LYNCHING

Much has been said in the papers, both north and south, against lynching.  Humanitarians have condemned and governors have offered immense rewards for the apprehension of the lynchers.   Northern editors have prated about the brutality of the south in lynching rapist, yet all of this has never reached that class of people who are most guilty of this crime.   Even when one of its race is hung up for this crime, very few of  them outside the immediate vicinity where the crime is committed ever know or hear of the fate of  the perpetrator.   If  these people who are so prone to commit such crimes could know the fate of every one guilty of such unnatural brutality, then there would be less cause for lynching in this country.    True, the papers give much space to comments on the crime, but the colored man never knows or hears of the certain and quick retribution meted to the perpetrators.    We believe that few rapists know, before the act is committed, what will be their fate.  If they did, less of it would be done.

There is only one way to stop lynching; stop the crime and lynching stops.   The effect must precede the cause in this case.     As long as there is virtue in woman just so long will manhood protect it by these summary punishments.   Volumes may be written against it and governors may drain the public exchequer to bring the lynchers to justice, but the bodies of the brutes will continue to hang in mid air as long as a pine sapling or an oak sprout grows on Georgia soil.

Jackson Argus - Week of October 22, 1896

Submitted by Don Bankston