“Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. It represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is an “unwritten law” that justifies them in putting human beings to death without complaint under oath, without opportunity to make defense, and without right of appeal.”

-- Ida B Wells-Barnett

Remembering our horrific past

Thank you for stopping by my blog. This blog is in remembrance of the people lynched during a tumultuous period in the United States. Since this blog is about lynchings, you should expect to read about graphic violence (just a warning). It may seem strange to choose to blog about lynchings, but I feel if we whitewash this portion of our past we will never understand how horribly a large number of people were treated. I think it is important to remember those who were murdered by lynch mobs because it is a widely ignored era of the United States past. Some of those who were lynched may have been guilty of the crimes they were accused, but so many of them were not.

Lynching was commonly used to terrify blacks, keep them in "their place", and to ensure white supremacy. Although other races were lynched, the large majority of victims were black. Just as lynchings occurred all over the US, most occurred in the South. The first heavy period of lynching in the South occurred from 1868 and 1871.  Many of these lynchings were for political reasons. 

My goal for this blog is to present a lynching that occurred for every day of the year. I don't know if I will find one for all 365 days, but I think it is definitely a possibility.  My resources for these lynchings will be newspaper articles and books on the history of lynching. Now that I've given you an idea of what I'm trying to do, I will start posting tomorrow with my first account of a lynching for the date of June 1st. I will post pictures when possible. I know that the pictures are very gruesome, and if you are like me they can make you feel sick, but I think they are necessary to bring the point home. Thank you for joining me in looking back at this dark past of ours.