We all know the story. Headlines this past week chronicled O.J. Simpson’s continued fascination with folly. After having been acquitted of murder charges thirteen years ago, he now finds himself convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping charges, among several others. Simpson’s friend, Tom Scotto, irresponsibly called the recent trial a ‘public lynching’ of Simpson.
The 1995 murder trial was racially charged because of many factors, not the least of which was the racial backgrounds of the lead characters and mass media spin. The reaction to the jury’s verdict was split largely along racial lines. African-Americans felt vindicated, for the most part, upon hearing the not-guilty verdict. Whites were, for the most part, disappointed that ‘justice’ hadn’t been served. We need not marvel at either reaction.
I submit that Simpson is merely a new addition to a long line of assailants who’ve gotten away with murder under the American ‘justice’ system—but whose true character can’t be contained for long. Time always tells. Simpson, just like the legacy of wicked men prior to him, considers himself above the law. This most recent set of shenanigans further highlights Simpson’s lack of character and lack of regard for human life that untouched murderers have long held in common. And here’s a newsflash for the mainstream majority—this vile lack of character transcends racial lines.
Now, permit me to show you what lynching looks like through an excerpt from Wikipedia.org.
"At the turn of the 20th century in the United States, lynching was photographic sport. People sent picture postcards of lynchings they had witnessed. The practice was so base, a contemporary writer for Time noted that even the Nazis "did not stoop to selling souvenirs of Auschwitz, but lynching scenes became a burgeoning subdepartment of the postcard industry. By 1908, the trade had grown so large, and the practice of sending postcards featuring the victims of mob murderers was so repugnant, that the U.S. Postmaster General banned the cards from the mails."
Statistics
Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, is recognized as the official expert that has documented lynchings since 1882. It has defined conditions that constitute a recognized lynching:
"There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. That person must have met death illegally. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to Justice, Race, or Tradition."
Tuskegee remains the single complete source of statistics and records on this crime since 1882, and is the source for all other compiled statistics. As of 1959, which was the last time that their annual Lynch Report was published, a total of 4,733 persons had died as a result of lynching since 1882.
The same source gives the following statistics for the period from 1882 to 1951. Eighty-eight percent of victims were black and 10% were white.
Laws
For most of the history of the United States, lynching was rarely prosecuted, as the same people who would have had to prosecute were generally on the side of the action. When it was prosecuted, it was under state murder statutes. In one example in 1907-09, the U.S. Supreme Court tried its only criminal case in history, 203
U.S. 563 (U.S. v. Sheriff Shipp). Shipp was found guilty of criminal contempt for lynching Ed Johnson in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Starting in 1909, legislators introduced more than 200 bills to make lynching a Federal crime, but they failed to pass, chiefly because of Southern legislators' opposition. Because Southern states had effectively disfranchised African Americans at the turn of the century, the Southern states controlled nearly double the Congressional representation that white citizens alone would have been entitled to. They comprised a powerful voting block for decades.
Under the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration, the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department tried, but failed, to prosecute lynchers under Reconstruction-era civil rights laws. The first successful Federal prosecution of a lyncher for a civil rights violation was in 1946. By that time, the era of lynchings as a common occurrence had ended.
On June 13, 2005, the United States Senate formally apologized for its failure in previous decades to enact a Federal anti-lynching law. Earlier attempts to pass such legislation had been defeated by filibusters by powerful Southern senators. Prior to the vote, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu noted, "There may be no other injustice in American history for which the Senate so uniquely bears responsibility." The resolution was passed on a voice vote with 80 senators cosponsoring. The resolution expressed "the deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets of the Senate to the descendants of victims of lynching, the ancestors of whom were deprived of life, human dignity and the constitutional protections accorded all citizens of the United States."
American ‘justice’ takes its time arriving, doesn’t it?
Let the facts of American History speak for themselves. The American ‘justice’ system has long been a foul disappointment for racial minorities. This system is but a few scant decades removed from Jim Crow legislation. Don’t be fooled—the lack of punishment for white-on-black crime wasn’t limited to lynching. Under the same legal system, African-American children could be raped by white adults and the pedophiles, never brought to justice. Despicable.
African-Americans have felt the same way long-term about the aforementioned injustices as whites felt about the Simpson murder verdict. And postcard photos exist to prove who the participants/assailants were in some lynching cases. If you can stomach additional postcard scenes, take a look at the Without Sanctuary website at http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html. Murder as a souvenir—my, my.
Both groups have seen what it’s like to be on either side of perceived justice or injustice. In the Simpson case, the tables were turned. Each is an empty victory and a bitter defeat. But more importantly, in all cases for which an assailant escapes punishment, the supposed American standard of ‘liberty and justice for all’ is abjectly unmet.
Further Reading/Viewing
The Last Lynching: Ted Koppel Examines America's Recent History of Racial Violence
The Discovery Channel (please check your local listings for airtimes)
Bill Moyers Journal “Legacy of Lynching”
PBS.org
Sources:
Wikipedia.org. “Lynching in the United States” Retrieved October 12, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States
The Associated Press. (2008, October 4). “Simpson guilty on all charges in robbery trial” Linda Deutsch. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iUNgbOr-2bnpFUX0MiII6je2CkRAD93JHU3O0
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