner reported. Crawford's children inherited the farm, but Ferguson liquidated much of the rest of Crawford's property, including his cotton, which went to Barksdale. Ferguson kept $5,438 - more than half the proceeds - and gave Crawford's children just $200 each, estate papers show. Crawford's family struggled to hold the farm together but lost it when they couldn't pay off a $2,000 balance on a bank loan. Although the farm was assessed at $20,000 at the time, a white man paid $504 for it at the foreclosure auction, land records show. "There's land taken away, and there's murder," said Johnson, of Alexandria, Va. "But the biggest crime was that our family was split up by this. My family got scattered into the night."

FROM LYNCHING TO LAND-TAKING

The former Crawford land provided timber to several owners before International Paper Corp. acquired it last year. A company spokesman said International Paper was unaware of the land's history, and added, "It causes you to think that there are facets of our history that need to be discussed and addressed." Other current owners of property involved in violent land takings also said they knew little about the history of their land, and most were disturbed when told.

The Tuskegee Institute and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have documented more than 3,000 lynchings between 1865 and 1965. Many of those lynched were property owners, said Ray Winbush, director of Fisk University's Race Relations Institute. "If you are looking for stolen black land," he said, "just follow the lynching trail." Some white officials condoned the violence; a few added threats of their own. "If it is necessary, every negro in the state will be lynched," James K. Vardaman declared while governor of Mississippi (1904-1908). "It will be done to maintain white supremacy." At the start of the 20th century, Birmingham, Ky., a tobacco center with a predominantly black population, became a battleground in a five-year siege by white marauders called Night Riders.

On March 8, 1908, about 100 armed whites tore through town, shooting seven blacks, three of them fatally. The AP documented cases of 14 black landowners who were driven from Birmingham. Together, they lost more than 60 acres of farmland and 21 city lots to whites - many at sheriff's sales, all for low prices. John Scruggs and his young granddaughter were killed in Birmingham that night. Property records show that the lot Scruggs had bought for $25 in 1902 was sold for nonpayment of taxes six years after the attack. A white man bought it for $7.25 (about $144 today). Today, Birmingham lies beneath a flood way created in the 1940s.

'THE LAW WOULDN'T HELP'

In Pierce City, Mo., 1,000 armed whites burned down five black-owned houses and killed four blacks on Aug. 18, 1901. Within days, all of the town's 129 blacks had fled, never to return, according to a contemporary report in The Lawrence Chieftain newspaper. The AP documented the cases of nine Pierce City blacks who lost 30 acres of farmland and 10 city lots. Whites bought it all at bargain prices.

Sometimes, individual black farmers were attacked by bands of white farmers known as the Whitecaps. Operating in several Southern and border states near the turn of the 20th century, they were intent on driving blacks from their land, said historian George C. Wright, provost at the University of Texas at Arlington.

"THE LAW WOULDN'T HELP," HE SAID. "THERE WAS JUST NO ONE TO TURN TO."

Whitecaps often nailed notes to the doors of black landowners, warning them to leave or die.

The warning to Eli Hilson of Lincoln County, Miss., came on Nov. 18, 1903, when Whitecaps shot up his house, The Brookhaven Leader newspaper reported at the time. Hilson ignored the warning. A month later, the 39-year- old farmer was shot dead. His wife, Hannah, struggled to raise their 11 children and work the 74-acre farm, but she could not manage without her husband. She lost the property through a mortgage foreclosure in 1905. Land records show the farm went for $439 to S.P. Oliver, a county supervisor. Today, the property is assessed at $61,642.

PART II : A legal maneuver is used to strip black Americans of their land. Dec 4, 2001
Legality Used To Take Land From Blacks
By TODD LEWAN and DOLORES BARCLAY
The Associated Press

Lawyers and real estate traders are stripping Americans of their ancestral land today, simply by following the law. It is done through a court procedure that is intended to help resolve land disputes but is being used to pry land from people who do not want to sell. Black families are especially vulnerable to it. The Becketts, for example, lost a 335-acre farm in Jasper County, S.C., that had been in their family since 1873.

And the Sanders clan watched helplessly as a timber company recently acquired 300 acres in Pickens County, Ala., that had been in their family since 1919.

Alvie Marsh of Choudrant, La., believes 80 acres belonging to his family was taken unfairly. "I've lived with that for 45 years," he said. Today, he lives in a shack on that part of the estate his family was able to keep.

THE PROCEDURE IS CALLED PARTITIONING, AND THIS IS HOW IT WORKS: Whenever a landowner dies without a will, the heirs - usually spouse and children - inherit the estate. They own the land in common, with no one person owning a specific part of it. If more family members die without wills, things can get messy within a couple of generations, with dozens of relatives owning the land in common. Anyone can buy an interest in one of these family estates; all it takes is a single heir willing to sell. And anyone who owns a share, no matter how small, can go to a judge and request that the entire property be sold at auction. Some land traders seek out such estates and buy small shares with the intention of forcing auctions. Family members seldom have enough money to compete, even when the high bid is less than market value. "Imagine buying one share of Coca-Cola and being able to go to court and demand a sale of the entire company," said Thomas Mitchell, a University of Wisconsin law professor who has studied partitioning. "That's what's going on here."

This can happen to anyone who owns land in common with others; laws allowing partition sales exist in every state. However, government and university studies show black landowners in the South are especially vulnerable because up to 83 percent of them do not leave wills - perhaps because rural blacks often lack equal access to the legal system.

Mitchell and others who have studied black landownership estimate that thousands of black families have lost millions of acres through partition sales in the past 30 years. By the end of the 1960s, civil rights legislation and social change had curbed the intimidation and violence that had driven many blacks from their land over the previous 100 years. Nevertheless, land loss did not stop. Since 1969, the decline has been particularly steep. Black Americans have lost 80 percent of the 5.5 million acres of farmland they owned in the South 32 years ago, according to the U.S. Agricultural Census. Partition sales, Pennick estimates, account for half of those losses. PARTITION SALES 'EASY' FOR JUDGES A judge is not required to order a partition sale just because someone requests it. Often, there are other options.

When the property is large enough for each owner to be given a useful parcel, it can be fairly divided. When those who want to keep the land outnumber those who want to sell, the court can help the majority arrange to buy out the minority. In at least one state, Alabama, the law gives family members first rights to buy out anyone who wants to sell. Yet, government and university studies show, alternatives to partition sales are rarely considered. When partition sales are requested, judges nearly always order them. "Judges order partition sales because it's easy," said Jesse Dukeminier, an emeritus professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Appraising and dividing property takes time and effort, he said. Partition statutes exist for a reason: to help families resolve impossible tangles that can develop when land is passed down through several generations without wills. In Rankin County, Miss., for example, the 66 heirs to an 80-acre black family estate could not agree on what to do with the land. One family member, whose portion was the size of a house lot, wanted her share separated from the estate. Three other heirs, who owned shares the size of parking spaces, opposed dividing the land because what they owned would have become worthless. So in 1979, the court ordered the land sold and the proceeds divided. Even when the process works as intended, it contributes to the decline in black-owned land; the property nearly always ends up in the hands of white developers or corporations. The Rankin County land was bought at auction by a timber company.

But the process doesn't always work as intended. Land traders who buy shares of estates with the intention of forcing partition sales are abusing the law, according to a 1985 Commerce Department study. The practice is legal but "clearly unscrupulous," declared the study, which was conducted for the department by the Emergency Land Fund, a nonprofit group that helped Southern blacks retain threatened land in the 1970s and '80s.

Blacks have lost land through partitioning for decades; the AP found several cases in the 1950s. But in recent years, it has become big business. Legal fees for bringing partition actions can be high - often 20 percent of the proceeds from the land sales. Families, in effect, end up paying the fees of the lawyers who separate them from their land. CAN'T ALWAYS TRUST THEIR LAWYERS

Moreover, black landowners cannot always count on their own lawyers. Sometimes, the Commerce Department study found, attorneys representing blacks filed partition actions that were against their clients' interests. The Associated Press found several cases in which black landowners, unfamiliar with property law, inadvertently set partition actions in motion by signing legal papers they did not understand.

Once the partition actions began, the landowners found themselves powerless to stop them.

The AP studied 14 partition cases in detail, reviewing lawsuit files and interviewing participants. The cases stretched across Southern and border states. In nearly every case, the partition action was initiated by a land trader or lawyer rather than a family member. In most cases, land traders bought small shares of black family estates, sometimes from heirs who were elderly, mentally disabled or in prison, and then sought partition sales. All 14 estates were acquired from black families by whites or corporations, usually at bargain prices

What in the world could an entire family have done to warrant that they all be rounded up and lynched???

probably accused of gang rape...or better yet, lusting (looking) at a white woman too long. Very common.

They could have got them folk for just looking at a cracker wrong...usually the main offense of lynching victims was breathing...

Mississippi Red

Sista Carrie and Brotha Red, I once read a sorry book called Worse Than Slavery, about the prison farm system down south following slavery, where the author mentions African children as young as 5 or 6 being lynched for sport...

In Alan Lomax's book, The Land Where The Blues Began, Big Bill Broonzy talks about a family being lynched because one of it's members had "committed" some kind of an "offense", and run off to the north... The fact of the matter is, as you mentioned Red, our only "offense" often was in being Black... That was their pretense for murdering us in cold blood...

What really galls me is the level of barbarity used to committ these crimes... After all, these are a people who claim always to feel menaced in the presence of an African male... That is why they hung Mrs. Mary Turner up by her ankles, and poured gasoline on her pregnant body, and burned her alive - alive!!!! And they say that we should be upset over O.J.(LAUGH) Pleeeeze!(smile!)

Peace!
Isaiah

Isaiah,
And to this day every time I watch the movie Rosewood, I actually CRY and can't help it. I watch it and my blood pressure soars. When they show all those bodies of women, men, children and babies in that pit I lose it.

Isaiah man o man ..."Worse then Slavery" that's my book dog...maaaaannn you touched a nerve with that one...Natchez is all over that piece man it's about Parchman Farm bruh...man my first cousin is there doing life for poping a friend of mine and I have about 9 other potnas that have been in and out of there since high school...the Farm ain't no joke man them boys still out there cutting bushes with a sling blade....this is what I'm talking bout right here....the history everybody wants to sweep under the carpet I know it's painful but just like muscle pain after you life weights you're stronger after you get over it....I'm gonna check out the other book you mentioned in the post man...preciate it bruh... Parchman Farm to the north of my house Angola to the South.....it's legendary yall...


Mississippi Red

I live and die for the South folk
"I work hard for the South these boys playin hard with they thumb in they mouth"

You know, Sista Carrie, the Rosewood and the Tulsa, Oklahoma/Black Wall Street massacres make me shake my head, and laugh sarcastically(smile!) Here our people were like 50 years outta slavery, and had mo money and property than these lazy-assed White Trash Crackas, and they just couldn't stand it(smile!) We always say that they change the rules when the rules don't benefit them, and those are two of the worst examples....

No, I don't feel a lot of sympathy for them when one of theirs leaves here ignominiously... To me, it is reaping what they've sown, the universe fulfilling it's law, and coming round full circle... When I think about the Emmett Till case, a 14-year old boy, a child, being murdered for a wolf whistle by fully-grown White male trash, who later sold their sorry confessions of their crime to Look magazine, I cannot feel much sympathy for these folks... I just think of all of the YOUNG African males they've slaughtered in the name of defending their women(while raping African women), and think that whatever happens to them is the universe in fulfillment, the universe in fulfillment...

Peace!
Isaiah

See: Lynchburning (http://whgbetc.com/oldsoul/lynchburning.html)

Oldsoul that's hot bruh for true hot....and nah I ain't forgetting shhhhhhh (I won't say it) nothing ....
Mississippi Red
Oh yeah cool site man just starting to check it out but like what I see already....

Stay up because folk can get up on you when ya sleepin.

Mississippi Red :smokin:

The Lynching of Anthony CrawfordDoria Johnson , great-great granddaughter of Anthony Crawford recounts his lynching and the effect it had on the lives of his descendants.

I am the great-great granddaughter of Anthony and Tebby Crawford, the great granddaughter of George and Annabelle Crawford, the granddaughter of Joseph and Fannie Crawford Brooks, and the daughter of Dr. Charles and Helen Brooks Johnson. My story is about my great-great grandfathers lynching in 1916 in Abbeville, SC by a crowd estimated to be between 200 and 400 blood-thirsty white people. His ordeal lasted all day. His body was beaten and dragged through town to show other Negroes what would happen to them if they got "insolent." Finally, he was taken to the county fair grounds and strung up to a tree and riddled with bullets. Although we have heard his body was thrown on someone’s lawn , we have yet to locate his grave. The family was ordered to vacate their land, wind up business and get out of town. They did just that. His crime you might ask: cursing a white man for offering him a low price for the cotton seed he was trying to sell and being too rich for a Negro.

Anthony P. Crawford was born in January, 1865 and owned by Ben and Rebecca Crawford in Abbeville, South Carolina. He walked 14 miles roundtrip to and from school each day and proved to be quite a scholar. When Anthony finished school he was a laborer for Ben Crawford until Thomas Crawford, Anthony's father, died in 1893 and deeded some land to Anthony, who was the only one of nine siblings able to sign his own name.

Andy, as he was known, had 13 children, all of whom lived on his land with their spouses and children. He built a school on his land for the children of blacks in Abbeville and also held an office with the Masons of South Carolina. He was for 19 years secretary and chief financial prop of Chapel AME Church. In October of 1894, he was Assistant Marshall of a grand parade in which some 1,500 to 2,000 persons assembled by trades . The Honorable George W. Murray, the only black US Congressman , was the guest speaker . In August of 1888, the local newspaper reports that he sold 3 wagons of splendid melons and finds there is as much money in them as cotton. In December of 1904, the Abbeville Medium reports:

Anthony P. Crawford, colored, sold a load of splendid corn of his own raising in the city last week. His fat mules, good wagon and prosperous appearances led us to inquire particularly about his crop. He owns and farms the old Belcher place. He holds in his own right 500 acres of land in three tracts, paid for by his own labor. This year his corn crop was 1000 bushels, of which he sold 250. He made 200 gallons of syrup and 48 bales of cotton. November 26th he sold $662.08 worth of cotton and has made other sales. He has six horses, 12 head of cattle, 18 hogs , two good wagons, a McCormick rake, and a new top buggy. He also has a good bank account and a family of 13 children.

Andy Crawford was the wealthiest Negro farmer in and around Abbeville. His holdings were at least 10% of all land owned by Negroes in the county. He would loan whites money between harvests and had changed his crop from cotton to corn before the white farmers did because of the boll weevil. His estimated worth was $20,000 dollars, which calculates to $300,000 in 1998. He was a law-abiding citizen and proud. On the morning of October 21, 1916 Andy rode his horse and buggy into town to W.D. Barksdale’s store. Cotton seed was selling at 90 cents a bushel, but Barksdale offered Andy only 85 cents. Andy told Mr. Barksdale that he was already given a better offer and before he could gather his seed and leave, Barksdale called him a liar. Andy cursed him and told him he was trying to cheat him and would take his seed elsewhere. The two men argued out into the town square. A store clerk heard the commotion and came out with an ax handle. Andy backed off towards the square and was arrested by Sheriff Burts for cursing Mr. Barksdale. By the time Sheriff Burts and Andy reached the jail, word had gotten out that a Negro had cursed a white man and crowds started gathering in the square. Once the crowd dispersed, he paid his bail and the sheriff let him out of a side door to avoid any more commotion. He was headed for a gin a short distance away when he was spotted by the crowd.

When Andy heard the mob behind him, he hid in a boiler room of the gin. As McKinnley Cann led the crowd towards him, Andy picked up a four pound hammer and crushed the skull of Cann and would’ve killed him had someone not grabbed his arm. Sheriff Burts begged the crowd not to kill Andy, and agreed to keep him in jail until they were assured that Cann would survive his injuries. While in jail, Andy ordered a doctor and told a friend to get his coat from the gin and give his bankbook to his family. He remarked "I thought I was a good citizen." The crowd soon took over the jail, beat Andy until he was unconscious then dragged him out onto the square where he regained consciousness, got on his feet and fought for 50 feet up the road before being hit with a rock in the back of his head. 200 white men kicked him, beat him, tied him to the back of a buggy, dragged him through the black neighborhoods then finally strung him to a tree and unloaded 200 rounds into what was left of his body. At the time of his death, Anthony Crawford owned 427 acres of the "prettiest cotton land in the county."

The governor of South Carolina, Richard I. Manning, was said to be furious and summoned Sheriff Burts. This was a rich black man that was lynched this time and he needed some answers. The press was getting hold of the story of this brutal crime and editors of major newspapers were carrying editorials of the horrendous murder in Abbeville. He ordered an investigation and promised that the lynchers would be put on trial. He sent in Roy Nash, secretary of the NAACP, for the investigation. Nash had to act as if he were interested in buying land in Abbeville so he could get close to those involved. He discovered that those responsible had closed all black businesses, except one. Nash also learned about the order given by the lynchers that the Crawford family leave town immediatly or be killed. The night of the lynching, the Crawford boys waited in trees with guns for the lynchers to come to their homestead as promised. They never came, but the Crawfords did leave Abbeville. So did enough of Abbeville's black folk to populate almost a whole town, Evanston, IL. Almost every African-American in Evanston has ties to Abbeville. There was a mass exodus right after the lynching, including Ralph Ellison, father of the famous author Ralph Ellison, and serious economic ramifications followed. The editorials of the day reflect the feeling that the South would pay dearly for making it uncomfortable for blacks to remain.

Read more - much more - at the web address below...

http://ccharity.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=101

Copyright ©1998 Doria Dee Johnson

PEACE!
iSAIAH

brother isaiah, red, carrie
I have just read through this thread stopping to go to some of the various other sites...
not that it was new, but so unnearving...thank you for putting names to some of these faces..
Last year, i believe, there was an exhibit in nyc of photographs of lynchings... the lynched and the lynchers.(interesting i saw very few african-americans-maybe i can understand why)..but I had to see, i believe one must continually keep in the forefront our history , what has been done to us and , in many ways, continually being done. - they also had jars with body parts that have been
kept for years..genitalia, fingers, ears, livers, you name it.
I will continue to read this thread and see if i can find a catalogue of that exhibit (most of the photos, did not have the victims name tho)
you all keep me focused and inspire...i thank you for that..

brother isaiah, red, carrie
I have just read through this thread stopping to go to some of the various other sites...
not that it was new, but so unnearving...thank you for putting names to some of these faces..
Last year, i believe, there was an exhibit in nyc of photographs of lynchings... the lynched and the lynchers.(interesting i saw very few african-americans-maybe i can understand why)..but I had to see, i believe one must continually keep in the forefront our history , what has been done to us and , in many ways, continually being done. - they also had jars with body parts that have been
kept for years..genitalia, fingers, ears, livers, you name it.
I will continue to read this thread and see if i can find a catalogue of that exhibit (most of the photos, did not have the victims name tho)
you all keep me focused and inspire...i thank you for that..


Thanks for the props, Sista Deepy... Like Red was saying, some might think a thread like this macabre or morbid, but it is no more that than Jews remembering their brethren who were lost to Nazism... I am going to continue to post all that I can find, and place faces with names, so that we understand how truly undervalued our lives were, and remain... Perhaps, through understanding this devaluation of Black life by others, we can begin to understand the continuing cycle of Black against Black Violence, as well as, the Violence perpetrated against us by the STATE...

http://academic.csuohio.edu/perloffr/lynching/


This website instructs us about the role of the press in how they handled the lynchings of our ancestors...

Peace!
Isaiah

This excerpt on the history of lynching is from the Crime Libary Website, and it gives a nice history of LYNCHING down to the etymological meaning of the word, itself... The word's origins are from the surname of a Judge, who sentenced lawbreakers in his town to a sort of vigilante justice on his front lawn... Read, more, and visit the website, too...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics2/carnival/2.htm


The History of Lynching

Lynching differs from ordinary murder or assault because it is a killing that is committed outside the boundaries of due process by a mob who enacts revenge for an offense. During the late 19th century, lynching frequently enjoyed the approval of the public. It is a practice that was committed, ostensibly, in the name of justice. But the motivations for these killings were alien to the themes of justice and honor.
Lynching became almost a necessary practice “that served to give dramatic warning to all black inhabitants that the iron clad system of white supremacy was not to be challenged by deed, word or even thought” (Friedman, p. 191) For all their suffering though, it would be incorrect to say that lynching was only used against blacks. Whites, too, suffered the rope, at times in greater numbers than blacks. Who became a victim had a lot more to do with where the lynching took place than the victim’s offense. In the Deep South[3], most often the victim was black. In the West, the victim was most often white. However, lynching, when used against African Americans, was utilized for reasons other than a form of substitute justice. That was just an excuse. As the noted psychologist William James (1842-1910) once wrote: “for all sorts of cruelty, piety is the mask” (Myers, p. 208).


The burning corpse of George Meadows, lynched on January 15, 1889 in Alabama

Lynching is a derivative term that was taken from the name of Col. Charles Lynch who was a landowner in Virginia in 1790. Lynch had a habit of holding illegal trials of local lawbreakers in his front yard. Upon conviction of the accused, which was usually the case, Lynch took to whipping the suspects while they were tied to a tree in front of his house.


Cleveland Advocate, May 17, 1919

Over time, this practice became known as simply “lynching”. Although mistreatment of slaves was common throughout the early part of the 19th century, lynching was a separate practice apart from slavery[4]. The term “lynching” refers only to the concept of vigilantism, in which citizens would assume the role of judge, jury and executioner. Vigilante groups were common during the last half of the 19th century and were fed by a strong notion that the existing laws were not functioning properly resulting in criminals, especially black criminals, being set free at the expense of the public.

Many newspaper editorials of the day echoed those sentiments and contributed to the passions aroused by the practice of lynching. Consider this editorial published on June 19, 1897: “The people of Ohio have seen murderers tried and convicted of murder in the 1st degree two or three times over and finally set free. They have known many desperate and dangerous criminals to be sent to the penitentiary for long terms and released soon enough to make the whole costly process of the courts seem little better than a farce…That is the real reason why, once in a while, the passion and indignation of the masses break through all restraints and some particularly wicked crime is avenged…” (The Cleveland Leader). This editorial was published after a black rape suspect was forcibly taken from a county jail and lynched in front of a crowd of 9,000 people.




The actual process of lynching was morbid and incredibly violent. Lynching does not necessarily mean hanging. It often included humiliation, torture, burning, dismemberment and castration. Victims were beaten and whipped, many times in front of large crowds that sometimes numbered in the thousands. Coal tar was frequently used to douse the unfortunate victim prior to setting him afire.

Onlookers sometimes fired rifles and handguns hundreds of times into the corpse while people cheered and children played during the festivities. Pieces of the corpse were taken by onlookers as souvenirs of the event [5]. Such was the case when James Irwin was lynched on January 31, 1930. Irwin was accused of the murder of a white girl in the town of Ocilla, Georgia. Taken into custody by a rampaging mob, his fingers and toes were cut off, his teeth pulled out by pliers and finally he was castrated. It still wasn’t enough. Irwin was then burned alive in front of hundreds of onlookers (Brundage, p. 42). No one was ever punished for this barbaric killing. Black victims were hacked to death, dragged behind cars [6], burned, beaten, whipped, sometimes shot thousands of times, mutilated; the savagery was astonishing. How could ordinary people participate in such brutality?

The answer lies in the psychological processes of persuasion and propaganda. For generations, whites in the South regarded blacks as inferiors, both intellectually and biologically. Of course, this may have been a necessary process in order for whites to justify the enslavement of others. These imbedded feelings were visible on every level of society, even in the most trivial circumstances. In the South, a black man was expected to remove his hat when speaking with a white. A black was always addressed by his first name or some derogatory term and he had almost no legal rights. States like Mississippi and Tennessee effected legislation that specifically omitted or targeted African Americans, depending on their purpose. All this had a demoralizing effect on blacks and made them seem less than human to white society. And worse, this condescension seemed to be officially endorsed by the state. It was easy to mistreat blacks if it could be agreed upon that African Americans were vastly different than whites and not deserving of the same respect. This was a result of a disorganized, yet powerful, campaign of propaganda carried on by white plantation owners and others who had an economic stake in the retention of cheap black labor. It was to their advantage to keep African Americans in their “place”. In many photos of lynchings at the turn of the century, onlookers and members of the mob can be seen smiling and grinning for the camera. They demonstrate no fear of prosecution or reprisal. They had none. For no white man was ever punished for a lynching until 1915. By then, there had been thousands of lynchings in the South alone with certainly hundreds of thousands of spectators. Some lynchings were even announced in the newspapers beforehand, indicating a strong and undeniable

by the Associate Press

The Charlotte Observer

(December 16, 1956)


Ask State Sen. Sam Engelhardt of Macon County (86 per cent Negro) in southern Alabama to explain his conception of the southern way of life and he says a person would have to live in the South and learn the Negro for at least a year to understand.

He abhors deliberate efforts to inflame racial passions, nevertheless he is determined that the southern way of life he has known for 44 years shall be maintained.

Is the negro innately inferior to the white man?

"Yes," says Engelhardt.

"If you educate the Negro, what are you educating him for?"

"Let him have his own society," he replied. "We ought to raise him morally and economically."

Can the South maintain separate white and Negro cultures of people of equal education without conflict?

"The vast majority of southerners think so. There might be some conflict, but the white folks would be working hard and trying to head off that conflict."

Lynching as Reported by the Press

On July 28, 1917, Will Woods, a white contractor who lived in Texarkana, Arkansas was beaten and shot over a livestock dispute with a black man, one Andrew Avery. Woods, though badly wounded, lay in the brush for 36 hours before he was found. He told his rescuers that Avery attacked him without warning and shot him in an attempt to steal the livestock. Avery was captured by local deputies in Shepherd, Arkansas about 16 miles north of Texarkana. The police were taking Avery to the local jail when they were intercepted by a mob of 40 men in cars who seized him at gunpoint. Avery was beaten, tortured and later hung from a tree in the center of Garland City. No one was ever identified or arrested. The Arkansas Gazette reported the incident as follows:

NEGRO IS LYNCHED AT GARLAND CITY

Brutally attacked a White Man Saturday

“Special to the Gazette, Garland City, July 30. Andrew Avery the Negro who shot and fatally wounded Will Woods, a white man, near here Saturday morning, was hanged by a mob in the heart of town tonight at 9:45. About 40 men were in the party. The Lynching was conducted in a quiet fashion” (The Arkansas Gazette, July 31, 1917)

Such was the treatment that lynching received in some publications. The press was always quick to identify the race of offender and victim. Guilt of the offender was assumed and the word “alleged” rarely appeared in the story. This was a practice that was repeated in many newspapers and was not simply indigenous to the South at all. This pandering to the mob is significant because the manner in which lynching was reported tended to support or at least condone the practice of vigilante justice. Due process of law was rarely mentioned in lynching accounts. Of course, it could be said that the press coverage was simply a reflection of society’s values and beliefs and therefore devoid of any conspiratorial nature. But the print media, then the major and almost the only source of news during the late 19th century, set the tone and molded public understanding of the issues.

Sensational journalism, then the standard of American news reporting, spared the public no detail no matter how horrible. “The Negro was deprived of his ears, fingers and genital parts of his body. He pleaded pitifully for his life while the mutilation was going on…before the body was cool, it was cut to pieces, the bones crushed into small bits…the Negro’s heart was cut into several pieces, as was also his liver…small pieces of bones went for 25 cents…” (The Springfield Weekly Republican, April 28, 1899). This was an actual description of the lynching of one Sam Holt, accused murderer, who was burned at the stake in Newman, Georgia in April, 1899. Graphic accounts like this were in abundance throughout the South. They served both white and black purposes by adding to the psychological suffering of the African American and empowered the white man to do more.

Newspapers were at least consistent at assessing the guilt of the accused. Of course it mattered less that a legal trial never took place. Reporters wrote inflammatory comments such as “well known as a criminal character to the officers of Clarke County” (The Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 16, 1921), “A Negro Desperado Lynched” (Boston Evening Transcript, July 21, 1886), “The Negro was killed irregularly, but justifiably” (The Chicago Chronicle, June 19, 1897), “unspeakable wretch...no more thought need be given to his death than to that of a dog” (The Indianapolis News, June 19, 1897), “help lynch the brute” (The Intelligencer, October 12, 1911). In this last example, a lynching that took place on October 11, 1911 in Anderson County, South Carolina, the mob was led by State Legislator Joshua Ashley and the editor of the local newspaper. The target of that mob was one Willis Jackson who was accused of attacking a white child. He was hung from a tree upside down and shot numerous times.

Descriptions such as these were routine in many newspapers of the time. The Library of Congress has hundreds of examples of this type of sensationalized and biased reporting. But not all of America’s press endorsed mob rule and the breakdown of law and order it represented. In spite of many editorials in Southern newspapers of that era which seemed to defend mob justice, it would be inaccurate to say that lynching was supported by the nation’s press. Many other papers, such as the New York Times, The New York Herald and The Chicago Tribune, bravely led the voice of criticism against lynching. “It’s time that somebody in authority fought one of thee mobs to the death” (The Springfield Republic, June 19, 1897, “The Grand Old State Again Disgraced- this time an educated Afro-American and a good citizen is the victim” (The Cleveland Advocate, September, 20, 1916) are some of the examples of articles that sought to tell the truth about these vicious murders. But it wasn’t enough. Passions were deep, the Civil War had decimated an entire culture in the South, destroyed families, made paupers out of the rich and freed the slaves. As a result, there were those who felt an intense hatred for the North and all of its ideals. Those who would never let the traditions, values and beliefs of Southern society perish. And so, from the ruins of a bitter war, an organization grew, slowly at first, in rural Tennessee. But soon it spread all across the South and became the most powerful machine of racism, violence and murder our nation has ever seen before or since.

On January 23, 1906 a rape was committed on a white woman in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A few days later the local police arrested a black man, one Ed Johnson for the crime. He was kept in custody for the next few weeks away from Chattanooga for the fear of being lynched. From the time he was arrested to the day Johnson went on trial, there were two organized attempts made to lynch him. Both attempts failed because the prisoner could not be located. On February 6 Johnson went on trial for the sexual assault, was quickly convicted, and as was the custom for this type of crime, sentenced to death. The date of execution was set as March 13, later changed to March 20. His lawyers, fearful of mob violence, were reluctant to make an appeal. They felt “that the life of the defendant, even if the wrong man, could not be saved; that an appeal would so inflame the public that the jail would be attacked and perhaps other prisoners executed by violence” (U.S. v. Shipp, 214 U.S. 386 ,1909). However, on March 19, 1906 the Supreme Court allowed an appeal in the Johnson case and directed all proceedings against Johnson be stayed. That same night, a large crowd appeared at the city jail. They forcibly broke into Johnson’s cell and abducted him. The jail was guarded by one deputy who offered no resistance. Johnson was beaten mercilessly and dragged into the city street where he was tortured by dozens of others. He was taken to a nearby bridge where hundreds of spectators had gathered. A rope was tied around his neck and he was thrown off the bridge. The rope broke however and Johnson fell to the ground. He was tied up again and tossed off the bridge as some in the crowd began firing shots. He fell again and was repeatedly shot while lying on the ground. Johnson was strung up again and shot dozens of times while he hung dead from the bridge.

The United States Supreme Court became enraged. Since Johnson was considered a federal prisoner when granted an appeal, it was a clear and contemptuous challenge to the authority of the Court. For the one and only time in its history, the Supreme Court held a criminal trial. It decided Chattanooga Sheriff Shipp and two of his deputies were in contempt of court for allowing Johnson to be lynched (U.S. v. Shipp, 214 U.S. 386, 1909). It found all parties guilty and sentenced them to 60 days in jail. After 35 years of systematic murder, it was the first time a law enforcement official was held responsible for a lynching in their jurisdiction. The public attitude toward mob justice began to change, but ever so slowly. It would take the courageous voice of a black woman, the daughter of slaves, to awaken much of America to the horrors of lynching.

The remarkable Ida Wells was a journalist who became known for her outspoken political opinions and a strong commitment to human rights, especially as it applied to African Americans. Alone, she conducted an investigation into the practice of lynching and published the results in local newspapers. She discovered that out of 728 black men who were lynched by white mobs, almost seventy percent were killed for minor offenses. Wells later established her own newspaper and championed the cause of justice for blacks. Her life was threatened many times. Her office was demolished by unknown persons and eventually, she was forced out of the South. But she continued her work against Southern mob justice. In 1898 she wrote a letter to President McKinley appealing for federal intervention in the South to stop the illegal practice of lynching. She wrote “Nowhere in the civilized worlds save the United States of America do men, possessing all civil and political power, go out in bands of 50 to 5,000 to hunt down, shoot, hang or burn to death an individual, unarmed and absolutely powerless”. In 1901, she published a book titled Lynching and the Excuse, which became widely circulated and well known for its articulate and passionate denunciation of lynching.

Then in 1909, on Lincoln’s Birthday, in an event that would alter the path of social and cultural history in America, Ida Wells, W. E. B. DuBois and dozens of other prominent American blacks and whites formed an organization, partly in response to lynchings of blacks, and called it the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After their first conference, the NAACP launched an anti-lynching campaign that would span thirty years. The group pressured local and federal politicians to recognize the racial nature and foundational injustice of lynching. They lobbied Washington to state publicly that lynching was a clear violation of constitutional guarantees. In 1915, the NAACP, recognizing the vast psychological damage of The Birth of a Nation, organized a nation-wide boycott of D.W. Griffith’s racist film. Slowly, the tide began to turn.

:teach: Sista CarrieMonet :teach: Really beautiful the way you organized that lecture, sista! Pretty pleasing to the eyes, as I'm sure you must be(smile!)

Peace!
Isaiah

Thank you!

You're Welcome, Sista Woman!

This is what they think about us...the value they put on our lives.

Byrd is the black man who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in the East Texas county by three white men in 1998. On May 6, racial slurs and profanities were found etched into a steel plate covering part of the vault of Byrd's grave. His headstone also had been toppled.
Joshua Lee Talley, 19, of Jasper, was sentenced by state District Judge Joe Bob Golden to five months in jail and 10 years probation after pleading guilty to desecrating the grave out of racial prejudice, Tom Chambers, an assistant district attorney for Jasper County, said.

Talley also was fined $1,000 and ordered to pay $28,000 in restitution, perform 250 hours of community service and take part in a cultural awareness program.

The restitution will pay for the restoration of Byrd's grave and repairing damage to other gravesites and thefts committed during their "little crime spree," Chambers said.

Talley will have to spend only an additional month in jail because he's been locked up for the last four, Chambers said.

"I think our office was satisfied with the result," he said.

"We kept in constant contact with the Byrd family. Everybody was on the same page with this. Mr. Talley looked remorseful (Wednesday) and he has written (Byrd's mother) an apology letter. She appreciated that."

Several tips led police to arrest Talley and John Matthew Fowler, 18, of Call Junction. Each was charged with one criminal mischief charge related to the desecration of Byrd's grave and seven unrelated theft, burglary and criminal mischief charges. Talley's guilty plea means he will not face trial on the seven unrelated charges, Chambers said.

If Talley had gone to trial for desecrating Byrd's grave, he could have faced up to 10 years in prison if it was proven the crime occurred as the result of "bias or prejudice."

Fowler, free on bond, remains scheduled to go to trial for desecrating Byrd's grave and as well as the other charges, Chambers said.

"There's little or no doubt that what they did to James Byrd's (grave) was racially motivated," he said.

If Talley does all he is ordered to do and completes his probation, the Jasper County District Attorney's Office will dismiss the case against him, meaning he won't have a felony conviction on his record.

"I didn't want to necessarily stick him with a felony conviction at such a young age," Chambers said. "If we're going to try to rehabilitate him, we should go all the way."

James Byrd, modern day lyching drug behind a truck, throat slit 1998 Jasper Texas....now this young cracker chooses to mess with the dead brother's grave why ...just because he got white folk in trouble......does he get the max penalty...nah...five months... probation etc....if you're caught fighting dogs you get 3 years min. for each count .....funny huh.....
more lynchings to come....

Mississippi Red :grin:

“We Must Never Forget”
(A Poetic Case for Reparations)

Denial is the longest river
Its current always destroys
Its shallow banks
Refuse to give thanks
While exclusion and rejection’s employed

Now America has a problem
Accepting the facts as they are
Facing Slavery’s truth
Is repulsive, uncouth
And makes for an ugly memoir

Cause you traded in human beings
Branded us like we were cows
Sold us like cattle
Like no more than chattel
These facts you cannot disavow

And with all those acts of evil
You reveled in celebration
While you brutally castrated
We steadily donated
Our blood fertilized your plantations

You raped us, lynched us, butchered and burned
Denied our human rights
We were tarred, feathered, skinned and spurned
You worked us by day and by night

In every aspect of industry
You’ve thrived off the fruits of our labor
From apples to zinc
We’ve been the link
Through Slavery America’s been favored

Socially, educationally, economically
You flourished while we were denied
Yet if it weren’t for us
This country’d be dust
Its commerce would surely have died

And for this you say you won’t pay
Won’t even apologize
But why should you pay the debt,
That you’re your forefather’s let
Cause you prosper from all their lies

Indeed, “we must never forget”
A phrase we should all preserve
Concerning lives that were lost
In the Jews Holocaust
And that’s no more than we deserve

So why should we forget ours
When monuments are built to theirs
Are they superior, are we inferior
Were theirs' better than our forebears'

And please remember good people
Their tragedy was on foreign soil
But the bodies of Slaves
Are in American graves
Yet few tributes to our turmoil

America you’d best wake up
Cause Lazarus has risen from the gate
Pay the debt you owe
So the country can grow
And learn how to love, stead of hate

We want our acres and our mule
You’ve had yours for generations
Now its time we were paid
From the fortunes you made
Its time for Slave reparations

And we must never forget!

Copyright Ty Gray-EL December 2003

In honor of my Ancestors I would like to submit that we shall prevail in spite of all the injustice heaped upon us in this society. I would like for you to consider that of all of mother nature's weather phenomenon, the hurricane is the single most devasting bar none. Earthquakes, avalanches, suname', tidal waves, nothing compares. In fact tornadoes spin off of hurricanes. 97 of which spun off of hurricane Frances just last week.

Hurricanes are so powerfulf that they are considered the most dominant unrestricted weather force in history. There have been storms that have reached sustained winds of over 200 miles per hour, lasting more than 7 consecutive days, packing more power than all of the worlds nuclear arsenals combined.

I would also submit that hurricanes don't come off the Pacific, the Arctic nor the Indian Oceans. Hurricanes only come off the Atlantic Ocean. They get started around the northwestern or southwestern shore of Afrika and take virtually the same route as the slave trade.

When you consider the devastation and you look for cause, just think about the unjust manner in which America took over Grenada, overthrew their government and inserted their own. Now Grenada has been leveled, even the jail toppled over and the prisoners set free, For all these reasons and more I submit that Hurricanes are the "Breath of My Ancestors"



“Breath of My Ancestors”
(The Hurricane)
There’s this truth must be told
its force can’t be contained
About the history and the mystery
in the rage of hurricanes
For you must know the reasons
why the gale force winds do blow
And disburse their vicious vengeance
on southeastern States below
See the bodies of my people
through the Middle Passage came
As cargo in slave ships
so a beast could lay quitclaim
And their limbs were battered and broken
by a heathen with no shame
Who stole us from our homes
then promptly changed our names
Now the laws of cause and effect
so appropriately germane
Come collecting unpaid taxes
in the form of hurricanes
You thought our spirits were beaten
you thought our spirits were tamed
But instead of us defeatin’
God’s temper you inflamed
Now retribution comes to visit
on the winds of hurricanes
Storm clouds gather over Africa
full of slavery’s suffering and pain
They marshal their momentum
full of vengeful hard black rain
Dead-set upon America
as if possessed, insane
Since all those cries for mercy
fell on deaf ears in vain
You must feel the wrath
and the fury of hurricanes
For the girls you stole from Senegal
and the boys from the Ivory Coast
The spirit of their ancestors
haunt Carolinians most
Cause of all the slave-ship harbors
in the many ports of call
Yours were the most insidious
the evilest of them all
And for all you island dwellers
to whom this verse pertains
Your shores made shelter for sellers
of human beings in chains
Thus the Breath of My Ancestors
forge a spiritual weather vane
That plots a course of sorrow
via the gale of hurricanes
In cargo holes
you laid 80 million souls
Like spoons in kitchen cabinets
But now the winds blow down
your trailer towns
Leaving tents to pitch and maggots.
And the law of just requital
extracting its just do
Says you must pay
for the games you play
Virginia and Florida too
So, if the next gale wind you hear
evokes real fear
And the terror seems inhumane
It’s just the Breath of My Ancestors
in the spirit of the hurricane.

Copyright Ty Gray-EL September 2000

In honor of my Ancestors I would like to submit that we shall prevail in spite of all the injustice heaped upon us in this society. I would like for you to consider that of all of mother nature's weather phenomenon, the hurricane is the single most devasting bar none. Earthquakes, avalanches, suname', tidal waves, nothing compares. In fact tornadoes spin off of hurricanes. 97 of which spun off of hurricane Frances just last week.

Hurricanes are so powerfulf that they are considered the most dominant unrestricted weather force in history. There have been storms that have reached sustained winds of over 200 miles per hour, lasting more than 7 consecutive days, packing more power than all of the worlds nuclear arsenals combined.

I would also submit that hurricanes don't come off the Pacific, the Arctic nor the Indian Oceans. Hurricanes only come off the Atlantic Ocean. They get started around the northwestern or southwestern shore of Afrika and take virtually the same route as the slave trade.

When you consider the devastation and you look for cause, just think about the unjust manner in which America took over Grenada, overthrew their government and inserted their own. Now Grenada has been leveled, even the jail toppled over and the prisoners set free, For all these reasons and more I submit that Hurricanes are the "Breath of My Ancestors"



“Breath of My Ancestors”
(The Hurricane)
There’s this truth must be told
its force can’t be contained
About the history and the mystery
in the rage of hurricanes
For you must know the reasons
why the gale force winds do blow
And disburse their vicious vengeance
on southeastern States below
See the bodies of my people
through the Middle Passage came
As cargo in slave ships
so a beast could lay quitclaim
And their limbs were battered and broken
by a heathen with no shame
Who stole us from our homes
then promptly changed our names
Now the laws of cause and effect
so appropriately germane
Come collecting unpaid taxes
in the form of hurricanes
You thought our spirits were beaten
you thought our spirits were tamed
But instead of us defeatin’
God’s temper you inflamed
Now retribution comes to visit
on the winds of hurricanes
Storm clouds gather over Africa
full of slavery’s suffering and pain
They marshal their momentum
full of vengeful hard black rain
Dead-set upon America
as if possessed, insane
Since all those cries for mercy
fell on deaf ears in vain
You must feel the wrath
and the fury of hurricanes
For the girls you stole from Senegal
and the boys from the Ivory Coast
The spirit of their ancestors
haunt Carolinians most
Cause of all the slave-ship harbors
in the many ports of call
Yours were the most insidious
the evilest of them all
And for all you island dwellers
to whom this verse pertains
Your shores made shelter for sellers
of human beings in chains
Thus the Breath of My Ancestors
forge a spiritual weather vane
That plots a course of sorrow
via the gale of hurricanes
In cargo holes
you laid 80 million souls
Like spoons in kitchen cabinets
But now the winds blow down
your trailer towns
Leaving tents to pitch and maggots.
And the law of just requital
extracting its just do
Says you must pay
for the games you play
Virginia and Florida too
So, if the next gale wind you hear
evokes real fear
And the terror seems inhumane
It’s just the Breath of My Ancestors
in the spirit of the hurricane.

Copyright Ty Gray-EL September 2000

Great poem, 7thPoet... Both of them! :spin:

Missippy Red, figured you'd get that piece in 'fore I did(smile!)

If it wasn't so pathetic, it would mad comical! Desecrating the grave of a man whom you murdered in cold cruel blood... May God have Zero mercy on ya, or the low-lifed family that raised your jurassic park-like behind to do the devilish things you do, and have done... No Mercy, that is my prayer before you and the God my people have placed so much of our faith in - for you and all of your children yet unborn... Payback's a wicked biytch gone berserk...(smile!)

Peace!
Isaiah

wonderful poem..placed in such an important and wonderful thread...

Isaiah ain't that the truth....they're mad at the brother for getting lynched...what the ....is that ? The poems....fire bruh fire.....yeah yall these folk are a trip man a straight trip they kill us then get mad at us for dying or for turning the coin on them....funny....sadly as always more to come....maybe we should post on this thread until ....I know it'll never stop but just until......

Mississippi Red

Man that's a big hurricane coming through the gulf..better call my mama

http://www.mith.umd.edu/courses/amvirtual/wilmington/wilmington.html

The horrific race riots in Wilmington, North Carolina, 1898...

Peace!
Isaiah

http://www.arches.uga.edu/~mgagnon/students/3090/04SP3090-Kadzis.htm

The Atlanta Race Riots of 1906...

Peace!
Isaiah

just went to that site...very powerful Brother Isaiah..I knew a little about the wilmington massacres ..but became more informed through the site.
sent an email to sj thomas to commend him for it..
interesting the headlines...which immediately informs the position of the paper.
keep flowing...i can't build your rep anymore...i'm told i have to spread the love before i give again...so i give it to you directly....a rep star...

just went to that site...very powerful Brother Isaiah..I knew a little about the wilmington massacres ..but became more informed through the site.
sent an email to sj thomas to commend him for it..
interesting the headlines...which immediately informs the position of the paper.
keep flowing...i can't build your rep anymore...i'm told i have to spread the love before i give again...so i give it to you directly....a rep star...

Thank you much, Sista Deepy... This thread is like a libation and offering to the ancestors, a way of remembering and commemorating them, and their lives and struggles... They may not know it, but as one can tell by reading the commentary of all who've posted to it, this thread is an inspiration to all of us, because these African people paid the ultimate price for all of us... With that, the Last Mass Lynching in America:Fire In A Cane Brake...
================================================== ========

Feb. 28, 2003 -- One July afternoon in 1946, in rural Georgia, a white mob killed four young black people in a hail of gunfire. The brutal lynching led to a national outcry, prompting President Harry Truman to push for sweeping civil rights changes that would ultimately desegregate the military. J. Edgar Hoover's FBI investigated, but no one was ever convicted of the murders.

On Morning Edition, NPR's Renee Montagne speaks with Laura Wexler, author of Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America, a new book that revisits the incident.

Wexler took the title from the way local people describe the lynchings. "A canebrake is a thicket of river cane, which almost looks like bamboo. If you were to light a fire in the area of where this canebrake was, the hollow cane stalks explode and they make a sound like gunshots," Wexler says in the Morning Edition interview.

And those gunshots in Walton County, Ga., were heard all across America. In a radio report about the incident, NBC described it as "one of the most vicious lynchings to stain our national record."

As Montagne reports, the mob was really after only one member of the group, Roger Malcom, 24, who had been arrested for knifing a white man while drunk. Roger Malcom had just been bailed out of jail by a white landowner and they were passing over the Moore's Ford Bridge when the killers appeared. The landowner later said his black passengers were dragged out of the car and down an embankment. When found, Roger Malcom's body had been mutilated.

The other three victims were George Dorsey, 28, his sister Dorothy Dorsey Malcom, 20, and Mae Murray Dorsey, 23.

Wexler set out to unravel the mystery of who was behind the Moore's Ford murders. While no suspects have been brought to court, the author says she has taken some satisfaction from what her queries did reveal about the case.

"I guess what I came to live with is that in 1946, there was neither truth nor justice," she says. "Nobody was indicted, nobody was arrested, nobody charged or punished and nobody knew what the FBI had learned. In 2003, my book is published, (and) there's still no justice, still no day in court. What there is is some better sense of the truth

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1174520


Peace!
Isaiah

Does Isaah still come to this site? I am from Valdosta GA and know about the lynching of Mary Turner. It happened in 1918. Five or six males were tied to a fence and shot by a white mob. One of these was Hayes Turner. His wife Mary was pregnant. She began to threaten to try to do something about the lynching. SHe was tied upside down in a tree and set on fire. Her belly was cut open and the baby fell to the ground - reported to be alive. A man in the crowd crushed the baby's skull with his boot.

It is hard to believe that this happened here.

Kat

Does Isaah still come to this site? I am from Valdosta GA and know about the lynching of Mary Turner. It happened in 1918. Five or six males were tied to a fence and shot by a white mob. One of these was Hayes Turner. His wife Mary was pregnant. She began to threaten to try to do something about the lynching. SHe was tied upside down in a tree and set on fire. Her belly was cut open and the baby fell to the ground - reported to be alive. A man in the crowd crushed the baby's skull with his boot.

It is hard to believe that this happened here.

Kat

Peace Kat and welcome to destee.com,

- this is not too hard to believe for this is exactly what they did during "open" slavery to keep others slaves in line & discourage rebellions..........

Thanks Isaiah for this forum. It's strange that I came across it at this time. Months ago, I tuned into a documentary on "Slavery in New York" in which a black man was put on a CROSS and his body was slowly roasted. Although this man had commited no iniquity, he was LED TO THE SLAUGHTER LIKE A LAMB. these are the TRUE ONES WHO DIED FOR OUR SINS SO THAT WE MAY HAVE LIFE. I say this because recently, I watched Passions of the Christ.

I had no interest in wanting to watch it, but I was curious as to what someone saw in it, to die of a heart attack. Then my cousins told me it was so deep and they were full of despair blah blah blah. So I watched it over my sisters house. It took me 3 times (sorry it was boring) to get through it. When they came to the part where Jesus was getting beaten, I thought SO WHAT!! He only endured 3 days and my people endured a life time. Then he was CRUCIFIED which was normal back in that period, and there were two thieves next to him. If this mortal MAN was dying for our sins, how come he didn't perform a miracle and have those thieves just slide on off the cross so that THEY COULD LIVE too! (Who knows, they might of let them go, but I probably snoozed durning that part too)

It amazes me how when we talk to our people about the crimes against our people, they say, that was then, this is now and to forget it. But they make a weekly ritual to be up in the church screamin, crying, rollin down the aisles, foamin at the mouth in rememberance of this man who died and they still waitin for him to come and save them. We have been truly posessed by a foul spirit and idol worship is at an all time high!! Because that's all it is. We were NEVER supposed to create an image (they created it-we accepted it) of God and worship it or we would be led astray and our enemies would be able to control us. I'm so tired of every time, something goes good for a black person they say "Ooooh it ain't nothin but the blood of Jesus"! I'd love to go into a church and grieve my ancestors on a weekly and pay tribute to them and the blood they lost, so that I may have life!

Thanks Isaiah for this forum. It's strange that I came across it at this time. Months ago, I tuned into a documentary on "Slavery in New York" in which a black man was put on a CROSS and his body was slowly roasted. Although this man had commited no iniquity, he was LED TO THE SLAUGHTER LIKE A LAMB. these are the TRUE ONES WHO DIED FOR OUR SINS SO THAT WE MAY HAVE LIFE. I say this because recently, I watched Passions of the Christ.

I had no interest in wanting to watch it, but I was curious as to what someone saw in it, to die of a heart attack. Then my cousins told me it was so deep and they were full of despair blah blah blah. So I watched it over my sisters house. It took me 3 times (sorry it was boring) to get through it. When they came to the part where Jesus was getting beaten, I thought SO WHAT!! He only endured 3 days and my people endured a life time. Then he was CRUCIFIED which was normal back in that period, and there were two thieves next to him. If this mortal MAN was dying for our sins, how come he didn't perform a miracle and have those thieves just slide on off the cross so that THEY COULD LIVE too! (Who knows, they might of let them go, but I probably snoozed durning that part too)

It amazes me how when we talk to our people about the crimes against our people, they say, that was then, this is now and to forget it. But they make a weekly ritual to be up in the church screamin, crying, rollin down the aisles, foamin at the mouth in rememberance of this man who died and they still waitin for him to come and save them. We have been truly posessed by a foul spirit and idol worship is at an all time high!! Because that's all it is. We were NEVER supposed to create an image (they created it-we accepted it) of God and worship it or we would be led astray and our enemies would be able to control us. I'm so tired of every time, something goes good for a black person they say "Ooooh it ain't nothin but the blood of Jesus"! I'd love to go into a church and grieve my ancestors on a weekly and pay tribute to them and the blood they lost, so that I may have life!


Thank you, Much, sister Wisdom7 - though I prefer to thank Our Ancestors for enduring that we might live on to continue their struggle... I am glad you've received something of value from this thread...

Peace!
Isaiah

Does Isaah still come to this site? I am from Valdosta GA and know about the lynching of Mary Turner. It happened in 1918. Five or six males were tied to a fence and shot by a white mob. One of these was Hayes Turner. His wife Mary was pregnant. She began to threaten to try to do something about the lynching. SHe was tied upside down in a tree and set on fire. Her belly was cut open and the baby fell to the ground - reported to be alive. A man in the crowd crushed the baby's skull with his boot.

It is hard to believe that this happened here.

Kat

Yes, Sister Kat, I'm still lurking around here, and I happy that you are here with us, now, too! It's been a while since you posted this, but if you can share with us somme of what you know of this, we would be all the more informed, and capable of rendering due honor to this corageous African woman, who came to the defense of her husband, and was viciously murdered...

You know, one of the horrific residual effects of these lynchings is that our people were forbidden to give the deceased a proper going home ceremony and burial... Often we were forced to leave the area completely and pernamently for fear that other family members would be murdered in cold blood... We know how difficult it is to have to uproot ourselves, andleave the "comforts" of home in this day and age... Imagine what it must've been like back then, with no money and no family to turn to at times... Whenever we ponder White Folks and their diabolical acts against our ancestors, we need to do a complete meditation of the ENTIRE experience of our ancestors from start to finish... Then it will dawn on us just how terrilbe life must have been life for us in that era...

Peace!
Isaiah