I have recently discoverd a part of History that I knew little about and has shocked me somewhat. I'd always thought of 'Lynchings' as the act of breaking someone out of prison and hanging them from the nearest tree. However from what I've been reading this is what happened to the 'lucky' ones!.
I honestly had no idea of the sheer brutality and sickening violence carried out at these events. Torture, mutilations, amputations and finally burning alive were common. One of the most famous, brutal and well organized Lynchings was visited upon one Henry Smith an ex slave who apparently confessed to the truly brutal killing of a young girl, Mytle Vance, whose father Smith had a grudge against. After going on the run he was hunted down and amid much celebrating and excitement was brought back to Paris Texas to face a hideous death. Having been paraded around the town tied to a chair on a float, he was taken out to scaffold erected on a prairie outside the town.
Tied to the scaffold and stripped to the waist he was for some fifty minutes burned all over his body with Red hot Irons by members of his victims family. Then having his eyes burnt out and an Iron placed down his throat and still breathing the scaffold was set on fire.
What shocked me is that there are a series of photos of this event including one in which family members are burning his feet and legs with hot Irons.This man was one of thousands killed like this, black and white, over the decades.
What I wanted to ask my American friends is this, did you learn about these Lynchings as you grew up, were they discussed openly or was it a taboo subject swept under the carpet so to speak.
I understand the Lynchings started after the Civil War when great tension existed.
Would appreciate an American view on this.
Rob[/QUOT
Thanks for posting that Rob , done American history at school but was never told stuff like that
Hey mate,I guess it is as Doug says below, we were not taught about Jack the Ripper at school as it wasn't a subject for kids, so the same goes for the lynchings.
Rob-
I don't believe "lynching" is necessarily a topic covered in school. Particularly for younger kids. I"m not exactly sure what they could teach about it since it was a violent and graphic event. It would be sort of like teaching a course on Jack the Ripper to the kiddies in England. That's really a subject best left to adults and there are many books and movies widely available on the subject for anyone who is interested. It's not a secret kept from the masses. On race relations, at best, most kids here probably get some sense of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King in the 60's and the Civil War. To be honest, we are lucky if the public school kids know there was a Civil War much less any of the details.
Doug, Yes of course you are right it wouldn't be a fit subject for kids at school to learn about really would it. I phrased my original post badly I think, I didn't mean just at school I really meant how much the subject was acknowledged in general and whether it still caused debate.
Rob...
lynchings might have been touched on in US History classes...I really don't remember...but only briefly at best... I don't remember any teacher stressing them as a part of our nations history...
however...this is a big however...
every kid in public or private school was aware of them...
either through school, the news media, movies or television...
television and movies mostly...
Hollywood glamorized lynchings in Westerns...
I think any American Treefrogger will agree with this...
even as a young kid...I remember...lynchings were a popular theme in our Westerns on television...
"The Old West" justice...
there was always a "posse" chasing down some "bad guy dressed in black"...
that was standard tv or movies...even in the day of black and white tv...
we were more sheltered from "racial injustices" on television and...
while just as true as the Westerns...I think most people find them utterly offensive for the racial undertones...
Mike,
You have hit the nail on the head and its exactly why I posted my original question. As a kid I too loved Westerns whether film or tv, the Virginian being a favourite of mine along with High Chaparral etc. However these 'tv ' lynchings bore no relation at all to some of the truly barbaric events visited upon people in the years after the ACW, I truly had no idea of the Horror,spectacle and organization involved in them. Some were as simple as someone being tied to a tree and tortured to death and others involved mass rioting and siege of public buildings where accused were held.
I find many areas of American History very interesting indeed and this was just another I stumbled upon, in a whole different direction I am about to start reading about the architecture and construction of the buildings of New York
Rob
