They became widely practiced in the US south from roughly 1877, the end of post-civil war reconstruction, through 1950. Claude McKay lays forth how he feels about the act of lynching by discussing the salvation of everyone involved. You can view my latest work below. The Memphis journalist Ida B Wells was the most strident and devoted anti-lynching advocate in US history, and spent a 40-year-career writing, researching and speaking on the horrors of the practice. The Harlem Renaissance poet Dorothea Mathews also published a poem entitled "The Lynching" in Opportunity in 1928, and a comparison of the two poems provides a powerful illustration of the different ways writers chose to represent the horrors of lynching in verse. The mob turned the act into a symbolic rite in which the black victim became the representative of his race and, as such, was being disciplined for more than a single crime The deadly act was [a] warning [to] the black population not to challenge the supremacy of the white race.. McKay promotes this idea through his use of diction in the terms dreadful thing and fiendish glee, and through alliteration in the phrase little lads, lynchers McKay really drives in the sense of disgust the reader should feel with the women and children being desensitized to the hate-driven murder of a man, with the ending of his poem. A freedom that McKay still sees to be false in 1920 when lynchings were still occurring. The way the content is organized. Jews in North America Christianity Du Bois: "A Forum of Fact and Opinion: Race Prejudice in Nazi Germany", Robert Durr: Oh, Church Wake Up, For the Sake of Peace. Strange Fruit was written during a decade when activist organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were pressing lawmakers to make lynching a federal crime. Fort Bend County announced on Monday a $4 million investment for the creation of a new African-American Memorial at a park in Kendleton . Americans abroad activism One woman held her little girl up so she could get a better view of the naked Negro blazing on the roof, wrote Arthur Raper in The Tragedy of Lynching. group violence Quoted by Dorian Lynskey, "Strange Fruit: The First Great Protest Song," The Guardian, February 15, 2011. McKay continues on to say that day dawned and mixed crowds came to view, referring to the kairos of the moment where, other African Americans could come to see the body, whereas the night before it would not have been as safe for them to be there. "If We Must Die" and "The Lynching" take advantage of the use of analogies and vivid imagery specifically to emphasize the . Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. The awful sin was the victims skin color, which remained unforgiven by the men who hanged him; its interesting how McKay uses the term awful sin because sin is something you commit, and the victims skin color was nothing in his control. Opening lines emphasize ascendency of spirit, from the "swinging char" to the father in heaven in whose bosom the hanged man will dwell. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1699 titles we cover. . The poems context on the surface is that of a lynching taking place. group violence, type: In order to settle a razor-thin and contested presidential election between the Republican Rutherford B Hayes and the Democrat Samuel Tilden, northern Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the last of the formerly renegade states. In the year before McKay published "The Lynching," 76 black men and women were lynched, the highest number in 15 years, and records suggest that 4,743 people3,446 of them blackwere lynched between 1882 and 1968, though many lynchings also went. McKay completes his poem by talking about the lack of white sympathy. This is followed with McKay again setting the scene saying the ghastly body swaying in the sun, thus re-humanizing the victim, as people who cared about them came to see them the following day. The title announces the event described in the poem: the lynching of a black man, already burned to a char by an angry mob. The white people wont stand this sort of thing, and the response will be prompt and effectual. I have to agree This analysis of the poem did help out with my understanding of the poem. Pamphlet, tags: community, tags: Analysis of an Argument: "The Lynching" by Claude McKay Claude McKay's sonnet "The Lynching", was published within the Harlem Renaissance and antilynching movements with intent to disclose the truly abhorrent nature of lynchings, and their effect on the posterity of the United States. antisemitism McKay uses diction and rhetorical synonym in lines five through seven to infer to his argument that the white man is playing god during the lynching. When the lights came back on, she would be gone, thered be no encore, says Whitehead. This is pivotal because, from the perspective of the lyncher, black bodies were objects, used to teach youth, to blame and scapegoat. The poem became most famous as a song performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 and played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement. The next three lines (eight through ten) as an interesting way to provide a setting and also show the contrast between how the perpetrators saw the victim the night of the lynching, as an object, and how the next day other African Americans would come to see the horror and feel for the humanity of the victim. The Lynching, a poem written by Claude McKay, was named after the horrendous act that kept black communities terrorized in the segregated south. White planters had long used malevolent and highly visible violence against the enslaved to try to suppress even the vaguest rumors of insurrection. But eventually, Holiday's 1939 recording of the song sold a million copies and became her best-selling record. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. And never more shall leaves come forth. I like the connection that you made between God and the victims. McKay used these lines as a means to talk about the objectification of black bodies in the lynching, and contrast it with the shock of the next day. tags: These blue eyes are not seen as being beautiful but instead lifeless. Washington, DC 20024-2126 Fate is a rhetorical synonym for a god figure, and man is thus playing god when he determines the awful sin that still remained unforgiven, and leaving the victim to Fates wild whim. McKays use of diction in these lines really forces the reader to face the idea that the white man plays god when he participates in lynchings. But the audience response at Caf Society was thunderous, and Holiday soon embraced the song as her own. The trope of the hypersexual and lascivious black male, especially vis-a-vis the inviolable chastity of white women, was and remains one of the most durable tropes of white supremacy. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! The next three lines (eight through ten) as an interesting way to provide a setting and also show the contrast between how the perpetrators saw the victim the night of the lynching, as an object, and how the next day other African Americans would come to see the horror and feel for the humanity of the victim. Adding to the macabre nature of the scene, lynching victims were typically dismembered into pieces of human trophy for mob members. Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, blues legend Billie Holiday sang in her powerful 1939 recording of the song, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. The songs lyrics portray the everyday violence that was being inflicted on Black people. The police claimed they were unable to stop a mob from breaking into the jail and removing the prisoners. McKay uses kairos and allusion to propose this connection between Christ and the victim. th were seen as ritualistic deaths of innocent parties. His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven, (line 1) McKay could have taken the direction of describing the death of the lynching victim, of the moment when his life was taken, but rather he chooses to describe his spirit as smoke ascending to high heaven. This alludes the reader to the idea of the victim as a Christ figure, as Christ ascended to heaven in the Bible. Youre right, this picture is very graphic, but I think it really drives home the image connected to fiendish glee. In your post, you attribute the use of religious rhetoric to the salvation of everyone involved, and the awful sin a reference to the sin of blacks being sinful in the eyes of whites. I think this is a great example of close reading, however, I tend to think that McKays use of religious concepts were in complete mockery of the religious connection to the justification of slavery. What year was the lynching written? Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet, who was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Shipp and Smith, along with a third teenager, James Cameron, were accused of murdering a white factory worker during an armed robbery and raping his female companion. Full Transcript of "Lynching Black People Because They Are Black" American Protest Literature. Claude McKay. This is evident in the lines that state that [h]is father, by the cruelest way of pain,/ had bidden him to his bosom once again;(McKay 2-3). The him is referring to the African American race as a whole. The era of "Reconstruction" following the end of the American Civil War in 1865 was marked by modest progress toward Black Americans' economic and social equality, including access to voting rights. PDF downloads of all 1699 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. the poplar trees. Jews in North America Displaced Persons The poem first opens by describing the spirituality experienced by the victim. Jews in North America A fascinating article about Billie Holiday's relationship with Meeropol's poem. The first tree lines of the poem portray the victim as a Christ . But foregrounding the intense new waves of brutality that would greet the nascent civil rights movement, Tuskegee continued in its final lynching report that the terror was switching modes by the development of other extra-legal means of control, such as bombings, incendiarism, threats and intimidation. Similar events, from the New York draft riots during the civil war to others in New Orleans, Knoxville, Charleston, Chicago, and St Louis, saw hundreds of blacks killed. McKay provides this to compare the lynching with the death of Christ; as bo. The Memphis Evening Scimitar published in 1892: .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Aside from the violation of white women by Negroes, which is the outcropping of a bestial perversion of instinct, the chief cause of trouble between the races in the South is the Negros lack of manners. To bookmark items, please log in or create an account. The EJI, which relied on the Tuskegee numbers in building its own count, integrated other sources, such as newspaper archives and other historical records, to arrive at a total of 4,084 racial terror lynchings in 12 southern states between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and 1950, and another 300 in other states. The victim ascends to heaven while being welcomed by his Father. Although the number of lynchings in the United States began to go down around the turn of the 20th century, the years 1933 to 1936 saw an increase in these racially motivated murders. Furthermore, McKay uses enjambments throughout his poem in order to emphasize the writing in every line. women's experiences. Postcards bearing a photograph of a lynching were popular souvenirs and sent through the US mail without penalty. In McKays poem, the sonnet form and bitter tone serve as an indictment of the perverse love of lynching in the U.S. Despite the shift, the specter of ritual black death as a public affair one that people could confidently participate in without anonymity and that could be seen as entertainment did not end with the lynching era. McKay's poem addresses not only the cruelty of the early to mid 1900s but also the way in which racism, ignorance and violence is passed from one generation to the next. When McKay writes of the spirit rising to high heaven, the star abiding over the scene, the womens blue eyes, or the children who see the corpse, he uses images with strong connotations of love, purity, and hope. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The lynching victim dies for no reason of his own wrongdoing, he dies at the hands of racist men who were looking to scapegoat for their troubles. We see an appeal to pathos in this allusion because the reader is meant to feel sorrow for the victim, to feel in the loss of their life at the ignorance of man. This then brings the reader back to the idea of how can a man determine what is divine law, and is man then playing god? letters & correspondence, type: Historians broadly agree that lynchings were a method of social and racial control meant to terrorize black Americans into submission, and into an inferior racial caste position. Thronged was an interesting word choice in this statement, as thronged refers to a group of people pressed to see something. View the list of all donors and contributors. The poem became most famous as a song performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 and played a . The move technically only affected South Carolina and Louisiana but symbolically gestured to the south that the north would no longer hold the former Confederacy to the promise of full citizenship for freed blacks, and the south jumped at the chance to renege on the pledge. More often than not, victims would be dismembered and mob members would take pieces of their flesh and bone as souvenirs. Fate is a rhetorical synonym for a god figure, and man is thus playing god when he determines the awful sin that still remained unforgiven, and leaving the victim to Fates wild whim. McKays use of diction in these lines really forces the reader to face the idea that the white man plays god when he participates in lynchings. EMBED TWEET HERE. It is obvious from the title of Claude McKays 1920 poem entitled Lynching, that it is heavily reflective of the the historical context of the time. With lynchings, the victims would be accused of crimes, often petty or false, and hung from trees as a way of a ritual with groups watching. In October 1939, a music critic for theNew York Post wrote of "Strange Fruit": "If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its Marseillaise. Meeropol's Inspiration They even performed it at Madison Square Garden with the blues song vocalist Laura Duncan. Get the entire guide to Strange Fruit as a printable PDF. One of the reasons that this poem is so chilling is because of the response to the lynching. Among them was the director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger. 19 Sept. 2016. According to EJI, of all lynchings committed after 1900, only 1% resulted in a lyncher being convicted of a criminal offense of any kind. I like how you noted that the syllables set a pace for the reader and create pauses in order to emphasize the writing in each line. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became the primary targets of white Southerners. As a young woman she travelled the south for months, chronicling lynchings and gathering empirical data. Los Angeles County agreed Tuesday to pay $28.85 million to Vanessa Bryant after members of the sheriff's department shared graphic photos of the 2020 helicopter . He then describes the indifferent crowds that come to see the remains and the children that play happily around the body the following morning. Their blue eyes are emotionless, and like the children, they have become desensitized to the severity of the lynching. . Lynchings slowed in the middle of the 20th century with the coming of the civil rights movement. The Lynching essays are academic essays for citation. community There wasnt even a patter of applause when I finished. She would be off the stagethat was her requestbut she wanted to just let the song hang there. In the aftermath of the presidential election of 1876, Southern states gained greater autonomy and shifted away from the federal reforms aimed at the emancipation of former slaves. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem. The situation of a man being hung for something he could not control is used to make the reader feel guilt. McKays connections between the historical moment of Christs death and the death of the lynching victim was an appeal to pathos made through comparison and kairos. African-Americans continue to struggle for equality, especially in education and healthcare. Americans abroad Trodd, Zoe. His father, by the cruelest way of pain, Had bidden him to his bosom once again; The awful sin remained still unforgiven. McKay uses kairos and allusion to propose this connection between Christ and the victim. Calling the deceased swinging char was an important use of diction to create an image and perspective. The title announces the event described in the poem: the lynching of a black man, already burned to a char by an angry mob. Upon her release, Holiday was barred from securing acabaret performers license. Not affiliated with Harvard College. In his poem "The Lynching," Claude McKay uses the event of a black man being lynched to highlight the racism and gruesome acts of violence committed against blacks in America during the early twentieth century. In the Bible, Christ is crucified for claiming to be the son of God; he is hung on the cross in a ceremonial setting with crowds watching. McKay says in the fourth line the, awful sin remained still unforgiven as another Biblical allusion, but also as a paradoxical statement. Even when it is possible that some of the whites may not agree with this gruesome act, they will not defy the social protocol. This article was amended on 1 May 2018 to correct the date of the 1811 New Orleans slave rebellion. I thought the blue eyes also symbolized that the woman was white also which you did make apparent in your analysis. While McKay's "The Lynching" is the most famous poem with that title, it is also not the only one. Then Holiday would sit by herself on a stool with only the mic and a pin spotlight on her face as she sang. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. McKay describes the womens eyes as being steely blue to highlight the reason behind what their hatred really stems from; different physical traits. visual art, tags: Change). McKay provides this to compare the lynching with the death of Christ; as both were seen as ritualistic deaths of innocent parties. During a time when violence against Black Americans was common, Holiday's haunting rendition of the song often left audiences uncomfortable. This poem is in the public domain. Nearly 30% were accused of murder. The exodus of some 6 million black Americans between 1910 and 1970 was pushed by racial terror and a waning agricultural economy and pulled by a surfeit of industrial job opportunities. And Holiday dared to perform itin front of Black and white audiences, alike. A valuable resource that looks at the history of lynching and racial hatred in the After almost 200 attempts in Congress to try and get anti-lynching legislation passed, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act was passed in 2022. Under the pseudonym, Lewis Allan, Meeropol set his poem to music and performed Bitter Fruit as a protest song in the New York area alongside his wife Anne. White planters had long used malevolent and highly visible. This sin is probably from the believe that blacks were black due to Gods cursing of Ham. In the book The Cross and the Lynching Tree, the author describes how the cross in Christianity directly relates to the tree where black people were often lynched. Finally, the exclusion of lynched women inadvertently masks the epidemic of racialized sexual violence experienced by many . Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. It has been covered by many artists since, including Nina Simone. The owner was turned down by eBay when he wanted to sell it there. From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922) edited by James Weldon Johnson. But the NAACPs efforts were continually knocked downby white supremacists in the Democratic Party who used filibusters to defeat any such bills. However, the lynching of Black women was significant. 3 See also the lynching report from the Equal Justice initiative. poetry & literature Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2006. Newspaper Article, tags: again, playing on pathos by making the reader feel distraught that young children would find amusement in dancing around the corpse, and by the perpetuation of a hate culture. poetry & literature I really like the very last few sentences you made in regard to social customs versus conscience. Meeropol was the child of Jewish immigrants who had fled pogroms in Russia, and his activism was inspired by his family's history facing antisemitic violence and hatred. Holiday may not have predicted the impact her Time magazine review would have, but she did understand the power of the song. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Lynching by Claude McKay. A fascinating article about Billie Holiday's relationship with Meeropol's poem. Listen to Holiday's famous sung version of the poem. Du Bois: "The Negro and the Warsaw Ghetto", Albert Barnett: Negro Workers Leave the South; Displaced by DPs in the North, "Can America Afford to Condemn Hitler for His Racial Policies? refugees & immigration, tags: Americans abroad In this case, there is a fine line between being accepted by your race or doing whats right. I am a multimedia journalist with a passion for telling diverse stories using a variety of technology. He also points out how during this time period this was an act that was accepting. She worried that the customers at the nightclub came simply to be entertained and would not be receptive to a political song. And we think about Black women at that time as just big singers, but I dont think we talk enough about them using their platform to make a stand against injustice, and then the cost and the price that they paid doing that., A Time magazine critic witnessed Holidays performance and wrote a column on it, featuring pictures of Billie Holiday along with the lyrics to the song. Mathew's short lyric is as follows: While McKay and Mathewss poems both come to similar conclusions, the two poems aim to elicit quite different emotional responses, and they deploy their poetic resources in dissimilar ways. McKay wants his readers to understand that societal beliefs and customs are not always what is best or right. All night a bright and solitary star (Perchance the one that ever guided him, Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim) Eventually many white publications began to turn with overall white attitudes about lynching. Additionally, he wants the readers to realize the danger of treating something as gruesome as lynching as a common part of society. In August 2022, Bryant was awarded roughly $16 million in federal court as part of the lawsuit. Racial crimes and lynchings occurred throughout the country even up until 1955 with the Emmett Till Case. Holiday went on to record Strange Fruit with the Commodore Records jazz label on April 20, 1939. . Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Readers were compelled to feel sorrow for the victim, to see how lynchings provided white man an opportunity to play god, and understand how black bodies were objectified during this time, all through McKays use of pathos, kairos and allusions to Christianity. (Upon the lynching of Mary Turner) Oh, tremble, Little Mother, For your dark-eyed, unborn babe, Whom in your secret heart you've named The well-loved name of "Gabe." 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