This flag, “A man was lynched yesterday,” flew at NAACP headquarters in New York City in the 1930s, whenever a Black man was lynched.
One of the gravest crimes in the history of the “American empire” has been lynching. Lynching means the murder of oppressed people—overwhelmingly Black people—who were accused of crimes by mobs of whites, mainly in the South. These mobs took people who were usually innocent and killed them through hanging, burning, beating and other grotesque forms. There were over 4,000 such lynchings in the years between 1877 and 1950.
Yet there are people today who go through the U.S. public school system and do not know what the term “lynching” means. And there are many more who may know the term, but don’t have a deep grasp of what was done and why. To be clear: that is not their fault—it is the fault of the system that keeps the real history of this country hidden, especially from those most oppressed by it.
Today, when the country singer Jason Aldean makes a barely disguised pro-lynching song and it goes to number one… when governors in Florida, Texas and many other states outlaw the teaching of true Black history… when “more modern” forms of horrific murder of Black and other oppressed people by racists in or out of uniform go on… and when fascists actively organize to bring back the worst of this madness… it is more important than ever to know this history.
On this panel, we include a video “Postcards of the Hanging” from Bob Avakian’s 2003 talk Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About. We also include, from the American Crime series, a new article on the history of lynching in this country.
Listen to, watch and read this history. Then think again about what is going down now, and what that says about how deeply dug in this racism is.
And then try to deny that we need a revolution to overthrow this system.