At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America

At Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America Philip Dray Random House, 2002 There is no subject that lends itself more to anti-American (and, most recently, anti-white) alienation than lynching. The scenes, after all, were often of utmost cruelty. No decent individual, sensitive to human suffering, undertakes to defend that cruelty. It is unfortunate, however, if that means that no one is willing to speak defense of mainstream of American society during century following 1865, placing this very cruel subject context and perspective. Such a failure leaves field to those who like to paint picture of white Americans of that period as one of viciousness, rapacity, unbridled racism, and hypocrisy; and who like to picture blacks as who received brunt of that cruelty. This latter view has long-since become conventional wisdom among opinion-makers United States. And elsewhere, as well: this reviewer wrote a legal studies monograph 19951 analyzing history of lynching and placing it perspective from a scholarly point of view - and it has been barred from Canada as hate literature (an act that is arguably as intellectually disgraceful to Canada as Stalin's insistence on Lysenkoism to Soviet Union). Herbert Marcuse's prescription, his discussion of repressive tolerance, that all views from left should be permitted and all from right prohibited has become reality. Philip Dray's new book on lynching fits into that conventional wisdom. Unless one is predisposed to question Left's image of white Americans, a reader will be inclined to accept its narrative at face value. Dray has written a readable chronology of lynching, with emphasis especially on South, and his study is product of considerable research into subjects he considers important. This said, it remains important to note ways his book lacks perspective. (What follows is a discussion of just some of those ways, since a complete examination of them would go far beyond scope of a book review): 1. His entire theme (the lynching of black America) repeats now-customary premise that lynching primarily an expression of racism. he says, was a form of caste oppression... white world's cruelty; and, elsewhere, victims were chosen for their race. What is odd is that he cites quite a lot of counter-evidence, but never reflects about it. He tells about San Francisco Vigilante Committees of 1851 and 1856; about hanging of white gamblers Vicksburg; about lynching of eleven whites New Orleans 1891 after Police Superintendent shot from ambush; that half thirty lynch Illinois after 1882 were white; that thirty-five whites were lynched North Dakota mid-1880s for cattle rustling; and much more. Lynching not limited by race or by region of country. Robert Zangrando's The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 19091950, cites figures compiled by Tuskegee Institute: that during 87 year span between 1882 and 1968 a total of 1,297 whites and 3,445 blacks were lynched. If racism were prime mover, almost 1,300 whites require some explanation. The major explanation as an alternative to racial one is amount of crime to which local communities were reacting. We know, of course, of cattle-rustling and other crimes committed wild west. What most people today don't know about is extent of black crime South. In his book on lynching, James Elbert Cutler quotes with favor a statement that during those years the worst instincts of negro came to front; percentage of criminals among negroes increased to an alarming extent; many were guilty of crimes of violence of most heinous and repulsive kind. Another author tells that in 1921-22, homicide rates Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans per 100,000 Negro population were 103. …

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