The Rhetoric of Protection

1
The Rhetoric of Protection
The power of ladyhood as a value construct
regulated womens behavior and restricted
interaction with the world under system of
southern chivalry Lynching engendered fear of
sexual assault and prevented voluntary
interracial sex - served as a weapon of racial
and sexual terror. White men lynch the offending
Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of
virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of
white women. (Wells, 1892) When Southern white
women get ready to stop lynching, it will be
stopped and not before. (Ames, 1938)

• A dramatization of cultural themes Here was the
  quintessential Woman as Victim polluted, ruined
  for life the object of fantasy and secret
  contempt. (p.335)

To Kill A Mockingbird (1963)
2
Hellhounds From Without Sanctuary(Litwack)

• Between 1882 and 1968, an estimated 4,742 blacks
  were killed by lynch mobs (p.12)
• Whiteshad come to think of black women and men
  as inherently and permanently inferior, as less
  than human, as little more than animals (p.13)
• After Emancipation and during Reconstruction,
  violence characterized by sadism and
  exhibitionism
• Lynchers demonstrated racial and community
  solidarity complacent, matter-of-fact - At he
  hands of unknown parties
• The Negro as beast became a fundamental part of
  the white Souths racial imagery (similar to
  Sambo). Dual nature docile and amiable when
  enslaved, savage when free (p.23)
• Of 3,000 black lynchings between 1889-1918, only
  19 accused of rape
• Lynching as an expression of Southern fear of
  Negro progress than of Negro crime (p. 29)
• For African Americans - pragmatic resignation and
  survival

3
The Historical Connections Between Rape and
Lynching(Jaqueline Dowd Hall, 1983)

• In the 19th century South, slave owners meted out
  plantation justice undisturbed by any rule of
  law. Sexual exploitation of black women
  institutionalized under slavery
• Lynching as an instrument of coercion creating
  a climate of fear
• The protection of white womanhood and the image
  of the black rapist as a monstrous beast
  (p.334) pervasive fixtures of racist ideologies
• The myth of the black rapist Factual info -
  less than 25 of lynching victims accused of rape
• The emotional circuit between interracial rape
  and lynching undermines factual refutation

http//www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/tools_riot.html
4
Ida B. Wells July 16, 1862 - March 25, 1931

• In 1884 she was asked by the conductor of the
  Chesapeake Ohio Railroad Company to give up her
  seat on the train to a white man Wells refused
  and was forcefully removed from the train. She
  sued.
• Editor and co-owner of a Memphis black newspaper
  called "The Free Speech and Headlight. Wells
  used her paper to attack the evils of lynching
• Formed the Women's Era Club, the first civic
  organization for African-American women.
• Wells was one of the founding members of the
  National Association for the Advancement of
  Colored People (NAACP).

http//www.webster.edu/woolflm/idabwells.html
The real purpose of these savage demonstrations
(lynching) is to teach the Negro that in the
South he has no rights that the law will
enforce. Ida Bell Wells-Barnett - born Holy
Springs, Mississippi http//www.inform.umd.edu/Pi
ctures/WomensStudies/PictureGallery/wells.html
5
Jessie Daniel Ames 1883-1972

• In 1914, out of financial necessity, Ames went to
  work at the Georgetown Telephone Company, owned
  by her mother, also a widow. Both emerged as
  competent, tough-minded competitors in a
  male-dominated business community.
• In 1930 Ames founded the Association of Southern
  Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL).
• She challenged the notion that white women needed
  protection from African-American men. She pointed
  out that alleged rapes of white women by
  African-American men, the supposed rationale for
  a lynching, seldom occurred and that the true
  motive for lynching was rooted in racial hatred.
  

http//www.southwestern.edu/academic/fst/fst-jda_b
io.html
Jessie Daniel Ames Texas suffragist and
civil-rights activist 1883-1972 http//www.pbs.org
/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_ames.html
6
Why the Photographic Display of LynchingWithout
Sanctuary ?A necessarily painful and ugly
story

• Intent to depict the extent and quality of the
  violence unleashed on black men and women in the
  name of enforcing black deference and
  subordination (white supremacy)
• Easier to choose path of collective amnesia or
  dismiss as depraved need to remember
• Need to understand how normal men and women could
  live with, participate and defend such atrocities

7
The Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith,
1930, Marion, Indiana
8
The Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith,
1930, Marion, Indiana
9
James Cameron and The Black Holocaust Museum

• Milwaukee museum teaches about atrocities of
  racism
• The first time you hear the name of a museum
  dedicated to educating future generations about
  the atrocities of racism committed against
  African Americans, you might think it sounds odd.
  But America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee
  was founded by a survivor of a mob lynching who
  wants visitors to learn from the past and
  understand how racism begins and grows.
• James Cameron was falsely arrested, along with
  two of his friends, when he was 16 years old in
  1930 for the murder of a white man in Indiana. He
  and his friends were beaten and the other two
  were hanged by an angry mob. Cameron miraculously
  lived through the beating and served four years
  in a state prison.
• In later years, Cameron became a leader of local
  National Association for the Advancement of
  Colored People chapters and civil rights
  activities in Indiana and Wisconsin, and wrote a
  book about his experience, A Time of Terror.
• In 1988 he founded America's Black Holocaust
  Museum to provide visitors with an opportunity to
  rethink their assumptions about race and racism.
  Cameron's collection included photographs, books
  and exhibits that document lynch mobs and racism
  in America.
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin

http//www.blackholocaustmuseum.org/about.html
10
Class Discussion

• Can museum visitors learn from the past and
  understand how racism begins and grows?
• Is it possible to understand how normal men and
  women could live with, participate and defend
  lynching through photo display?
• How would you choose to depict racism? What aims
  would you have in mind?