lynching – UAB Institute for Human Rights Blog

In the Blind Spot of Memory: In Remembrance of Theo Calloway

Noose on tree — Source: Mississippi Today

For so long, the stories of lynching victims were, as E. Stanley Richardson wrote in his poem “Century Oak: A Conversation with a Tree”, in the blind spot of America’s memory. From 1880 – 1940, the country saw a peak in racial terror. Although black communities were terrorized before and after this period, the surge started after the 13^th Amendment actualized African Americans’ freedom and lasted till about World War II. White Americans lynched black men, women, and children to reestablish racial order.

“Lynching was an extrajudicial act of racial terrorism that involved killing Blacks by hanging, burning, mutilation, and other brutal assaults at the hands of white mobs (3+ people) with impunity and no fear of legal recourse. More than simply terrorizing the victim, lynching’s purpose was to send a message to the Black community at large.” (Jefferson County Memorial Project)

NAACP flag — Photograph by Hank Willis Thomas

It was a means to violently reestablish racial order once African Americans’ freedom was recognized in the passing of the 13th Amendment to the United States’ Constitution in 1865. Black men, women, and children were lynched for many reasons. A lynching could have been triggered by something as arbitrary as a Black man holding eye contact with a white man while being reprimanded or an actual crime. Most often, a claim of sexual contact between a Black man and a white woman is what spurred a lynch mob into action. The, often unfounded, claims ranged from actual sexual assault to merely whistling at a woman. The trope of the dangerous, hypersexual Black man and the pure, delicate white woman played a huge role during this time and still affects how members of these groups are portrayed today.

Nevertheless, the unlawful punishment that the white mobs felt justified to administer was ruthless and inhumane. Even though lynching can be seen as a conflict on an interpersonal level, the effects of these acts of terror go beyond the interpersonal level. The effects of the lynching are long-lasting and have altered the way that communities function. Racial terror contributed to the Great Migration between 1916 and 1970. Almost 6 million African Americans moved out of the rural Southern United States to the more urban West, Midwest, and Northeast to find economic opportunity and flee racial terror. Those that directly experienced the effects of racial terror passed down the fear to generations, as former lynching spots that have been paved or built over still bring the same amount of terror.

Lynching memorial — Photograph by Jaylah Cosby

In 2018, Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a non-profit organization in Montgomery, Alabama, committed to ending mass incarceration and inhumane or excessive punishment by providing legal representation, attempted to help the county address our collective memory of lynching.

The organization says that their National Memorial for Peace and Justice “provides a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terrorism and its legacy.” The beginning of the memorial includes large hanging iron columns, symbolic of the hanging bodies that were lynched. EJI’s staff scoured national newspapers to document thousands of racial terror lynchings. At the memorial, every iron column is designated for a United States county, and the names and dates of the individuals lynched in that county are listed below.

Towards the end of the memorial, visitors can find duplicates of each of the columns lying on the ground on the trail to the exit. The organization’s Community Remembrance Project is a tool for communities around the country to engage in the work and learn about this history. The intention is that each county will prepare by educating themselves about racial terror and ultimately memorialize the victims from their community by placing the duplicate column in the county.

memorial column — Photograph by Jaylah Cosby

The Elmore Bolling Initiative, a non-profit named in honor of a prominent black farmer and philanthropist lynched in 1947 in Lowndes County, Alabama, formed The Lowndes County Community Remembrance Coalition and held a virtual lynching memorial dedication ceremony for Theo Calloway. Theo Calloway was accused of killing a white man, and although he insisted that he acted in self-defense and waited to plead his case in a trial, he was abducted from jail by a mob of 200 white men. He was lynched on March 29, 1888, at the age of 24. The group hung his body on a tree in the courthouse’s lawn. The next day his parents came to attend his court hearing. Instead, they learned that their son had been lynched and had to recover his body that was riddled with bullets. Theo Calloway’s marker was installed outside of the courthouse during a small gathering that included some of his descendants on November 18.

A virtual dedication was held in December, as the original event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ceremony started with a solemn introduction by Arthur Nelson in which he spoke: “for the hanged and beaten. For the shot, drowned and burned. For the tortured, tormented, and terrorized”. Uplifting invocations and greetings were also given by members of The Elmore Bolling Foundation’s board and other prominent figures, like the mayor of Hayneville. Elmore Bolling’s great-grandson, J’Pierre Bolling, sang gripping renditions of Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit, Sam Cooke’s A Change is Gonna Come, and John Legend and Common’s Glory. A forensic genealogist gave a historical account of Theo Calloway’s lynching and information about his descendants. Lastly, the organization revealed the marker in front of the courthouse.

One of the most compelling parts of the ceremony was the candle lighting when Theo Calloway and the other victims’ names were called out of the blind spot of memory while saying, “today we remember.”

“Century Oak — A Conversation with a Tree” by E. Stanley Richardson

As I walked by
The Tree
… Cried out
Why don’t you hold me anymore
Sit beneath my shade
We barely ever talk
Like we once did

100 years ago
I know
You blame me
For being
Deep inside
Us
Hidden

In the blind spot of memory
All of
Our
Pent up
Pain
We
Must Feel

I know
You blame me
Because,
If I
Had not been
They
Would not have

Dangled
Your Brother
Your Sister
Your Father
Your Mother
… From my limbs
There would be

No blood
On my branches
I would
Be
Only brown
… Like you
With green hair
Without tinge
With
No hint of red
On
My wood

Please forgive me
Had I known
If I could
… I would have
Plucked myself
Up
By
The Root!

The Legacy of Lynching: How Hate Violence Still Haunts The American People

This is a Black man being hung from a tree with his tied behind his back during the 20th century and is used to demonstrate racial terror. — Source: Yahoo Images

I remember when I first saw a photo of a lynching. I couldn’t have been more than ten years old and was afraid to go outside of my house or attend school. I told my mother that the people that were hanging could not have been viewed as human but as objects of intimidation and pure terror. I recall the trauma from this photo I experienced as a child. The fear and concern for me and my family began to really scare me. Once researching this photo, I told my mother about it and she told me to research the word “lynching”. Upon the discovery, I stepped into this dark time of American history and I have become an advocate against the violation of human rights since then. As discussed by Paula Giddings, professor of Afro-American Studies, the historical definition of this term is when someone is put to death by hanging by a mob consisting of three or more people. Lynching is done without a legal sanction, a trial, or a court sanction and actually began during the Revolutionary War. It did not become an issue of racial terror until 1886 when the number of Black lynching became higher than that of White lynching.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization that fought against the struggle against lynching discusses the act of lynching and the nature of its terror. Lynching in America was done as an act of terror against Black people following Reconstruction in the late 19th century. The organization estimates that between the years of 1882-1968, 4,743 people were lynched. Among those people, 3, 446 of those victims were Black. The Equal Justice Initiative, an organization dedicated towards the liberation of oppressed people in America has done much research on lynching. It documents the practice being done in mostly Southern states such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. It was not limited to the Southern states. The organization lists that it also occurred in other Western states such as Illinois, Kansas, and Oklahoma. So, during this time after Reconstruction, racial lynching was a nationwide phenomenon.

Demonstrators of the NAACP protesting against the terror of lynching and brutal murder of Black lives in America. It includes men and women protesters advocating for laws against lynching. — Source: Yahoo Images

Research from the NAACP and Giddings notes, that most of these acts of brutality were justified in the eyes of many Southerners. It was used as a method of intimidation to Black people within their communities which resulted in this season of racial tension. Lynching was also a tactic that was influenced by the desire to protect the Southern white womanhood. In the eyes of Southern whites, there was this notion that Black men were sexually aggressive and predatory towards white women. Most lynching were motivated by the accusations of sexual assault and violence of Black men against white women. Although that was the story that the history books told, I knew that it had to be more to the story than that. I wanted to study more about lynching because it affects so many things in our society and our country overall. For all these incidents of racial terror to occur for so many years, the effect of that terror does not just cease. As I came to college and became more of an activist, I wanted to do my own research on lynching. I began to understand the importance of studying the ugly moments in history because we are told to forget.

Although the act of lynching has decreased at a tremendous level, the attitude and the justification of lynching has not. During my research, I discovered lynching was not only subjected to death by hanging, but also through beatings or being burned alive. Not only the denial of a trial but to hang someone from a tree who was most of the time innocent of the crime they were accused of. The victims were confronted by a lynch mob in jails and then beaten and tied with rope. The most shocking thing about all this was the vigilantism about it and the act of mobs storming into a jail cell to retrieve an innocent man or woman and deny them a fair trial. Hanging was not the only form of punishment they endured. Giddings also notes that victims were also burned alive, dismembered, or even dragged by vehicles, beaten, and even castrated. As lynching became spectacles for the white people in these communities, it became clear to me that these victims could not be viewed as human beings during this time. This was during a time period in America where Black people did not have many civil or human rights. The rights of their humanity were not protected under the American law as many white people did not even look at Black people as citizens. The ADL, an organization for anti-hate advocacy, declares that there was this notion of superiority that allowed for the white race to feel superior to the Black race. This notion is the foundation of white nationalism and white supremacy in the United States.

Lynching was viewed as the hate crimes of their day and were often used to maintain their superiority and social order in America. This lack of respect for their humanity is displayed as they were killed simply because they were Black. They were not seen as humans and their rights were not protected under the law. This problem of the lack of recognition of the human rights of Black people has left a damaging legacy and continues to contribute to the racial issues in America. Recently, I have visited the EJI museum and witnessed the jars of the soils of the sites of the lynching victims. There were so many, and it dawned on me that all these human beings could only be remembered in a jar of soil. Then I visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and saw the pillars of the lynching victims in America. Not only did the number of pillars completely shock me, but as you walk down the area, the floor descends, and the pillars ascend. This was to represent the victims hanging from the trees as the pillars are hanging from the ceiling. Breathtaking is not strong enough of a word to describe how I felt, I felt helpless and full of sorrow because I could not help them nor fight for them. All I could do was memorialize them as the ones that died in the struggle for Black liberation.

This is the National Memorial of Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. This is the pillar display to memorialize over 4, 000 lynchings of Black people. — Source: Yahoo Images

As I think about this kind of hate violence, I begin to think of other victims whose lives have been taken by hate. I think about people such as Emmett Till, James Reeb, Matthew Sheppard, Brandon Teena, and countless others. To me that kind of violence that is motivated by hate is the most abrupt and vicious attack on human rights. Although this type of hate violence occurred during Reconstruction, there is this overwhelming feeling that hate violence have been steadily increasing in these present times. This kind of hate violence has left a haunting legacy that still haunts our society today. In an article by the Washington Post, it discusses the rise of hate crimes and the target towards minority groups and religious groups. These groups include crimes against the LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, and Muslims in America. I feel as though the motivation of this growing trend is due to white nationalism and the desire to return to a society where white populace was the dominating voice in the country. Hate crimes have been recognized by the Human Rights Campaign in regards to hate crime related violence. Even though it has been declared by legislation, there needs to be more advocacy for ending hate crime violence in the United States.

Hate crimes are committed to express prejudice and hate against a certain group and in this act, one does not see these victims as human. Instead, the victims are seen as people that must be punished for ruining or destroying what they consider as “their country”. Of course, this is not moral justification to commit violence against humans, but this is normally the attitude of the ones who commit this violence. To me, legislation is not enough to combat this issue without the acknowledgement of the history of hate violence. There must be conversations about where hate violence stemmed from. I have always lived by the quote of “you have to understand the past to understand the present”. By us being able to able to talk about the past, it will allow us to be able to dissect the problem at the root and create resources to prevent it from occurring.

As a nation that is so rich in diversity, there is not any room for hate towards its American citizens. There is certainly not any room for violence against its American citizens as the rights and safety of American citizens should be protected under the law. If we are really going to move forward as a country, I believe that the country needs to be honest with itself about what has been done in the past. It is imperative because as hate violence was done in order to preserve white supremacy during the lynching period, the same notion remains in our society today. Another aspect is the lack of punishment for people that commit these crimes, and this really exposes the problems that continue to harm the people within our society. Every citizen in this country should be protected under the law along with their rights.

If we are really going to look at the root cause of this problem of hate crime and violence, then we need to take a look in the mirror and decide if we even value humanity.As a country, we failed during the era of lynching as we failed to recognize our humanity, but that narrative does not have to remain this way for the rest of our lives. There must be more conversations and resources for advocacy against hate violence, it is imperative at this point. It is imperative to ensure that the dark history of lynching and hate violence does not repeat itself as history tends to do. On my part, I have always been dedicated to the liberation of oppressed people and the protection of human rights for minority groups overall. In this I am a fellow of the Jefferson County Memorial Project that does research on lynched victims in Jefferson County. I appreciate this work because we owe it to them to tell their story and memorialize them. As a part of this fellowship, there will be an opportunity to create conversations in the Birmingham community in an educational way. It is also important to implement this education within the nation about this dark history so that we can see how it affects us today as Americans and how we can dismantle hate violence at the root.

Reliving For a Night

A creative writing class from the UAB English department attended the Nazi Germany and Jim Crow South symposium in February. Six students, including Taylor, submitted their reflections on the interview with Riva Hirsh, a Holocaust survivor, and Josephine Bolling McCall, daughter of lynching victim, Elmore Bolling. Their honest and emotionally raw selections will post over the course of this week. — AR

Riva Hirsch scans the room with wide eyes and white hair. Her shoulders are draped in purple and gold, her veiny hands clutched around her microphone. When the interviewer asks her to tell the room about her childhood and family, she stands up and brings the microphone to her lips.

“I had everything I needed until the murderer came.”

Her voice comes out grainy and loud, her lips probably kissing the microphone. She shakes with emotion I’m sure she’s felt for a lifetime.

The interviewer turns to Josephine Bolling McCall, who sits in her chair with her ankles crossed, robed in shades of emerald. Her hair is as red as fall leaves before the separate from branches and litter sidewalks. Like Riva, she wears glasses. The interviewer asks her the same question and she stands. Her voice is softer, as steady as a librarian talking while leading you through the stacks and pulling the book you need from the shelf.

“I lived in Lowndes Country, Alabama. It was known as ‘Blood Lowndes’,” she reveals. I look around the room and watch a few audience members shift in their seats. One squints his eyes, as if trying to imagine just how bloody it had been. “I was only 5 when my father was killed.” Even I shift in my seat.

Riva begins the heartbreaking tale of bring separated from her family by the Nazis. She was seven when war came to her town. A family friend named Joshua warned her family to leave. The second time he came, Riva tells us “I could smell human flesh.” Riva and her family were forced to leave their home, taking only the packages her mother and grandmother made. Joshua hid them until he could hide them no more. One day Joshua came running.

“The SS are coming!” Riva and her family were forced into the forest, where they lived in sickness, became covered in lice. Eventually they were caught and separated by the SS. Riva tells the room of alert eyes and open mouths that her mother was beat in front of her when she refused to let go of her children. They were forced to wear the yellow star and told they would be taken to a better place. She tells us of the trains they were forced on and leaves us with an image that chills to the bone and boils blood all at once.

“There were piles of dead bodies on the train. We were all moving from life to death, death to life.”

Josephine tells us about her father, Elmo, before he was killed. “He had airhorns on his truck,” she reminisces. Her father would blow his horns as he passed the family in the shop or the house. But in December of 1947, gunshots could be heard some time after the airhorns. No one thought anything of it until they were told her father was dead. “He was laying there in the ditch and his eyes were still open,” she says, looking down into the microphone. I know we all imagined a 5-year-old mind replaying that image, understanding more of its horror as time passes.

When asked about the community’s reaction to her father’s murder, Josephine admits that everyone was afraid to talk. “Keep your mouth shut, stay inside, and don’t say anything,” she recites. This was the law of their land. Josephine’s brother saw the murder of their father and saw the car that appeared to be following their father before the murder. Her brother wrote the tag number in the dirt in front of a sheriff, trying to give him the information. The sheriff had no interest. “My father’s murder had been planned,” Josephine says. And the room understands that the sheriff already knew.

Riva is asked to talk about her savior, a man who spoke German. “A man put his hand on my mouth,” she says. “I was so sick with malaria and typhoid. He told me to play dead. He put me on his shoulder and started to run with me.” The German man hid Riva in a carriage to smuggle her out of the camp. The carriage was stopped, but Riva went undiscovered until she was brought to a convent. “He handed me off to a nun and then she started to run with me,” and I imagine a nun’s black clothing flailing in the still of night, a sick child limp in her arms. She was brought to a place where more children were hidden and told the nuns would bring them food as often as they could, but not too often as to draw attention. “They were my guardian angels,” Riva confesses.

After Josephine’s family fled Lowndes County to Montgomery, she found information that would launch her into an investigation about her father’s murder. In the Montgomery Advertiser had an article about her father’s murder. “He had been shot 6 times with a pistol, once in the back with a shot gun. What does that tell you? That there was more than one person there,” Josephine urges into the microphone. After retrieving the article from historical archives and interviewing others, Josephine discovers that many people had known her father’s murder was planned. She also discovered that by definition, her father’s murder had been a lynching. In a Chicago newspaper headline about her father’s murder, the word “lynch” appeared.

The interviewer asks, “Why was it important for your father’s murderers to not make it look like a lynching?”

“Counties were being held responsible and fined,” Josephine responds. “The Association of Southern Women to Protect Lynching (ASWPL) came to Lowndes County to stop the lynching from happening.” The murderers were trying to protect themselves.

Riva tells us about her life after the way. She never went to school, but taught herself 7 languages. She married another Holocaust survivor, who lost his whole family to the gas chambers. He was the only survivor. 28 years ago, Riva came to Birmingham. Her daughter and step-daughter and still with her. She lost her husband 4 years ago, her son 9 years ago. She still claims with excitement, “America is the best place in the world.”

Josephine started a foundation in memory of her father. She wrote a book, The Penalty of Success: My Father was Lynched in Lowndes County, Alabama, and had two book signings a day for a week in Boston. She continues to share her story.

Both women leave us with their own words of advice. Riva cautions, “Make sure you speak to educate our students because the future is in their hands.” She pins us all with a determined stare before finishing, “Never ever let it happen again.” Josephine follows Riva, urging that “we have to acknowledge what has gone on before we can reconcile and come together.” Finally, she points us to Bible, Hebrews 13:1, “Let brotherly love continue.”

Taylor Byas is a graduate student at UAB pursuing her Master’s Degree in English, Creative Writing. She aspires to teach Creative Writing at the collegiate level.