The Stain of Lynching in the U.S. - II

When Charlie Sifford was a young man, lynching was still a very real fear for African-Americans in the South. The Tuskegee Institute records of lynchings between the years 1880 and 1951 show 3,437 African-American victims, as well as 1,293 white victims (concentrated in the Cotton Belt of Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana). The NAACP’s book Thirty Years of Lynchings in the United States, 1899-1918 recounted 100 of the most disturbing ones for that period. This included Mary Turner’s (from Georgia), whose husband was killed by a mob in May 1918. When she protested and vowed to seek justice, the sheriff arrested her. She was taken by a mob from the jail to the woods, where she was stripped, hung upside down, soaked with gasoline, and set on fire. She was 8 months pregnant and in the midst of the torment a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and the baby fell to the ground, gave a cry, and was stomped to death. When recounting the barbaric act, a witness said, “Mister, you ought to’ve heard the nigger wench howl.” When one looks at this unbelievable history of violence, is it any wonder there is still a deep racial divide in this nation?

#charliesifford #lynching #naacp