lynching
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Court Upholds Ruling to Unseal Grand Jury Testimony in 1946 Moore's Ford Lynching
More than 50 years after the death of two black couples who were mobbed, dragged, tied and shot 60 times by a group of white men nearly 60 miles from Atlanta, answers may finally be available. Monday, the 11th circuit of the United States Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that ordered the…
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Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith Is So Racist…But How Racist Is She?
I’ve always wanted to be a comedian. In fact, let me try out a few of my jokes here with y’all: Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is so racist… How racist is she? Cindy Hyde-Smith is so racist that she wants to sit up front at a public lynching! Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is so racist…..…
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Danye Jones' Death Is Being Investigated as a Suicide. But His Mother, a Ferguson Activist, Says It's a Lynching
A rally and news conference have been organized today by the family of Danye Jones, a 24-year-old man who was found dead, hanging from a tree on his family’s property, earlier this month. St. Louis County says they are investigating Jones’ death as a suicide. But his mother, Melissa McKinnies, a prominent protester who helped…
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Judge of Characters: Does Justice Have a Shelf Life?
Here’s the thing about justice: it’s rare that people of color ever get to see it in action because it usually doesn’t work in our favor. What’s even more frustrating and disheartening is when said justice comes over 60 years later and everyone involved, but one person, is dead. Such may be the case for…
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‘If God Is White, Kill God’: Why Dr. James Cone Was Once the Most Hated Theologian in America
I had just returned to New York City from delivering the 2018 Trout Lectures at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, when I received word that my beloved professor, now colleague and friend, Dr. James Hal Cone had died. In 2012, Dr. Cone had been invited to lecture at Trinity Lutheran but had to cancel…
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Lynching 2.0: White Family Charged With Murdering 2 Black Men, Dismembering Bodies
After a four-day search, Moore, Okla., police have charged a man and his brother, their mother and the mother’s boyfriend with murdering a pair of 21-year-old black men, sawing the bodies into pieces and tossing the dismembered corpses into a nearby pond. According to WJLA-TV, when Alize Ramon Smith and Jarron Moreland were reported missing…
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Ohio Teacher Keeps Job After Telling Black Student Classmates Would ‘Lynch’ Him if He Didn’t Behave
Renee Thole, a middle school social studies teacher who told a 13-year-old black student that he would be lynched if he didn’t behave, will not be suspended or fired. According to Cincinnati.com, Thole, who teaches at Mason Middle School in Mason, Ohio, made the comment in December. Thole submitted a statement during the district’s investigation…
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New York Man Broke Into Black Neighbor’s Home, Threatened to Lynch Him With Chain: Report
A 32-year-old Lyons, N.Y., man is facing multiple charges, including one pertaining to a hate crime, after authorities say that he broke into his black neighbor’s home, hurled racially motivated threats at the man and even used a chain hung over a tree to suggest a lynching. According to the Finger Lakes Times, Adam J.…
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Burning Jerseys: The Distant Cousin of Lynching
There is something cleansing about fire. It marks at once both an ending and a beginning. There are two sides to fire: There’s violence and destruction, and there’s the reassurance and protection—each one as powerful as the other. We burn things: wood, garbage, forests, food. It signals the end of one cycle and the restart…
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Parents of Teen Accused of Nearly Hanging 8-Year-Old Say It Was an ‘Accident’ (and They Have Black Family, Too)
In what may be a classic case of CYCA (insert “child’s” into usual abbreviation), the parents of the young teen involved in what many call an attempted lynching in Claremont, N.H., have spoken out, saying that their son is innocent of racially taunting and trying to hang an 8-year-old boy from a tree. Going on…