The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race — John Shaqi
The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White RaceCollins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
History
The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race
Collins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
African Americans; Lynching; Southern States -- Race relations
The other case was in Mississippi: Some Negroes were hung, seemingly,
for trying to get on a steamboat in order to escape from slavery.[31:4]
_The Liberator_[31:5] mentions two instances of Negroes being lynched
in New York in 1863: A negro in jail at Newburg, on suspicion of rape,
was taken out by a mob “who pounded him almost to death and then hung
him on a tree until he was finished.” Two were also lynched in the City
of New York, one of whom, it seems, was roasted alive.
In no place was there any mention of any Negroes being lynched for rape
in the South during the War. Indeed, it is often said that during the
Civil War when the white men were nearly all away from home, leaving
the white women almost at the mercy of the slaves, no Negro was guilty
of a criminal outrage against them.[32:6] It may be true. Viewed in the
light of the sporadic occurrence of the crime under the restraining
influence of slavery before the War, and of its quite frequent
occurrence sometime after, it is both remarkable and suggestive.
It may truly be regarded as evidence not only of the generally fair
treatment that, according to unprejudiced travelers, they were
receiving in slavery, as well as a tribute to their fidelity, but it
also makes it obvious that the Negro and the Southern white man might
have continued in harmony mutually advantageous after the War, had both
been free from outside influences.
Almost immediately after the War, however, the South began to “swarm”
with harebrained preachers and teachers from the North, ostensibly to
elevate the Negro; as a rule, though, they served no better purpose
than to aid in setting the Negro against his former master. For, it
seems, they cared not what became of the white man so they secured the
“salvation” of the Negro, entirely ignoring that saying of Scripture
which is to the effect that those who fail to serve first their own
house or people have denied the faith and are worse than infidels.[33:7]
Such a condition of affairs was promoted by Congress, who, at about
the close of the War established the so-called “Freedmen’s Bureau,”
and shortly after passed the Civil Rights bill, both of which tended
to cause friction between the two races. However, as compared with
that of a few years later, the trouble does not appear to have been
very serious notwithstanding exaggerated accounts which were reported
to Northern papers. In most parts of the South and at most times for
something like two years after the War, there was comparative quiet and
safety.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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