The Relevance of Nooses and Lynching in the Age of Obama

by Sherrilyn A. Ifill

In the flush of the current presidential campaign, when crowds of blacks and whites caught up in Obama fever chant together, “race doesn’t matter,” and even the mainstream media seems delirious with the possibility that the U.S. may be poised to elect its first black president, it’s hard to remember that only a few months ago college campuses, high schools and workplaces from Louisiana to New York were sites of racial intimidation. 2007 was the year of the noose. Dozens of incidents, in which nooses were hung in places designed to intimidate black workers and students, seemed to engulf the country. Many of these noose hangings seem to have been set off by the case of the Jena Six -- a Louisiana case in which black high school students faced serious criminal charges after a series of violent conflicts with white students. The friction between the students arose after white students hung nooses from a tree that had long been regarded as reserved as a meeting place for white students. Many whites minimized the noose hangings at Jena and in other places as mere pranks. Blacks, by and large, regarded the noose hangings as hate crimes – messages of intimidation and white supremacy inspired by the nearly 5,000 lynchings of black men and women that took place in the 20th century.

Today, it’s almost tempting to dismiss the rash of noose incidents and attendant focus on the history of lynching as just a strange autumnal anomaly -- some kind of retro race moment, a last gasp of 20th century racism. Nooses had fallen so far outside the national conversation that it came as somewhat of a shock last Tuesday when President Bush finally condemned noose displays in a ceremony at the White House commemorating Black History Month. The noose, said the President “is wrong . .. [and has] no place in America today.” The President forcefully insisted that displaying a noose is “not a harmless prank, and lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest.” Instead the noose, said the President, “is a symbol of gross injustice.”

The timing of the President’s statement was curious. Months earlier, when noose incidents were on the front page of major newspapers every day, a presidential statement denouncing the display of nooses would have been a powerful and authoritative repudiation of racist symbols. Yet at that time, the President was silent on the issue. As a result, President Bush’s statement last week seemed strangely out of time. It read like a random selection from a stack of draft presidential statements, hauled out for Black History Month. Clearly drafted months ago [and perhaps embargoed for unknown reasons], the President’s statement provided no guidance on how to reconcile the rash of noose displays four months ago with the current mood of racial harmony and possibility sweeping the country.

Link Roundup: Mary Oliver, Sherrilyn Ifill, and YouTube

Books are great—we all love books around here—but seeing a writer in person, giving a reading or a talk, can stimulate the intellect, illuminate the work, and delightfully entertain.

Mary Oliver is one of Beacon's most popular writers, and, according to the Poetry Foundation, author of five of the top seven best-selling poetry books last year. When she tours, she fills auditoriums, which, as any poet in America can tell you, doesn't often happen for poetry readings. In fact, her reading on Monday as part of Seattle's Arts and Lectures series sold out in record time, and tickets were reported to be changing hands on Craigslist for as much as $100 per seat.

So does she live up to the hype? Beautifully, says Seattle Post-Intelligencer book critic John Marshall, who says "the poet orchestrated her reading like a maestro, alternating poems of humor with poems showcasing bittersweet truths and honest emotions."

Many were drawn to the Oliver event by her approachable verse with its intense focus on the natural world and its quiet delights, but she soon dispensed with any notion that the evening was destined to be some sort of ecumenical worship service of nature or the poet herself. That seemed a possibility when many in the crowd of 2,500 gave Oliver a standing ovation even before she had uttered a word.

But Oliver's self-effacing sense of humor soon punctured such awe, delivered with a Seinfeldian sense of timing.

"I have a little dog and I'm working hard to make him famous," Oliver said.

Knowing murmurs rippled through the crowd.

"And he deserves it," she added, to widespread laughter.

Another Beacon author, Sherrilyn Ifill (On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century), recently spoke at University of Maryland Law School about a troubling time in the history of race relations in America. Introducing the documentary film Banished, scheduled to air on Independent Lens on PBS later this month, Ifill discussed  "'racial cleansing' of blacks from communities that have remained virtually lily-white, even in the 21st century." In this Baltimore Sun article, columnist Gregory Kane talks about the importance of acknowledging the history of banishments, and of making reparations to citizens whose property was stolen from them after they were driven from their homes in at least twelve different counties:

That dreaded "R-word" is indeed dredged up in Banished. When blacks were driven from Forsyth County in 1912, many left behind land that they owned. They were never paid for that land. It was simply gobbled up and sold by whites who saw an opportunity to make a quick - and easy - buck. Neither the blacks who lost land nor their descendants have been compensated.

But you don't need to leave your house to see a reading or a book talk anymore—in fact, you don't even need to leave your desk chair! The Cambridge Forum, which has featured Katherine Newman, Philip Winslow, and Fred Pearce, among other Beacon authors, has audio and video available on their website. Unfortunately, we can't link to the Cambridge Forum videos via our new YouTube profile, but there are a lot of other good tidbits to be found: Thich Nhat Hahn, Eboo Patel, even Wallace Shawn reading Howard Zinn. For your enjoyment, here's one of our favorites at the moment: Lester Young and Billie Holiday performing "Fine and Mellow".

Going To the Territory: The Black Conservative Tradition in American Politics

by Christopher Alan Bracey

During a recent promotional event for my book, Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism, From Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice, a middle-aged African American woman asked me a question that I’ve been hearing a lot these days. Although she agreed with much of what conservatives past and present had to say about issues affecting the black community, she refused to think of herself as a conservative because, in her mind, conservatives (echoing Kanye West’s criticism of the Bush Administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina) “don’t really care about black people.”

The problem, she elaborated, was one of tone. Black conservatives, in her mind, were unduly hostile in their criticisms of the blacks in general, and poor and urban blacks in particular. She simply couldn’t bear to align herself – at least publicly – with these hostile voices. She was, in her own mind, a black conservative masquerading as liberal – and suffering within a deep political crisis as a consequence.

As the 2008 Presidential Campaign lurches forward, Americans of all stripes will be called upon to contemplate and vote their politics. For many African Americans, Barack Obama’s pursuit of the Democratic nomination has, in some ways, reanimated a conversation that has taken place quietly within the black community over the past decade – a conversation about the increasingly conservative nature of black politics.

To be sure, blacks are overwhelmingly registered Democrats. But are blacks overwhelmingly liberal? In a season in which the dominant rhetoric on both sides of the political aisle is one of “change,” what sort of change is needed to best empower the African American community?

Condoleeza Rice

As I detail in the book, there is a growing perception that conservatism within black America is gaining momentum. In 1972, fewer than ten percent of blacks identified as conservative. Today, nearly thirty percent, or 11.2 Million, African Americans do. Fifty-six percent of black voters supported Virginia’s 2006 ban on same-sex marriage. Other polling data reveal that the majority of blacks support other conservative policies, such as privatization of social security, school vouchers.

Do everyday blacks, who believe a more conservative pathway is most attractive, dare to state these views publicly, particularly when the Democratic nomination is at stake? More importantly, if, in the spirit of public discourse, certain blacks declared themselves to be conservative, what exactly does that mean? Is there a black conservative tradition, or multiple traditions? And what obligation, if any, do liberals and progressives have to engage this conservative tradition in a serious way?

200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1808

by Thomas N. DeWolf

Americans love to celebrate. We commemorate historic events (Thanksgiving, Independence Day) and people (Presidents Day, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day). But few are aware of the significance of January 1, 2008: the 200th Anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the United States. We tend to remember the end of the institution of slavery as one result of the Civil War. African Americans have commemorated Juneteenth, a celebration of the day, on June 19, 1865, when slaves in Texas were finally told about the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years after it was implemented. But America has all but ignored the date that marks the end of the slave trade.

This past year, Great Britain spent the equivalent of $40 million to remember their 200-year old abolition law from 1807. They educated students, invested in museums and commemorative services, and considered the legacy of slavery and the impact it still has today. They taught anew the heroic actions of historic figures like Wilberforce, Newton, Equiano, and Clarkson, who led England’s fight to end their evil commerce in human flesh.

Here in the United States we are doing precious little to mark the occasion of our equivalent historical watershed event. To my knowledge, the only official action toward commemorating the date, a bill to establish a commission to “ensure a suitable national observance of the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade” (H.R. 3432), was introduced in August 2007, passed in the House (October) and the Senate (December 19 ), but with all funding eliminated. It remains to be seen whether this remains an ineffectual symbolic gesture or if funding will be forthcoming in 2008, obviously after the January 1 anniversary. Beyond that, the only government-sponsored event planned, of which I'm aware, is a public symposium hosted by the National Archives on January 10.

One can reasonably argue that the law to end the slave trade was less than effective. Enforcement efforts were often half-hearted; those who continued trading illegally did so with vigor, particularly prior to 1820 when the penalty for conviction of slave trading became death. (Even this change to the law was largely toothless, as the penalty was only applied once, during the Civil War). Yet the 1808 law was a turning point. It helped energize the abolition movement and provided government affirmation that slave trading was not only immoral but criminal.

Banned Books Aren't Going Away

by Christopher M. Finan

Censorship is very American.

After all, the First Amendment was something of an afterthought.  The Founding Fathers did not plan to protect freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the Constitution.  The Bill of Rights was a concession to critics who argued that the Constitution did not provide adequate protection from government tyranny.

How right they were!  Only a few years later, one group of the Founding Fathers passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in an effort to silence another group of Founding Fathers.