Good Morning POU.
We continue to look at the caste system codified in law, known as Jim Crow.
In 1896, In the seminal case of Plessy v. Ferguson, The Supreme Court sided with the South and ruled in an eight-to-one vote, that “equal but separate accommodations were constitutional. That ruling would stand for the next sixty years.
Now with a new century approaching, blacks in the South, accustomed to the liberties established after the war, were hurled back in time, as if the preceding three decades had never happened. One by one, each license or freedom accorded them was stripped away. The world got smaller, narrower, more confined with each new court ruling an ordinance.
Not unlike European Jews who watched the world close in on them slowly, perhaps barely perceptibly, at the start of Nazism, colored people in the South would first react in denial and disbelief to the rising hysteria, then, helpless to stop it, attempt a belated resistance, not knowing and not able to imagine how far the supremacist would go. The outcomes for both groups were widely divergent, one suffering unspeakable loss and genocide, the other enduring nearly a century of apartheid, able loss and mob executions. But the hatred and fears that fed both assaults were not dissimilar and relied on arousing the passions of the indifferent to mount so complete an attack.
The South began acting in outright defiance of the 14th Amendment of 1868, which granted the right to due process and equal protection to anyone born in the United States, and it ignored the 15th Amendment of 1880, which guaranteed all men the right to vote.Politician began riding these anti-black sentiments all the way to the governors mansions throughout the South and to seats in the U.S. Senate.
“If it is necessary, every Negro in the state will be lynched,” James K. Vardaman, the white supremacy candidate in the 1903 Mississippi governor’s race declared. He saw no reason for blacks to go to school. “The only effect of Negro education,” he said, “is to spoil a good field hand and make an insolent cook.”
Mississippi later voted Vardaman to the governor’s office and later sent him to the U.S. Senate.
All the while, newspapers were giving black violence top billing, the most breathless outrage reserved for any rumor of black male indiscretion toward a white woman, all but guaranteeing a lynching. In spectacles that often went on for hours, black men and women were routinely tortured and mutilated, then hanged or burned alive, all before festive crowds of as many as several thousand white citizens, children in tow, hoisted on their fathers’ shoulders for a better view.
Fifteen thousand men, women and children gathered to watch eighteen-year-old Jesse Washington as he was burned alive in Waco, Texas, in May 1916. The crowd chanted ,”Burn, burn burn!” as Washington was lowered into the flames.
Washington was accused of raping and murdering Lucy Fryer, the wife of his white employer in rural Robinson, Texas. There were no eyewitnesses to the crime, but during his interrogation by the McLennan County sheriff he signed a confession and described the location of the murder weapon.
Washington was tried for murder in Waco, in a courtroom filled with furious locals. He entered a guilty plea and was quickly sentenced to death. After his sentence was pronounced, he was dragged out of the court by observers and lynched in front of Waco’s city hall. Over 10,000 spectators, including city officials and police, gathered to watch the attack. There was a celebratory atmosphere at the event, and many children attended during their lunch hour. Members of the mob castrated Washington, cut off his fingers, and hung him over a bonfire. He was repeatedly lowered and raised over the fire for about two hours. After the fire was extinguished, his charred torso was dragged through the town and parts of his body were sold as souvenirs. A professional photographer took pictures as the event unfolded, providing rare imagery of a lynching in progress. The pictures were printed and sold as postcards in Waco.
On the morning of May 15, Waco’s courthouse quickly filled to capacity in anticipation of the trial: the crowd nearly prevented some jurors from entering. Observers also filled the sidewalks around the courthouse; over two thousand spectators were present. Attendees were almost entirely white, but a few quiet members of Waco’s black community were present. As Washington was led into the courtroom, one audience member pointed a gun at him, but was quickly overpowered. As the trial commenced, the judge attempted to keep order, insisting that the audience remain silent. Jury selection proceeded quickly: the defense did not challenge any selections of the prosecution. Bernstein states that the trial had a “kangaroo court atmosphere”. The judge asked Washington for a plea, and explained the potential sentences. Washington muttered a response, possibly “Yes”, interpreted by the court as a guilty plea. The prosecution described the charges, and the court heard testimony from law enforcement officers and the doctor who examined Fryer’s body. The doctor discussed how Fryer died, but did not mention rape. The prosecution rested, and Washington’s attorney asked him whether he had committed the offense. Washington replied, “That’s what I done [sic]” and quietly apologized. The lead prosecutor addressed the courtroom and declared that the trial had been conducted fairly, prompting an ovation from the crowd. The jury was then sent to deliberate.
After four minutes of deliberation, the jury’s foreman announced a guilty verdict and a sentence of death. The trial lasted about one hour. Court officers approached Washington to escort him away, but were pushed aside by a surge of spectators, who seized Washington and dragged him outside. Washington initially fought back, biting one man, but was soon beaten. A chain was placed around his neck and he was dragged toward city hall by a growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly beaten with blunt objects. By the time he arrived at city hall, a group had prepared wood for a bonfire next to a tree in front of the building. Washington, semiconscious and covered in blood, was doused with oil, hung from the tree by a chain, and then lowered to the ground. Members of the crowd cut off his fingers, toes, and genitals. The fire was lit and Washington was repeatedly raised and lowered into the flames until he burned to death. German scholar Manfred Berg posits that the executioners attempted to keep him alive to increase his suffering. Washington attempted to climb the chain, but was unable to, owing to his lack of fingers. The fire was extinguished after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the lynching, including Washington’s bones and links of the chain. One attendee kept part of Washington’s genitalia; a group of children snapped the teeth out of Washington’s head to sell as souvenirs. By the time that the fire was extinguished, parts of Washington’s arms and legs had been burned off and his torso and head were charred. His body was removed from the tree and dragged behind a horse throughout the town. Washington’s remains were transported to Robinson, where they were publicly displayed until a constable obtained the body late in the day and buried it.
One father holding his son on his shoulder wanted to make sure the toddler saw it.
“My son can’t learn too young,” the father said.
From: The Warmths of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson and the Lynching of Jesse Washington.
*Although I initially included the picture of the postcard with this post, I decided not to post it. Why? After searching for a picture of Jesse Washington, the only pictures are of his burned, lynched body. There are no photographs of him alive. History has relegated him to being a charred corpse, mutilated and abused for the amusement of white supremacists. There are no pictures or even a mention of his family. Didn’t he have a mother? a father? siblings? Who knows? Apparently there have never been any attempts, not then, not now, to find any living relatives. What did they endure at that time knowing their loved one was killed in such a vile manner? How did they deal with it? What became of them? All that is left of Jesse Washington are pictures of him in death – a cruel, sick death at the hands of smiling white faces.