A Real
Dichotomy:
Southern Religion
and
Lynching

For many years, well into the 1970's, lynching was a fact of life for blacks in the South.  A black man who transgressed the oppressive social code of the South could expect to be dragged from his home, tortured, and eventually lynched -- hung from a tree limb, often to the cheers of a white crowd.

At the same time, the South is the home of bible-thumping "christians."  How is it that this "deeply religious" people could condone horrible, unspeakable torture and murder of another human being?

Here is an excellent discussion of the topic.  Caution:  This article is scholarly and not very well-written -- it is difficult to read.  Here is the first paragraph. Follow the link to the full article.

Human sacrifice to a vengeful deity conjures savage and exotic images that distance us from the practices they represent as being strangely inhuman. Just as savage but sadly less exotic are images of lynched African Americans in the Southern United States. The word, "lynched," rips from reluctant memories shame, guilt and anger at white atrocities. The stark reality behind the word is an historical presence that haunts heedless patriotic celebration and belies professions of national innocence; its condensation of white peoples' fury and black peoples' anguish is as intensely malevolent as human sacrifice. The reality suffuses recent work by scholars who have turned their imaginations to explaining it as something other than calculated terror in service to the powerful. Recent publication of essays edited by W. Fitzhugh Brundage in Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South joins his previous work and that of Stewart E. Tolnay and E. M. Beck together with earlier books by Jacquelyn Hall and Joel R. Williamson to prepare a solid base upon which to fashion an understanding of lynching in the American South.¹  Since the early eighties, scores of scholars have turned their attention to specific, dramatic incidents of violence,² or to patterns within geographical areas or in relation to associated issues such as gender.³ The achievements have been impressive; but few have noticed what a few African Americans such as Gwendolyn Brooks understood when she observed that "the loveliest lynchee was our Lord."⁴ Few have wondered why it made sense to imagine a lynched black man as Christ upon the Cross,⁵ that is, to imagine lynching as a human sacrifice. Yet it is just this compound of sacrifice, crucifixion, and death and its association with the predominate religion of the lynching-South that begs discussion.

Read the full article here: http://jsr.as.wvu.edu/mathews.htm

If you are not familiar with the history and practice of lynching, here are some websites.  Caution:  Some of these contain photos that are graphic and ugly.

• African-American Holocaust
• Black History Pages:  Lynching
• A brief history of lynching

  ---