Lynching in America

In class, we discussed why people become racist and what lead to Lynching in America. We examined literature, pictures, and a silent film from the time of occurrence to help better understand the situation. Many African Americans faced suppression from white supremacist after the emancipation proclamation, until 1968, during the civil rights movement. Around this time, Lynching became popular and widely accepted throughout the south amongst white supremacist. Lynching was executions carried out by mobs (white supremacist) and used as the primary method to suppress the“Negro.” The idea was to “keep them in their place”, by inflicting fear through violence, when in fact; the white man lived in fear.

Some reasons why racism existed are the following: a particular group might own the latest technology than another. Many also identified themselves through religion instead of a geographic area and human beings were looked at as property by another human being for desire of cheap labor. Because of this, systemic violence was created, which inflicted pain on their human property and was looked at as an economic system that depended on fear, dominance, control and torture to keep things going (labor). We analyzed a few pictures of Lynching and witnessed men, women, and children of all ages smiling in a modern/urban setting, wearing modern clothing, despite the barbarism that was occurring which seemed ironic. These were just some of the ideologies of the white man during the time.

We analyzed a silent film titled Within Our Gates, which was created by the first African American film director. It took place during a time Lynching was still occurring and how African Americans were executed due to exaggeration, a misunderstanding, or propaganda (news papers). After reviewing the facts and details of this era, I gained a better understanding as to where and why racism evolved and why did it last so long after the abolishment of slavery.