The lynch era was a time when Negroes were emancipated and the white male put the fear of black men into white people, especially white women. This was a ploy because white people had all the power and all the privileges but somehow still put it out there that the black male was a threat to them!
In the southern states of America, murdering Negroes became an acceptable tradition of the day. The lynchings were predominantly after the slaves were emancipated following the end of the American Civil War, during the Reconstruction Era, and during the Jim Crow Era. The Africans in America were now nominally free but were viewed as competitors, especially by millions of poor and uneducated white folk. There were also many in the upper classes who loathed the idea of a free black man. During the period that lynching was used as a weapon of mass terrorism of black people, it was not unusual for those lynched for rape, attempted rape, or alleged rape to be castrated before being killed. The alleged rapists and murderers would often be pulled out of jails by lynch mobs and executed.
The American society at the time seemed to thrive – and still seems to thrive – on Schadenfreude. One can argue that it was worse than Schadenfreude because a significant portion of white America derived ghoulish pleasure from killing the Africans’ descendants or seeing them killed.
Official records list about five thousand lynchings in America from the late 1800s up to the late 1960s – and still counting. The majority of those lynched, about three-quarters, were Negroes. Many millions were left permanently psychologically damaged. However, many other lynchings in rural America were never recorded, and so the exact figure shall never be known.
One can visualise that it is a very short ask from this inherent behaviour of gratuitous murder of fellow human beings to the current xenophobia and routine wanton assassinations of black people in America. The lynch mobs are no longer there, but racist police have taken that slot. A significant number of these racist white policemen see themselves as the new plantation overseers, keeping the black man in check and keeping him from despoiling the white man’s property and from soiling the white woman.
Reasons for Lynching Africans in America
Being a successful or “smart” black man could, at times, lead to elimination, the lynch-way. So could being a political activist or a labour organiser. Negroes not sticking to their lane in life or perceived as not respecting the superiority of the white race by not showing enough deference would also be lynched. Some whites felt that after they were freed in 1865, blacks had regressed in their expected docile behaviour towards the white race.
To justify many extra-judicial killings, the whites in the southern states created the myth that Negroes had an uncontrollable desire to rape white women. Lynchings were to impress upon the Negroes the need to respect the white man and keep away from his property, especially the fabled white woman. Very disturbingly, whole communities treated the lynchings, which became endemic in many southern states, as joyous, celebratory family occasions.
It is very difficult to fathom the real reason for this pathological hatred of dark-skinned people by a large section of white people. It is equally very difficult to understand how in a normal society, this hatred can run so deep, and so pernicious. How can a whole society take pleasure in open-air murders of other people?
The ultimate reason for the endemic use of lynchings, after emancipation, was to inculcate fear and despondency in the population of descendants of Africans in America. This was in a bid to maintain white supremacy. Many whites did not want to integrate. The result was that in the psyche of many white people — then and now — all black people were criminals and were a danger to them. That’s classic gas-lighting because the criminals were the ones who enslaved Africans. Those who posed a danger were the ones going around with nooses terrorising and lynching innocent black people.
The proximate reason for the lynchings was that whites in the southern states blamed the freed slaves for their poverty and financial difficulties. There was a fear of black people. Fear not as in being afraid, but fear as in the zero-sum game scenario: blacks are eating up our portion of the cake.
For tens of millions of living white Americans, it is only a generation or two ago that this was a normal and acceptable occurrence in their communities. Little wonder that millions of white Americans to this day still harbour nefarious sentiments against black Americans. They consider blacks as misapplied escaped labour meant for their comfort. Epigenetics is also at play here.
Below is a fuller list of the proximate causes of what could get a Negro lynched. Many, like resisting a mob about to kill you, mistaken identity, and being unpopular beggar belief. A young black woman was lynched for searching for a lost relative. A thirsty black man was lynched for asking for water from a white woman. In reality, anything the white folk decided was a reason to break a Negro’s neck was good enough. Note how many times “white woman” features on the list below.
List of Reasons Given by White People for Lynching Black People
Acting suspiciously/ Gambling/ Quarrelling/ Adultery/ Grave robbing/ Race hatred/race/troubles/ Aiding murder/ Rape/ Arguing with a white man/ Incest/ Rape-murders/ Arson/ Resisting mob/ Assassination/ Inciting trouble/ Robbery/ Attempted murder/ Indolence/ Running a bordello/ Banditry/ Inflammatory language/ Sedition/ Being disreputable/ Informing/ Slander/ Being obnoxious/ Killing livestock/ Spreading disease/ Boasting about riot/ Insulting white man/ Stealing/ Burglary/ Suing white man/ Child abuse/ Insurrection/ Swindling/ Conjuring/ Kidnapping/ Terrorism/ Testifying against white man/ Criminal assault/ Throwing stones/ Cutting levee/ Looting/ Train wrecking/ Defending rapist/ Making threats/ Poisoning well/ Trying to colonise blacks/ Demanding respect/ Voting or trying to vote/ Disorderly conduct/ Mistaken identity/ Unpopularity/ Molestation/ Unruly remarks/ Murder/ Being relative of murderer/ Using obscene language/ Enticement/ Inciting riots/ Non-sexual assault/ Vagrancy/ Extortion/ Violated quarantine/ Fraud/ Pillage/ Practicing voodoo/ Plotting to kill/ Voting for wrong Party/ Courting white woman, or improper conduct with white woman; e.g. looking, flirting, whispering, whistling/ Insulting white woman/ Associating with white woman/ Living with white woman/ Proposing marriage to white woman/ Eloping with white woman/ Miscegenation – having child with white woman/ Entering white woman’s room/ Peeping in window at white woman/ Frightening white woman/ Being insolent to white woman or man
All the above were crafted after the abolition of slavery. Paradoxically, the lives of Africans in America were more secure under slavery than as free men and women. This is because as slaves, the Africans in America were chattels, possessions belonging to someone. As true capitalists, the Americans had strict rules against depriving someone of his or her property.
Have the lynchings of descendants of Africans in America stopped? The short answer is, in your dreams!
