Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America

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I found the introductory essay of this book, by Leon Litwack, to be really informative; it was very well footnoted with historical references, and describes the culture of lynching in the South, and its basis in white fear of blacks. So Atlanta was enraged and thrilled with the possibility of a Yankee Jew, dirty Jew, wealthy man, to take out their hatred and complaints on. Some things I learned from Without Sanctuary that did away with some misconceptions I had about this shameful part of our country: a) lynching did not die out after 1920. What is almost more horrible than the pictures of the corpses is the faces of the spectators at these scenes of ritual violence. Spoiler must of the time in the book you will se white people smiling while the brothas are bieng hanged, that should tell you something!

ALLEN: We went to gun shows, as we also go to Civil War shows, because we realized early on that there were still, and I put this in quotes, "defenders of the Southern way of life" who see violence and African-Americans -- violence as appropriate and African-Americans as unstable aspects of American life, and less valued than whites. Fifteen thousand people would have been a tremendous amount, percentage, of the population of that county to be there at that incident, and the mayor's main concern during the incident was that the tree, the central oak tree, that it -- what they used to chain him to and to raise him in and out of the fire so they could prolong his death, would not be harmed.C., on June 13 at a news conference with Senate sponsors of the resolution as well as survivors and family members of lynching victims. And that, those things are a direct outcome of this period where the law in the communities sanctioned violence against African-Americans. Most of the pictures of lynchings are pictures of men being lynched, but there are a couple of women. So said a nine-year-old child to his mother, on his way back from witnessing a public lynching in the late 1800s, once upon a time in America.

Allen for bringing these postcards and photos to our faces, so that this pornography of evil, stupidity, self-righteousness and barbarism can be seen for what it was, what it is, and what it still might be, so we can say "Never Again" to this Holocaust too. Get some friends and put together a discussion group around the reading, and bring lots of napkins, and expect surprises - especially when viewing the photos. We have a -- and it is in the exhibit -- we have a framed image of the lynching of Abram and Smith, two African-American men from Marion, Indiana. He was a white Northerner, industrialist, Jewish man who employed child labor in Atlanta, Georgia, where over 50 percent of the population in this industrial city lived without electricity or running water. GROSS: My guest, James Allen, has collected picture postcards of lynching in his new book, "Without Sanctuary.Several years later, we got the lynching postcard of Laura Nelson, and that made us aware of the fact that there was a tradition of this type of photography as well as violence. GROSS: You feel really awful looking at these lynching photographs, because they're so brutal, they're so grotesque. We have principles that should guide us, but that are honored as nice ideas but not as boundaries or even as goals.

And we as Americans need to think for ourselves, to question ourselves, where are the ideas in my head from? a question even more relevant today as anyone can be a witness (whether you want to or not) to brutality and murder via the internet. Perhaps they all have a single characteristic that is the most unsettling, and that is the nonchalance of the white men, rural-looking white men, canine thin, that amble about in the woods almost in total disregard to the corpse that's dangling between them. Just a terrible, tragic history that needs to be exposed so we can be reminded of what we do when our community approves of our monstrous behaviors.Editor James Allen, an American antique collector, includes nearly 100 images of lynchings in America from his own collection, including battleground cases such as the 1911 murders of Laura and Lawrence Nelson in Okemah, Oklahoma the lynching of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1935, and the infamous 1915 execution of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank in Marietta, Georgia. Would have been very painful, difficult for me to even say somebody was Jewish, because I'd be so afraid of hurting their feelings. NPR, CNN, CSPAN, New York Times, LA Times Frequently Asked Questions about Lynching: Q: What is a lynching? GROSS: Have you found postcards that were passed down as family memorabilia, where the families are still kind of proud to have them, proud of what they represent?