Talk:Lynching in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.
WikiProject Secret Societies This article is within the scope of WikiProject Secret Societies,
a WikiProject which aims to improve all articles related to Secret Societies.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
Low This article is on a subject of low-importance within Secret Societies articles.

This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.
Criminal justice Portal
This article is part of WikiProject Crime, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide on true crime and criminology-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale.
WikiProject Crime To-do:

Contents

[edit] Legal definition?

What is the legal definition of lynching in the US? An anarchist in the CA bay area was recently charged with attempted lynching for alledgedly trying taking a fellow anarchist out of police custody during a riot. Some have said that this is because lynching is defined as illegaly taking someone from a police officer or prison guard. Could unarresting truly be considered lynching under US law? Does anyone know more about this who can post the actual laws against lynching? I doubt the jury will convict on a bogus charge like that, they are probably only doing it to get a plea, but is this even remotely a "lynching"?(July 13 2005)

Interesting -- happened to me once at a demonstration. A cop had me in a chokehold, and people tried to pull me away by the legs. They didn't charge them with lynching, but they charged me with resisting arrest :-) I'll see if I can find any legal info. The exact statute would depend on the state. I know some, maybe all, of the CA state codes are online, but not the case law. BTW, could you sign your comments (squiggly John Hancock logo above the text window)? (Unless you're involved in the incident, and don't want to be known -- but your wikipedia identity isn't necessarily any easier to tie to your real identity than your ip.)--Bcrowell 18:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
You can search the CA penal code here: [1]. Here's what it says: "405a. The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer is a lynching." A riot requires two or more people using violence or the threat of violence. Rioting plus lynching can mean three to five years in prison, so the people involved definitely need to get a lawyer.--Bcrowell 19:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
I found a news article about the July 9 incident in San Francisco. Is that what you were referring to? If the reports in the press are true, these people are f***ing murderous maniacs.--Bcrowell 21:16, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
You're right, the police are f***ing murderous maniacs. Thanks for the info. I don't really know what you read so I can't say whether or not what you read was accurate, hell I don't know cause I wasn't there, but I tend to go towards the side oft the anarchists based on history and my own personal politics. BTW, I don't have an account, I just do what I can on my own. I'd rather have as few accounts as possible online.
Are we talking about this? [2] Like you, my sympathies would normally be with the demonstrators, but yeesh -- I don't know if this is just giving a biased version of the story straight from the police, but it sure makes the accused sound like a bunch of crazed thugs.--Bcrowell 22:29, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
That's the same protest but someone else was charged with lynching other than them. I didn't even know those three were charged too. This is what I read [3]. After reading both I can't say I fully support the actions, but I can't say I condemn them either. I think it's about time we take more action to end the madness that is the G8 and things like this are going to happen. It's not like they just went and beat up an officer, it was in the middle of a riot, things like that happen, usually to protestors. This time a cop got the bad end. And these stories don't even mention that the cops beat some protestors up pretty badly too. I guess only the injuries of cops matter, huh?

Tuskegee institute, which today is known as Tuskegee University, and which is the official institution that has documented Lynching since 1882, has given the following definition for Lynching: "There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. That person must have met death illegally. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to Justice, Race, or Tradition." Anything else is just regular Murder. SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 19:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Material copied/moved from Lynching article's talk page

  • 17:01, 23 Jun 2005 Bcrowell (copies, purportedly)
  • 22:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC) Jerzy•t (quasi-move: original struck thru)

[edit] Copies already here as of 22:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

This is a duplicate of some discussion from the Lynching article's talk page, which I've copied here because the relevant material is now in this article.--Bcrowell 17:01, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I've added several public domain images. They're very disturbing to look at, of course. I hope nobody will see this as sensationalistic, or disrespectful to the victims. I included the Waco image specifically because it was so horrific; I don't think we gain anything by letting people avoid thinking about how horrible the reality was. In the photo in the lead section, I added some explanation at the bottom of the caption so that it would have the right context, and people wouldn't conclude that the victim must have been a criminal; this could be seen as redundant, but I think it's important to provide that context, since the photo is the first thing people are going to see when they read the article. In the Waco case, my inclusion of the details of the trial (he confessed) could be seen as a justification for the lynching, but I think it's important to give all the facts. I think lynching was horrible enough without trying to give a slant to the facts.--Bcrowell 18:09, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I found some relevant info on the page Wikipedia:Profanity: "Images, particularly photos, often have a greater impact than words. Therefore, it may be preferable not to embed possibly offensive images in articles, but rather use a [[media:image name]] link with an appropriate warning. On the other hand, if the page title already tells the reader what to expect (e.g. Erotic art in Pompeii), such a warning may be unnecessary. Censorship should be avoided, if an image adds something to an article." It seems to me that these images do add something to the article, and the title of the page does already tell the reader what to expect.--Bcrowell 18:24, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I certainly appreciate your pitching in to improve the article, but I'm getting concerned that it looks image-heavy. I changed the fomratting of a few to mix it up a little (all on the right looks lousy), but I'm wondering if each of the individual lynching images actually adds something substantial to the article. (Keep in mind that some of them have their own articles.) --Dhartung | Talk 23:12, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This is a big, important subject in U.S. history, and I think the text should be expanded, which would also have the effect of reducing the image-heaviness. Here's what I feel is the relevance of the individual images:
  • Lige Daniels, 1920: Shows that lynching was a socially approved thing, not something that was always done in the middle of the night by a few violent people.
Who put copyvio on this image? It's clearly public domain.
  • unknown victim, 1889: The only image in the article from the period of Reconstruction.
  • Jesse Washington, 1916: This is a hard image to look at. I think it shows the level of sadism that was involved in many of the lynchings.
  • Will James, Cairo, 1909: Graphically demonstrates the circus-like style of many of the lynchings. I think very few Americans realize that such a thing ever existed.
  • Michael Donald, 1981: Shows that lynching is not only a thing of the distant past, and was very important historically for its impact on the KKK.
  • Duluth, 1920: Shows that lynching wasn't just a phenomenon of the southeastern U.S.
--Bcrowell 03:28, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It occurred to me that I should mention one more thing. In the talk page on the closely related KKK article, there has been some discussion about whether the Klan is a terrorist organization, whether there is a good side to the Klan, and whether the Klan has been, at all times and in all its many incarnations, a violent organization. Although six images of lynchings in this article may seem like a lot, I think many people have a hard time accepting that this was a commonplace part of how America worked for a long time, and that it wasn't just restricted to the southeast during the 19th century.--Bcrowell 03:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Quite the fervent defense there! I don't disagree with your reasoning, I just don't think that Wikipedia is that great a place for displaying images and they should be there to illustrate the article. In this case the article is very rough around the edges...
the text should be expanded Well, yeah, that's what I was doing when you waltzed in. ;-) Seriously, I'm quite glad for the help! I had only barely done some needed reorganization (I haven't touched the terribly uneven "international" sections) and my hope was to give a broader context. For one thing I felt the entry gave very short shrift to the idea that there was a whole continuum of lynching which included African-American victims. To be perfectly honest, I'm wary of letting the article slip back into a similar POV state, which is something that could be encouraged by the shock value of a lot of images. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, as I don't have any strong counter-argument for any individual image you've added.
Since I don't want this to get at all testy, the better approach might be to resize some of the images so that they don't take over visually and fit better into the text at typical browser reading sizes. I'm thinking that my monitor and resolution are above average, so I really wonder what my mom would see in IE on her small screen! --Dhartung | Talk 04:05, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Note: I moved part of this discussion to the "Images" section instead
One tangential note: I was really struck, looking at the KKK image in full size, how much they looked like gangbangers. It could almost be the cover of a rap album -- all the more so because people today have forgotten any other KKK outfit but the white robe.--Dhartung | Talk 04:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think we're on the same wavelength here. I realize that this is the type of hot-button article where conflict between editors could easily occur, but I think we can work together here.
Reducing the size of some of the images would be fine, but I'd like to point out that the Cairo one might be hard to understand if it was reduced.
I think you're right that the article could do a better job of representing the fact that not all lynching victims were black. The Cairo lynching, for example, was actually a double lynching of two unrelated people, one black and one white. One good thing about the image of the Leo Frank newspaper article is that it shows that lynching wasn't just directed at black people. It would be interesting to know if there are any reliable statistics on the percentage of lynching victims who were black.
Yes, the organization of the article is very awkward. What would you think of spinning off the part about lynchings in the U.S. into a separate article?
I'd like to make two points about how NPOV relates to the images: (1) the postcard images were intended as propaganda in favor of lynching, so their inclusion in the article could be interpreted as representing the pro-lynching POV; (2) I've tried to provide enough context to allow the reader to understand the lynching images thoroughly, even when this meant going into the (possibly bogus) accusations against the people who were lynched.--Bcrowell 04:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Michael Donald lynching image

I've added a photo of the 1981 Michael Donald lynching. I believe it falls within Wikipedia's guidelines for fair use, and I think it's necessary to the article, because if the article is weighted heavily toward pre-1922 images, and never shows anything within the last 50 years, people will get the comfortable feeling that lynching is a thing of the past. The Michael Donald lynching was also extremely historically important, because of the large civil judgment, which had the effect of bankrupting one of the large national Ku Klux Klan organizations, and furthering the decentralization of the Klan.--Bcrowell 20:48, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Material moved October '05 (and comments on it)

[edit] Billie Holiday

Moved 22:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC) from Talk:Lynching (... actually, copied, but with the original being struck thru.)

Is this really relevant enough to warrant a subsection on this page? --Tothebarricades.tk 04:21, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why not? It's a classic song. Unsigned by 213.112.113.71 on 02:05, 8 March 2005
It is a classic song and it is very important in understanding the culutral relevance of lynching. Lyncing ran deep enough in society to become the subject of folk material, which, being folk material essentially means that it is meant to be passed on in society and not forgotten. The inclusion of this song just furthers the importance of lynching in one particular community, that being the black community of the US. Jay campbell 05:44, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

New Comments

The suggestion above that "Strange Fruit" is "folk material", whether carelessly misleading or simply ignorant, should not go uncontradicted. Poet Abel Meeropol, apparently economically productive as a songwriter for e.g. Sinatra, was a white New York Jewish Cold-War secret member of the Stalinist Communist Party USA, who would at least have known that his excellent cultural and social contribution adhered with his party's Moscow-approved political strategy. (How closely he was associated with his adopted sons' executed birth-parents, the atomic spy Julius Rosenberg & the at-least-complicit Ethel Rosenberg, is not known to me.)
--Jerzy•t 22:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Two periods

This "two periods" sounds like it was copied from somewhere else originally. I never quite got how you could easily compare two periods, one a 3-year orgy of political reprisals, and the other a 60-year era of gradually declining lynching. Any ideas why that came about? It bugs me to see the 1888-1941 considered as a totality, unless we can make the reason for the division clearer. Do we need more info on the "first" period? Or should we simply play down the division and speak of chronological periods? In that case I don't think there are "two", and they certainly aren't comparably "heavy". --Dhartung | Talk 21:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think the reference to two periods were the article before I started working on it. I think the first period starts roughly when the KKK started getting really violent, and ends with the Force Acts, including the Klan Act and Enforcement Act. After the lull, the second period begins around the time the Jim Crow laws came into effect. I think there's some logical basis for these time periods, since the first had to do with partisan politics and reconstruction, and the second was more about race. If the 1888-1941 period is too long, we could see if there's some natural dividing point in there. One logical point might be the founding of the second Klan in 1915; since the new Klan was anti-semitic, there is a different character to the lynchings after that, e.g., the Leo Frank lynching.--Bcrowell 22:53, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, that text has been there awhile. I think it dates way back to a much simpler article. Now that we've (uhm, mostly you've...) expanded it considerably I don't think it makes nearly as much sense. I certainly don't think that the whole period can be considered as one "period"; there were different waves and there were probably outside factors such as the economy that figured into this. I wonder if there's an annual chart somewhere. --Dhartung | Talk 23:54, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've split it into 1888-1915 and 1915-1941.--Bcrowell 23:59, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Having now looked at the edits you just did ;-) I'm still troubled. One reason I reorganized the article in the first place was to get away from a Wikipedia lowest-common-denominator approach to articles that's basically "this happened ... then that happened ... by the way, the whole thing was kinda like this ... then something else happened" where pertinent overall ideas get buried amid a chronological retelling. Honestly, that's what I don't like about the recent change. I'm more of a social-factors guy when it comes to history. ;-) You may want to chew on that for a bit; I hope you'll see why I was trying that approach to the article. My idea in adding section heads like anti-lynching movement and social characteristics was to encourage expansion of those discussions and, indeed, to have them in the TOC. I really think that direction makes the article more encyclopedic and more mature overall (and I'm thinking Featured, most of which credit would be to you). --Dhartung | Talk 00:06, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, one advantage of breaking it up by year is that in an anarchic environment like wikipedia, at least it lets people know unambiguously where to put their material, so things don't get disorganized. But please do feel free to go ahead and change the organization if you think you have something that works better. I'm just afraid that it might be confusing for the reader if it's not organized chronologically. For instance, lynching during Reconstruction was really a completely different thing from lynching in the 20th century. The chronological approach happens to work really well for describing all the different important events that happened in 1915 (second Klan, Frank lynching, Birth of a Nation).
It would be cool to shoot for an FA level of quality on this, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea to submit it as an FA, because I'm a little worried about how people would react to the images. Someone published a book of the lynching postcards a few years back, and there was apparently quite a nasty backlash against him, and it was a crushing personal blow to him.--Bcrowell 03:37, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've added some thematic labels to the chronological section headings, and I've also put in some subsections for the postwar part. Dunno if that helps. The present organization is nothing I'm really wedded to, just what I came up with when I was surgically removing the U.S. stuff from the generic lynching article.--Bcrowell 03:52, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New organization

OK, I took a stab at organizing it more by topics. --Bcrowell 05:40, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What can I say but well done? I really think this is a better way to go. In relation to your other comment, I obviously can't keep up with you (or your print sources), but I also find even the small amount of time that I spend on this article (and a few related others) to be wrenching. Reading the details of an individual lynching, with a name and history attached, and the certainty that the lynch mob itself is made up of human individuals who probably considered themselves pretty highly, just bends my mind something fierce. --Dhartung | Talk 07:53, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I know what you mean. It's really depressing. BTW, there are probably some places in the newly reorganized article where we could use some better transition sentences between paragraphs, etc., if you feel like going through it.--Bcrowell 15:31, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why "lynch"?

[edit] removed part

", or more likely for Captain William Lynch (1742-1820) of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, who practiced lynching circa 1780. The use of lynching as a method to maintain the social order was referred to as lynch law; at this time lynchings as executions were rare. After the war, as the nation expanded so did the practice of lynching, and lynching gradually became more brutal." From looking at Oxford Press reference materials and Britannica, we should not consider William Lynch anywhere near credit as a candidate for this distinction. I will be in the library looking into this Monday.

lots of issues | leave me a message 11:12, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from Lynching

I moved this from the another of the three articles

The term "lynching" is believed to come from Charles Lynch, whose vigilance committee, an irregular court, tried and punished petty criminals and supporters of the British during the U.S. Revolutionary War.
The term has also been referenced as being derived from William Lynch giver of the William Lynch Speech: The Making of a Slave--A speech by the British-born, Carribean plantation owner that visited Virginia to describe how best to "break" and control slaves. The controversial speech has been cited numerous times by Louis Farrakhan et al.

It's too much detail for the international article; someone should decide how and whether to fold it into this talk page's article.
--Jerzy•t 23:21, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The proposal to merge Lynch law hasn't generated any further discussion since Oct. 13. I'm going to delete the merge template from this article. I think Lynch law should simply be deleted and made into a redirect to this article; it doesn't seem to contain any material that's not in this article at this point.--Bcrowell 23:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] prevalence of torture

Cspalletta has added some text about the prevalence of torture in lynchings. A recent revision read: "Most lynchings terminated with a hanging but prior to the final act victims were commonly tortured prior to being killed by such methods as beating, burning, stabbing, sexual mutilation and eye-gouging." I changed "commonly" to "sometimes," and asked if there was any source to verify that it was common. Cspalletta reverted the text and supplied a reference to http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_4_33/ai_59024886, but that reference only discusses theatrical representations of lynching, not historical data.--Bcrowell 15:24, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

If you would read the first paragraph of my cross-reference you will see that it discusses the historical reality beyond such plays, in these terms:
"For the purposes of this study, lynching means the racially motivated murder of black individuals (primarily black men) by white mobs with no repercussions for the perpetrators. Victims of lynchings were hung, beaten, burned, or stabbed to death; they were commonly tortured and/or castrated before they were killed. This particular version of lynching developed during Reconstruction and became a systematic feature and official indicator of black-white race relations until the 1950s.[2]"
and it gives it's own cross-reference:
(2.) The history of this particular form of lynching is well-documented. For general studies, see Raper; Tolnay and Beck; Ginzburg; Wells-Barnett; White; Cutler; and Zangrando. For 1920s magazine and newspaper commentary, see Du Bois, "We Are a Nation of Murderers."
If you have read any accounts of life in the South by African Americans born circa 1900, for example Chester Himes, or Richard Wright, you will have seen that the blacks themselves were in no doubt as to the sexual component of lynching (even apart from victims accused of sexual misconduct) and that it typically involved sexual mutilation and torture. These aspects of lynching are also referred to in the Billie Holliday song "Strange Fruit". I don't consider these things "proof" as such, but they do have a certain moral weight.
Please note that the paragraph in which I made my edits is one that deals specifically with white-on-black lynching. I don't claim that the same practices were prevalent in other types of lynching. Generally white men were lynched for accusations of serious crime. A black man could be lynched for accusations of crime but also just for having a 'bad attitude', fraternizing with white women, standing up for his legal rights, being 'disrespectful' to white men and so forth. Different motivations for the crime of lynching could produce different practices.
Googling on "~castrate ~lynch" produces thousands of results. I am quite certain I can produce documentation to satisfy you, when I have time to do it. Cspalletta 15:58, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi -- I skimmed the (long) article, and didn't notice the part you were referring to, but can you come up with something specific that's not a reference to a reference? I'm not debating that there was often a strong sexual element to lynchings, and I also agree with pretty much all of your other statements here on the talk page. I would just like to see some cold, hard facts to support a statement that torture was present in, say, a majority of white on black lynchings. I'm not sure if the relevant data even exist. I think a big primary source is reports from coroner's juries, which were usually a farce, and probably wouldn't say anything about whether the body showed signs of torture.--Bcrowell 02:33, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chicago Race Riot

It should be noted that the "young man" accused of throwing rocks at Eugene Williams was most likely a member of the Ragen's Colts street gang, the dominant Chicago "political club", as were many of the instigators. Given the amount of corruption in the city at the time, it's unlikely the police officer would have charged them in any case. 64.12.116.11 04:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

If it "should be noted", can you provide a citation to that effect? "Most likely" isn't something we like to do here at Wikipedia. --Dhartung | Talk 07:32, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
  • While the Ragen's Colts article does mention the gang's involvement (which is included in the source), Robert Jay Nash's Encyclopedia of World Crime doesn't mention the name of the man (or weither he was indeed a gang member). However, several Ragen's Colts members were present (as were charges they may have started the incident). MadMax 22:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Watch the page for anon edits

Some anon just arbitrarily put copyvio tags on all the postcards. They are obviously PD due to age. My guess this was an attempt at vandalism or to hide the postcard pictures.--Jaysbro 19:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The folowing discussion is from my own talk page:

Several of the lynching images that you have posted are not in the public domain. They have been copied out of the book Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (copyright 1999). These images need to be removed from the wikipedia. We (James Allen / John Littlefield) do not allow these images to be displayed on the web. We have not grated permisstion to any web posting other than our website withoutsanctary.org which identifies all images as copyrighted. I am tagging the images with copyvio. If you have questions we can be contacted via our website withoutsanctuary.org. —preceding unsigned comment by 24.30.36.26 (talk • contribs)
Did you own the copyright to those images when you put them in the book, or were they in the public domain at that time? You must provide proof of copyright for the images. Merely using images in a copyrighted work does not constitute copyright of the images. —BorgHunter (talk) 14:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi 24.30.36.26 -- All the images are from before 1922. Accurate reproductions of them are therefore public domain in the U.S. I also have no way of knowing who you are, as you haven't even made a claim as to your identity.--Bcrowell 23:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The anon only seems to have added a copyvio tag to Image:Lynching-of-will-james.jpg, and did not bother by following up with an explanation on the copyright problems page. At this point, we don't even know who the anon claims to be. In any case the photo is from 1909, so it's PD. Complete nonsense. I've removed the copyvio tag, and have explained my reasoning on the image's talk page.--Bcrowell 23:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm currently trying to reduce my time spent on WP to zero, and I'm emptying out my watchlist. If other people could add Image:Lynching-of-will-james.jpg to their watchlists and keep an eye out for this copyvio troll, that would be great.--Bcrowell 03:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you claim that my original post regarding copyright violations were anonymous. I've signed up for an ID and as my original post indicated, I am John Littlefield one of the co-owners of the Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America photo collection. Although I appreciate the Wikipedia project, I'm not a contributor and this is the first time that I had to address the use images on Wikipedia. After this post I will go to the copyright problems page. I would appreciate it if you take this seriously because it is a serious issue. I am very serious about getting these images removed. The book Without Sanctuary was published in 1999. The images posted on the Wikipedia have been scanned out of our book Without Sanctuary. If you go to our website withoutsanctuary.org there is a link to a useful website regarding copyrights. In order for you to claim public domain you must own (or have access to) the original photograph. I recommend the article written by a copyright lawyer at http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/PublicDomain.html it states "in the event of a legal dispute, you should retain in a safe place a copy of the PD work you referenced or worked from." If you read this article I suggest paying close attention to the example of Shakespear's Hamlet and the Folger's library. If you did not scan these photos out of the book personally, you need to be prepared to defend where you got these photos. Preferably you would reference your sources, at a minimum to protect Wikipedia.
No, you're simply misinformed about copyright. An accurate reproduction of a PD two-dimensional image is not copyrightable; it's PD, just like the original.--Bcrowell 05:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] need to move New York Draft Riots

The paragraph on the New York Draft Riots needs to be moved out of the Reconstruction section as that occurred in 1863, during the Civil War.Bruce E Baker 13:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Popular Culture- Birth of a Nation

Is lynching not a huge part of the movie Birth of a Nation? Should something about that be added to the popular culture section?

[edit] Italians Lynched in New Orleans

Why is there nothing about the lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans, one of the largest mass lynchings in US history? In fact, Italians were frequently lynched all over the South and in some Northern areas, too. As such a large number of Italians were lynched, I think there should be some mention of this.

  • Because nobody thaught of it, or had enough details - we're waiting for you to jump in, preferably with a credible source, as always. Fastifex 09:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I wrote a paper on it in high school. I'll see what I can't round up Mikelj 15:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


This whole wiki is like that. It's collosal anti-white screed with narrowly chosen "victims" and all sorts of biased editorial comments that make it read like the Black Panthers penned it themselves. The Prager lynching is also AWOL, curiously. 66.190.29.150 14:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Totally disputed tagline

Added this tagline, as there are a lot of statements regarding Christian symbolism in lynchings that are not substantiated, and which appear to be purely conjectual. Yaf 03:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lead too long

How about breaking after first paragraph? It seems too long now. People can't see what else is there on the first screen.Skywriter 23:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Put it this way, the article was largely built by Bcrowell last year (with a tiny bit of help from me), but that editor has quit Wikipedia. I was very happy with the article last time I gave it attention (see this March 2006 edit) -- the lead especially was, IMO, contextual and encyclopedic, moving from a simple definition to encompass the social phenomenon. I would strongly encourage going back to the basic structure as it was then, although I am not opposed to keeping information that has been added in the last two months either. But there have been many edits that have largely wrecked what was then still an exceptionally good article. What do you think of a rollback to that good introduction, and a gradual reincorporation of new data? This isn't an article that lacked quality, it's an article that's been robbed of quality by inconsistent and POV edits. --Dhartung | Talk 02:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Also, the part in the intro that is basically a reading of Without Sanctuary is not helpful (distracting) at that point in the article, and given the discussion of the postcards above, we should probably do what we can to avoid making this article a regurgitation of the book. WS is just one of many sources we should be using, not the Bible. --Dhartung | Talk 02:23, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I haven't read all of it but here are a few first impressions, and this is the reason I became interested in working on this article. 1. There's not nearly enough emphasis on individual African Americans. There should be because fully three quarters of lynching victims were black. There are many relatively recent and high-profile cases not mentioned, such as the 14-year-old Emmett Till. 2. The emphasis on Leo Frank is not necessary as a link will do. There's an overwritten article on him. 3. The emphasis on frontier justice high up in the article is unfair, given who the main victims were. The frontier section is also less interesting and speculative. 4. There is a mere mention of Ida Wells Barnett and all the campaigns against lynching. It was hardly the case that there was no fight-back and yet this is hardly mentioned. 5. There's a book called Slave Patrols by Salley E. Hadden that establishes true Klan origins. The Tenn. story is nice but does not go back far enough. The origins of this sort of terroristic behavior pre-dated Reconstruction. I don't mean to be negative. There's a lot of good stuff in the article but it is buried. Skywriter 04:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly open to these suggestions. Here are my responses: 1. This is already a very long article; I don't think that adding individual stories is actually necessary. Such stories should be added where they illustrate encyclopedic points. I do support the addition of notable lynching cases to Wikipedia as articles. I don't think that there is a List of lynchings article; there should be. Till was in the article previously. [4] Expansion of the point there is certainly welcome. 2. I think the Frank bit is used to develop the story about the Klan; there could be other material that would do that as well. It could easily be trimmed. 3. The original article was just "lynching" and it developed into a history of lynching; the frontier justice era is certainly relevant there. Unless we're to break out the racial lynchings into a separate article, I would not want to skip over that era; indeed, I always wanted to flesh it out more. 4. I agree that Ida B. Wells (hey, I'm a Chicagoan) deserves prominence; she was added to show the fight-back, as you put it, but she certainly wasn't alone. This is potentially a break-out article, actually. 5. The Klan per se is not the focus of this article. Relevant points from any source are welcome, but the Klan is a whole 'nother ball of wax. In any case, Wikipedia should be wary of giving any one source the authority of "truth". Just so you see my perspective. --Dhartung | Talk 07:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I deleted most of the Frank text yesterday because there is an entire article with his story. I do not suggest taking out Lynching on the frontier, just that it should be lower in the article. Its placement is disproportionate given that 80 percent of lynching victims were African Americans in the South. The photo of tar and feathering would be appropriate on a tar and feathering page, not here. The role of the Klan and its affiliated organizations is well-documented. It is impossible to write an honest article on this topic without referencing its role. The article needs refocus and restructuring. Some of the existing material is excellent.Skywriter 15:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

My thinking is that I'd still like to back out some of the more recent "prose" edits to the introduction. I don't want to set the article up as POV by making the article's narrative fit the Without Sanctuary approach. Even though I think that is a very strong and important work, I don't think it fits the encyclopedic format. Lynching is a practice with a long and murky history, and I think the article needs to illuminate that context, rather than drawing out one aspect of it to the detriment of others. I'm also uncomfortable with making this article "inextricably" about the Klan, partly because my understanding is that formal Klan involvement really was present in only a minority of historical lynchings -- especially outside the south, where many seem to be spontaneous. My interest in such events is psychosocial. What made people do such things, that seem so horrible to us today? I don't think the answer is simply that the Klan, i.e. an evil actor, persuaded them to do it, because after all, who persuaded the Klan? That seems ultimately a circular and less interesting line of inquiry. And in any case, Wikipedia already has an excellent Ku Klux Klan article; we don't need two. So given that we both have the goal of an improved article, I hope we can reach a consensus about approach. --Dhartung | Talk 06:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Social Phenomenon

I agree that the Klan was not the only reason for lynching. Too much focus on individual lynchings and their details (as horrible as they were) repeats the endless lists that exist on some Wikipedia pages, without much substance or attention given to why. Knowing why doesn't mean you could control it, but lynchings were not only about race. That is, in America, the anxieties were about controlling African Americans after war and social upheaval, but it could have been another group. The important aspect was the war and social upheaval catalyzing later violence.
As I wrote on the general lynching page, lynching has a long history. It is another aspect of what has been characterized as "community justice/social control", typically among smaller traditional communities. Early expressions were tarring and feathering, or forcing someone to "ride the rail". "Rough music" and charivari were other names for this in England and Europe. The historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown has a synthesis related to that work in his book "Southern Honor". Communities picked on outliers or minorities (as it came to be) as scapegoats, targets of violence which expressed community anxieties, often about changes in social order. The violence was sometimes a warning about behavior that was seen to threaten the social order. The manifestations of rough music, charivari (shivaree in some Southern communities) and later the American form of lynching, had many ritualistic aspects, especially, as people noted, sexual mutilation, because it was about projected fears about sexual behavior.
I disagree about publishing so many of the photos, too. It's unlikely anyone is going to change his behavior after seeing them. They repeat the ugly truth about how brutally violent humans can be.--Parkwells 14:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)--Parkwells 17:26, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Roy Bean does not fit the category

He was the law west of the Pecos. This article is about mob rule and actions outside the law. Does anyone disagree with removing the following paragraph from this article?

A legendary practitioner of harshly 'improvised' (in)justice was 'Hanging judge' Roy Bean, a legally incompetent saloonkeeper, who handed out excessive punishment, even for strictly non-criminal acts, but was technically not a lyncher since he repeatedly obtained a legal mandate as justice of the peace in texas' Pecos county.

Skywriter 06:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, there should be a see also to something like hanging judge, of which there are several individuals named including Bean. --Dhartung | Talk 06:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2nd paragraph

At the end of the 2nd paragraph, text reads "according to a May 5, 2002 article..." but the hyperlink citation links to this same thing. I'm going to remove the "according to a May, 5, 2002 article..." part - it seems to really break up the flow of the introduction. Also, it's repetitive. --Natalie 01:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Without Sanctuary, 3rd paragraph

The 3rd paragraph seems really out of place in the introduction. Particularly the sentence "Allen's words of his impressions of what he saw accompanies the images." (I had to read it several times to get the meaning. Would anyone object to paring this down to one sentence about lynchings often being photographed and the photos being distributed, and moving the remainder of the paragraph (or something like it) to a later paragraph? --Natalie 01:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I recommended that above. The article got pretty messed up after the primary author quit Wikipedia, and then somebody came in and tried to make it basically a Wikipedia translation of Without Sanctuary. I've been meaning to give it a good scouring but haven't had the time (and I keep getting my Wiki-morale beaten down). --Dhartung | Talk 01:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Wiki morale is an important thing :). I think I'm going to cut that paragraph, since Without Sanctuary is discussed later. Although its iffy if a specific book should be discussed at all, I think its relatively obvious that it doesn't belong in the intro. So I'm going to go ahead and edit it, dangit! --Natalie 18:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I haven't yet figured out how to make an in-text note - anyone who knows how want to add a note to my change, probably to without sanctuary's website? --Natalie 18:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Will do. Without Sanctuary certainly deserves an article (it's a book, website, and traveling exhibit), and some of these themes are appropriately handled there. I think it's inappropriate to place them in a general article, though (especially since this article is not strictly about lynchings of blacks), and particularly so in the introduction. --Dhartung | Talk 21:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Cool. Thanks for your help. --Natalie 16:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarence Thomas

This is completely irrelevant to an article on Lynching in the United States. Everything else seems pretty well organized, written, etc. and right smack in the middle is a unrelated (albeit well documented) aside about Clarence Thomas being metaphorically lynched... Got to go. Thoughts?Mikelj 15:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split off list?

The list added to this article is incredibly long and distracting. I think it should be split off to its own page. Natalie 19:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it serves any purpose. Wikipedia still lacks a list of notable lynchings. I don't think a list that asserts no particular notability or significance to individual lynchings tells the reader anything useful. --Dhartung | Talk 05:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Fine with me. I don't particularly care for it either, but whether it stays or goes it should go off this page. Natalie 16:36, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the list belongs on the page, so I'm going to delete it. Anyone who decides to create the list on a separate page later can refer to an older version of the page or the list's sources (which I'll leave in). — Elembis 20:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] The subjectivism of this article

This article on the history of lynching in America has been hijacked by liberals to overwhelmingly emphasize, in every minute gruesome detail, white on black lynching, minimize and discount white on white lynching, and totally ignore black on black, and black on white lynching. It has many, many references to the race of black victims and the race of the white perpetrators, along with the vast majority of photographs depicting dead black victims, cherry picked for their shock value, with minutely detailed horrific descriptions posted to elicit outrage in the viewer. Photographs of any of the victims of those who were lynched and the horrific details on how they met their end is swept under the rug. It would greatly benefit 'subjective' editing. However, since this is the PC Victimist's Sacred Cow and political Ace-in-the-Hole, subjectivism, unless it is the lock-step 'politically correct subjectivism', will simply not be allowed.

Not that it matters here, but for what it is worth (and here it won't be worth much if anything at all), an excellent book that has a truly subjective historical view of lynching in America is the following: 'Lynching: History and Analysis', by Prof. Dewight D. Murphey. For those of us who have read it realize just how politically biased this Wikipedia article is.

While abuse and the lynching of innocent blacks occurred for reasons of racial animus, the majority were not. This was how much of early America (just as in many villages in Africa today) dealt with crime in their communities. Many of these places were small tight nit communities in which everyone knew everyone else, including the accused, well enough to have a far better knowledge of guilt or innocence than some liberal bleeding heart apologists 100 years after the fact.

Funny I never here liberals get all hot and bothered over the supposed innocence of the many whites who were lynched during the same period, or the many whites and non-black minorities who were/are lynched by some blacks in the present day. Or even the many blacks who are lynched by fellow blacks in Africa now!

When looking at history out side the PC filters, far more white were lynched in the history of Europe than blacks in the United States. And far more whites were lynched in the history of United states than blacks. When you take the following non-PC facts into consideration:

1. The excepted number of blacks lynched as compiled by the NAACP and the Tuskegee Institute deals with the years 1882 and 1951 at '4,730 people were lynched in the United States: 3,437 Black and 1,293 White'. Those were the years in which the highest number of black lynching were recorded. What isn't mentioned is that prior to black emancipation few blacks were lynched as they were protected private property, and that the vast majority of people lynched from the creation of this country as a nation and up to black emancipation, were white.

2. In the Western Frontier the vast majority of those who were lynched were white. Numbers are considered greatly underestimated due to the lack of records and interest at the time (people didn't get all upset when white criminals were done away with to even care. The fact that they were permanently removed from society was good enough for most). Papers would often report lynching of white desperadoes without mentioning their names while giving scant details.

3. It has been estimated that black criminals murder and lynch more (truly known innocent) whites every two years than blacks that were ever lynched in the last 100 years. When multiplying that number over the past 50 years we are looking at 10's of thousands of white men, woman, and children who have murdered and lynched, some in the most horrific ways imaginable. There photos along will horrifically detailed descriptions on how they died will never be allowed here.

"People often resorted to lynching because the competent authorities were a long ride away and justice would brook no delay. Prof. Murphey reminds us that President Andrew Jackson himself sanctioned the practice when he recommended to Iowa settlers that they lynch murderers. Likewise in Kansas, a New York Tribune correspondent reported in 1858 that "[t]here is a very general disposition to pass over the hopelessly useless forms of Territorial law and corrupt Federal courts, and try these parties (i.e. horse-thieves) by Lynch law."

Prof. Murphey notes that contrary to current assumptions, blacks also formed lynch gangs, mostly to lynch blacks, but sometimes to lynch whites:

In Clarksdale, Tennessee, blacks lynched a white in 1914 for raping a black woman. The authorities later ruled that this was justifiable homicide.

In 1872 in Chicot County, Arkansas, armed blacks broke three whites out of jail and shot them to death.

Nor was lynching by any means a sport in which any black was fair game:

In Tennessee in 1911, four white men hanged a black man and his two daughters but for no good reason. This outrage roused the ire of the community; the whites were tried and two were hanged." -Thomas Jackson, excerpt, review of 'Lynching: History and Analysis', by Prof. Dewight D. Murphey.

But why is such a lopsided and emotional view of only one side of the history of Lynching in America allowed? Prof. William J. Bennetta of the Text Book Legue, explains:

“Wherever multiculturalism goes, it brings Victimism with it. Victimism is an integral part of the multi-culti ideological package, and its practitioners, whom we may call Victimists, have two principal concerns: They invent fake stories and images that are intended to bring sympathy, admiration, glory and political advantage to groups of people who have been officially designated as Victims by the multi-culti establishment; and they strive to disseminate their fake stories and images in the guise of “history.”

The Victims are always groups, not individuals. This isn’t surprising, because all multi-culti ideology revolves around tribalism, the rejection of individualism, and the doctrine that a person’s primary identity is his group identity — i.e., the tribe to which he belongs.

In practice, all the principal tribes turn out to be racial or quasiracial groups, which are defined in terms of their real or imaginary ancestries. Among the racial groups represented in the population of the United States, two have not merely been certified as Victims but have also been selected for especially lavish treatment by the Victimists. These groups — Amerindians and American blacks — figure prominently in the multi-culti version of “American history,” where they are sanitized and glorified beyond recognition, and are depicted as the hapless prey of evil white men.

Sanitization is an indispensable part of this endeavor, because certified Victims must always be depicted as innocent, righteous paragons of humanity. The sanitization process consists largely of hiding or denying any facts which show that the Victims had victims of their own, whom they slaughtered, displaced, subjugated, enslaved or exploited." -Prof. William J. Bennetta, EXCERPT from ‘The Textbook Letter’, from July-August 1998.Historicalhonesty 21:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

-- Ahem --

'...Trial juries in the southeastern United States were typically all-white and would not vote to convict lynchers. Often juries never let the matter go past the inquest...'

Perhaps -- but that the sole example provided concerns events in Port Jervis, New York doesn't exactly support the claim. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.199.136.135 (talk) 06:43, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of unrelated info from "Strange Fruit" section

I removed this: "The song has been performed by other artists, including Nina Simone and Cassandra Wilson. It was also remixed by the British artist Tricky." because I could find no relationship or significance of including these particular artists' covers in an article about lynching. Strange Fruit has a comprehensive page that includes listings of artists and their versions if a reader is interested, but just being, for example, an artist who was a civil rights activist doesn't seem compelling enough to warrant inclusion in such an already lengthy article. The sentence has been part of the article for a long time, so I moved it here for discussion instead of deleting it completely, and questions over the inclusion of "Strange Fruit" were dealt with on this talk page several years ago: Talk:Lynching in the United States#Billie Holiday. While it maybe harmless to include unrelated information, without a connection, it clutters and dilutes articles, and if the connection is not explained or easily found through links or sources, then the information still adds no understanding to the article. Are there any reasons to add the info back that I'm missing? Flowanda | Talk 17:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on editing the article now and agree with you. I don't even think the lyrics of the song should be repeated here because of the article on the song itself, and will reference it instead with a link. --Parkwells 18:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Social Phenomenon

I agree that the Klan was not the only reason for lynching. Too much focus on individual lynchings and their details (as horrible as they were) repeats the endless lists that exist on some Wikipedia pages, without much substance or attention given to why. Knowing why doesn't mean you could control it, but lynchings were not only about race. That is, in America, one form of lynching arose out of the anxieties about controlling African Americans after war and social upheaval, but it could have been another group. The important aspect was the war and social upheaval catalyzing later violence.
As I wrote on the general lynching page, lynching has a long history. It is another aspect of what has been characterized as "community justice/social control", typically among smaller traditional communities. Early expressions were tarring and feathering, or forcing someone to "ride the rail". "Rough music" and charivari were other names for this in England and Europe. The historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown has a synthesis related to that work in his book "Southern Honor". Communities picked on outliers or minorities (as it came to be) as scapegoats, targets of violence which expressed community anxieties, often about changes in social order. The violence was sometimes a warning about behavior that was seen to threaten the social order. In villages in England it often had to do with controlling sexual behavior. The manifestations of rough music, charivari (called "shivaree" in some American communities) and later the American form of lynching in the South, had many ritualistic aspects, especially, as people noted, sexual mutilation, because it was about the community's projected fears about sexual behavior.
I disagree about publishing so many of the photos, too. It's unlikely anyone is going to change his behavior after seeing them. They repeat the ugly truth about how brutally violent humans can be, but don't promote anything. The major point is that this is a phenomenon that has existed throughout human history, and has been repeated in societies across the world. It's a form of social control in traditional societies. Pogroms in Europe against Jews were a form of similar community mob action. As other commentators show, it was not limited to the 19th c. South, although it was horrific there. A

Also, in terms of the early 20th c. Klan, the reasons why it began to target Catholic and Jewish immigrants was that they were perceived as the new threats because of massive immigration. These were the new social and economic facts. In the 20th c. the Klan was more active in cities, where there was massive population buildup because of new black and white migrants from rural areas in America, and new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. All competed for jobs, housing, territory in the cities, and place in the social order. These activities arose out of social competition and fear, and have to be put in that context (but don't put more about the Klan in this article). --Parkwells 14:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)--Parkwells 14:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opening Section

I've rewritten the opening paragraphs to try to provide more objective context to lynching as a social phenomenon, related to "community justice" in traditional communities, and also to postwar upheaval. I've also edited some other sections, but this will take a lot of work. I deleted the reference to contemporary usage - it's easy for people to claim "lynching" in the media, but it seems rather trivial compared to getting the history to be more accurate. Perhaps because of people's reliance on other short online sources and press accounts, there is a tendency in some Wikipedia articles to focus on detailing awful facts, but little effort is made to provide deeper or wider context. This disproportion really needs to be avoided.--Parkwells 15:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate what you're saying. But, I disagree on not focusing on "awful facts". You can do both. Community justice is illegal in the US, it is called "vigilante justice". Please no "whitewashing". (Pun intended) Lynching is illegal in the US. Yet, it was practiced, and that is an awful FACT that needs to be conveyed here. Wikipedia is not censored. ~Jeeny (talk) 02:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, both need to be done, but just to have a listing of details of lynchings doesn't help people understand much. They happened and were terrible. The fact of mob action recurs in many cultures, regardless of laws.--Parkwells 18:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Resistance

This section discusses some changes in the 1930s and details one case which it said "changed the political climate in Washington", but the bill under discussion didn't pass. How did that lynching change the climate in DC? Is something missing?--Parkwells 17:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People fought back against lynching

There has long been a series of terrifying photos dominating this page. And this page has ignored for the most part the history of resistance to lynching. Someone came along and reverted a slight change to reflect the resistance. If that editor wishes to discuss it, please do so here. Meanwhile, I await the discussion and intend to reverse the most recent undiscussed revert.Skywriter 00:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is NOT censored. The article is not pretty because lynching is not a pretty. Having a cartoon in the lede that has nothing to do with the title is misleading. I reverted your edits. You can make the other changes, but leave that ugly discusting image in the lede, because the subject IS about "lynching". Thanks. ~Jeeny (talk) 01:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Jeeny: you are censoring the history of people fighting back against lynching. You also returned the article to the point of view that does not explain lynching but that justifies it.Skywriter 11:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry for doing that, but there were so many edits, I didn't know how to fix it. Sure, I should have taken more time, but I couldn't figure it out as I did try before I did the revert. ~Jeeny (talk) 03:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flagrant Copyright Violations in this article

The photograph that Jenny and one other editor insists must be at the top of this page violates copyright. While it certainly can be linked to, it can not appear on this or any other Wikipedia page.

The source of all of the sepia tone photographs (and of others in this Wikipedia article) is the following copyrighted web site http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/ that originates with the copyrighted collection owned by © 2000-2005 Collection of James Allen and John Littlefield http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

All of these photographs were published, for the first time, in the following book: Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America by James Allen, Hilton Als, United States Rep. John Lewis and historian Leon F. Litwack. (Twin Palm Publishers: 2000) ISBN 9780944092699

Use of these photographs violates the authors' copyright.

Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America maybe purchased through sources linked from here http://isbn.nu/9780944092699 Photographs painstakingly collected (and purchased) by the authors over many years may not be taken and used on Wikipedia without permission of the copyright owners.

Unfortunately, whoever posted these photographs did not respect the authors' copyright, and did not mention the exact source of this copyrighted collection of photos. Wikipedia Commons is given as the source of these photographs but that is false too. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America is clearly the source. Skywriter 17:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More information on Fact that this article violates recent copyright

This photograph was published for the first time under copyright in the year 2000. The copyright owners are James Allen and John Littlefield. The Wikipedia Commons administrator who posted this and other lynching photos has apparently violated their copyright (and he is on leave, according to his Wikipedia Commons page). This exact photo (with added sepia tone) appears as numbers 54. and 55. in the book, Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. The caption to this photo used here on Wikipedia and on Wikipedia Commons is also taken directly from this book, published in 2000 under copyright.

This photo of the lynching of Lige Daniels is also the cover photograph of the book Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America by James Allen, Hilton Als, United States Rep. John Lewis and historian Leon F. Litwack. (Twin Palm Publishers: 2000) ISBN 9780944092699 Publication of these photographs on this Wikipedia page violates the authors' copyright and could subject Wikipedia to legal action.

The source of all of many of the associated sepia tone photographs (and of others on this Wikipedia Commons and on the Wikipedia lynching page and in this article, lynching in the united stattes) is lifted directly from the following copyrighted web site http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/ that originates with the copyrighted collection owned by © 2000-2005 Collection of James Allen and John Littlefield http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America maybe purchased through sources linked from here http://isbn.nu/9780944092699

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia Commons administrator who posted these photographs did not respect the authors' copyright, and did not mention the exact source of this copyrighted collection of photos. Wikipedia Commons is given as the source of these photographs in the Wikipedia lynching articles but that is false too. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America is clearly the source.

The photo captions including the one Wikipedia Commons uses on this page is taken from Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America by James Allen, Hilton Als, United States Rep. John Lewis and historian Leon F. Litwack. (Twin Palm Publishers: 2000) ISBN 9780944092699 Skywriter 18:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The caption to this photo is lifted directly from Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America Postcard depicting the lynching of Lige Daniels, Center, Texas, USA, August 3, 1920. The back reads, "He killed Earl's grandma. She was Florence's mother. Give this to Bud. From Aunt Myrtle."

Skywriter 18:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The captions derived from material hand written on the backs of the postcard images is copyrightable by the authors of that collection (unless previously published by someone else), but the images themselves if they appeared on published postcards at the time would not be copyrightable by them. For instance, Image:Lynching37.jpg indicates in the image itself that that photo was copyrighted in 1911 and thus the raw image itself is in the public domain. Can't comment on the other images in the gallery, as I have insufficient info, but publishing a collection of public domain images does not create copyright for the individual images under United States law. Caerwine Caer’s whines 19:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The wording at Image:Lynching37.jpg is the claim and representation of the Wiki editor who uploaded the photo. It does not explain where the Wiki editor obtained the photo and does not credit the true source, the expensive book and its web site-- Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America

Would you provide links to support your claim that copyright does not apply? The book and the web site are clearly copyrighted as a collection, and the photographs have been personalized with individual adjustments such as sepia toning, which suggests that copyright does indeed apply. At the very least, the authors should be contacted and asked if they claim copyright. To lift these photos, especially the book's lead photo from the book and from the web site appears to be a clear violation. Thanks. Skywriter 19:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Please speak directly to the claims by the book authors and owners of the web site where these exact photographs were lifted with no credit given-- http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/contact.html Here are their words-- Note: All the images on this website are copyrighted. Images may not be reproduced or linked without express written permission from the owners. Here's their e-mail info@withoutsanctuary.org Thanks. Skywriter 19:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

No, this is a misunderstanding of copyright laws. They may own a collection of photos, but those photos were published before 1923 and where taken by many professional photographers at that time and massed produced. The website is soliciting photos/postcards from others, too. The copyrighted material may be their words, website and essays. I do not believe they own the copyright to all the photos. I guess this does need some looking into, but it doesn't mean that the images only belong to that site. I understand some of the postcards were purchased for a lot of money, but don't know which ones. This is difficult, I must admit now. ~Jeeny (talk) 03:53, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Cpyright turns on presentation (not individual facts). Wikipedia presentation by directly copying without attribution of many of Without Sanctuary's method of presentation could generate legal interest. The question is by no means cut and dried. The authors claim copyright. Individual Wikipedia editors claim the authors have no copyright. The matter is unsettled and could be a test case in U.S. courts.Skywriter 04:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

What methods of presentation? They digitized postcards, which had already been published, and compiled them in a book. We are using the digitized postcards, for which the compilers of Without Sanctuary do not have copyright. Skywriter, if you really think that these photos are of questionable copyright status and are of interest to a court of law, I strongly recommend that you take this issue to the Foundation. Your methods in attempting to enforce this dubious copyright claim have been heavy handed and have verged on violating the "no legal threats" policy of Wikipedia. However, you may wish to consider the fact that if an administrator on Commons uploaded these photographs, you are probably wrong and it's time to step away from the issue. Natalie 00:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The issue has been taken to the Foundation by the copyright owner: "I have tried to communicate our concerns on the Wikipedia and only received belligerent responses. However, I do have plans to make a formal complaint using the DMCA Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

John Littlefield"

Skywriter 15:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you John Littlefield? If not, where are getting this information from? Natalie 17:44, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Uploaded by an administrator or not, the problem with the photos is also that they violate Wikipedia policy by failing to say where they came from. Those apparently taken from the copyrighted book and web collection include but are not limited to the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lynching-1889.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Duluth-lynching-postcard.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lynching-of-jesse-washington.jpg all in violation of this copyright claim-- © 2000-2005 Collection of James Allen and John Littlefield So yes, there appears to be a copyright violation though anonymous people like yourself and the Wikipedia administrator who uploaded the photos assert it is your opinion that copyright does not exist. Perhaps, though it is not the opinion of the publisher who went to the trouble of publishing the expensive book, or those who put up the impressive web site. It is therefore likely that this is a matter that will not be resolved on Wikipedia talk pages or by the personal opinions of non-lawyers outside of federal court.Skywriter 16:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

You're exactly right - this matter will not be resolved on this talk page. As it has been referred to the Foundation, I would strongly suggest that you let the Foundation handle it. Read: drop it, please.
Also, I fail to see how I'm anonymous. I use my real name to edit Wikipedia and have given press interviews about Wikipedia, using my real name. How is the charge that I am anonymously making claims, coming from a person using an obviously made up pseudonym, in any way relevant? Natalie 17:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry for misconstruing your self-identification.Skywriter 18:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Thank you for referring this to the Wikipedia foundation if you did so. It is not clear or obvious how to do that or how to report suspected copyright violations. When I previously raised this issue, I was told I was in error. In the absence of any citations ot copyright law or precedent on the subject, it seems to me to be an open question. Skywriter 18:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm now much more confused. I have not referred this to the Foundation. Your message earlier today quotes the John Littlefield as saying that he has taken this to the Foundation and sent a DMCA takedown notice, and the Foundation was, in his words, "belligerent". I understood this to mean that the matter of the copyright of these photos had been referred to the Foundation.
I have not referred this matter to the Foundation, because I am not the copyright holder nor do I claim to be. I also happen to think that the claim of copyright on the photos is completely ridiculous, but my personal opinion is not really relevant here. I would be happy to have a longer discussion with you about why I think the claim is spurious if you wish.
The point I am trying to get across is that some of your statements are coming very close to violating the no legal threats policy, and I am concerned about a chilling effect. Hence I'm suggesting that you should cease advocating for the removal of these photos, or at least direct your communication to the Foundation itself rather than other editors on article and photo talk pages. If you are more interested in this in an academic sense then, as I said, I would be happy to talk about US copyright law and its applications to historical documents. However, again, I feel like this matter should be left to the Foundation and the author who is claiming copyright on these photos. Natalie 19:47, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The issue is simple. The person who uploaded these photos did not cite the source. Wikipedia rules require stating the source.

Here, when you wrote-- "Your message earlier today quotes the John Littlefield as saying that he has taken this to the Foundation and sent a DMCA takedown notice, and the Foundation was, in his words, "belligerent". you overstate by drawing inferences that are not there. Don't skip the beats.

I said he had reached out to Wikipedia concerning his joint copyright ownership of a number of photos Wikipedia is using without permission of the copyright holders, and he said he had received a belligerent response.

I did not mention the Foundation. You did.

As an administrator, you could be helpful here, by saying how to contact the Foundation, and by acknowledging that Wikipedia does indeed have a copyright policy that requires people who upload photos to state the origin. You seem to be claiming, with regard to Wikipedia policy, that photos can not be taken down when the uploader fails to identify the source, and that people who believe there is a violation should keep quiet. That is certainly not true on either count. Photos are taken down all the time for exactly that reason.

As to legal threats and chilling effects, chill out. I've threatened no one, and I've raised an issue of serious concern to authors, artists and musicians. The folks who gathered and first published these photographs should be credited. That is the central point. They claim copyright. You claim they are not entitled to copyright. Theirs is a valuable collection that took years to accumulate. To see them all of a sudden, after publication of the book and web site, appear without credit on Wikipedia in this and other articles is an affront.

Here's a couple of suggestions for you-- Stop telling people to sit down and be quiet when they don't agree with you. Do not presume that you know more about copyright law than others. Skywriter 23:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Look above you: your exact words were "The issue has been taken to the Foundation by the copyright owner". What sort of inaccurate inferrences am I drawing from this statement if I understand it to mean that the putative copyright holder has contacted the Foundation? That seems to be the most logical inferrence possible.
You're right that I could help you contact the Wikimedia Foundation, but there's nothing about being an administrator that gives me more information about that. The Foundation does not appoint administrators, promote their accounts, or generally contact them in any way. To the left of this discussion, in the sidebar that appears on all Wikipedia page, is a link that says "Contact Wikipedia". I presume that if you click that it will give you information about contacting the Foundation. I'm not claiming that the photos cannot be taken down - that would be rather silly of me. I am saying, however, that if the supposed copyright holder of this work has a real complaint it should be taken to the Foundation instead of discussed on this talk page.
You say: "As to legal threats and chilling effects, chill out. I've threatened no one, and I've raised an issue of serious concern to authors, artists and musicians. The folks who gathered and first published these photographs should be credited. That is the central point."
Firstly, I did not say that you had threatened anyone. But I do think your particular way of phrasing things implies a threat, so I'm suggesting that you just drop it. You're free to disregard my advice and tilt at windmills all you wish. Additionally, thouugh, there is an equally serious concern to historians, among others, in not allowing people to claim copyright on whatever they wish. Historical collections generally don't claim copyright on the things they have collected, precisely because it's completely ridiculous to assert that because I bought or found something I now possess the copyright on it. Furthermore, under US law copyright applies the minute a work is fixed in a tangible form, and the copyright is owned by the creator of the work (unless it was a work for hire). Unless John Littlefield is either claiming that he took all of these photographs or it claiming that they were made a work for hire, he does not own the copyright simply because he collected the photos. Perhaps he does deserve credit for gathering the photos, but that is a completely separate issue from the copyright of the photos.
It now seems to me that you may be confusing the Wikipedia requirement to source photos with the US law that defines copyright. You're absolutely right that Wikipedia requires sources for images, but this is completely separate from copyright law. The solution here, if you have reason to believe that the particular digital files came from John Littlefield's website, would be to add the source. Additionally, you could contact the original uploader of the image and ask them where they downloaded it from, since some of the images in Without Sanctuary are quite well known and have been used in many historical works (at least one of them was in my high school history textbook, published in the early 1980s).
"Here's a couple of suggestions for you-- Stop telling people to sit down and be quiet when they don't agree with you. Do not presume that you know more about copyright law than others."
I'm not presuming to know more than you. If I thought I knew more than you I would probably tell you with no reservation that these particular images are in the public domain. I am quite upfront about my qualifications and my opinions, and I have further explained (not in detail, perhaps) my reasons for doubting this person's copyright. I am also not telling you to sit down and be quiet - if that was the information I was trying to convey I would have said sit down and be quiet. Once again, my position is that this is a matter for the Foundation to handle, not you or I, and if your original statement that John Littlefield has contacted the Foundation was correct, then I would say they have handled it. If that statement was not correct, as your subsequent statement suggests, and they have not been contacted in any way, then I would happy to contact an OTRS volunteer and find out what the status of this is. Perhaps you would consider clarifying just what it is you meant, and answering my question about how you got this information. Natalie (talk) 03:43, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trimming the lead

In the last week or so the lead has mushroomed to a ridiculous length. The Manual of Style indicates that articles leads should be 3-4 paragraphs in length. This particular lead has that much block quotation which, in addition to being poor style, is questionable fair use. If anyone feels that the information I cut should be in the article somewhere, please add it somewhere other than the lead. Natalie 00:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I worked yesterday on trying to trim the lead and reduce redundancies. No doubt different people will have different takes on it.--Parkwells 15:53, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FDR and Stacy Lynching

re--(cur) (last) 15:56, November 14, 2007 Parkwells (Talk | contribs) (57,972 bytes) (→Resistance - copy edit - add material to Chicago riot; note need for cite in Roosevelt's reasoning for not supporting bill) (undo)

It could have been a pocket veto. FDR may not have provided his reasoning but I don't know. This would take "original research." Skywriter 15:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Skywriter. I was just trying to make some connection in somebody else's narrative between the lynching of Stacy "leading to change in Washington" and Roosevelt's actions. It was not my original work, and it was hard for me to understand, too. I've copied your comments (above) on the Talk page for Lynching in the United States and responded here rather than on my personal TalkPage.--Parkwells 16:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
There are links to two websites each showing the same photo of the Stacy lynching. I think one is enough; it establishes the facts. The Spartacus.uk.net website also carries a statement that Roosevelt feared losing the next election, which I'm sure is true and fairly obvious from the times. It was probably derived from well-documented histories. In the total scheme of things, Roosevelt made a decision based on his belief that he could accomplish more for more people by being re-elected than he could in taking a stand just then over one man's death. I'll remove the request for citation.--Parkwells 16:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pfeifer

Why is the relatively unknown Michael J. Pfeifer quoted three times in the lynching in the US article and Litwack, the contemporary giant in the field, not at all?Skywriter 15:44, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I've copied your comments on the TalkPage for Lynching in the United States so they can be responded to (they were on my personal TalkPage). The Pfeifer preponderance is someone else's work, so I can't comment on that. There are numerous historians who have written about the social history of lynching and how it relates to other community violence, including Bertram Wyatt-Brown and E.P. Thompson, who I cited above. I agree that the article should not depend too heavily on one historian, especially as they reached similar conclusions. --Parkwells 16:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I recommend adding the film "Bad Day at Black Rock" to the list of fictional treatments of lynching. We do not see the crime, but the film was ground breaking (and a very good performance by Spencer Tracy) McCamy21:08, 28 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.203.145 (talk)

[edit] Deleted Quotations from Time

I've deleted quotations from a Time article on lynching, as this is supposed to be an encyclopedia that relies on scholarly sources. The article is fully loaded with sensational detail, but not as much with what was happening economically or socially in the South or other parts of the country, or how the public lynchings resembled the public executions that many countries traditionally had, and that occurred during times of revolution, for instance in France in the 18th century. Yes, these events were terrible but this is not supposed to be a polemic against lynching. Everyone agrees it was wrong--Parkwells (talk) 00:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC).

[edit] NY Draft Riot; East St. Louis, and Chicago belong with Mass racial violence in the United States rather than Lynching

I think the paragraph on the NY Draft Riots belongs more with the article on Mass racial violence in the United States than with this one on Lynching. Similarly, I think the paragraphs about the race riots in East St. Louis and Chicago belong with riots rather than lynchings. There are separate articles on each of these. They were a different character than the ritualistic lynchings of usually one or a few victims.--Parkwells 19:23, 3 December 2007 (UTC) There were a series of post-WWI riots in cities that had not been traditional sites of lynchings.--Parkwells (talk) 17:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The Thibodaux Massacre of 1887 is another event related more to rioting, in this case because of a labor dispute, than to lynching. I think it should be moved to Mass racial violence in the United States. The Wikipedia article on it specifically calls it the second most violent labor dispute in the nation's history.--Parkwells 15:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Resistance

There was more resistance early on in NAACP statements to the press, articles published by the NAACP and other leaders/writers such as Charles Waddell Chesnutt, and anti-lynching plays that were produced - 10 by women playwrights in the early 20th century. I will be adding these. --Parkwells (talk) 14:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added a considerable amount of material on Resistance, both before WWI, and in the WWI-WWII period, and put the "New Klan" section in the appropriate chronological order (roughly, since it started before WWI, but grew more after).--Parkwells (talk) 16:50, 24 December 2007 (UTC) --Parkwells (talk) 17:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Length of article

Again, I think the labor dispute and race riots belong in separate articles and will move them. They have separate articles already on the Chicago and St. Louis race riots, as well as the Thibodeaux Massacre. They don't follow the usual pattern of lynching, which after the paramilitary violence associated with election terrorism, was usually a group or mob against one or a few victims.--Parkwells (talk) 14:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Viola Liuzzo

Moved the paragraph on her to the "Civil Rights" section, as she was lynched in the course of working on civil rights in Alabama.--Parkwells (talk) 21:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disfranchisement, 1877 to WWI

I've added more to discussion of disfranchisement under new state constitutions in the South, passed from 1890 to 1908, because it had huge effects: not only did blacks lack political representation in local, state and Federal government, but they were blocked from sitting on juries (only open to voters). One-party rule in the South meant no recourse. Cases brought before the Supreme Court failed to overturn such laws and constitutional provisions.--Parkwells (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)