On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century

225 Pages·2007·1.46 MB·English

by  Sherrilyn A. Ifill

ON THE COURTHOUSE LAWN

ON THE
COURTHOUSE
L AWN
Confronting the Legacy of Lynching
in the Twenty-first Century
SHERRILYN A. IFILL
beacon press, boston
beacon press
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org
Beacon Press books
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 2007 by Sherrilyn A. Ifill
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 09 08 07 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.
Composition by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ifill, Sherrilyn A.
On the courthouse lawn : confronting the legacy of lynching in the twenty-first century /
Sherrilyn A. Ifill.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-8070-0987-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8070-0987-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Lynching—United States—History. 2. Lynching—Maryland—History. I. Title.
HV6457.I45 2007
364.1(cid:1)34—dc22 2006016618
All URLs noted herein were checked for accuracy prior to publication. However, Beacon
Press assumes no responsibility for the longevity, accuracy, or appropriateness of any external
or third-party Web sites referred to in this book.
For N, A, and J,
who make me dream of a better world,
and for Ivo,
with whom I share all my dreams

CONTENTS
introduction ix
part 1
A SEASON OF MADNESS: TWENTIETH-CENTURY
LYNCHING ON THE EASTERN SHORE
chap ter 1
A CONVERSATION ON RACE:
LYNCHING AND THE COURTHOUSE LAWN 3
chap ter 2
MOB RULE ON THE SHORE, 1931–1933 24
chap ter 3
A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE: ORDINARY PEOPLE
AND COMPLICITY IN LYNCHING 57
chap ter 4
“THE LAW IN ALL ITS MAJESTY” 74
chap ter 5
“SERVING THE PENINSULA”: LOCAL NEWSPAPERS
AND LYNCHING 105
part 2
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION FOR LYNCHING
IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
chap ter 6
RECONCILIATION AND LYNCHING IN
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT 117
chap ter 7
BREAKING THE SILENCE: “WORDS ARE
THE MOST POWERFUL TOOLS OF ALL” 132
chap ter 8
CONFRONTING THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS
IN RACIAL/ETHNIC VIOLENCE 154
chap ter 9
RECONCILIATION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 173
acknowledgments 177
note s 179
index 192
i n t r o d u c t i o n
The experiences that moved me to write this book are sprinkled over my
seventeen years as a civil rights lawyer. First, at the NAACP Legal De-
fense and Educational Fund, the nation’s premier civil rights law firm, and
later as a law professor, I have represented communities struggling with
the problem of race. As a civil rights lawyer, my job has been to translate
those problems into cognizable legal claims. Early on, I discovered that
this was no easy task. My clients’ claims of discrimination often repre-
sented the culmination and crystallization of decades, sometimes cen-
turies, of halting, painful, and mostly unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a
place of dignity, equality, and power within their communities. And in re-
lating this complex and painful history to me, my clients—from Okla-
homa to Maryland—inevitably told me something about lynching.
Until recently, few Americans, black or white, fully realized the wide-
spread and pervasive reality of lynching in our nation’s history. Now,
thanks to some excellent books published in the last few years and an ex-
hibit of lynching photos that has toured the country since 2001, those who
want to know about this dark chapter in American history know that
during the first half of the twentieth century lynching was, as historian
Frank Shay observed, “as American as apple pie.” Even more powerful, the
lynching of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, in 1998 and that of Matthew
Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, a year later compelled blacks and whites
in communities throughout the United States to recall their own history of
lynching. From Utah to Minnesota to Florida, long-repressed memories
of this uniquely American form of terrorism were fanned into flame.
But as the collective memory of systematic racial terrorism awoke
throughout the country, communities found that no formal mechanisms
existed to assist blacks and whites in coming to terms with the legacy of
lynching. Some discovered that talking about lynching was a surefire way
to surface long-simmering racial conflicts. President Clinton’s call to have
a national conversation on race in 1994 and his appointment of the One
America Commission to explore the issue of race might have provided an
opportunity to face this di~cult history, but lynching was strangely absent
