Why Was Violence so Intence in the Late 20th Century in America - Case Study Example

Violence in 20th-Century America Introduction In comparison to other kinds of violence and cruelty that African Americans experienced under Jim Crow, lynching was a rare and unusual event. African American women and men were much more prone to be victimized by rape or murder than lynching, and they endured all kinds of violence every day, especially during the latter part of the 20th century (Markovitz 33). In spite of, or even due to, its uncommonness, lynching carried a particular psychological power, raising a degree of terror and fear that engulfed all other kinds of violence in 20th-century America. As illustrated by Jean Toomer, the shouts of a single mob may sound “like a hundred mobs yelling” (Wood 1), and the image of violence and terror kept on burning long after it was done. All the daily violence and degradations that black southerners experienced may, actually, be filtered into the occurrence of lynching, so that it becomes the main depiction of racial oppression and injustice all together. This essay explains that the intense violence in the latter part of 20th century in America, especially as regards lynching, is largely characterized by violence against African Americans. 20th-Century Lynching: The Violence of America Lynching took on an enormous symbolic force specifically because it was unusual and concretely frightening. This violence that a massive number of white audiences watched as victims were tortured and hanged were the most terrifying image. The utter cruelty of the mobs, and their blatant disrespect of the law, astonished and frightened because they go against universal beliefs of what cultured individuals should or may be capable of (Holmes & Smith 17). Nevertheless, African Americans did not have to witness a lynching to be frightened by it, to sense that ‘penalty of death’ lingering over them every day of their lives (Wood 26). According to Wright, “The white brutality that I had not seen was a more effective control of my behavior than that which I knew. The actual experience would have let me see the realistic outlines of what was really happening, but as long as it remained something terrible and yet remote, something whose horror and blood might descend upon me at any moment, I was compelled to give my entire imagination over it” (Holmes & Smith 19). It was the scene of lynching, instead of the brutality itself, which inflicted psychological injury, which imposed black submission to white supremacy. All the more, mobs carried out lynchings as show for other white folks. The tortures, the procedures, and their later images sent powerful messages to the white people about their alleged racial supremacy. These exhibitions generated and propagated representations of black inferiority and white superiority, of black wickedness and white harmony, which served to implant and reinforce a sense of racial domination in their white audiences (Pfeiffer (a) 94). Hence lynching was successful in acting out and preserving white supremacy not merely because African Americans were it victims but also because white folks were its audiences. Even though lynching is at the heart of a long custom of American vigilantism, lynching grew considerably in both prevalence and severity after the Reconstruction and Civil War, reaching its peak from the latter part of the 19th century through the 20th century. During this period, lynching became a largely racialized practice, as southern white folks tried to regain their power in the face of the possibility of social independence, enfranchisement, and emancipation of African Americans (Pfeiffer (b) 21-22). Verifying the precise number of lynchings that were performed in the 20th century is a very difficult undertaking, because the definition of lynching was largely contested, and groups like the Chicago Tribune, the Tuskegee Institute, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held different forms of documentations. Furthermore, numerous lynchings were not documented (Pfeifer (b) 22). In spite of these setbacks, it was determined that southern white mobs slaughtered roughly 3,200 African Americans between 1880 and 1940 (Wood 3). White mobs in the south in the 20th century tended to lynch their African American victims publicly and with great intensity, inflicting extraordinary tortures. Definitely, not every lynching took place in the south. Lynchings were performed and justified in astonishingly the same manner across sectional boundaries and states (Waldrep (a) 53). Mobs also victimized white people; Native Americans; immigrants; and black women in massive numbers (Waldrep (a) 53-54). Nevertheless, racial violence escalated at the turn of the 20th century not because communities in the south were isolated from contemporary practices and institutions but because they were going through an unsure and uneasy transition into urban, modernized societies. The insecurities and wreckage of the rural economy after the Civil War forced a growing population of African Americans, white people, and southerners, to abandon farming, and as investment from the north flowed into the south, urban areas expanded (Hollars 82). The most stunning lynchings occurred not in the back roads or rural areas but in the newly constructed urban spaces, where mobs lynched their victims publicly. Even the smallest communities were going through the process of urbanization (Berg 61). They were undergoing transformations that white folks often praised as progressive while grieving over what they witnessed as the detrimental impacts of such transformation on the social order. The severity and urgency of violence inflicted by white southerners against suspected black offenders arose from fears and uncertainties that urbanization and modernization created. The growth of commercial markets for agricultural products, and the emergence of new industries, generated new employment opportunities and disorder in cities and towns. In this newly constructed setting, established forms of power—the planter leaders, the church, the patriarch—were challenged, and established concepts of community became obsolete (Wood 5). This new social structure greatly intimidated white supremacy, as urbanized areas and institutions drew African Americans and white people together in new forms of transactions and relationships, and as countless African Americans demanded for the same civil liberties and legal rights given to white people (Pinar 66). It was in reaction to such changes that white people in the south aimed to reclaim their racial rights and power through Jim Crow decrees and through the organized marginalization and disempowerment of previous slaves and their kin (Wood 5-6). Numerous white southerners conveyed their anxiety about political and economic disorders and interferences, as well as the weakening of personal security and morality. To be precise, in the midst of New South’s commotions, white southerners claimed that, in particular, their physical and moral status was threatened. Industries attracted workers—typically young, single males, white and black—into urban areas, and these males tend to perpetrate criminal acts, participate in violence, and engage in adverse habits like sexual activities, gambling, and drinking, that the middle-class people considered socially threatening and corrupt (Waldrep (b) 44). Establishments like whore houses, clubs, and taverns multiplied to indulge these newcomers and rendered immoral acts and criminal behavior even more obvious and dangerous. The bigger injustices of white southerners against and distrusts of black people inevitably pervaded their concerns about moral vices and misdemeanor. Numerous white southerners deeply thought that this new setting had let loose a natural inclination for sexual misbehavior and violence in black men (Waldrep (b) 44-45). Reports of black transgression and moral neglect flooded southern publications, which further provoked racial panic. It was in this situation of intensified fear that white people in the south felt obliged and reasonable to lynch black people with uninhibited violence. Lynchings had a tendency to take place in areas that were already struggling with issues of criminal acts and apprehensions about moral degeneration, where lynchings were viewed to be reasonable and justified disciplinary measure against horrible crimes, a way to guarantee not only white supremacy but the bigger moral and social stability (Wood 8). It was also in this situation that the image of the black savage rapist, who longed to assault and harass white women, took over the imagination of white southerners. Even though majority of lynchings did not arise from accusations of black sexual violence, the apparition of sexually violated white women rest at the heart of pro-lynching discourse and encouraged the most haunting lynching events. The image of the black rapist was situated at the core of the issue—that black independence not merely undermined the authority of white males over African Americans but endangered their authority over their own possessions and households (Berg 107). According to Markovitz (2004), lynching was hence more than a white privilege; it was a patriarchal obligation within which white males regained their masculine supremacy. Apprehensions about physical and moral security also explain why a huge number of middle-class people watched and took part in lynchings with much passion and violence. Certainly, lynch mobs involved white southerners from different socioeconomic classes, depending on the place and the conditions surrounding the incident, and lynching continued through the implicit involvement and patronage of elites (Wood 8). On the other hand, mobs at public lynchings tended to be governed by workers. These were members of the middle class who were newcomers to the economy of the south, taking part in jobs associated with commercial and industrial venture. Normally young and lately resettled from the country, they had a great deal to gain from the New South’s evolving economy. Even though not rich, they were not directly threatened economically by African American men, nor were they at the mercy of black labor (Wood 8-9). Still, they were worried about their own economic status, particularly in the midst of the economic instability of this period. Even though not essentially intimidated economically by African American men, a large number of white middle classes did sense a strong physical and personal threat from them. They sensed an intense necessity to sustain a rigid racial hierarchy and to guarantee that the authority of white men was respected in their communities. They were hence the most likely to display fury over the proliferation of crime and moral collapse, which they viewed as direct attacks on their homes, nobility, and integrity (Holmes & Smith 87). These anxieties about their own social and personal security finally encouraged them to attack violently the objects of their fear. Contemporary scholars have claimed that lynching continued through a network of contemporary media and consumption practices that commodified and perpetuated the violence of white people for the general public. Within this perspective, such practices contributed much to the creation of a national acceptance of such violence by making it look like a normal feature of contemporary life—but another remote and gripping display that may be consumed and afterward ignored (Pinar 118). However, even though cities and towns in the south were reeling into modernity in this time, they were absolutely not modern, urban areas, and white people in the south were barely modern, urban entities. These were groups in the middle of social disorder and turmoil. The lynching display did not indicate the integration of southerners into contemporary commercial culture in so far as it represented this time of instability and transformation (Pinar 118-119). Indeed, even though the number of spectators at lynchings grew in the latter part of the 19th century and the intensity of the violence definitely varied, there was nothing especially new about the practice of lynching. It did not appeal to contemporary display in so far as it did earlier practices of display and custom—not merely vigilante traditions but religious rituals, public executions, and parades (Wood 10). To bring back a sense of order security in the face of large-scale changes, white southerners resorted to traditional practices. By basing their violence on these established rituals, mobs made the persecution of African American men seem to be a justifiable, even traditional, reaction to social disruption and criminal behavior (Hollars 105). Urban life had definitely encouraged criminal behavior and had created new kinds of violence and fears, like riots, traffic and industrial mayhems. However, mostly, Americans at the latter part of the 20th century were more sheltered from the anguish and violence of human life. It was exactly because Americans do not see cruelty, torture, or death anymore on a daily basis. Lynching displays may mitigate numerous of the uncertainties that modern life had created. Modernity was, in any case, also characterized by a new cultural knowledge and fear about crowds, about the overcrowding and congregation of a huge number of people in the ever more packed out spaces of the city. The process of urbanization drew together groups of outsiders, across ethnic and racial terms, which seemed especially terrifying in the face of not merely personal transgressions but ‘mobbing’, civil strife, and riots (Wood 10-12). Even though they were not going through the process of urbanization to a similar extent that their counterparts in bigger urban areas were, southerners in cities did have these same fears for crowds and social blending (Berg 129). According to Markovitz (2004), new rules emerged in these locations to regulate crowds and lessen disruption and commotion, not merely through Jim Crow laws that divided racial groups but also through, for instance, the banning of public executions. Conclusions Mass lynchings stemmed from anxieties over social chaos. This extreme violence erupted in the latter part of the 20th century. The lynching spectacle survived along the line dividing tradition and modernity. Lynching displays successfully organized white people in the south because spectators enthusiastically watched them. Fortunately, this form of barbarity waned and finally disappeared at the advent of the 21st century. Works Cited Berg, Manfred. Popular Justice: A History of Lynching in America. New York: Government Institutes, 2011. Print. Hollars, B.J. Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2011. Print. Holmes, Malcolm & Brad Smith. Race and Police Brutality: Roots of an Urban Dilemma. New York: SUNY Press, 2008. Print. Markovitz, Jonathan. Legacies of lynching: racial violence and memory. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Print. Pfeifer, Michael. The Roots of Rough Justice: Origins of American Lynching. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2011. Print. Pfeifer, Michael. Lynching Beyond Dixie: American Mob Violence Outside the South. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Print. Pinar, William. The Gender of Racial Politics and Violence in America: Lynching, Prison Rape & The Crisis of Masculinity. Michigan: University of Michigan, 2001, Print. Waldrep, Christopher. Lynching in America: A History in Documents. New York: NYU Press, 2006. Print. Waldrep, Christopher. African Americans Confront Lynching: Strategies of Resistance from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Era. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. Print. Wood, Amy Louise. Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Print. Read More