Opinion

OPINION: Remembering the Sin and Shame of Lynching in America

Published

9 years ago

June 26, 2017

The lynching rope is part of the altar for Omnira Institute’s ‘Ritual of Remembrance’ Juneteenth celebration on June 10 at Lake Merritt.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” the old folks used to say when facing obstacles, often under their breaths.

“Where there’s a tree, there’s a rope,” is the next line, almost a rejoinder, acknowledging the constancy of unpredictable trouble, an expression fraught with grief, fear and loss.

One that a Black child born in the North in the 1950s didn’t know referred to the South’s “Strange Fruit.”

I am not sure if you can see it, the rope, on the altar, honoring and remembering the victims of white supremacy, lynched individually or in pairs or groups, these descendants of enslaved people whose only (proven) crime was to be Black. They were all killed by “person or persons unknown,” yet for decades after the Emancipation Proclamation, lynchings were very public events often occurring on the courthouse lawn.

Town newspapers sometimes announced the day and time the spectacle would take place and trains were specially scheduled to transport the spectators: men, women, and even small children. Newspapers covered lynchings in graphic detail. Photographs showed desecrated bodies of Black people surrounded by triumphant sometimes even grinning white spectators. Again, “the persons unknown.” Black people certainly knew who terrorized them. The memory of such horrors haunted Black communities, a hobbling fear lasting generations. The frequency of the lynchings would stimulate the Great Migration, surging right after World War I.

The most renown lynching was of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955, and the blood lust of the South appeared to wane under the withering scorn of the world. But the lynching of the Civil Rights workers in 1963 revealed otherwise as the search for their bodies in the river turned up many more, defiled, unidentified, unburied, unmourned. Like the tabloids showing the victorious crowds, social media in 2017 allows us to see ‘lynchings’ in real time.

There are so many, I honestly don’t have the heart to keep up.

Two weeks ago I glanced at an account on Facebook. Below three school portraits of impossibly young Black males, the headline was almost a taunt: “Did you know these youth were killed by the police this week? …Neither did we.” Then, on Monday I received another Facebook notice of a pregnant, mentally- challenged Black woman in Seattle killed by police in front of her other children.

I am doing my best, as our people say, to stay or be “woke,” but I confess I did not have the stomach to read further. It is 2017, and lynching not only continues, it is increasing. Like the mobs of the old days, police become judge, jury and executioner. Hidden under police department policy, the names of “persons unknown” are not released until the victim’s memory (ex. Mike Brown) is sullied.

On the rare occasion that police are actually tried for murder, lackluster prosecution ensures that they are seldom convicted. And now it’s not just the police, but individual white men who decide they want to kill Black people just because they feel like it. Timothy Caughman, a homeless Black man in New York, was stabbed to death in March by a man who came from Maryland for that express purpose.

In the 1920s and 1930s, not ‘giving ground’ to a white person, like refusing to step off the sidewalk or even bumping into a white girl while running to catch a train, were lynchable offenses, and it appears they are again. Five days before his graduation in May, Bowie State College student Richard Collins III was stabbed to death while waiting for an Uber ride for refusing to “yield ground” to a white University of Maryland student.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way; where there’s a tree there’s a rope,” the old folks said.

I had been directed by spirit to make a noose with the coarse rope, but I didn’t know how. I am glad I didn’t. Symbolically, it would knot the possibility inherent in the third line, the last utterance of this trinity.

“Where there’s life, there’s hope.” Yes. And I hope that the ancestors understood.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of February 11 = 17, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 11 – 17, 2026

Published

1 day ago

February 16, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

COMMENTARY: The National Protest Must Be Accompanied with Our Votes

Just as Trump is gathering election data like having the FBI take all the election data in Georgia from the 2020 election, so must we organize in preparation for the coming primary season to have the right people on ballots in each Republican district, so that we can regain control of the House of Representatives and by doing so, restore the separation of powers and balance that our democracy is being deprived of.

Published

1 week ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper. File photo..

By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper

As thousands of Americans march every week in cities across this great nation, it must be remembered that the protest without the vote is of no concern to Donald Trump and his administration.

In every city, there is a personal connection to the U.S. Congress. In too many cases, the member of Congress representing the people of that city and the congressional district in which it sits, is a Republican. It is the Republicans who are giving silent support to the destructive actions of those persons like the U.S. Attorney General, the Director of Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Director, who are carrying out the revenge campaign of the President rather than upholding the oath of office each of them took “to Defend The Constitution of the United States.”

In California, the primary comes in June 2026. The congressional races must be a priority just as much as the local election of people has been so important in keeping ICE from acquiring facilities to build more prisons around the country.

“We the People” are winning this battle, even though it might not look like it. Each of us must get involved now, right where we are.

In this Black History month, it is important to remember that all we have accomplished in this nation has been “in spite of” and not “because of.” Frederick Douglas said, “Power concedes nothing without a struggle.”

Today, the struggle is to maintain our very institutions and history. Our strength in this struggle rests in our “collectiveness.” Our newspapers and journalists are at the greatest risk. We must not personally add to the attack by ignoring those who have been our very foundation, our Black press.

Are you spending your dollars this Black History Month with those who salute and honor contributions by supporting those who tell our stories? Remember that silence is the same as consent and support for the opposition. Where do you stand and where will your dollars go?

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Post Newspaper Invites NNPA to Join Nationwide Probate Reform Initiative

The Post’s Probate Reform Group meets the first Thursday of every month via Zoom and invites the public to attend. The Post is making the initiative national and will submit information from its monthly meeting to the NNPA to educate, advocate, and inform its readers.

Published

1 week ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Tanya Dennis

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) represents the Black press with over 200 newspapers nationwide.

Last night the Post announced that it is actively recruiting the Black press to inform the public that there is a probate “five-alarm fire” occurring in Black communities and invited every Black newspaper starting from the Birmingham Times in Alabama to the Milwaukee Times Weekly in Wisconsin, to join the Post in our “Year of Action” for probate reform.

Reporter Tanya Dennis says, “The adage that ‘When America catches a cold, Black folks catch the flu” is too true in practice; that’s why we’re engaging the Black Press to not only warn, but educate the Black community regarding the criminal actions we see in probate court: Thousands are losing generational wealth to strangers. It’s a travesty that happens daily.”

Venus Gist, a co-host of the reform group, states, “ Unfortunately, people are their own worst enemy when it comes to speaking with loved ones regarding their demise. It’s an uncomfortable subject that most avoid, but they do so at their peril. The courts rely on dissention between family members, so I encourage not only a will and trust [be created] but also videotape the reading of your documents so you can show you’re of sound mind.”

In better times, drafting a will was enough; then a trust was an added requirement to ‘iron-clad’ documents and to assure easy transference of wealth.

No longer.

As the courts became underfunded in the last 20 years, predatory behavior emerged to the extent that criminality is now occurring at alarming rates with no oversight, with courts isolating the conserved, and, I’ve heard, many times killing conservatees for profit. Plundering the assets of estates until beneficiaries are penniless is also common.”

Post Newspaper Publisher Paul Cobb says, “The simple solution is to avoid probate at all costs. If beneficiaries can’t agree, hire a private mediator and attorney to work things out. The moment you walk into court, you are vulnerable to the whims of the court. Your will and trust mean nothing.”

Zakiya Jendayi, a co-host of the Probate Reform Group and a victim herself, says, “In my case, the will and trust were clear that I am the beneficiary of the estate, but the opposing attorney said I used undue influence to make myself beneficiary. He said that without proof, and the judge upheld the attorney’s baseless assertion. In court, the will and trust is easily discounted.”

The Black press reaches out to 47 million Black Americans with one voice. The power of the press has never been so important as it is now in this national movement to save Black generational wealth from predatory attorneys, guardians and judges.

The next probate reform meeting is on March 5, from 7 – 9 p.m. PST. Zoom Details:
Meeting ID: 825 0367 1750
Passcode: 475480

All are welcome.