Doornbos

=**Legislative Failure and Black Lynchings in America**=



Hanging is an execution in which the person is hung off the ground by a rope around their neck. A lynching is when some one is hung and executed with out a judicial trial. Lynching are done by a mob with out legal authority meaning the victim has not been proven guilty nor had a proper trial. African American were especially targeted as victims. For many years hate groups and white supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) used lynching as a symbol to intimidate African Americans. This Violence was used as a measure of social control over African Americans. The lynching done by the KKK is considered nothing less than systematic acts of Terrorism. Records from the Tuskegee University indicate that between 1882 and 1968 some 4,743 people were lynched. Of these people three fourths were African American.

United States Senate Resolution to Apologize (2005)[[image:us-senate.jpg width="335" height="202" align="right"]]
On June 13, 2005 the U.S. Senate passed a resolution to apologize for not passing a anti- lynching bill. Headed by Senator Mary Landrieu and Senator George Allen 78 Senators apologized for the Senates failure to pass Federal legislation against lynching. Almost 200 anti- lynching bills were introduced to Congress including three bill that passed the House of Representatives. Even seven different Presidents between 1890 and 1952 petitioned Congress to pass a Federal law. Senator Landrieu was quoted speaking to ancestors of lynching victims "More than half a century ago, mere feet from where we sit.....the Senate failed you, your ancestors, and our Nation." [8]

John Edward Bruce (1856 - 1924)[[image:bruce_john.gif width="180" height="170" align="left"]]
Born a slave but went on to become a journalist, writer, and civil rights activist. He helped form the first civil rights group in 1890 the Afro- American Council. He also believe strongly against lynching and gave many speeches addressing the problem of lynching. In 1901 he published a pamphlet titled //The blood red record : review of the horrible lynchings and burning of negroes by civilized white men in the united states.// In this pamphlet he condones lynching and the treatment of blacks as brutal, horrible, revolting, and cruel. He also says that whites are blood thirsty and that lynching disgraces the white man's civilization. The language he uses is different than modern language. The pamphlet list the names of African Americans killed than states "The American who reads this list without a blush of shame must be more blood thirsty than an Apache Indian." [1] I found it quite ironic to hear a racist comment from a civil rights activist but this was a century ago. Times were much different back than.

The NAACP is one of the largest and oldest civil rights groups in the nation. The organization was formed partially in response to the unjust lynching of African Americans. In 1919 the NAACP publish a book titled //Thirty years of lynching in the united states: 1889 1918.// [5] For nearly thirty years this organization waged a campaign against lynching and supported several different anti- lynching legislation. [4]

Aurthur F. Raper (1899 - 1979)
Dr. Raper was a sociologist and teacher who studied racial interactions and lynchings.[3] In 1930 he worked with the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC) to create a report on lynchings up to that time. He found that 1930 had a spike in the number of lynchings to twenty one. Than in 1933 he wrote the book //The tragedy of lynching// which focused on the twenty one lynchings that occurred in 1930. [7]

[[image:shippandsmith.jpg width="353" height="233" align="right"]]
Missouri Representative Leoindas Dyer introduced this Bill to the Senate because of a concern with local authorities. This is because many state and local authorities would seldom pursue prosecution of lynching perpetrators. This Bill would have classified lynching as a felony making the Federal government able to prosecute lynch killers. The Bill also addressed the problem with local authorities. A 5 year max prison sentence and/or a $5,000 fine was prescribed for any state or city official who had the power to protect a person in their jurisdiction but failed to do so. The Bill targeted mobs also by prescribing a minimum of a 5 year prison sentence for anyone who participated in a lynching. The last provision of the Bill would have established a $10,000 fine paid to the victims family by the county where the lynching took place.

Wagner Bills (1934, 1937, and 1940)
Senator Robert F. Wagner served as a Senator from New York from 1927 to 1949.In his time as a Senator he introduced three anti- lynching bills to congress the Costigan-Wagner Bill of 1935, Gavagan-Wagner-Van Nys anti- lynching Bill of 1937, and the Wagner-Gavagan Bill of 1940. These bills proposed Federal trials for Law Enforcement Officers who failed to execute their responsibility's in a lynching incident. However, President Roosevelt would not support Wagner's Bills.

Filibuster in the U.S. Senate
A filibuster is the use of irregular or obstructive tactics by a member of the Senate to prevent the adoption of a new measure. Southern Senators simply would not allow any ant- lynching assembly to pass. The Dyer and three Wagner Bills are only four of the two hundred anti- lynching bills that were introduced to the Senate but never became laws.

Federal Civil Rights Law (1964)
Permits Federal prosecution of anyone who willingly injuries, intimidates, or interferes with another person who is engage in Federally protected activities or attempts to do so because of the persons race, ethnicity, or religion. This bill sounds well and good but it only protects citizens when the are engaging in one of the six Federally protected activities of attending school, patronizing a public place/ facility, applying for employment, acting as a juror in court, or voting.[2]

Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990)
This Act requires the Attorney General to collect data on crimes committed because of the victims race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. The Department of Justice than uses the Federal Bureau of Investigation to collect and publish crime statistics in an annual reports. [10]

Campus Hate Crime Right to Know Act (1997)
This Act requires campus security authorities to clooect and report data on crimes committed because of race, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. [11]

Mathew Shepard and James Dyrd Jr Hate Crime Prevention Act (2009)
This act was recently signed into law by President Obama. [6] It extends hate crime statues to include crime committed against a victim because of their perceive race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and disability. The name of the bill comes from two men killed in hate crimes in 1998. Mathew Shepard was 21 years old when he was killed for being gay. James Dyrd Jr was dragged behind a truck for three miles that lynched only because he was black. [9]

Conclusion[[image:Chart_Lynchings.grid-6x2.gif align="right"]]
Through out this history of violence against African Americans people have asked for a Federal Law against Lynching. If Congress had passed the Dyer Anti- Lynching Bill or any of Senator Wagner's Bills state and local officials would have a duty to stop lynchings or face Federal prosecution. Had any of these legislation passed in the Senate many lives would have been saved. I am appalled by the governments failure to pass a federal law against an act that kills a person without a trial. The fact that none of the anti- lynching bills were passed by Congress is a clear indication of the racism that exists in our government.

References:

 * 1) Bruce, J. African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P.Murray Collection, 1818-1907, Library of Congress. (1901). //The blood red record : review of the horrible lynchings and burning of negroes by civilized white men in the united states// . Retrieved from website: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/murraybib:@field(NUMBER @band(lcrbmrp t1718)):
 * 2) Federal Civil Rights Statutes, Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.d.). //Federally protected activities// (Title 18, U.S.C., Section 245). Retrieved from website: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/federal-statutes
 * 3) Fincher, M. (2002). Arthur F. Raper (1899-1979). In //The New Georgia Encyclopedia// Retrieved from http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-746
 * 4) //Naacp: 100 years of history //. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history
 * 5) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. (1919). //Thirty years of lynching in the united states: 1889 1918//. Praeger.
 * 6) President barack obama signs hate crimes legislation into law. (2009, October 28). //Bay Windows New England Newspaper//. Retrieved from http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=98285
 * 7) Raper, A. (1933). //The tragedy of lynching//. Dover Publications.
 * 8) Senate apologizes for not passing anti-lynching laws. (2005, June 13). //Associated Press//. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159348,00.html
 * 9) U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel. (2009). //Matthew shepard and james byrd, jr. hate crimes prevention act// (18 U.S.C. 1 note). Retrieved from website: U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Retrieved from website: http://uscode.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?getdoc uscview t01t04 6178 0
 * 10) U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel. (1990). //Hate crime statistics act// (28 U.S.C. 534 note). Retrieved from website: U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Retrieved from website: http://uscode.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?getdoc uscview t01t04 4751 4
 * 11) U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel. (1997). //Campus hate crimes right to know act// (20 U.S.C. 1092 one note). Retrieved from website: U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Retrieved from website: http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/28C33.txt