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Title: At the Hands of Persons Unknown : The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray ISBN: 0-375-75445-8 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.93 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Perversions of "Justice"
Comment: Dray notes that he knew very little about lynchings when he began his research for this book; I knew very little about this subject until after I read his book. Perhaps I am not unique in that much of what I think I know and understand about U.S. history has depended to a significant extent on films and television programs. ... Many of the lynchings described in Dray's book would be deemed today as "unsuitable for viewing" by the general public and thus would never be fully portrayed in a film or television program. And yet, for reasons Dray explains, many of the lynchings attracted large and enthusiastic crowds (which included women and small children) and were scheduled to accommodate as many people as possible. Several hangings were preceded by dismemberment and burning.
...
Dray's book is not primarily about such situations, although he traces lynching back to the American Revolution when Charles Lynch literally took the law into his own hands and hanged Tories who had stolen from him. A local court then exonerated his behavior. Dray explains that before the Civil War, more whites than blacks were lynched; that is, hanged without due process. It was only during the decades after the war ended that lynching became inextricably bound with racial strife as blacks were hanged in a progressively greater number and higher percentage than whites. Dray's extensive research of this period (roughly 1865-1900) provides some of the most interesting material in the book and his analysis of it is both rigorous and revealing. In many instances, the identities of those who conducted lynchings were concealed by white sheets or masks. Later, it was common to place a hood over the heads of those executed (after due process) by military, federal, or state officials.
I view Dray as both an historian and an anthropologist. He tries hard to understand (and to help his reader to understand) why human beings throughout U.S. history grabbed a rope and hanged another human being. (For a period of time, multiple hangings were not uncommon.) Obviously, some of the lynchers who ignored due process were absolutely convinced that they were agents of justice; the motives of others are also understandable, perhaps, but nonetheless contemptible. I am grateful to Dray for the extensive research he completed and even more for his analysis of what that research revealed. Some readers may quarrel with some of his conclusions. (I am unqualified to do so.) However, I think almost all readers will view this book as an important contribution to our understanding of a recurrent pattern of behavior which, until now (at least for me), has been neglected, ignored, or worse yet denied.
Rating: 5
Summary: Please read this book
Comment: This book is easily the best book I have read so far this year. Dray explains how otherwise model citizens could murder, in the most brutal manners imaginable, Black (usually) Americans for imagined to minor transgressions (True, doubtless some of the lynched were guilty of the crimes they were accused of....Readers will be tempted to justify mob justice this way. Dray won't let you do this...the retribution is always excessive and driven by hate and fear, and completely devoid of anything resembling civilized justice). Coming from the South, I have taken classes on lynching before, so the pages Dray dedicated to explaining the origins of lynching were not nearly as compelling as his historical and legal analyses. Often one reads history books and still has trouble putting the events into context. Not so with this book. Dray captures the mood and hysteria of the times perfectly.
Dray also does a wonderful job of showing that lynching was not merely an aberration of Southern justice inflicted on Black men. Instead, lynching is described as a national sickness, with Black men, women, and children, White civil rights sympathizers, and Jewish people being the victims of the mob violence, both in the North and the South. Dray shows how the international image of the United States was tarnished during a time when it was supposed to be the vangaurd of democracy, opposed to a German facism that was cruelly mimicked on its own soil. He also pays tribute to the men and women of the NAACP and other like-minded organizations who had the gall to oppose mob murder. The ultimate failure of any federal anti-lynching law is a startling example of how ingrained lynching was in the national (especially the Southern) psyche.
This narration forced me to reexamine my own education about lynching. Before college (I'm from Georgia), I had never heard of Leo Frank, the 1906 Atlanta race riots, or Sam Hose. But I certainly had heard more than enough about the Salem witch trials. For these reasons it is required reading for Americans in general, and especially Southerners.
(warning: obviously, some of this book is difficult to read, as recountings of the lynchings are appropriately graphic and monstrous)
Rating: 5
Summary: a disturbing page-turner
Comment: This is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. Dray has done a magnificent job of exploring a very painful subject. Often times, while reading the book, I shook my head in disbelief, saying to myself: "This happened in America?" Too often the incidents described in the book smack of something one would expect to find in the Middle Ages.
Dray explains "what" happened. But more important he explains "why" it happened. This book is a tremendous contribution to American history.
Lynching is a subject most people know very little about. Dray raises the curtain and shows the world the shocking and
devastating legacy of lynching. The impact was not just lost lives, but a message of fear and intimidation toward African-Americans.
This book should be read by anyone interested in American history. You will find yourself in disbelief that these incidents happened in the United States of America. It's time to talk about slavery, lynching, Jim Crow, etc. How did this happen in the USA? It's mind-boggling.
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Title: 100 Years of Lynchings by Ralph Ginzburg ISBN: 0933121180 Publisher: Black Classic Press Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America by James Allen, Hilton Als, Jon Lewis, Leon F. Litwack, Twin Palms Publishers, Leon Litwack, John Lewis, Hilton Als ISBN: 0944092691 Publisher: Twin Palms Pub Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
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Title: A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of the Lynching of African-Americans in the American South, 1882-1930 by Stewart Emory Tolnay, E. M. Beck ISBN: 0252064135 Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr (Pro Ref) Pub. Date: February, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South by William H. Chafe, Raymond Gavins, Robert Korstad ISBN: 1565847784 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy by James S. Hirsch ISBN: 0618108130 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 22 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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