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When American geographers map rates of religious belief and regular attendance at places of worship, a distinct region of religiosity appears on the map of the United States. This region is known as the Bible Belt, and while it can be measured in a variety of ways, it tends to include much of the American South.

First Use of "Bible Belt"

The term Bible Belt was first used by the American writer and satirist H.L. Mencken in 1925 when he was reporting on the Scopes Monkey Trial which took place in Dayton, Tennessee. Mencken was writing for the Baltimore Sun and used the term in a derogatory way, referring to the region in subsequent pieces with such quotes as "the Bible and Hookworm Belt" and "Jackson, Mississippi in the heart of the Bible and Lynching Belt."

Defining The Bible Belt

The term gained popularity and began to be used to name the region of the southern U.S. states in the popular media and in academia. In 1948, the "Saturday Evening Post" named Oklahoma City the capital of the Bible Belt. In 1961, geographer Wilbur Zelinsky, a student of Carl Sauer, defined the region of the Bible Belt as one in which Southern Baptists, Methodists, and evangelical Christians were the predominant religious group.

Thus, Zelinsky defined the Bible Belt as a region stretching from West Virginia and southern Virginia to southern Missouri in the north to Texas and northern Florida in the south. The region that Zelinsky outlined did not include Southern Louisiana due to its preponderance of Catholics, nor central and southern Florida due to its diverse demographics, nor South Texas with its large Hispanic (and thus Catholic or Protestant) population.

History of the Bible Belt

The region known as the Bible Belt today was in the 17th and 18th centuries a center of Anglican (or Episcopalian) beliefs. In the late 18th century and into the 19th century, Baptist denominations, especially Southern Baptist, began to gain in popularity. By the 20th century, evangelical Protestantism could be the defining belief system in the region known as the Bible Belt.

In 1978, geographer Stephen Tweedie of Oklahoma State University published the definitive article about the Bible Belt, "Viewing the Bible Belt," in the Journal of Popular Culture. In that article, Tweedie mapped Sunday television watching habits for five leading evangelical religious television programs. His map of the Bible Belt expanded the region defined by Zelinsky and included a region that encompassed the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas. But his research also broke the Bible Belt into two core regions, a western region and an eastern region.

Tweedie's western Bible Belt was focused on a core that extended from Little Rock, Arkansas to Tulsa, Oklahoma. His eastern Bible Belt was focused on a core that included the major population centers of Virginia and North Carolina. Tweedie identified secondary core regions surrounding Dallas and Wichita Falls, Kansas to Lawton, Oklahoma.

Tweedie suggested that Oklahoma City was the buckle or capital of the Bible Belt but many other commentators and researchers have suggested other locations. It was H.L. Mencken who first suggested that Jackson, Mississippi was the capital of the Bible Belt. Other suggested capitals or buckles (in addition to the cores identified by Tweedie) include Abilene, Texas; Lynchburg, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee; Memphis, Tennessee; Springfield, Missouri; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Bible Belt Today

Studies of religious identity in the United States continually point to the southern states as an enduring Bible Belt. In a 2011 survey by Gallup, the organization found Mississippi to be the state containing the highest percentage of "very religious" Americans.﻿﻿ In Mississippi, 59 percent of residents were identified as being "very religious." With the exception of number two Utah, all of the states in the top ten are states commonly identified as being part of the Bible Belt. (The top 10 were: Mississippi, Utah, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Oklahoma.)

The Un-Bible Belts

On the other hand, Gallup and others have pointed out that the opposite of the Bible Belt, perhaps an Unchurched Belt or a Secular Belt, exists in the Pacific Northwest and the northeastern United States. Gallup's survey found that a mere 23% of Vermont residents are considered to be "very religious."﻿﻿ The 11 states (due to the tie for tenth place) that are home for the least religious Americans are Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island.

Politics and Society in the Bible Belt

Many commentators have pointed out that while religious observance in the Bible Belt﻿﻿ is high, it is a region of a variety of social issues. Educational attainment and college graduation﻿﻿ rates in the Bible Belt are among the lowest in the United States. Cardiovascular and heart disease,﻿﻿ obesity,﻿﻿ homicide,﻿﻿ teenage pregnancy,﻿﻿ and sexually transmitted infections﻿﻿ are among the highest rates in the nation.

At the same time, the region is known for its conservative values, and the region is often considered to be a politically conservative region.﻿﻿ The "red states" within the Bible Belt traditionally support Republican candidates for state and federal office. Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas have consistently pledged their electoral college votes to the Republican candidate for president in each presidential election since 1980. Other Bible Belt states usually vote Republican, but candidates such as Bill Clinton from Arkansas have sometimes swayed the votes in Bible Belt states.

In 2010, Matthew Zook and Mark Graham utilized online place name data to identify (among other things) the preponderance of the word "church" locally.﻿﻿ What resulted is a map that is a good approximation of the Bible Belt as defined by Tweedie and extending into the Dakotas.

Other Belts in America

Other Bible Belt-style regions have been named in the United States. The Rust Belt of the former industrial heartland of America is one such region. Other belts include the Corn Belt, Snow Belt, and Sunbelt.

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When American geographers map rates of religious belief and regular attendance at places of worship, a distinct region of religiosity appears on the map of the United States. This region is known as the Bible Belt, and while it can be measured in a variety of ways, it tends to include much of the American South.

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Guilty or not guilty. This is how Americans have helped keep crime in check for two and half centuries. But the US jury system isn't perfect.

For instance, it wasn't until 1968 that women were allowed to serve on juries in all 50 states. And while it's been illegal to exclude African Americans from jury duty for more than 135 years ...... they remain dramatically underrepresented, even today.

Each year, over 30 million people are sent a summons in the mail. From that, an estimated 1.5 million are selected to serve on a jury. And it's during that selection process when most of the problems emerge. Attorneys have a certain number of "strikes", or peremptory challenges, where they can remove jury candidates without any explanation. For decades, it was perfectly legal to use these strikes on a discriminatory basis - and that's exactly what prosecutors did.

Cassandra Stubbs (Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project): "The prosecutor's time after time after time was choosing white jurors and striking black jurors of color courts were routinely saying there was not proof enough of discrimination."

The issue finally came to a head in 1986. The Supreme Court made it illegal to strike based on racial or sexual discrimination. But what has that really changed? Turns out, prosecutors found ways to still discriminate.

Stubbs: "In the 1990s prosecutors in North Carolina received a cheat sheet about how to go to court and defend against claims of racial bias in a way that would allow them to pick a discriminatory jury."

The racial bias continued to be mostly unchecked and underreported well into the 2000s. Finally, a report in 2010 revealed the shocking reality. Between 2005-2009, prosecutors in Houston County, Alabama had excluded 80% of blacks who qualified for jury service on death penalty cases.

Stubbs: "We see that death penalty trials are infected from the beginning to the end w/ racial bias both in who is charged we know overwhelmingly that prosecutors are far more likely to seek the death penalty when the victim is white. It's a white lives matter more when we actually look at how the death penalty is applied and that should be very troubling to all of us."

Plus, all-white juries will convict a black defendant 16 percent more often than a white defendant.

Adding to the issue is a group of experts called "trial consultants." These are people who have boiled jury selection down to a science.

Adam Benforado (Professor of Law at Drexel University): "I think that that's one of the biggest challenges we face in the coming years is actually from the trial consulting industry."

Trial consulting began in the early '70s with good intentions.

Benforado: "People who were at the forefront where do-gooders who wanted to make the system fair. Balance the scales and remove racial bias. Now the influence of money has meant now the game is making as biased a jury as possible."

That's what happened in 1994 during the O. J. Simpson murder trial. The defense team hired jury consultant Jo-Ellan Dimitrius. She closely examined the opinions and backgrounds of each of the 304 jury prospects. And discovered something important enough that it was reenacted in the show "The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story"

In the end, Dimitrius helped the defense gain a jury of 1 black man, 1 hispanic man, 2 white women, and 8 black women.

"You got the jury you wanted. Did you think you had just won the case?" "It is accurate to say that there was a big high five that when on at the back of Johny's office that day."

We all know what happened next: the jury found Simpson not guilty on two counts of murder. Now, you could argue that Simpson's attorneys were simply giving him the best possible defense. But unlike attorneys, trial consultants are not necessarily licensed and are not required to uphold a standard of ethics in the courtroom.

And many criminal justice experts argue that this type of "scientific jury selection" crosses the line.

Gregory Hurley (National Center for State Courts): "Jury consultants are really not there necessarily to create an impartial jury they're there to pick a jury that they feel is going to be most favorable for their client. But the other side is doing the same thing and the idea is through that battle an impartial jury will eventually be developed... It's not a system that is perfect but it is a very effective system that's been around a long time."

But does that mean we can't do any better? Some judges are at least trying. The National Center for State Courts discovered that many state courts are giving jurors more liberty.

Hurley: "Experimenting w/ things like allowing jurors to ask questions of witnesses, allowing jurors to take notes, ensuring that jurors had copy of the court's instructions w/ them in the jury deliberations room."

The hope is that jurors who understand the case as best as possible will rely more on the facts than their own, biased opinions during deliberation. But won't fix the bigger issue

Stubbs: "With the problem of jury selection, in particular, there's really no reason to have peremptory challenges. And I think that we as state and federal court systems should be moving towards getting rid of peremptory challenges because they're really just an opportunity to discriminate."

No matter how you look at it, there's a lot of work yet to be done. But with each new ruling, we have a chance for real justice.

The American Society of Trial Consultants was not available for comment.

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Guilty or not guilty. This is how Americans have helped keep crime in check for two and half centuries. But the US jury system isn't perfect. For instance, it wasn't until 1968 that women were allowed to serve on juries in all 50 states.

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Social Influence: Crash Course Psychology #38

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Luke Holm earned bachelor degrees in English and Philosophy from NIU. He is a middle school teacher and a creative writer.
Bullying

The teacher caught Kim sneaking away from recess to eat other student's lunches. This was the third incident in the past week. Kim couldn't help that she was always hungry. Food was all she could think about and she never seemed to have enough.

She wore the same gray sweatshirt every single day, one covered in spaghetti stains and smeared with peanut butter. Her hair was knotted and she always had crumbs crusted onto her face. The other students made fun of her, not only because of her appearance, but also because they were angry at her for eating their lunches.

One day, as students got off the bus, they started chasing Kim toward her house. They called her names and threw rocks at her. Everyone joined in, even the boy who usually walked home alone.

The boy found himself sucked into the angry mob of children chasing the poor girl down the street. The power of the group was so overwhelming, that he barely registered Kim's cries for help. By the time they had reached her house, he had thrown a rock without hesitation.

Kim's grandmother burst through the front door. She saw Kim and the horde of students behind her, each with stones in their tiny fists. She screamed at the kids. Her voice quivered with fear and anger. "How could you! She's a little girl! This is the worst thing I've ever seen!"

Everyone dropped their rocks. Some kids ran away, others started crying immediately. The boy who got sucked into the frenzy remained motionless. He saw Kim cowering into her grandmother's chest. He saw the grandmother's eyes filled with tears of pain and sadness.

Kim's grandmother took her inside, leaving the boy all alone once again. He stood there for a long time-wanting to apologize, wanting to cry, wanting to scream. There was nothing he could do. Nothing could ever change what had just been done. He put his head down and walked away. That moment haunted him for the rest of his life.

Group Influence

Kurt Lewin, founder of Social Psychology

Social Psychology

Why was the boy so quick to join the group? There is a reason most people act a certain way in drama, literature, and real life events. Throughout this article we are going to look at these people as if they were characters in a story. In analyzing their character, we may analyze their behavior in relationship to their background, environment, culture, and community.

While these elements are major factors in shaping a person's choices or identity, they are just a small part of what goes into analyzing their character.

Which brings us to today's topics: Social Psychology and mob mentality. Social Psychology focuses on how people think about, influence, and relate to one another in certain situations. Basically, it focuses on the power of situations and the effect situations have on any given individual or group.

Mob Mentality

Social Psychologists wonder whether people act the way they do because of their personality or because of their situation. This means that characters are they way they are, or act the way they act, because of their personality, which we said is shaped by their background, environment, culture, and community.

Let's add another approach to analyzing character. Let me suggest that any given character can be analyzed not only by their personality traits, but also by the situations they are placed in. A situation is not only a location or a surrounding environment, but also a set of circumstances in which one may find him or her self at any given moment. This type of analysis is called the attribution theory, which suggests that we can explain someone's behavior by analyzing their stable, enduring personality traits and the situation at hand.

What Social Psychologist have found is that, often times, situations make characters or people act a certain way. The reason for this is because of the types of groups that are formed in these situations. Depending on the situation, people may join together in what is commonly called a mob or a herd.

When mobs form, they create a powerful influential factor that shapes a character's or person's identity. Mob/herd mentality describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors, follow trends, and/or purchase specific items. The desire to join in on this group or, at the very least, be recognized by the group, is an example of conformity.

The Bystander Effect

Conformity

Conformity describes how we adjust our behavior or thinking to follow the behavior or rules of the group we belong to. Typically, people conform because a various social influences or desires. Some of these influences and desires are respect for authority, a fear of being different, a fear of rejection, or a desire for approval. Once we join a group, we are likely to conform to or comply with whatever the group decides, in order to fuel our need to be liked or feel like we belong.

The desire to conform to a group is stronger than you think. Many times, people become part of a group and or mob without even knowing. Let me give you an example:

Have you ever been at a performance of some kind and joined in on the applause even though you didn't think the performance was that great? We've all been there. We were snapped out of a daze by the clapping hands of our neighbors. Without thinking or considering otherwise, we joined in on the group's clapping and applause. Furthermore, if someone stands and applauds and is followed by several others, you can bet that the majority of the crowd will eventually start standing and applauding to follow the leader of the movement or avoid the awkwardness of being unique.

The automatic response to conform to the group is called automatic mimicry. Automatic mimicry is when someone follows along with a crowd, such as laughing, clapping, or nodding, without thinking to question their actions or behavior.

Automatic Mimicry

Could you stay seated?

Deindividuation

This behavior is quite interesting to psychologists. They want to know why humans follow a crowd so easily. One reason for this behavior can be understood if we look at the crowd not as a bunch of random people joined together, but rather as a mob that has literally lost its mind.

Although the aforementioned example was not one of violence, typically a mob is simply seen as a large crowd of people. If you want to get technical, a mob is more specifically a group of people joined together with the intent to start trouble or violence. However, for our sakes, from here on out, let's just assume all groups are a type of mob and that the people who join in fall prey to mob mentality.

When an individual joins a mob, they experience a phenomenon known as deindividuation. Deindividuation is the loss of self-awareness and restraint.

To better understand these concepts, let us go back to our original example of the standing, applauding audience at a performance. In this context or setting the individuals, one by one, quickly lose their capacity for being self-aware. Without knowing what they are doing, they can easily join in on the applause, stand up, or even cheer. Even if an individual does restrain themself from joining in on the standing and/or clapping, they will likely feel very awkward and have a strong desire to conform to the rest of the group.

Negative Groupthink

Having conformed to the mob, it will be an extreme struggle to do anything aside from what the mob desires. Whatever the mob decides is typically called "groupthink". What this means is that the mob, having lost all sense of order or proper conduct, will make decisions that might not be logical or reasonable for either the individuals or the group, as a whole, at the time.

An example of groupthink can be seen with rioters. A riot is a violent disturbance of peace by a mob. When part of a riot, people act completely different than their typical personality might suggest. Even the nicest, most peaceful people can get caught up in the mob mentality and eventually end up flipping cars, looting stores, or creating other kinds of ruckus.

Why are the rioters acting this way? Well, on one hand, having become part of a mob, they have been deindividuated, meaning they've lost their sense of self, personal identity, and restraint. In other words, they have literally lost their minds. On another level, the rioters are experiencing groupthink which makes them form illogical conclusions.

Here, the group thinks that what they are doing is acceptable, reasonable, or perhaps even necessary. They may justify their actions, saying that the riot was necessary for the greater good or that it supports their cause in some way.

For more information about how individuals and groups spin their negative actions in a positive light, look at Leon Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.

Positive Groupthink

Groupthink isn't always negative. When mobs form, they can direct their energy in two main ways. The first is the road of morally acceptable behavior. Morality is the questioning of what is right or wrong in any given situation. If a mob intends to act morally, then, because it's a mob and because they work together, their actions are amplified, which means their sense of moral conviction is strengthened.

In other terms, mobs that intend to do good, end up being altruistic, which means that the people become unselfish and caring for others.

For example, imagine a church or volunteer group working in an area of poverty to build schools or homes for needy children. Working together, the actions of the individuals that make up the group will be amplified, meaning that after their job is done, the group will likely continue to help out for the sake of others. As the mob dissipates, and people regain their individuality, the individuals will walk away feeling proud and satisfied.

On the other hand, if a mob forms with malevolent or negative intent, then their negative actions will be amplified, causing even greater damage than would likely occur by any given individual. As the mob dissipates, the people will walk away angry and unsatisfied.

Rehumanization

Once the mob does break apart, the people regain their individuality. At this point, people who formed the negative mob will start to realize the damage that they've done. If these people are generally good individuals, then they will likely try to justify their actions in order to more closely align their actions with their beliefs about their own individual personality. Again, this justification of negative actions to fit our preconceived notions about our personality is called Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.

All throughout literature and real life, characters and people are influenced by mob mentality. Now, you can recognize the moment you start to become deindividualized. Hopefully next time this happens, you can resist the mob and maintain your individuality.

Social Psychology

Questions & Answers

Question: Can mob mentality cause a boy to pick up a rock if just one other child is doing it?

Answer: Although the peer pressure isn't coming from a said "mob," I think the mentality of following a leader or acting as a team deindividuates an individual enough to at least loosely relate the concept of "mob mentality." If the question is, "Can a single individual influence another individual," the answer is certainly yes.

Question: What impact does having a recognized leader (ex, the bus driver in your example, or the group administrator on Facebook) join in the mob have upon it's formation and later self-justification?

Answer: The "recognized leader" must be one that the majority of the group approves of. A bus driver (leader of the bus) or a Facebook Admin could potentially hold strong persuasion over the group, but the group can elect and follow a new leader at any time. Imagine, on a bus, that the bus driver does something the people disagree with. One of the passengers stands up and says, "He can't do that!" If the majority of the people on the bus agree with that one citizen, that citizen now holds greater power to control or manipulate the mob than does the bus driver. To answer your question about how these "leaders" influence the formation of the mob, remember that the bus driver didn't create the bus and the Facebook Admin didn't create Facebook. They are still limited by the confines or structures of their environment. They have some semblance of persuasion, but the city (for the bus example) and Facebook (for the latter example) are ultimately the reasons for these groups forming in the first place.

Question: What is mob justice?

Answer: Mob justice, sometimes referred to as jungle justice, is when the mob forms to right a wrong they see in society. The mob acts like vigilantes to right this wrong, thus creating what they might consider to be justice. Note that the mob doesn't always think clearly. What might be just for the mob at the time, doesn't necessarily equate to true justice.
© 2017 JourneyHolm
Deborrah on November 02, 2018:

This is so sad. It is disappointing to see people who are so lost, so directionless, so dependent and who have such low-self esteem and confidence that they follow along any and everyone else, even doing and saying things they KNOW are stupid to do and say. What in the world is wrong with people? Small children we can understand, but even by the time they reach 9/10 years old, they know right from wrong and how to think for themselves...parents just reinforce that as the child matures.

To have grown people play follow the leader doing mindlessly crazy things because others do them is extremely disappointing. these people are parents, educators, politicians, and alleged leaders. In actuality they are weak, spineless, confused and disgraceful.

JourneyHolm (author) on March 02, 2017:

Haider, I completely agree. I think herd mentality is oftentimes caused by propaganda, which leads to a sense of deindividuation from those who stand against the crowd. I fear the United States is a leader, at the moment, for herd mentality. It seems as though people flocking together to affirm each other's half truths in light of our current president. Thank you for reading my hub. I really appreciate your feedback. I'll be sure to check out your page!

Haider from Melbourne on March 01, 2017:

Superb mate! For a long time, I have never read an article that is so informative and interesting.

I saw many terrible examples of deindividuation in my hometown. The consequence of following a group of people or leader without knowing the logical aspect of the matter is a menace. We can look at the history and even today how the mob/herd mentality cause problems and difficulties for our society.

I think it is this kind of mentality that today people are victims of propaganda.

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Bullying, Social Psychology, and Mob Mentality

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Luke Holm earned bachelor degrees in English and Philosophy from NIU. He is a middle school teacher and a creative writer. The teacher caught Kim sneaking away from recess to eat other student's lunches. This was the third incident in the past week. Kim couldn't help that she was always hungry.

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Emmett Till

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KKK

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Brut - TBT: Martin Luther King on riots | Facebook

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"A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?"

For many, this 1967 speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. still...

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Often times, looking at all the vast problems engulfing our society, it's easy to feel inconsequential in the bigger picture. When we hear about wars, conflicts, uprisings, riots, murders, and so on, it can make us feel like there's nothing we can do to fight the enormity of it as one person. That's natural, but it should also be known that some of the world's most special achievements were all done by regular people who decided that inaction was simply unacceptable. We all collectively contribute to the world outside of our doors and if we don't like what we're seeing, we can either add to the world by doing our small part to improve society, or we can do nothing and sit back and watch as things get worse, hoping one day that the problem doesn't come to our door.

In today's society, we have a problem with police brutality. As Trevor Noah brilliantly stated, this is not just an African-American issue, it's an American issue. This overreach in violence disproportionately affects minorities, but it does not only affect minorities. Not only does brutality happen across the spectrum of racial and socioeconomic lines, it also affects our family members, friends, and neighbors. Prejudice policing is destroying communities and exacerbating racial division in America. If that's not the land you want to live in, you can do something about it.

Simply put: There are things all of us can do to support Black Lives Matter and fight for racial justice, we just need to go out and do it. Here are a few good places to start.
1. Listen without being defensive
If you're truly interested in genuine change, the most important development you can make is evolving your worldview. In fact, one can argue that being open to evolving your ideas is the precursor to even desiring to see change occur. But the most important part of active listening is fighting the human urge to respond to someone's social critiques by being defensive.

Sometimes when we hear someone explaining why something is negatively affecting them, we feel compelled to inform that person of all the ways our life is difficult, too. Or, we choose to only focus in on the one part of their analysis that possibly could be a negative statement about ourselves. It's critical to listen to groups like Black Lives Matter with an open mind and heart, instead of only selectively listening to the parts you want to contest.
2. Do not dehumanize "criminals"
The anti-police brutality movement is not about asserting that every Black person who comes in contact with the police is a great, upstanding person. It's about believing that senseless killings and excessive force are not right, and definitely should not be focused in one community. Part of what makes America great is the commitment to due process. If someone does something wrong, they should face the consequences of the law - and not broken bones or mortal wounds before a trial takes place.

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11 Things You Can Do To Help Black Lives Matter End Police Violence

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Often times, looking at all the vast problems engulfing our society, it's easy to feel inconsequential in the bigger picture. When we hear about wars, conflicts, uprisings, riots, murders, and so on, it can make us feel like there's nothing we can do to fight the enormity of it as one person.

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Billie Eilish posted an Instagram slideshow condemning the "All Lives Matter" movement.

"All Lives Matter" was created in response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement, which has regained traction following the death of George Floyd.

Eilish wrote: "IF I HEAR ONE MORE WHITE PERSON SAY 'aLL liVeS maTtEr' ONE MORE F------ TIME IM GONNA LOSE MY F------ MIND.

Eilish addressed those in support of "All Lives Matter" and wrote: "YOU ARE PRIVILEGED WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOR. SOCIETY GIVES YOU PRIVILEGE JUST FOR BEING WHITE."

"IF ALL LIVES MATTER WHY ARE BLACK PEOPLE KILLED FOR JUST BEING BLACK."

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Billie Eilish wrote a post on Instagram condemning the "All Lives Matter" movement following the death of George Floyd and the subsequent "Black Lives Matter" protests across the United States that Floyd's death has sparked.

"I've been trying to take this week to figure out a way to address this delicately. I have an enormous platform and I try really hard to be respectful and take time to think through what I say and how I say it...But holy f------ s--- I'm gonna just start talking," Eilish began.

"IF I HEAR ONE MORE WHITE PERSON SAY 'aLL liVeS maTtEr' ONE MORE F------ TIME IM GONNA LOSE MY F------ MIND. WILL YOU SHUT THE F-K UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP???? NO ONE ELSE IS SAYING YOUR LIFE DOESNT MATTER. NO ONE IS SAYING YOUR LIFE IS NOT HARD."

Eilish then stated that supporters of "All Lives Matter" are making things about themselves, but told them: "YOU ARE NOT IN NEED. YOU ARE NOT IN DANGER."

The singer said that she was going to explain the issue of "All Lives Matter" as if its supporters were children, and wrote:

"If your friend gets a cut on their arm are you gonna wait to give all your friends a bandaid first because all arms matter? NO youre gonna help your friend because THEY are in PAIN because THEY are in need because THEY ARE BLEEDING. If someones house was on fire & someone is stuck in the house, are you gonna make the fire department go to every other house on the block first because all houses matter??? NO! BECAUSE THEY DON'T F------ NEED IT."

Eilish wrote: "YOU ARE PRIVILEGED WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOR. SOCIETY GIVES YOU PRIVILEGE JUST FOR BEING WHITE. YOU CAN BE POOR, YOU CAN BE STRUGGLING.. AND STILL YOUR SKIN COLOR IS GIVING YOU MORE PRIVILEGE THAN YOU EVEN REALIZE."

"IF ALL LIVES MATTER WHY ARE BLACK PEOPLE KILLED FOR JUST BEING BLACK," she asked. "WHY ARE IMMIGRANTS PERSECUTED? WHY ARE WHITE PEOPLE GIVEN OPPORTUNITIES THAT PEOPLE OF OTHER RACES AREN'T...WHITE F------ PRIVILEGE."

In the passionate post, Eilish concluded by explaining the necessity of "Black Lives Matter."

"THE SLOGAN OF #blacklivesmatter DOES NOT MEAN OTHER LIVES DON'T. IT'S CALLING ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT SOCIETY CLEARLY THINKS BLACK LIVES DON'T F------ MATTER!!!!!! AND THEY F------ DO!!!!!!

The post, which has been liked by almost six million people, was commented on by numeral celebrities including Natalie Portman, who posted love hearts, and Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, who wrote: "You are great."
Read more: The truck driver who sped through a crowd of George Floyd protesters has been named and booked on suspicion of assault Trump's aides tried to get him to give a unifying TV address, but gave up because he was unwilling and they had no new policies to suggest Dennis Rodman has pleaded with people protesting George Floyd's death to stop looting: 'We're not f---ing animals'

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Billie Eilish blasted the 'All Lives Matter' movement: 'If all lives matter why are black people killed for just being black'

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Billie Eilish posted an Instagram slideshow condemning the "All Lives Matter" movement. "All Lives Matter" was created in response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement, which has regained traction following the death of George Floyd. Eilish wrote: "IF I HEAR ONE MORE WHITE PERSON SAY 'aLL liVeS maTtEr' ONE MORE F------ TIME IM GONNA LOSE MY F------ MIND.

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The resonance of the Netflix series about the Central Park Five reached a high point when the Oprah Winfrey Network aired a discussion with Winfrey and the 5 men wrongfully convicted of rape.

NOEL KING, HOST:

Director Ava DuVernay's Netflix miniseries "When They See Us" has drawn new attention to the case of the Central Park Five. In a special last night, Oprah Winfrey interviewed them. As teenagers, these black and Latino men were coerced by New York police into falsely confessing to the rape of a white jogger in Central Park in 1989. Their convictions were vacated in 2002, when someone else confessed to her rape. NPR's TV critic Eric Deggans is on the line.

Hi, Eric.

ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Hi.

KING: So Netflix tweeted yesterday that "When They See Us" has been their most-watched series in the U.S. every day since it was released in late May. This is despite the fact that, as you've written, this is a really hard series to watch.

DEGGANS: Yeah. You know, it took me three times to get through watching this series and, I admit, I cried while I watched parts of it. But in a way, I think the difficulty of watching some of these scenes - you know, seeing these teenage boys, they were aged 14 to 16, being physically and mentally coerced into these false confessions, thinking they could just go home - it's a crucial part of the show's power. I mean, it really makes you experience the trauma that they went through, that their families went through. And this comes at a time when we're already talking about how people of color are overpoliced or unfairly policed. So it really resonates.

KING: This miniseries has had some power in other ways, too. One New York prosecutor who is featured as a character in the miniseries, Linda Fairstein, she's called the show an outright fabrication. Fairstein's now a crime novelist, and she was dropped by her publisher and she resigned from the board of Vassar College. So some real repercussions from this show.

DEGGANS: Yeah. You know, it's going back to this high-profile controversy, and it's trying to unwind the unfairness that led to the unjust convictions and jail time for these teens back when it first happened. And in that process, people are looking back at the police and the prosecutors that were originally involved with the case, and they're saying, you know, shouldn't they also be held to account?

Now, as a critic, I did wonder how they came up with some of the language that Fairstein's character uses in some of the scenes where the men and their families couldn't have been present. They couldn't have known what, you know, she said to police. But the series is told from the perspective of these men and their families, and it's focused on showing how the system pushed them into these false confessions and then what happened to them afterwards. And the Fairstein character is a major vehicle for showing that.

KING: And we should note that this miniseries is based on real events but not a documentary. Eric, we've seen other TV shows that are based on real events bring changes after they go to air. Lifetime's "Surviving R. Kelly" detailed all of these allegations of sexual assault and statutory rape against him. He's now facing criminal charges. Is this part of some cultural trend, do you think?

DEGGANS: Well, I do think that "When They See Us" and "Surviving R. Kelly," they kind of have a lot in common. I mean, they're getting us to reconsider these stories about classic injustice - wealthy people getting away with abuse or people of color unfairly sent to jail. And they're asking us to reexperience those moments through a very powerful TV presentation. And then we're reexperiencing this stuff in a new social context. I mean, the #MeToo movement is showing us the value of really listening to abuse victims when they come forward. We have viral videos that show us how some people of color are unfairly policed.

And so we feel very differently about these stories now than when they first emerged in the news. And I suspect we're going to see more of these kinds of presentations because people realize they're a way to sort of give voice to marginalized and overlooked voices and challenge these incomplete or unfair versions of history.

KING: Yeah. I guess it is worth thinking about what the next TV miniseries might be. Eric Deggans, NPR TV critic. Thanks so much, Eric.

DEGGANS: Thank you.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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Impact Of Ava DuVernay's Netflix Series: 'When They See Us'

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The resonance of the Netflix series about the Central Park Five reached a high point when the Oprah Winfrey Network aired a discussion with Winfrey and the 5 men wrongfully convicted of rape.

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Lee Daniels' The Butler -- Official Trailer 2013 -- Regal Movies [HD]

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Ken Burns in the Classroom | PBS LearningMedia

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Ken Burns and his collaborators have been creating historical documentary films for more than forty years. Known for a signature style that brings primary source documents, images, and archival video footage to life on screen, these films present the opportunity to pose thought-provoking questions for students, and introduce new ideas, perspectives, and primary sources.

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It is described as apocalyptic and the greatest man-made environmental disaster in American history.

The "dust bowl" drought which plagued US plains states during the 1930s ruined farms, took lives, and exacerbated the misery of the Great Depression.

Filmmaker Ken Burns focuses on this period in a new documentary airing on American television.

A companion book, "The Dust Bowl: an illustrated history," takes readers through moments like the "Black Sunday" dust storm - when many people thought the world was ending.

Mr Burns says what drew him to the subject were the stories of average Americans who coped with daily life in an uncommon time.
Produced by the BBC's David Botti, Ashley Semler, and Laura Trevelyan Photo/video: Getty Images, British Pathé, Library of Congress, and courtesy PBS

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Filmmaker Ken Burns on the 'dust bowl' drought

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The documentarian discusses his latest film and companion book chronicling a dark time in 20th Century America.

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To Kill a Mockingbird - Thug Notes Summary and Analysis

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White Americans used lynching to terrorize and control Black people in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Learn more about the history of this barbaric practice and how NAACP worked to end lynching.

What are lynchings?

A lynching is the public killing of an individual who has not received any due process. These executions were often carried out by lawless mobs, though police officers did participate, under the pretext of justice.

Lynchings were violent public acts that white people used to terrorize and control Black people in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the South. Lynchings typically evoke images of Black men and women hanging from trees, but they involved other extreme brutality, such as torture, mutilation, decapitation, and desecration. Some victims were burned alive.

A typical lynching involved a criminal accusation, an arrest, and the assembly of a mob, followed by seizure, physical torment, and murder of the victim. Lynchings were often public spectacles attended by the white community in celebration of white supremacy. Photos of lynchings were often sold as souvenir postcards.

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."

- "Strange Fruit," written by Abel Meeropol and recorded in 1939 by Billie Holiday

How Many People were lynched?

From 1882 to 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the U.S., according to records maintained by NAACP. Other accounts, including the Equal Justice Initiative's extensive report on lynching, count slightly different numbers, but it's impossible to know for certain how many lynchings occurred because there was no formal tracking. Many historians believe the true number is underreported.

The highest number of lynchings during that time period occurred in Mississippi, with 581 recorded. Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493. Lynchings did not occur in every state. There are no recorded lynchings in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

Black people were the primary victims of lynching: 3,446, or about 72 percent of the people lynched, were Black. But they weren't the only victims of lynching. Some white people were lynched for helping Black people or for being anti-lynching. Immigrants from Mexico, China, Australia, and other countries were also lynched.

Allegations behind lynchings

White mobs often used dubious criminal accusations to justify lynchings. A common claim used to lynch Black men was perceived sexual transgressions against white women. Charges of rape were routinely fabricated. These allegations were used to enforce segregation and advance stereotypes of Black men as violent, hypersexual aggressors.

Hundreds of Black people were lynched based on accusations of other crimes, including murder, arson, robbery, and vagrancy.

Many victims of lynchings were murdered without being accused of any crime. They were killed for violating social customs or racial expectations, such as speaking to white people with less respect than what white people believed they were owed.

How NAACP fought lynching

As Black Americans fled the South to escape the terror of lynchings, a historic event known as the Great Migration, people began to oppose lynchings in a number of ways. They conducted grassroots activism, such as boycotting white businesses. Anti-lynching crusaders like Ida B. Wells composed newspaper columns to criticize the atrocities of lynching.

And several important civil rights organizations - including NAACP - emerged during this time to combat racial violence.

NAACP led a courageous battle against lynching. In the July 1916 issue of The Crisis, ﻿editor W.E.B. Du Bois published a photo essay called "The Waco Horror" that featured brutal images of the lynching of Jesse Washington.

Washington was a 17-year-old Black teen lynched in Waco, Texas, by a white mob that accused him of killing Lucy Fryer, a white woman. Du Bois was able to turn postcards of Washington's murder against their creators to energize the anti-lynching movement. The Crisis's circulation grew by 50,000 over the next two years, and we raised $20,000 toward an anti-lynching campaign.

In 1919, NAACP published Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1919, to promote awareness of the scope of lynching. The data in this study offer the gruesome facts by number, year, state, color, sex, and alleged offense.

Among the campaign's other efforts, from 1920 to 1938, we flew a flag from our national headquarters in New York that bore the words "A man was lynched yesterday." The campaign turned the tide of public opinion and even persuaded some southern newspapers to oppose lynching because it was damaging the South's economic prospects.

We also fought hard for anti-lynching legislation. In 1918, Congressman Leonidas Dyer of Missouri first introduced his Anti-Lynching Bill - known as the Dyer Bill - into Congress. NAACP supported passage of the bill from 1919 onward, though it was defeated by a Senate filibuster. NAACP continued to push for federal anti-lynching legislation into the 1930s.

National lynching rates declined in the 1930s, a trend that NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White attributed to anti-lynching activism, shifts in public opinion, and the Great Migration. The first full year without a recorded lynching occurred in 1952.

The lynching of Emmet Till

The tide may have turned against lynching, but white supremacy and violence continued to terrorize Black communities. In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Till's murder and subsequent injustice deeply affected the Black community and galvanized a young generation of Black people to join the Civil Rights Movement.

NAACP declared Till's murder a lynching. Southeast Regional Director Ruby Hurley, Mississippi Field Secretary Medgar Evers, and Amzie Moore, president of the Bolivar County branch in Mississippi, initiated the homicide investigation and secured witnesses. An all-white jury acquitted the two men accused, who later bragged about their crimes in a magazine article.

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley, Emmet Till's mother, decided to hold an open-casket funeral to put her son's brutalized body on display for the world to see. Jet Magazine published photos of his body in the casket, along with the headline "Negro Boy Was Killed for 'Wolf Whistle,'" causing national outrage among Black and white Americans alike, helping to catalyze the Civil Rights Movement.

Modern-day lynchings

You might think of lynchings as a disgraceful and barbaric practice from the past, but they continue to this day. In 1998, James Byrd was chained to a car by three white supremacists and dragged to his death in the streets of Jasper, Texas. In 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot while jogging near Brunswick, Georgia. The three white men charged with killing Arbery claimed he was trespassing.

The videotaped death of George Floyd was a modern-day lynching. Floyd was killed in broad daylight by police officer Derek Chauvin, who held Floyd down with a knee on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Lynchings like these should not be part of American society today just as they should not have been 100 years ago. NAACP will continue to fight back against white supremacy and violence, and demand that people responsible, including law enforcement officers, be held accountable.

We can achieve greater in the fight against structural racism and inequality by honoring Black history all year long.

Learn More

Walter White, Investigator

In 1918, Walter White, NAACP Assistant Secretary, initially joined NAACP as an investigator. His fair skin and straight hair made him effective in conducting investigations of lynchings and race riots in the South. He could "pass" and talk to whites but identified as Black. Through 1927, White would investigate 41 lynchings.

Walter White lynching investigations featured in The Crisis:
The Lynching of Mary Turner, May 19, 1918 - Georgia
The lynching of Mary Turner in Brooks-Lowndes County, Georgia, was one of the lynching investigations by Walter White on behalf of NAACP. Abusive plantation owner, Hampton Smith, was shot and killed. A week-long manhunt resulted in the killing of Mary Turner's husband, Hayes Turner. Mary denied that her husband had been involved in Smith's killing, publicly opposed her husband's murder, and threatened to have members of the mob arrested.

On May 19, 1918, a mob of several hundred brought her to Folsom Bridge, tied Mary's ankles, hung her upside down from a tree, doused her in gasoline and motor oil and set her on fire. She was still alive when a member of the mob split her abdomen open with a knife. Her unborn child fell to the ground, was stomped and crushed. Mary's body was riddled with hundreds of bullets.

The September 1918 issue of The Crisis carried an account of the lynching.
The Lynching of Jesse McIlherron, February 1918 - Tennessee
The lynching of Jesse McIlherron was another Walter White investigation for NAACP. Jesse was a Black man who resented the slights and insults of white men. He stayed armed and the sheriff feared him. On February 8, 1918, he got into a quarrel with three young white men who insulted him. Threats were made and McIlherron shot and killed two of the men.

McIlherron fled to the home of a Black clergyman who aided him to escape and was later shot and killed by a mob. McIlherron was captured and lynched. McIlherron was chained to a hickory tree, a fire was built, and the torture began. Bars of iron were heated and the mob amused itself by putting them close to McIlherron, at first without touching him. He grasped at a bar and as it was jerked from his grasp, the inside of his hand came with it. Then, the real torturing began, lasting twenty minutes.

During that time, while his flesh was slowly roasting, Jesse never lost nerve. He cursed those who tortured him and almost to the last breath, derided the attempts of the mob to break his spirit.

An account of the lynching of Jesse was carried in the May 1918 issue of The Crisis.

What are lynchings?

A lynching is the public killing of an individual who has not received any due process. These executions were often carried out by lawless mobs, though police officers did participate, under the pretext of justice.

Lynchings were violent public acts that white people used to terrorize and control Black people in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the South. Lynchings typically evoke images of Black men and women hanging from trees, but they involved other extreme brutality, such as torture, mutilation, decapitation, and desecration. Some victims were burned alive.

A typical lynching involved a criminal accusation, an arrest, and the assembly of a mob, followed by seizure, physical torment, and murder of the victim. Lynchings were often public spectacles attended by the white community in celebration of white supremacy. Photos of lynchings were often sold as souvenir postcards.

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."

- "Strange Fruit," written by Abel Meeropol and recorded in 1939 by Billie Holiday

How Many People were lynched?

From 1882 to 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the U.S., according to records maintained by NAACP. Other accounts, including the Equal Justice Initiative's extensive report on lynching, count slightly different numbers, but it's impossible to know for certain how many lynchings occurred because there was no formal tracking. Many historians believe the true number is underreported.

The highest number of lynchings during that time period occurred in Mississippi, with 581 recorded. Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493. Lynchings did not occur in every state. There are no recorded lynchings in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

Black people were the primary victims of lynching: 3,446, or about 72 percent of the people lynched, were Black. But they weren't the only victims of lynching. Some white people were lynched for helping Black people or for being anti-lynching. Immigrants from Mexico, China, Australia, and other countries were also lynched.

Allegations behind lynchings

White mobs often used dubious criminal accusations to justify lynchings. A common claim used to lynch Black men was perceived sexual transgressions against white women. Charges of rape were routinely fabricated. These allegations were used to enforce segregation and advance stereotypes of Black men as violent, hypersexual aggressors.

Hundreds of Black people were lynched based on accusations of other crimes, including murder, arson, robbery, and vagrancy.

Many victims of lynchings were murdered without being accused of any crime. They were killed for violating social customs or racial expectations, such as speaking to white people with less respect than what white people believed they were owed.

How NAACP fought lynching

As Black Americans fled the South to escape the terror of lynchings, a historic event known as the Great Migration, people began to oppose lynchings in a number of ways. They conducted grassroots activism, such as boycotting white businesses. Anti-lynching crusaders like Ida B. Wells composed newspaper columns to criticize the atrocities of lynching.

And several important civil rights organizations - including NAACP - emerged during this time to combat racial violence.

NAACP led a courageous battle against lynching. In the July 1916 issue of The Crisis, ﻿editor W.E.B. Du Bois published a photo essay called "The Waco Horror" that featured brutal images of the lynching of Jesse Washington.

Washington was a 17-year-old Black teen lynched in Waco, Texas, by a white mob that accused him of killing Lucy Fryer, a white woman. Du Bois was able to turn postcards of Washington's murder against their creators to energize the anti-lynching movement. The Crisis's circulation grew by 50,000 over the next two years, and we raised $20,000 toward an anti-lynching campaign.

In 1919, NAACP published Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1919, to promote awareness of the scope of lynching. The data in this study offer the gruesome facts by number, year, state, color, sex, and alleged offense.

Among the campaign's other efforts, from 1920 to 1938, we flew a flag from our national headquarters in New York that bore the words "A man was lynched yesterday." The campaign turned the tide of public opinion and even persuaded some southern newspapers to oppose lynching because it was damaging the South's economic prospects.

We also fought hard for anti-lynching legislation. In 1918, Congressman Leonidas Dyer of Missouri first introduced his Anti-Lynching Bill - known as the Dyer Bill - into Congress. NAACP supported passage of the bill from 1919 onward, though it was defeated by a Senate filibuster. NAACP continued to push for federal anti-lynching legislation into the 1930s.

National lynching rates declined in the 1930s, a trend that NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White attributed to anti-lynching activism, shifts in public opinion, and the Great Migration. The first full year without a recorded lynching occurred in 1952.

The lynching of Emmet Till

The tide may have turned against lynching, but white supremacy and violence continued to terrorize Black communities. In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Till's murder and subsequent injustice deeply affected the Black community and galvanized a young generation of Black people to join the Civil Rights Movement.

NAACP declared Till's murder a lynching. Southeast Regional Director Ruby Hurley, Mississippi Field Secretary Medgar Evers, and Amzie Moore, president of the Bolivar County branch in Mississippi, initiated the homicide investigation and secured witnesses. An all-white jury acquitted the two men accused, who later bragged about their crimes in a magazine article.

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley, Emmet Till's mother, decided to hold an open-casket funeral to put her son's brutalized body on display for the world to see. Jet Magazine published photos of his body in the casket, along with the headline "Negro Boy Was Killed for 'Wolf Whistle,'" causing national outrage among Black and white Americans alike, helping to catalyze the Civil Rights Movement.

Modern-day lynchings

You might think of lynchings as a disgraceful and barbaric practice from the past, but they continue to this day. In 1998, James Byrd was chained to a car by three white supremacists and dragged to his death in the streets of Jasper, Texas. In 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot while jogging near Brunswick, Georgia. The three white men charged with killing Arbery claimed he was trespassing.

The videotaped death of George Floyd was a modern-day lynching. Floyd was killed in broad daylight by police officer Derek Chauvin, who held Floyd down with a knee on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Lynchings like these should not be part of American society today just as they should not have been 100 years ago. NAACP will continue to fight back against white supremacy and violence, and demand that people responsible, including law enforcement officers, be held accountable.

What we witnessed with George Floyd was that same public spectacle: someone in broad daylight with onlookers around, being killed at the hands of a law enforcement officer who has just complete disregard for human life and felt he was above the law.
- Derrick Johnson, NAACP President and CEO

Walter White, Investigator

In 1918, Walter White, NAACP Assistant Secretary, initially joined NAACP as an investigator. His fair skin and straight hair made him effective in conducting investigations of lynchings and race riots in the South. He could "pass" and talk to whites but identified as Black. Through 1927, White would investigate 41 lynchings.

Walter White lynching investigations featured in The Crisis:
The Lynching of Mary Turner, May 19, 1918 - Georgia
The lynching of Mary Turner in Brooks-Lowndes County, Georgia, was one of the lynching investigations by Walter White on behalf of NAACP. Abusive plantation owner, Hampton Smith, was shot and killed. A week-long manhunt resulted in the killing of Mary Turner's husband, Hayes Turner. Mary denied that her husband had been involved in Smith's killing, publicly opposed her husband's murder, and threatened to have members of the mob arrested.

On May 19, 1918, a mob of several hundred brought her to Folsom Bridge, tied Mary's ankles, hung her upside down from a tree, doused her in gasoline and motor oil and set her on fire. She was still alive when a member of the mob split her abdomen open with a knife. Her unborn child fell to the ground, was stomped and crushed. Mary's body was riddled with hundreds of bullets.

The September 1918 issue of The Crisis carried an account of the lynching.
The Lynching of Jesse McIlherron, February 1918 - Tennessee
The lynching of Jesse McIlherron was another Walter White investigation for NAACP. Jesse was a Black man who resented the slights and insults of white men. He stayed armed and the sheriff feared him. On February 8, 1918, he got into a quarrel with three young white men who insulted him. Threats were made and McIlherron shot and killed two of the men.

McIlherron fled to the home of a Black clergyman who aided him to escape and was later shot and killed by a mob. McIlherron was captured and lynched. McIlherron was chained to a hickory tree, a fire was built, and the torture began. Bars of iron were heated and the mob amused itself by putting them close to McIlherron, at first without touching him. He grasped at a bar and as it was jerked from his grasp, the inside of his hand came with it. Then, the real torturing began, lasting twenty minutes.

During that time, while his flesh was slowly roasting, Jesse never lost nerve. He cursed those who tortured him and almost to the last breath, derided the attempts of the mob to break his spirit.

An account of the lynching of Jesse was carried in the May 1918 issue of The Crisis.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
White Americans used lynching to terrorize and control Black people in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Learn more about the history of this barbaric practice and how NAACP worked to end lynching. A lynching is the public killing of an individual who has not received any due process.