On March 29, 2022 Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Bill into law. It makes lynching a federal hate crime. I guess it’s alright to shoot, stab or set somebody on fire because of their color, but if you hang them, then you will have earned yourself a stay at the exclusive Fed And Bed, where Brother X and Playa Playa will be waiting for you… experts in Azz Tag. So while I am not applauding the injustice of institutionalized racism… this is one of its perks.. we in there waiting for you racist… ask Dylann Roof. From what I understand, they are still investigating how Stafford got out and whipped Roof’s ass. It’s been seven years now and they still haven’t gotten to the bottom of it… it could take decades..
So the official number of blacks lynched is 4743 souls, although the US government puts the figure at 4467 people. What we want to know is what is an official lynching?
Racist #1: Is this an official lynching…?
Racist #2: Naw.. we ain’t seen him with no white woman.. this is an unofficial lynching.. he backed sassed..
Racist 1: Oh okay.. Yahoo!!
That banter between Racist 1 and 2 may seem like a joke but in reality at first most lynching were because of perceived sexual transgressions against white women. Black men were view as violent, hypersexual aggressors. Although most of the accusation were fabricated, the accusations became one of the main basis for the creation of segregationist laws. Of course like Racist 1# said there were plenty of unofficial hangings that did not revolve around women. Small infractions like petty larceny, vagrancy and trespassing could get you to the pearly gates too… the colored section of course.. As a matter of fact, not only were there official lynchings but there were official lynching trees. Now since the confederate states had the largest African American populations, you might think that states like Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the like had the most official hanging trees, but it was Texas and California by far that had the most. Not surprising though, I guess in the antebellum south any tree was official as long as you could get a rope up high enough so their feet wouldn’t touch the ground. It accounts for the fact that between 1880 and 1935, Mississippi had the largest number of lynchings (581), followed by Georgia (531) and then Texas with 493. Alabama wish a &%$$ would come down there asking about dey business.
One of the most notorious lynching happened on November 12, 1935 in Colorado County, Texas. There was a movie about it, but for the life of me I can’t locate it and I don’t remember the name. So I will just tell you what happened. They hung two black teens because… well because they could. Their names were Ernest Collins age 15 and Benny MItchell age 16. In October of 1935 a young white woman’s body was found near a creek on her family’s farm… what’d I tell you.. white woman.. body… this is gonna be an Ooooh – FFical lynching… anywho… so yeah a white woman’s body was found and Ernest and Benny had been seen picking pecans near the area. Now in 1935 there was only two ways this was going to go down. 1.) We gonna whip yo azz, make you confess and then hang you with yo pants pulled down and 2.) We gonna whip yo azz, make you confess and then hang you with yo pants pulled down… they confessed. As I said in another article, azz whooping for black people by the police back in those days was standard procedure. If you was brought in for robbing somebody.. that’s an azz whooping… If you came in because somebody robbed you.. that’s an azz whooping. It was straight up double barrel buckshot racism in 1935 if you was black. The confessions serve as the impetus for the crazy shat that was to follow. After the confession the boys were moved to Houston, because they wanted to make sure everybody would be able to get there on time to bear witness of what happens when a black man is found near a dead white womans body… okay I’m saying that… but they said it was for their own safety. On Nov 12th, the sheriff went to get the boys to bring them back to town for the lynching.. uh.. trial. According to his account, just outside of town as he was crossing over a bridge, he was stopped by several carloads of white men with all kinds of guns and knives sticking out their windows. They demanded that the boys be handed over for lynching.
Racist #1: We demand you hand over those nigras for an Ooooh-FFicial lynching!!
Sheriff: These boys are under my protection.. I’m taking them to stand trial!!
Racist#1 to Racist #2: Go get the other rope…
Sheriff: Ok here they go… ( Yep.. some of those folks lynched were white people.. mostly for helping us.)
The sheriff handed them over. After the azz whooping they took Benny and Ernest to a tree about a mile from from the woman’s house where they prepared to hang them. So we are gonna stop right here because I want to impress on you the role that law enforcement, ie the sheriff “may” have played in the Ooooh-FFicial lynching. I’m saying “may,” but you can draw your own conclusions… Anywho, a crowd estimated to be several hundred people attended the lynching!! How do 700 people just gather to witness a lynching? Because it was planned the day they arrested those kids. As the boys who were chained at the neck, were paraded through the crowd, they were screamed at and jeered. Now there was something else that happened at this particular lynching, that in all my research I have never come across. As the boys were paraded through the crowd, additional ropes were placed around their necks by the spectators. By the time they reached the hanging tree, each boy had multiple nooses around their necks. Whether it was for souvenirs or what not, I couldn’t tell you, but that’s some next level homegrown red creek mud racist of the seven nazis on da plantation in robe and burning cross shat.. it’s evil … they were lynched with those extra ropes hanging around their necks.
So after the vigilante killings of the two boys, the white community boasted about and praised that the nigras had been lynched. The county attorney said that the lynching was the will of the people and the local judge said justice had been done. Several newspapers had printed images of the sheriff posing with one of the ropes used in the lynching and both ropes were exhibited in the local store. There was nothing said about the black community’s reaction to the lynching in the local press. I wonder why? Anywho, no one was ever arrested or questioned about the lynchings although members of the racist that took them from the sheriff and people in the mob were widely known… like the sheriff, the judge and county attorney. It was because of this lynching along with thousands of other lynchings that 1935 was also the year that the first serious anti-lynching law was proposed in Congress.. not the first… the first serious attempt… the first anti-lynching bill before congress was in 1877. It was one of about 200 bills introduced to congress. However only three made it to the House floor. The senate has never passed an anti-lynching bill until this year. The bill that was introduced in 1935 was called the Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching bill. This bill was introduced in the Senate by a senator from where most of the lynchings trees are… Texas.
Costigan: “Wagner? Is that a body hanging in my front yard??!!
Before we move on, one more thing about Colorado County, Texas, Ernest and Benny were not the only ones lynched there. Between 1870 and as recently as 1950 seven other African Americans have died at the hands of the dirty creek water racist of Colorado County, Texas. For those that like the thrill of having their lives put in jeopardy and don’t mind a cool breeze blowing “down there”… Colorado County, Texas is about 70 miles northwest of Houston…. Yahoo!!
So earlier I mentioned there were three significant anti-lynching bills. Those bills were called the Dyer Anti-lynching Bill, the Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching bill and the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Bill. The significance of these bills were that they made it to the House floor, although numerous other bills had been proposed. The Dyer bill was proposed by Leonidas Dyer and like Costigan he came from a state where the racist grow seven feet tall and and walk backwards to see if a black is being disrespectful or talking to a white woman… he was from Missouri. Besides the numerous unnamed race protest in Missouri, two of the largest race protest in American history happened in Missouri, the 1917 East St. Louis race riot, in which over 100 people were killed, 6000 were left homeless and which cause over eight million in damages in today’s money. The cause of the riot was over jobs. In an event called the Great Migration, between 1917 and 1970 millions of blacks left the south to look for work up north and out west. All those official hanging trees down south probably had something to do with it too.. but that’s another story… anywho, it occurred in two waves, basically before and after the Great Depression. More than 6 million black folks left the rural south during these periods.. including my folks. Of course we all know about the Ferguson protest and the killing of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson. Wilson was acquitted and now runs a homeless shelter for disabled Klan… just kidding.. On January 26, 1922 it passed the House by a vote of 230-119. Unfortunately the bill was defeated in the Senate by southern Democrats, who were still feeling some kinda way about that Civil War thing and how Benjamin Butler aka “The Beast,” had called the Southern Belle.. women of the town plying their avocation… The next time an anti-lynching bill would come to the House floor would be 18 years later. The Costigan-Wagner bill was introduced in 1935. So some of you might have noticed that the Dyer bill went to the floor in 1922 and that from 1922 -1935 is only 12 years. Well Dyer introduced the bill in 1917.. it took five years for it to get to the House floor! Like I said those good ole boys from down south was some contrary #@@! and they was determined to keep a rope and a cross in every garage. Anyway, it only took one year for the Costigan-Wagner to get to the floor.. it was introduced to committee in 1934. Again it passed the House, but did not get through the Senate. There were other dynamics working this time. You see Roosevelt didn’t back the bill. He was trying to get the New Deal passed. The New Deal were a group of bills aimed at getting us back to work after the Great Depression. It included infrastructure and social spending. It was the main reason we flipped from Republican to Democrats. Ya’ll know the story.. since Lincoln the Great Massa… I mean Emancipator freed us, we had been voting Republican, after the New Deal we started switching alliances. Roosevelt did a lot for African Americans during his 12 years in office. He is the only president to serve three terms. Anyway, here I am talking about how Roosevelt was such a good man but he didn’t support the anti-lynching bill? What’s up Tom? Ok I am not a UT!! The Roosevelt New Deal provided tens of thousands of jobs for African Americans and was responsible for the start of the African American middle class. It opened opportunities in government and business that before had not been available to us. So that’s on one hand.. the other hand which I got balled up is the reason why he did not support the bill… it was because he rejected the provision which called for punishment of sheriff’s who failed to protect their prisoners from lynch mobs. A provision like that could have saved Ernest and Benny, not to mention Emmett Till whose death would follow two decades later. Anyway, it was a long shot that the Costigan-Wagner was going to pass anyway.. and without Roosevelt’s support, it was dead in the water. If Roosevelt had supported that bill with that provision in it, then the Southern bloc in Congress would not have let him pass the New Deal and without that provision, the bill was worthless.
President Biden at signing Of Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act
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Racist: Well sheriff, it looks like that commie Rosterfelt supported the gawd fearing white mans and trashed dat negra anti-attitude adjustment bill… and it’s a good thing too.. got a boy yesterday that was looking at the whites only fountain like he was getting ready…
Sheriff: Ready for what?
Racist: Well he was eyeballing it like he wanted a drink…
Sheriff: Did he taste it?
Racist: No.. cause he was thinking bout white women!!
Sheriff: What?
Racist: Yesiree Bob… Possum said they stand by the water fountain when they think about white woman… They don’t get thirsty like us.. they look on da gleaming part of the water fountain to see if they can see a “fleckshun” of a white women…
Sheriff: Do tell!!
Racist: Yep.. Possum said he had to shoot one at da courthouse… cause he was shining it so he could see em better…
Sheriff: You idiot!! That was the janitor!!
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President Obama at the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act signing.
It would be another 77 years before another anti-lynching bill would come before congress. On March 29, 2022, President Biden sign the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching law into effect. So the Till law is actually an amendment to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. If you remember Matthew Shepard was tortured and then murdered for being gay. He had been severely beaten and died from blunt force head trauma six days after the attack. The two men that attacked him were given two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. The James Byrd attack was one of the most heinous racist attacks on an African American in modern history. He was lured into a secluded area by three racist who then chained his him to the back of a pick-up truck and speed away at a high speed over an asphalt highway for almost two miles. He was alive while they dragged him. Experts say he died when his body hit a culvert ripping his arm and torso from his body. Still the racist trio continued driving, disposing the rest of his body in front of a black church. Two of the men were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. They are the only two men in Texas history to be sentenced to death for killing a black man. The third man was given a life sentence. He will be eligible for parole in June 2038. He has served years of his life sentence. He was twenty three when he went in and will be 63 at his parole hearing. The other two men have been executed. I have written a story which you can read here… and there is also a movie called “Jasper Texas” which may still be on Prime video. Anyway, so yeah the Emmett Till Bill is part of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. So earlier I was joking about you could shoot or stab somebody, but god forbid as long as you don’t hang them. That was just me being sarcastic. The only mention of the word lynch in any of the bills I have seen is in the title. The word lynching has been replaced with the words ” bodily harm,” and throughout our ancestors captivity bodily harm almost always meant lynching. Words matter.
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