Today’s “Recreational” Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
More on America’s shameful history. Warning – this one is hard to read. – DeSpair
Investigators in Jim Crow America frequently found no easily ascertainable reason for a lynching, except perhaps white emotional and creational starvation. For some, “nigger killing” had simply become a sport, like any other amusement or diversion, and its popularity prompted a black newspaper in 1911 to call it “The National Pastime.” Like any other amusement or recreational diversion, Walter White said of lynching, it provided whites with a welcome escape from “the endless routine or drab working-hours and more drab home lives.” (Poor little things – DeSpair) In Augusta, Georgia, in 1890, a black man was found one morning in the street, his body riddled with bullets. Suspecting a certain group of men may have been responsible, a white resident asked one of them, “Pat, who killed that nigger?” “Oh, some of the boys,” he responded, with a grin. “What did they do it for?” the resident asked. “Oh, because he was a nigger,” Pat replied, as if that were more than sufficient explanation. “And,” Pat added, “he was the best nigger in town. Why, he would even take off his hat to me.”
Although seldom cited as the reason for mob violence, the assumption persisted that an occasional lynching, for whatever reason, served a useful purpose, that periodically it became necessary to remind a new generation of blacks of their place in southern society. “You don’t understand how we feel down here,” a young white southerner explained to a northern visitor; “when there is a row, we feel like killing a nigger whether he has done anything or not.” It was imperative that blacks understand their limits. “A white man ain’t goin’ to be able to live in this country if we let niggers start gettin’ biggity,” a white Mississippian said of a black being held for trial. “I wish they’d lemme have him. I’d cut out his black balls and th’ow ’em to the hawgs.” Some years later, when the number of lynchings subsided, a white resident of Oxford, Mississippi, told a visitor that lynching still had a reaffirming and cathartic quality that benefited the entire community. “It is about time to have another lynching,” he thought. “When the niggers get so that they are not afraid of being lynched, it is time to put the fear in them.”
Postcard commemorating the lynching of Allen Brooks. March 3, 1910, Dallas, Texas.
Culled from: Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America
As best I can make out, the post card says:
“Well John — This is a photo taken of a great day we had in Dallas March 3th – a negro was hung for an assault on a three year old girl. I saw this on my noon hour. I was very much in the bunch. You can see the negro hanging on a telephone pole. All OK and would love to get a card from you – Bill.”
I can’t make out the bottom of the front of the card (“This was…”).
Mütter Museum Specimen Du Jour!
Head Shot ©1999 Scott Lindgren
Model of decapitated Chinese head, presented to the Museum by Dr. Charles D. Hart in 1896.
The head may have been made by a Japanese artist. Its purpose is unknown, whether to serve as a substitute for a real trophy head, or as a stage prop. The materials of which it is made are unknown, though X rays reveal a wooden armature.
Culled from: The Mütter Museum Calendar, 2000
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
October 17th. Large details have been made to go out for wood. Rations of raw beans and molasses, but no bread. Made candy of my molasses. Rain in the evening.
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost