Laura Nelson was lynched on May 23, 1911 In Oklahoma. Her fifteen year old son was also lynched at the same time. Authorities accused her of killing a deputy sheriff who supposedly stumbled on some stolen goods in her house. Why they lynched her child is a mystery. The mob raped and dragged Nelson six miles to the Canadian River and hung her from a bridge.
Jesse Washington was a young Black teenage boy on his way home from school one day when a white police officer picked him up for questioning. A white woman in town had been raped and they were looking for a black man to pin it on. At the Sheriff station, young Jesse would be beaten and tortured until he signed a confession to the rape. There was absolutely no evidence and many of his friends and family said it was impossible he could have done it. The same day he would be tried in court and after four minutes of deliberation, he was found guilty. No more than three hours after the verdict, a White Mob would wrap a chain around his neck and drag him outside the courtroom to a waiting crowd. They cut off his penis and threw it into the cheering crowd along with his fingers and toes. Through all this, he was still alive. The mob would start a fire and hang young Jesse right over the flames. For over 2 hours, they would repeatedly raise and lower his body. After his body became too burnt, they cut him down and dragged him throughout the town. His body parts would be handed out to spectators as souvenirs that they could take home. It estimated that over 10,000 White residents gathered to watch the lynching including the mayor and sheriff. The rest of the crowd was local lawyers, police officers, teachers, and doctors. A White photographer took pictures of the attack and sold them as postcards for residents. In the end, the murder was deemed legal and nothing would happen to the killers. White people have never practiced Nonviolence.
This is real White History.
Written By @KingKwajo
Surely these are a reminder of wicked but legitimised crimes we do not want repeated (or lauded)?
These images are from another tumblr post:
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