LYNCH LAW
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