Lynching.
Lynching has been part of the United States history for quite a while. This practice became ritualized during the Civil Rights Movement and was entrenched in the laws especially in the South where the Jim Crow laws were enacted to enhance the inhumane treatment meted upon the African Americans. Lynching became a symbolic affair during the slavery period in the US. Though it has gone under, lynching still exists in the country only that it has assumed a different motive.
During the 1940s all the way to 1960s, there was sanctioned violence that was meted towards the African American in the United States especially in the South. This was at the height of racial discrimination where blacks were subjected to all kinds of inhumane treatment and nobody cared to defend them including the law. During these years, America witnessed a bloody civil war in which the blacks agitated for their rights to be respected as they denounced slavery and racial discrimination. This paper will take a look at the practice of lynching in the United States especially on the symbolic front.
Purpose of Lynching
In the United States, lynching was influenced mainly by the social conflicts that prevailed in the country which revolved around the American frontier, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. Initially, lynching was used as an extra-judicial punishment but in the 19th century, it referred to special murder usually by hanging. On the American frontier, it was regarded as an alternative to complete lawlessness. It was during the Reconstruction that lynching was used by the Ku Klux Klan to reverse the social changes that had been initiated by the Federal occupation. This racial lynching continued during the Jim Crow era especially in the South all the way to the 20th century as a means of resisting the Civil Rights Movement (Zangrando, 2010).
Symbolic Lynching
During the slavery era, lynching of the black slaves was prevalent without any judicial processes. Justice depended upon the slave Master and executions, whippings, and brandings among other forms of severe punishments were meted out on the slaves at the command of the slaveholder. Other slaves from the nearby plantations were called to witness the punishment to serve as a show of the Masters absolute authority. Despite several amendments in the Federal constitution and the federal Reconstruction legislations, the whites from the South looked for ways in legal and extra-legal terms in the assertion of white supremacy. This went as far as justifying ritual death to black people without a clear legal process (Zangrando, 2010).
Lynching as practiced in the US has kept changing from time to time. Some people have argued that death penalty is part of the legalized lynching in the current times. Thus as long as the death penalty is legally entrenched, legal lynching is far from over, only that this time round it is not symbolic and racially defined.
During the 1940s all the way to 1960s, there was sanctioned violence that was meted towards the African American in the United States especially in the South. This was at the height of racial discrimination where blacks were subjected to all kinds of inhumane treatment and nobody cared to defend them including the law. During these years, America witnessed a bloody civil war in which the blacks agitated for their rights to be respected as they denounced slavery and racial discrimination. This paper will take a look at the practice of lynching in the United States especially on the symbolic front.
Purpose of Lynching
In the United States, lynching was influenced mainly by the social conflicts that prevailed in the country which revolved around the American frontier, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. Initially, lynching was used as an extra-judicial punishment but in the 19th century, it referred to special murder usually by hanging. On the American frontier, it was regarded as an alternative to complete lawlessness. It was during the Reconstruction that lynching was used by the Ku Klux Klan to reverse the social changes that had been initiated by the Federal occupation. This racial lynching continued during the Jim Crow era especially in the South all the way to the 20th century as a means of resisting the Civil Rights Movement (Zangrando, 2010).
Symbolic Lynching
During the slavery era, lynching of the black slaves was prevalent without any judicial processes. Justice depended upon the slave Master and executions, whippings, and brandings among other forms of severe punishments were meted out on the slaves at the command of the slaveholder. Other slaves from the nearby plantations were called to witness the punishment to serve as a show of the Masters absolute authority. Despite several amendments in the Federal constitution and the federal Reconstruction legislations, the whites from the South looked for ways in legal and extra-legal terms in the assertion of white supremacy. This went as far as justifying ritual death to black people without a clear legal process (Zangrando, 2010).
Lynching as practiced in the US has kept changing from time to time. Some people have argued that death penalty is part of the legalized lynching in the current times. Thus as long as the death penalty is legally entrenched, legal lynching is far from over, only that this time round it is not symbolic and racially defined.
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