Symbols of the Lynching Tree

“There existed a desire to preserve slavery in its original form as much as possible”. The enslavement of black people has yet to be abolished, has yet to be addressed on an institutional level. People will do anything to preserve what they see as the truth, and for white America, white identity, superiority, domination, and exploitation of black and brown individuals. From sharecropping, to convict leasing, and the racialization of criminality, black people have remained exploited, dehumanized, and oppressed economically, socially, mentally and physically. Deliberate actions by both the institution and foundations of America and its laws, people in power who sustain white supremacy, and the people who put them in power, have all contributed and continued slavery throughout generations. It is through racial bias within legislation and at the highest levels of power, that white supremacy has continued to economically oppress black communities and steady the white American economy. The dismantling of black communities has been the intention and continues to evolve with policy.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice was a very heavy, but touching tribute to those who have been victims of racial terror lynching. Over 4,000 black people have been lynched, in hundred of counties across the nation. Walking through, and reading all the names and counties actualized that number for me, actualized those people for me. In reflecting on lynching, I could not help but reflect on a novel I recently have been reading that has completely shifted my understanding on lynching as a symbolism both spiritually, and also in the lives of black Americans. Lynching was purposed to instil fear, but also maintain the social order and dominance of white people. Lynching was a public spectacle, to scare, and remind blacks of their powerlessness and inferiority. Innocent black people were used as an example to other blacks of what could be of them if they dare step out of the confinements given to them. While lynchings did instill fear, it also brought a message and symbol of hope and redemption to Christain black Americans, who’s savior, who’s God, was crucified, innocently, for all to watch and enjoy. The similarities in the crucifixion of Jesus and the lynchings of black Americans is vivid, and greatly explains how despite the lynching tree, black Americans were able to find hope in the cross. As described in James Cone’s novel “The Cross and the Lynching Tree”, the cross for black Americans was a religious symbol that “inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last words…” and that the lynching tree with the crucifixion cross were symbols that “represented both death and the promise of redemption, judgment and the offer of mercy, suffering and the power of hope”. To serve, believe and live for a religion where the salvation of man was granted as a result of a crucified God/savior, presents a new understanding of Jesus and the Christian faith to black Americans, who found the cross as a symbolism of power and life. The joining of the cross and the lynching tree also presents the theme of hypocrisy that reigns supreme throughout white supremacy. Cone highlights how contradictive, hypocritical, ignorant and evil it was for white Americans to support, enjoy and even perform acts of lynchings, in the name of a God, an individual, salvation and religion who’s foundation is in the crucifixion of their God. I believe that this understanding and use of comparing both the terror lynchings with Jesus Christ brings a deeper understanding of the horrors and pains of lynching, and also the influence faith has had on black perseverance and hope.

In all that I have read regarding the connections of the cross and lynching trees, and all that I know of the horrors of my people, my communities, I leave not only having a greater deal of faith in our continuous struggle and our ability to overcome, but continue to think about how my faith can be used to bring hope, life, and continued fight during such dark, terrible times of our nation.

Hope Hammond

A Tale of Two Tails

We are leaving Birmingham after a few days of hard (very hard) introspection. We have been gradually introduced or re-introduced to the violence that has been, an continues to be, subjected to Black America. The beginning of the tour introduced us to the violence against the non-violent movement; however, the time in Montgomery and Birmingham has been a time of remembering the senseless violence against humanity propagated by segregation. From harassment, rape and lynching, the power of systemic power reigned over anyone and everyone seen as the “other”. Yesterday was a face-to-face visit with that violence, violence against children in Birmingham. Children!

My Tale of Two Tales begins in February 2020 (just a few weeks before the pandemic). Kris and I traveled to Birmingham to watch our son compete in the Track and Field Conference Championships in the 400-meter dash for Belmont University. We were thrilled that he ran well enough to qualify for finals and would be competing the next day in the Open and the 4×400 relay. To fill our time that evening, we walked around a shopping area in a very nice (affluent) part of Birmingham and during our walk from one store to the other, Kris stopped. She stood and stared at a sculpture of little kids joyfully playing with a dog, the children giggling as the dog bounded behind them. She just stood there! Fast forward to yesterday! I know better (now) why she stood there. Just several miles away is Kelly Ingram Park that tells a very different story of kids and dogs. Just across from the 16th Street Baptist Church, in Kelly Ingram Park, stands a statue of a police dog being unleashed on a child. A scene of terror. Two pieces of art in the same city telling two tales.

Two Tails, one dog’s tail is raised in a playful posture. The pup dutifully and obediently frolics with the children and sets of tone of joy. The other dog’s tail is rigid with ire. The dog dutifully and obediently obeys the officer, jaws set, teeth exposed to attack and sets a tone of horror. Two Tales. Downtown in the park tells a story of remembrance, of a dark time in America and the other………I’m not sure. I just can’t help but think that the playful sculpture is a reminder, a reminder to forget. A subtle reminder. This sculpture, placed in a busy, affluent shopping area with all the high-end stores purposely or un-purposely dulls the reality of the city’s history. Two histories! Two tales. Two tails.

On the bus now and reflecting on my history (what are my two histories?), my tales (what two tales do I have or do I tell?) and what are my two tails doing (our dogs, Didier and Fiona). More so, in our politically divided nations, what two tales do we have and/or subscribe to? Poor/rich, uninsured/insured, hungry/satiated, anger/love? As Christians, how do we keep tales from dulling our senses so the nonsense does not disturb our soul.

H. Scott Kieffer

Day 5: No Tears Left to Cry

Today I was thankful for my mask that hid tears rolling down my cheeks as I walked through the Legacy Museum and experienced the moving presentations of the evil part of our history that has been glossed over and sanitized. Walls of glass jars filled with different colored dirt were labeled with the names of real people, fathers, brothers, husbands, wives, sisters and mothers who were lynched noting the place and date. I read statistics that were hard to read….by 1860 over 4 million Africans were enslaved…10,000 people attended a carnival-like lynching of John Hartfield, by 1898 70% of Alabama’s state revenue came from convict leasing…to statistics of present day mass incarceration with 50% in jail due to drug offenses with mandatory minimum sentences and an increase of incarcerated individuals growing from 300,000 in 1972 to over 2 million today.  Hearing stories of those who have been on death row and are innocent is heartbreaking and demonstrates that racial injustice continues within the criminal justice system.

As we arrived at our next stop, the National Memorial to Peace and Justice, I was overcome with emotions as I saw the hanging pillars, representing specific counties within different states, listing the names of human beings, created in the image of God, who were brutally lynched by hate-filled human beings also created in the image of God, for insignificant and harmless actions. My heart grieved the loss of these people, their dreams, hopes and unrealized accomplishments, and grieved for the loss to each of their family and friends.  My heart wept for the evil that was directed toward them and the people that were instruments of that evil.  My heart longed for healing and reconciliation for then and for now. I felt like I was walking on sacred ground.

We ended the day hearing first-hand accounts from Carolyn Maull McKinstry, a survivor of the 16^th St. Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, AL in 1963, and Lisa McNair, the sister of Denise McNair, one of the four girls killed in the bombing.   Carolyn shared how she was in a depression for almost 20 years trying to put together what she had been taught from the Bible and what she experienced that day.  Her definition of reconciliation was simply to “get rid of what’s between you and someone else”.  This simple act can reap fruit that brings healing.

The Legacy Museum ended with a walkway of exhibits including questions that gave me hope for change and concrete ways to act and not just absorb facts and history.  Asking questions can be a starting point for action and response – Should any child be sentenced to die in prison? What can we do about the school to prison pipeline? (what are new ways to address student discipline in schools with high suspension and expulsion rates?) What is being done for rehab of inmates? (in Norway where they emphasize such programs, the return to prison rate is 20% compared to the US where the rate is close to 70%).  And it ended with an interactive display with listings by states of organizations that you can get involved with to make a difference.  I checked out PA – check out your state and get involved!

Linda Poston

Day 5 – Strangely Familiar

“As a Christian people . . . it is the duty of the South to keep them in the present position, at any cost and at every peril.” – William McWillie (Governor of Mississippi 1857-59) 

“God never meant for America to be a melting pot to run out the line between the nations. That was not God’s purpose for this nation.” – Bob Jones (Evangelist in South Carolina) 

“Desegregation is against the Bible.” – Reverend William Carter (New Mexico) 

I was truly shocked when I came across these quotes from white leaders posted on a wall at the EJI Legacy Museum. I struggle to understand how Christian leaders and communities in the South at this time could condone, and even support, such violence towards the black community. As I considered these quotes, I couldn’t help but think about current events in our world and how the Christian community has responded to them. I see distinct parallels between the events of the Civil Rights Movement and the events of the past several years in the United States.  

As a Christian, I want to take a definitive stance on the issues of racism and human rights violations. I want the church to play an active role in condemning racist acts and loving those who have been oppressed. I look at the churches of the 1960s and think to myself “why didn’t they do anything?!” yet I sit in church with my fellow white Christians and never bring up the death of George Floyd. And it’s then that I must remind myself that, just because I am not experiencing racial bias does not mean that others nearby are not. Even if action is not important for my survival, it’s important for theirs.  

Jane Mylin

Day 4: Scaffolding

We began today touring the Rosa Parks Museum where we explored the history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. What particularly fascinated me was the involvement of every member of the community organizing in order to make the boycott sustainable for 381 days. The work of the community to provide an intricate transportation system capable of supplying the needs of the boycotters underlines how essential every person in the movement was.

I think the movement is often portrayed in a similar way to the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency. To summarize the theory quickly, it is the belief that the presidency can accomplish any tasks if they just try hard enough, much like the DC Superhero the Green Lantern who can make things out of nothing using only his mind and willpower. In my K-12 education, the movement was portrayed in a similar capacity where the movement was accomplished by the sheer willpower of Martin Luther King Jr. along with his leaders in the NAACP and the SCLC. I have learned these last few days that the movement was built, maintained, and continues by the power of individuals in their local communities.

Afterward, we traveled to Selma, where we met some of those individuals in a moment where John Lewis and Martin Luther King are often remembered. Joanne Bland, one of the original marchers on the infamous Bloody Sunday, showed us her hometown of Selma. We saw Brown Chapel AME Church, where the march from Selma to Montgomery began, and Ms. Bland had us grab rocks from the ground of where John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., and herself stood, and instructed us to always look at them to remember that we are history-makers.

Thus far I have carried many memories, books, and signatures, but now I will carry this physical element of the past. I would be remise to not at least mention that we had the opportunity to meet with Lynda Blackmon Lowery, who is Joanne’s sister and the youngest marcher. But what resonates with me the most is small pebble which has been treaded on countless times in the last 56 years. It is a living piece of history.

It is fitting that in my week of prayer, in which I have asked for wisdom as to how to carry-on the spirit of the movement, I have now received a part of this living history. This history lives because the movement and the heart of liberation has not yet come to a close. In a sense, we are all a part of a living history that is continually being added to. As we adopt the unfinished legacy, we ourselves become history-makers, and use that scaffolding for the future. I am thankful to now carry with me a piece of that scaffolding.

I pray now for that scaffolding which I cannot physically carry way. The pain and suffering of those brutalized by white supremacists and who suffered the trauma of segregation must be remembered. I pray for their memory to remain, because it is that memory which will determine me to ensure that the sins of my race are not repeated again, and to combat the present ones.

Matt Jenkins

Day 4 – Rocks

On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to join Joanne Bland and her sister Lynda Blackmon Lowery to hear their stories of marching in Selma in 1965. Both of their stories were very powerful. At one point during our tour with Joanne around Selma, she took us to a courtyard behind a small building and asked each of us to search for a little rock. Once we found our rocks, she asked us to hold them up. I was called up along with several others to stand next to her with my rock. She pointed to my bitty rock, explaining that it was a fragment of the rock that civil rights leader Hosea Williams stood on when he helped to lead the march from Selma to Montgomery. “He was a history maker,” she said, “will you be a history maker, too?” Joanne’s illustration reminded me that I need not be famous to influence history. As a young college student, I can influence history in my own way, even through small actions. I don’t necessarily have to be the person who leads a march or speaks in front of huge crowds. But I can be someone who supports these people and plants seed for change nonetheless.

Jane Mylin

Birmingham, AL

Today we visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum. I don’t know what I was expecting to see or feel before I visited these museums and memorials, but I certainly was not expecting the impact that it had on me. I was genuinely heartbroken seeing the abundance jars of soil from the lynching sites of various African Americans who were publicly killed due to false accusations made by white supremacists. I also was able to read letters from imprisoned victims asking Bryan Stevenson to represent them at court. What really shocked me was that some of the dates on the letters were from 2013. This is not a long time ago at all, and it is heartbreaking to see that even after all these years the systems corruption still impacts so many people brutally today. The dehumanization of these individuals was so saddening to see and hear because these people have endured so much. I was genuinely speechless and filled with tears after seeing these museums and memorials.

Hannah Kuruvilla

Day 5: Confronting Hatred

One of the major themes of this trip (aka the history of the civil rights movement of the 1950s-1960s) is facing and lamenting the depth of hatred in white American hearts towards black Americans. Today was an especially long day as we visited the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (which tell histories of past and present slavery and lynching), as well as the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (where 4 black girls were killed in a bombing in 1963), and Kelly Ingram Park (where Police Chief Bull Connor released dogs and fire hoses on children peacefully protesting).

Tonight we heard from two women who experienced and navigate lifelong trauma as a result of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. This serves as yet another reminder of just how desperately the U.S. needs to confront our history of racism, domestic terrorism, and violence. Other countries like Germany have lamented and repented of the sins of the Holocaust, but the U.S. has yet to do the same for the sins of slavery, lynching, and white supremacy. The intense hatred which made lynchings possible in this country from the 1870s through the 1950s has not disappeared. We are not that far removed from these racial acts of violence and public spectacle.

Sarah P. Myers

Fourth Day- Root cause

Another day to be equipped and learn more about American history. The day was filled with a lot of emotions as we were getting ready to learn more about the movement.

For me today, the question of the day was what the root cause of so much hatred that is between the color of our skins. I wrestled with this question a lot throughout the day trying to find answers, but it was hard.

We started the day by going to Troy University to the Rosa Parks Liberty and Museum. The courage and the will that this woman had been unmatched. Standing for what is right. Not only that but risking everything she had with her and her own life because during those times anything could have happened to her. Her act reminded me of the wise words by Dr. King, “faith is taking the first step, even when you can’t see the staircase.” She took that first step.

In the afternoon we met with the sheroes of Selma, Alabama. Joanne Bland and Lynda Blackmon Lowery. When with them we got a tour of the city and then go over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. These sisters went through a lot for their age. They never gave up or lost hope, but they kept fighting for the rights of not only themselves but for the people around them.

To think that at the age of 15 she had already been in prison 9 times, that fuels some type of opinion against the people who have oppressed you. The way they were brutally beaten as young teenagers but still go back over that bridge and match is a testimony to who they are and what they are fighting for.

As we walked over the bridge I was terrified of my own emotions. I was picturing 14-year-old Lynda with a beautiful smile, peacefully marching over the bridge all to be met by hateful spiteful people who treated them unfairly. I was asking myself that same question, what is the root cause of so much hatred.

After taking all this in and hearing the sisters talk, I know this is cliché but the answer I got was a sin. Sin has been the root cause for all this hatred that has been between the color of our skin even though other things contribute to this hatred.

Nathan Ncube

The Secret Ingredient of Every Change

Mr. Charles Person mentioned that these movements that we learn about all seek to forge alliances with people from all other backgrounds. There is no logical method to reliably recruit people, especially those from opposing stances. The freedom rider population consisted of 50% white members, and they were not there because they a saw a scatterplot or histogram of the data behind boycotts. Graphs do serve their own purpose; however, I observe that a tally of the march across the Edmund Pettus bridge would not matter to a passing reader if they had no initial awareness of what a march is.

Conveyed in every book, statistic, brick, and scar is a story. A graph needs to have the foundation of a story it is measuring, and a memorial needs plaques to illustrate the transgressions that were recorded within its creative designs. As we collect stories—engraving their history in a different medium, memory—we are gathering an abundant resource that can never be contained or intentionally exchanged. It is a resource that already is carried by young infants, and it is a resource that can soften the hard-hearted.

Empathy.

Walking amongst the National Memorial for Peace & Justice, weaving between countless standing, laying, or hanging coffin-like boxes, I did not feel any sense of loss. Neither did I carry an initial sense of hate for their oppressors. Without empathy, I was completely empty, staring at rusting frames hollow both figuratively and literally. But in assuming the smallest shred of empathy, I felt a piercing rage, tinted with vengeance, striking my collar bone. I tasted a sinking heat of sorrow crawling down my chest. I was encompassed with the peace of realization that people in this world care. All these feelings resulted from empathy—which is not an emotion, but a function of life. Love, as an unconditional expression of God, is instantaneously harnessed in the context of one person to the other, truly understanding what the other has been through. Without listening and observing in empathy, T.M. Garret would never have made his complete 180. Without forgiving and nurturing through empathy, Carolyn Maull McKinstry could not have made such great strides towards reconciliation. Without empathy, we cannot envision together a new, repaired world.

Jon Sison