Understanding historical context of noose is paramount

Rebecca Edwards Guest Columnist

All of us have seen and heard hate. It may be embodied in a symbol, such as a swastika, or in letters or a word, such as “KKK” or “faggot.” Recently, one hate symbol, the noose, has surfaced in dozens of incidents nationwide. In New York and New Jersey, nooses have appeared at construction sites, offices, schools and colleges. An African American police officer on Long Island found a noose hanging from his locker the day after he was promoted to sergeant. In Connecticut, a black Coast Guard cadet found a noose in his sea bag.

Historically, these events follow a familiar pattern. The nooses are a threat, deployed against people of color who seek an equal place as citizens, in education and in the workplace. In this way, a noose draws directly on the history of lynching.

There is an old and terrible lie about lynching: that it was a response to interracial rape. I hope that lie is dead, but just in case it is worth repeating. Rape was not even alleged in the vast majority of lynchings. Lynchings were acts of domestic terror against people of color. Perceived economic competition was often a factor. So there is a direct link between the noose that appeared on the police officer's locker when he received a promotion, and, for example, the 1892 lynching in Memphis, Tenn. of Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell and Wil Stewart, three black men who had opened a grocery store across the street from one owned by a white man.

Some facts about the history of lynching might be useful for everyone at Vassar to know. Between 1882 and 1968, the number of known lynchings in the United States was 4,743. This figure is a serious undercount because no records were kept during the violent years of Reconstruction. Lynchings peaked between 1890 and 1920. A concerted grassroots movement against them managed to reduce the numbers in the 1920s and 1930s, and especially after World War II. But as recently as 1998, Texas resident James Byrd Jr. was chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death by white supremacists, one of whom had a tattoo of a lynched black man on his arm.

Three-quarters of known lynching victims were African American. About 27 percent were not, including people of Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Jewish and even Anglo-Saxon descent. Thus, lynching has primarily been a legacy of slavery, but it is also part of other patterns of vigilantism, racial violence and xenophobia. Such connections and parallels—among different forms of violence and hate, here and elsewhere in the world—are worth exploring.

It is often assumed that lynching happened in the South. But over 1,000 occurred outside the former Confederacy. At the peak of violence, lynchings in all parts of the country became a form of public entertainment. Before immense crowds, victims were tortured for hours and burned at the stake. Railroads offered discount fares to these pre-scheduled events. Photographers sold souvenir postcards. I invite you to explore the powerful collection of such postcard images, with commentary, at the Web site withoutsanctuary.org. Any serious understanding of lynching must take into account not just the fact of mob killings, but the legacy of terror as a public spectacle.

Henry James once wrote that in America, “The light of the sun seems fresh and innocent, as if it knew as yet but few of the secrets of the world and none of the weariness of shining.” He meant that in comparison to Europe and ancient empires, Americans have a light, happy history. I fear that James was not paying close attention. But his view is characteristically American. This is a restlessly mobile country, full of immigrants and people seeking a fresh start. We are perpetually ready to reinvent ourselves due to our impatience with the past. This often serves Americans well. We look to the future with hope; we can say, with Lincoln, that “as our cause is new, we must think anew, and act anew.”

But avoiding the less sunshine-y parts of our past leaves two great gaps in our historical understanding. First, when a noose appears, people in our impatient, forward-looking culture may not have the tools to understand its full meanings. Second, and equally important, if we do not confront the darkest parts of our past, we cannot understand the people who fought against that darkness, and who can give us deep inspiration and wisdom in our own struggles for justice.

In the case of lynching, that includes interracial coalitions of blacks and whites, men and women, people from all walks of life who worked together to expose and end the violence. It includes journalists and writers such as Ida B. Wells, who memorialized the lynching of her three friends by launching an anti-lynching crusade. It includes a few white sheriffs and deputies who died trying to protect black men and enforce the rule of law. It includes civil rights activists like those who created and sustained organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching. Over time, those groups succeeded in turning lynching from a public entertainment into a source of national shame. If we do not acknowledge lynching as part of our past, then we cannot acknowledge these creative and courageous people, and our roster of heroes is deeply impoverished.

I urge you to talk about these issues with your professors, if not in class, then afterward and during office hours. There is nothing we all do together at Vassar that is more important than striving to connect what we learn and teach in the classroom with our responsibilities as citizens and members of a community. Those, to my mind, are the ultimate goals of a liberal arts education. When we respond to a noose we must all do so together, in a spirit of openness and inquiry. That fulfills the intention that brought us all here.

—Rebecca Edwards is the Eloise Ellery Professor of History.