190-575: The Jena Six were six black teenagers in Jena, Louisiana , convicted in the 2006 beating of Justin Barker, a white student at the local Jena High School , which they also attended. Barker was injured on December 4, 2006 by the members of the Jena Six, and received treatment at an emergency room. While the case was pending, it was often cited by some media commentators as an example of racial injustice in
380-587: A BBC program This World followed on May 24. The case began to receive more extensive national media coverage in July 2007, with CNN interviewing Jena residents and parents of those involved. Given the racial history of the Deep South, many news reports from Jena evoked the Civil Rights Movement , referred to historic lynching , or Jim Crow . Some sources pointed to inaccurate reporting by
570-530: A "white tree", and students of all races had sat under it at one time or another. At a school assembly held on August 31, 2006, a black male freshman asked the principal whether he could sit under the tree. According to Donald Washington , United States Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana , the principal said the question was posed in a "jocular fashion". The principal told the students they could "sit wherever they wanted". CNN reported that
760-585: A 14-year-old boy from Chicago. Spending the summer with relatives in Money, Mississippi , Till was killed for allegedly having wolf-whistled at a White woman. Till had been badly beaten, one of his eyes was gouged out, and he was shot in the head. The visceral response to his mother's decision to have an open-casket funeral mobilized the Black community throughout the US. Vann R. Newkirk wrote "the trial of his killers became
950-526: A 17-year-old girl in the face. The media had initially reported that Bell had no prior criminal record. On September 4, 2007, Judge Mauffray vacated the conspiracy conviction on the grounds that Bell should have been tried as a juvenile, but he let the battery conviction stand. Bell appealed his conviction, principally on the ground that he had been improperly tried as an adult. On September 14, 2007, Louisiana's Third Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Bell's battery conviction, agreeing that this remaining charge
1140-986: A Race and Within Our Gates , African American–directed films that presented more positive images of blacks. While the frequency of lynching dropped in the 1930s, there was a spike in 1930 during the Great Depression. For example, in North Texas and southern Oklahoma alone, four people were lynched in separate incidents in less than a month. A spike in lynchings occurred after World War II , as tensions arose after veterans returned home. White people tried to re-impose white supremacy over returning Black veterans. The last documented mass lynching occurred in Walton County, Georgia , in 1946, when local white landowners killed two war veterans and their wives. Soviet media frequently covered racial discrimination in
1330-472: A White American mother and a Kenyan father— defeated Republican Senator John McCain to become the first African American to be elected president. At least 95 percent of African American voters voted for Obama. He also received overwhelming support from young and educated Whites, a majority of Asians , and Hispanics , picking up a number of new states in the Democratic electoral column. Obama lost
1520-569: A black man in shackles. The song and video led to Jena's mayor, Murphy R. McMillan, issuing a statement rebutting the accusations he believed were expressed and implied in the video. An episode of the Salt-N-Pepa Show on VH1 was filmed at the Jena rally. Bomani Armah released a song called "Jena 6". Blood at the Root is a play written by Dominique Morisseau about the Jena 6. Blood at
1710-546: A civil suit on November 29, 2007, against the parents of those accused of beating him, the adult members of the Jena Six (as of the time of the attack), an additional student named Malcolm Shaw, and the LaSalle Parish School Board. Barker's medical bills from his emergency room visit totaled more than $ 5,000. The lawsuit alleges that the LaSalle Parish School Board inadequately supervised students and failed to maintain discipline. The Barkers also allege that
1900-412: A civil suit) to pay for private school, he decided to push ahead with the case. Following a motion by Bell's civil attorney to recuse Mauffray in the civil case, proceedings were put on hold again pending appointment of a judge to hear that recusal motion. Mauffray subsequently retired. On March 16, 2009, Judge Ronald Lewellyan was assigned to hear the civil case. On June 26, 2009, Judge Lewellyan approved
2090-557: A crucial role in producing the country's most valuable product and export: cotton . Enslaved people were instrumental in the construction of several prominent structures such as, the United States Capitol , the White House and other Washington, D.C.-based buildings. ) Similar building projects existed in the slave states . By 1815, the domestic slave trade had become a significant and major economic activity in
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#17327917466372280-504: A demonstration in Jena on September 20, 2007. This event attracted thousands marching in protest. British rock musician David Bowie donated money. Rallies in support of the Jena Six were held in Jena on September 20, 2007, the date upon which Bell was scheduled for sentencing. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 demonstrators attended the rally that day, severely overtaxing the facilities of the small town. Protesters took buses from such distant cities as Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Because of
2470-668: A federal crime to aid or assist those who had fled slavery or to interfere with their capture. By that time, slavery, which almost exclusively targeted Black people, had become the most critical and contentious political issue in the Antebellum United States , repeatedly sparking crises and conflicts. Among these were the Missouri Compromise , the Compromise of 1850 , the infamous Dred Scott decision , and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry . Prior to
2660-627: A few to thousands. Lynching steadily increased after the Civil War, peaking in 1892. Lynchings remained common into the early 1900s, accelerating with the emergence of the Second Ku Klux Klan . Lynchings declined considerably by the time of the Great Depression . The 1955 lynching of Emmett Till , a 14-year-old African-American boy, galvanized the civil rights movement and marked the last classical lynching (as recorded by
2850-549: A group formed to promote relations between the countries. After riots against Blacks in Cincinnati , its Black community sponsored founding of the Wilberforce Colony , an initially successful settlement of African American immigrants to Canada. The colony was one of the first such independent political entities. It lasted for a number of decades and provided a destination for about 200 Black families emigrating from
3040-489: A limited role to play in the matter. Representative Lee and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus called upon outgoing Louisiana Governor Blanco to pardon the Jena Six on December 19, 2007, stating that "we believe Mychal Bell and the Jena 6 have paid a sufficient debt to society for any transgressions they may have committed". Blanco's office responded that she cannot grant pardons without
3230-432: A local emergency room after three hours of treatment and observation for a concussion and an eye that had swollen shut. The emergency physician's record shows that he also had injuries to his face, ears, and hand. He attended his school's class ring ceremony and dance that evening. He later testified, "I waited 11 years to go to it. I wasn't going to let that get in my way". He left the dance early due to pain. During
3420-425: A new trial on the grounds that Bell should not have been tried as an adult . A request to lower Bell's $ 90,000 bond was denied on August 24, 2007, due to his juvenile record. Bell had been put on probation for a battery that occurred December 25, 2005. While on probation, he was convicted of another battery charge and two charges of criminal damage to property. One of the battery charges was reportedly for punching
3610-676: A number of locations in the United States. In 1863, during the American Civil War , President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation . The proclamation declared that all slaves in Confederate-held territory were free. Advancing Union troops enforced the proclamation, with Texas being the last state to be emancipated, in 1865. Slavery in a few border states continued until
3800-499: A pageant illuminating the tyranny of White supremacy ". The state of Mississippi tried two defendants, but they were speedily acquitted by an all-White jury . One hundred days after Emmett Till's murder, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Alabama—indeed, Parks told Emmett's mother Mamie Till that "the photograph of Emmett's disfigured face in the casket was set in her mind when she refused to give up her seat on
3990-748: A process known as White flight . Despite discrimination, drawing cards for leaving the hopelessness in the South were the growth of African American institutions and communities in Northern cities. Institutions included Black oriented organizations (e.g., Urban League , NAACP ), churches, businesses, and newspapers, as well as successes in the development in African American intellectual culture, music, and popular culture (e.g., Harlem Renaissance , Chicago Black Renaissance ). The Cotton Club in Harlem
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#17327917466374180-525: A racist country". In a column in the Kansas City Star , Jason Whitlock drew attention to what he called factual inaccuracies in reporting of the story. He focused on the piece circulated by Bean to news outlets, "Bean's story is framed—by his own admission—as an indictment of the criminal justice system and the people in power in Jena and, therefore, the story is unfairly biased". Craig Franklin, assistant editor of The Jena Times , who says that he
4370-480: A recognized lynching, a definition which became generally accepted by other compilers of the era: 1. There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. 2. That person must have met death illegally. 3. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. 4. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to justice, race, or tradition. Statistics for lynchings have traditionally come from three sources primarily, none of which covered
4560-406: A recommendation from the state Pardon Board, and no meeting of that body was scheduled during her remaining term of office. Walters commented that Representative Lee's "passion for racial equality is admirable, but her grasp of the facts is not". He indicated that the attack on Barker was not just a schoolyard fight "but rather an unprovoked, unforeseen assault on a young man who had nothing to do with
4750-460: A relation to the concentration of Blacks in parts of the Deep South: where the Black population was concentrated, lynching rates were higher. Such areas also had a particular mix of socioeconomic conditions, with a high dependence on cotton cultivation. Henry Smith , an African American handyman accused of murdering a policeman's daughter, was a noted lynching victim because of the ferocity of
4940-467: A settlement of Barker's claims against the Jena Six, though the claim against the school board remained pending. African Americans African Americans , also known as Black Americans , formerly also called Afro-Americans , are an American racial or ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa . African Americans constitute
5130-516: A significant influence on worldwide culture, making numerous contributions to visual arts , literature , the English language, philosophy , politics, cuisine , sports , and music . The African-American contribution to popular music is so profound that most American music , including jazz , gospel , blues , rock and roll , funk , disco , house , techno , hip hop , R&B , trap , and soul , has its origins either partially or entirely in
5320-425: A small cash payment called "freedom dues". Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom. They raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or European settlers . By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown , and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640,
5510-479: A summary of the situation from Alan Bean , a Texas minister who had founded the advocacy group Friends of Justice. The group sent its document to other reporters and bloggers. In it Bean demanded that outside authorities, not those in LaSalle Parish, deal with the case, and that no incarceration of the defendants occur. Britain's The Observer also featured an article on the case on May 20. A segment on
5700-531: A total of 4,733 persons had died by lynching since 1882. The last lynching recorded by the Tuskegee Institute was that of Emmett Till in 1955. In the 65 years leading up to 1947, at least one lynching was reported every year. The period from 1882 to 1901 saw the height of lynchings, with an average of over 150 each year. 1892 saw the most number of lynchings in a year: 231 or 3.25 per one million people. After 1924 cases steadily declined, with less than 30
5890-426: A variety of other ways: being shot, burned alive, thrown off a bridge, dragged behind a car, etc. Occasionally, the body parts of the victims were removed and sold as souvenirs. Lynchings were not always fatal; "mock" lynchings, which involved putting a rope around the neck of someone who was suspected of concealing information, was sometimes used to compel people to make "confessions". Lynch mobs varied in size from just
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6080-644: A white male, was charged with battery for his role in the fight and was put on probation. Bailey later said that one of the white males broke a beer bottle over his head, but there are no records of Bailey receiving medical treatment. The following day, an incident occurred at the Gotta Go convenience store, outside Jena in unincorporated LaSalle Parish, between Matt Windham and three black youths, including Bailey. Law enforcement reported that their accounts contradicted each other. Windham alleged that Bailey and his friends chased him, that he ran to get his gun, and that
6270-530: A white woman and were jailed pending a grand jury hearing. A physician's subsequent examination of the woman found no evidence of rape or assault. In 1903, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported a new, popular make-believe children's game: "The Game of Lynching". "Imaginary mayor gives order not to harm imaginary mob, and an imaginary hanging follows. Fire contributes realistic touch." "It has crowded out baseball", and if it continues, "may deprive of some of its prestige
6460-522: A white woman. The mob responded by putting the noose around the officer's neck as a way of scaring him, and completed killing the other man. Although at the inquest the officer identified eight people who had participated in the lynching, including the former chief of police, the jury determined that the murder had been carried out "by person or persons unknown". In Duluth, Minnesota , on June 15, 1920, three young African American traveling circus workers were lynched after having been accused of having raped
6650-506: A woman that no one was allowed inside without an invitation. The youths persisted, stating that some friends were already at the party. A white male, who was not a student, moved in front of the woman and a fight ensued. After the fight broke up, the woman told both the white male and the black students to leave the party. Once outside, the black students were involved in another fight with a group of white males who were not students. Justin Sloan,
6840-423: A year, compared with 41 percent in 1960. In 1965, 19 percent of Black Americans had incomes equal to the national median, a proportion that rose to 27 percent by 1967. In 1960, the median level of education for Blacks had been 10.8 years, and by the late 1960s, the figure rose to 12.2 years, half a year behind the median for Whites. Politically and economically, African Americans have made substantial strides during
7030-704: A year. The decreasing rate of yearly lynchings was faster outside the South and for white victims of lynching. Lynching became more of a Southern phenomenon and a racial one that overwhelmingly affected Black victims. There were measurable variations in lynching rates between and within states. According to the Tuskegee Institute, 38% of victims of lynching were accused of murder, 16% of rape, 7% for attempted rape, 6% were accused of felonious assault, 7% for theft, 2% for insult to white people, and 24% were accused of miscellaneous offenses or no offense. In 1940, sociologist Arthur F. Raper investigated one hundred lynchings after 1929 and estimated that approximately one-third of
7220-743: Is now the continental United States. The first recorded Africans in English America (including most of the future United States) were "20 and odd negroes" who arrived in Jamestown , Virginia via Cape Comfort in August 1619 as indentured servants . As many Virginian settlers began to die from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. An indentured servant (who could be White or Black) would work for several years (usually four to seven) without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland
7410-555: Is the only writer to have covered this story from its inception, wrote in The Christian Science Monitor , "I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts ... the truth about Jena will eventually be known". The case provoked reactions that the charges against the Jena Six were disproportionate and racially motivated. Supporters of the Jena Six circulated online petitions, raised money for legal defense, and held
7600-551: Is three times more likely to go to jail than a white male arrested for the same crime. Writing in The New York Times , Professor Orlando Patterson of Harvard University used the case to highlight the use of the prison system as a means of "controlling young black men", which is one factor in a broader "crisis in relations between men and women of all classes and, as a result, the catastrophic state of black family life". Other columnists have argued that inaccuracies in
7790-431: Is unclear. It was reported that the principal, Scott Windham, learned that three white students were responsible and recommended expulsion , that the board of education overruled his recommendation, and that school superintendent Roy Breithaupt agreed with the overruling. It was initially reported that the punishment was reduced to three days of in-school suspension. Under the district's Crisis Management Policy Procedures,
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7980-609: The American Civil War , southern Whites struggled to maintain their dominance. Secret vigilante and terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) instigated extrajudicial assaults and killings in order to discourage freedmen from voting, working, and getting educated. They also sometimes attacked Northerners, teachers, and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau . The magnitude of the extralegal violence which occurred during election campaigns reached epidemic proportions, leading
8170-716: The American Revolution . After the United States was founded in 1783, most Black people continued to be enslaved , primarily concentrated in the American South , with four million enslaved people only liberated during and at the end of the Civil War in 1865. During Reconstruction , they gained citizenship and adult-males the right to vote ; however, due to the widespread policy and ideology of White supremacy , they were largely treated as second-class citizens and found themselves soon disenfranchised in
8360-593: The BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta on October 13, 2007, and were invited to present the award for Video of the Year . When the two defendants came out on stage, they were greeted by a standing ovation. Emcee Katt Williams joked, "They don't look so tough, do they?" The two members delivered speeches thanking family, friends, the "Hip-Hop Nation", and those who came to Jena. Justin Barker and his parents filed
8550-685: The Civil War , eight serving presidents had owned slaves, a practice that was legally protected under the US Constitution. By 1860, the number of enslaved Black people in the US had grown to between 3.5 to 4.4 million, largely as a result of the Atlantic slave trade . In addition, 488,000–500,000 Black people lived free (with legislated limits) across the country. With legislated limits imposed upon them in addition to "unconquerable prejudice" from Whites according to Henry Clay . In response to these conditions, some free Black people chose to leave
8740-498: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigators found that the hanging of the nooses "had all the markings of a hate crime ". But, it could not be prosecuted as such since juveniles are rarely prosecuted in the federal system, and this offense did not meet departmental standards for charges to be brought. La Salle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters stated that Washington had found no federal statute under which
8930-754: The Great Awakening . By 1775, Africans made up 20% of the population in the American colonies , which made them the second largest ethnic group after English Americans . During the 1770s, Africans, both enslaved and free, helped rebellious American colonists secure their independence by defeating the British in the American Revolutionary War . Blacks played a role in both sides in the American Revolution. Activists in
9120-598: The Irish and Germans . According to the 2010 census , nearly 3% of people who self-identified as Black had recent ancestors who immigrated from another country. Self-reported non-Hispanic Black immigrants from the Caribbean , mostly from Jamaica and Haiti, represented 0.9% of the US population, at 2.6 million. Self-reported Black immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa also represented 0.9%, at about 2.8 million. Additionally, self-identified Black Hispanics represented 0.4% of
9310-517: The NAACP and other civil rights groups. On November 25, 1915, a group of men led by William J. Simmons burned a cross on top of Stone Mountain , inaugurating the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The event was attended by 15 charter members and a few aging former members of the original Klan. The Klan and their use of lynching was supported by some public officials like John Trotwood Moore ,
9500-987: The New York City metropolitan area still has the largest African American metropolitan population in the United States and the only to have over 3 million African Americans. Among cities of 100,000 or more , South Fulton, Georgia had the highest percentage of Black residents of any large US city in 2020, with 93%. Other large cities with African American majorities include Jackson, Mississippi (80%), Detroit, Michigan (80%), Birmingham, Alabama (70%), Miami Gardens, Florida (67%), Memphis, Tennessee (63%), Montgomery, Alabama (62%), Baltimore, Maryland (60%), Augusta, Georgia (59%), Shreveport, Louisiana (58%), New Orleans, Louisiana (57%), Macon, Georgia (56%), Baton Rouge, Louisiana (55%), Hampton, Virginia (53%), Newark, New Jersey (53%), Mobile, Alabama (53%), Cleveland, Ohio (52%), Brockton, Massachusetts (51%), and Savannah, Georgia (51%). Lynching in
9690-499: The State Librarian and Archivist of Tennessee from 1919 to 1929. Moore "became one of the South's more strident advocates of lynching". 1919 was one of the worst years for lynching with at least seventy-six people killed in mob or vigilante related violence. Of these, more than eleven African American veterans who had served in the recently completed war were lynched in that year . White supremacist violence culminated in
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#17327917466379880-645: The Tuskegee Institute recorded 1,297 lynchings of white people and 3,446 lynchings of Black people. Lynchings were concentrated in the Cotton Belt ( Mississippi , Georgia , Alabama , Texas , and Louisiana ). However, lynchings of Mexicans were under-counted in the Tuskegee Institute's records, and some of the largest mass lynchings in American history were the Chinese massacre of 1871 and
10070-463: The Tuskegee Institute ). The overwhelming majority of lynching perpetrators never faced justice. White supremacy and all-white juries ensured that perpetrators, even if tried, would not be convicted. Campaigns against lynching gained momentum in the early 20th century, championed by groups such as the NAACP . Some 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress between the end of the Civil War and
10260-610: The Western states. The west does have a sizable Black population in certain areas, however. California, the nation's most populous state, has the fifth largest African American population, only behind New York, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. According to the 2000 census, approximately 2.05% of African Americans identified as Hispanic or Latino in origin , many of whom may be of Brazilian , Puerto Rican , Dominican , Cuban , Haitian , or other Latin American descent. The only self-reported ancestral groups larger than African Americans are
10450-446: The colony of Georgia to come to Florida as a refuge, promising freedom in exchange for conversion to Catholicism . King Charles II issued a royal proclamation freeing all slaves who fled to Spanish Florida and accepted conversion and baptism. Most went to the area around St. Augustine , but escaped slaves also reached Pensacola. St. Augustine had mustered an all-Black militia unit defending Spanish Florida as early as 1683. One of
10640-630: The lynching of eleven Italian immigrants in 1891 in New Orleans . During the California Gold Rush , White resentment towards more successful Mexican and Chilean miners resulted in the lynching of at least 160 Mexicans between 1848 and 1860. Members of mobs that participated in lynchings often took photographs of what they had done to their victims in order to spread awareness and fear of their power. Souvenir taking, such as pieces of rope, clothing, branches, and sometimes body parts
10830-412: The " due process " of the U.S. judicial system. He links the decline in lynchings in the early 20th century to "the advent of the modern death penalty", and argues that "legislators renovated the death penalty...out of direct concern for the alternative of mob violence". Between 1901 and 1964, Georgia hanged and electrocuted 609 people. Eighty-two percent of those executed were Black men, even though Georgia
11020-641: The 16th century, with Africans from West Africa and coastal Central Africa being sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere . After arriving in the Americas , they were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations , particularly in the southern colonies . A few were able to achieve freedom through manumission or escape, and founded independent communities before and during
11210-429: The 1790s, Governor Francisco Luis Héctor, baron of Carondelet reinforced local fortifications and recruit even more free Black men for the militia. Carondelet doubled the number of free Black men who served, creating two more militia companies—one made up of Black members and the other of pardo (mixed race). Serving in the militia brought free Black men one step closer to equality with Whites, allowing them, for example,
11400-698: The 17th century, in the context of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the British Isles and unsettled social and political conditions in the American colonies, lynchings became a frequent form of "mob justice" when the authorities were perceived as untrustworthy. In the United States, during the decades after the Civil War , African Americans were the main victims of racial lynching, but in the American Southwest , Mexican Americans were also
11590-633: The 1900 Hampton Negro Conference , Reverend Matthew Anderson said: "...the lines along most of the avenues of wage earning are more rigidly drawn in the North than in the South." Within the housing market, stronger discriminatory measures were used in correlation to the influx, resulting in a mix of "targeted violence, restrictive covenants , redlining and racial steering ". While many Whites defended their space with violence, intimidation, or legal tactics toward African Americans, many other Whites migrated to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions,
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#173279174663711780-453: The 1921 Tulsa race massacre in which the majority-Black Greenwood District was razed to the ground. The NAACP mounted a strong nationwide campaign of protests and public education against The Birth of a Nation . As a result, some city governments prohibited the release of the film. In addition, the NAACP publicized production and helped create audiences for the 1919 releases, The Birth of
11970-799: The 1960s. However, in 2021 there were claims that racist lynchings still happen in the United States, being covered up as suicides. Opponents of legislation often said lynchings prevented murder and rape. As documented by Ida B. Wells , the most prevalent accusation against lynching victims was murder or attempted murder. Rape charges or rumors were present in less than one-third of the lynchings; such charges were often pretexts for lynching Blacks who violated Jim Crow etiquette or engaged in economic competition with Whites. Other common reasons given included arson, theft, assault, and robbery; sexual transgressions ( miscegenation , adultery, cohabitation); "race prejudice", "race hatred", "racial disturbance"; informing on others; "threats against whites"; and violations of
12160-605: The 19th century, as well as financial depression in the 1890s. In the Mississippi bottomlands, for instance, lynchings rose when crops and accounts were supposed to be settled. The late 1800s and early 1900s in the Mississippi Delta showed both frontier influence and actions directed at repressing African Americans. After the Civil War, 90% of the Delta was still undeveloped. Both Whites and Blacks migrated there for
12350-544: The 20th and 21st centuries, immigration has played an increasingly significant role in the African-American community. As of 2022, 10% of Black Americans were immigrants, and 20% were either immigrants or the children of immigrants. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first, and so far only, African American to be elected president of the United States. Kamala Harris became the nation's first African-American vice president in 2020. African-American culture has had
12540-683: The African slave trade, Spanish rule introduced a new law called coartación , which allowed slaves to buy their freedom, and that of others. Although some did not have the money to do so, government measures on slavery enabled the existence of many free Blacks. This caused problems to the Spaniards with the French creoles (French who had settled in New France ) who had also populated Spanish Louisiana. The French creoles cited that measure as one of
12730-463: The African-American community. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from several Central and West Africa ethnic groups. They had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids, or sold by other West Africans, or by half-European "merchant princes" to European slave traders, who brought them to the Americas. The first African slaves arrived via Santo Domingo in
12920-455: The American Revolution. They fought in the 1779 battle in which Spain captured Baton Rouge from the British. Gálvez also commanded them in campaigns against the British outposts in Mobile , Alabama , and Pensacola , Florida. He recruited slaves for the militia by pledging to free anyone who was seriously wounded and promised to secure a low price for coartación (buy their freedom and that of others) for those who received lesser wounds. During
13110-476: The Barker proceedings. The defense filed a motion to dismiss the Barker charges on the ground that retrying Bell would amount to double jeopardy . On November 8, 2007, Mauffray denied the motion. Bell's retrial in the Barker assault was scheduled for December 6. Three days before the trial began, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of battery, and was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile facility, with credit for time served. He agreed to testify against any of
13300-400: The Caribbean to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South Carolina ), founded by Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526. The ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans . De Ayllón and many of
13490-614: The Carolinas, paramilitary chapters of Red Shirts conducted overt violence and disruption of elections. In Louisiana, the White League had numerous chapters; they carried out goals of the Democratic Party to suppress Black voting. Grant's desire to keep Ohio in the Republican aisle and his attorney general's maneuvers led to a failure to support the Mississippi governor with Federal troops. The campaign of terror worked. In Yazoo County, Mississippi , for instance, with an African American population of 12,000, only seven votes were cast for Republicans in 1874. In 1875, Democrats swept into power in
13680-635: The Civil Rights movement, but none passed. Finally, in 2022, 67 years after Emmett Till's killing and the end of the lynching era, the United States Congress passed anti-lynching legislation in the form of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act . Collective violence was a familiar aspect of the early American legal landscape, with group violence in colonial America being usually nonlethal in intention and result. In
13870-481: The Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson , would later own one of the first Black "slaves", John Casor , resulting from the court ruling of a civil case. The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 18th century. The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the importation of eleven Black slaves into New Amsterdam (present-day New York City ). All
14060-525: The Jena Six case. John Mellencamp released a song and video called "Jena", with lyrics such as "Jena, take your nooses down" which gained considerable media attention, and which Mellencamp described as a "condemnation of racism". The video juxtaposes images of Jena, the high school, and the tree with video from the 1960s, including civil rights marchers and police beatings, video of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. speaking, and an image of
14250-431: The Jena Six case. Online advocacy group Color of Change , which had previously advocated for victims of Hurricane Katrina , called for District Attorney Walters to drop all charges and for Governor Kathleen Blanco to investigate his conduct. Color of Change raised more than $ 212,000 for the Jena Six legal defense, largely through online donations. While the NAACP provided a link to the fund through its website, initially,
14440-456: The Jim Crow laws, to avoid racially motivated violence . To maintain self-esteem and dignity, African Americans such as Anthony Overton and Mary McLeod Bethune continued to build their own schools , churches , banks, social clubs, and other businesses. In the last decade of the 19th century, racially discriminatory laws and racial violence aimed at African Americans began to mushroom in
14630-735: The Mississippi state legislature. Lynching attacks on African Americans, especially in the South , increased dramatically in the aftermath of Reconstruction. The peak of lynchings occurred in 1892, after White Southern Democrats had regained control of state legislatures. Many incidents were related to economic troubles and competition. At the turn of the 20th century, southern states passed new constitutions or legislation which effectively disenfranchised most Black people and many Poor Whites , established segregation of public facilities by race, and separated Black people from common public life and facilities through Jim Crow laws . The rate of lynchings in
14820-747: The Montgomery bus." The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the conditions which brought it into being are credited with putting pressure on presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson . Johnson put his support behind passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and labor unions , and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which expanded federal authority over states to ensure Black political participation through protection of voter registration and elections. By 1966,
15010-772: The Patriot cause included James Armistead , Prince Whipple , and Oliver Cromwell . Around 15,000 Black Loyalists left with the British after the war, most of them ending up as free Black people in England or its colonies, such as the Black Nova Scotians and the Sierra Leone Creole people . In the Spanish Louisiana , Governor Bernardo de Gálvez organized Spanish free Black men into two militia companies to defend New Orleans during
15200-516: The Root premiered on March 28, 2014 at Penn State Center Stage. The story is told through the lens of one of the Jena 6's sister, who also attended the high school. The audience is able to experience the series of events that led up to the convictions from multiple students' unique perspective. It has toured internationally and has been described as "catalyzing conversations on difficult and essential questions of race and justice". Many online petitions circulated calling for various actions in response to
15390-401: The South . These circumstances changed due to participation in the military conflicts of the United States , substantial migration out of the South , the elimination of legal racial segregation , and the civil rights movement which sought political and social freedom. However, racism against African Americans and racial socioeconomic disparity remain a problem into the 21st century. In
15580-590: The South before 1930. Conclusions of numerous studies since the mid-20th century have found the following variables affecting the rate of lynchings in the South: "lynchings were more numerous where the African American population was relatively large, the agricultural economy was based predominantly on cotton, the white population was economically stressed, the Democratic Party was stronger, and multiple religious organizations competed for congregants." After
15770-458: The South has been strongly associated with economic strains, although the causal nature of this link is unclear. Low cotton prices, inflation , and economic stress are associated with higher frequencies of lynching. Georgia led the nation in lynchings from 1900 to 1931, with 302 incidents, according to The Tuskegee Institute . However, Florida led the nation in lynchings per capita from 1900 to 1930. Lynchings peaked in many areas when it
15960-546: The South sparked the Great Migration during the first half of the 20th century which led to a growing African American community in Northern and Western United States. The rapid influx of Blacks disturbed the racial balance within Northern and Western cities, exacerbating hostility between both Blacks and Whites in the two regions. The Red Summer of 1919 was marked by hundreds of deaths and higher casualties across
16150-566: The Southwest, Latinos . Of the 468 lynching victims in Texas between 1885 and 1942, 339 were Black, 77 white, 53 Hispanic, and 1 Native American. There were also Black-on-Black lynchings, with 125 recorded between 1882 and 1903, and there were four incidences of Whites being killed by Black mobs. The rate of Black-on-Black lynchings rose and fell in similar pattern of overall lynchings. There were also over 200 cases of white-on-white lynchings in
16340-575: The U.S. Deeming American criticism of Soviet Union human rights abuses at this time as hypocrisy, the Russians responded with " And you are lynching Negroes ". In Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (2001), the historian Mary L. Dudziak wrote that Soviet communist criticism of racial discrimination and violence in the United States influenced the federal government to support civil rights legislation. Most lynchings ceased by
16530-521: The US Census Bureau, evidence from the 2000 census indicates that many African and Caribbean immigrant ethnic groups do not identify as "Black, African Am., or Negro". Instead, they wrote in their own respective ethnic groups in the "Some Other Race" write-in entry. As a result, the census bureau devised a new, separate "African American" ethnic group category in 2010 for ethnic African Americans. Nigerian Americans and Ethiopian Americans were
16720-661: The US and emigrate to Liberia in West Africa. Liberia had been established in 1821 as a settlement by the American Colonization Society (ACS), with many abolitionist members of the ACS believing Black Americans would have greater opportunities for freedom and equality in Africa than they would in the US. Slaves not only represented a significant financial investment for their owners, but they also played
16910-506: The US as a result of race riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities, such as the Chicago race riot of 1919 and the Omaha race riot of 1919 . Overall, Blacks in Northern and Western cities experienced systemic discrimination in a plethora of aspects of life. Within employment, economic opportunities for Blacks were routed to the lowest-status and restrictive in potential mobility. At
17100-407: The US. As a result of this large-scale forced movement, countless individuals lost their connection to families and clans, and many ethnic Africans lost their knowledge of varying tribal origins in Africa. The 1863 photograph of Wilson Chinn , a branded slave from Louisiana, along with the famous image of Gordon and his scarred back, served as two of the earliest and most powerful examples of how
17290-547: The United States Lynching was the widespread occurrence of extrajudicial killings which began in the United States ' pre–Civil War South in the 1830s, slowed during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and continued until 1981. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became
17480-423: The United States . In June 2021, Juneteenth , a day which commemorates the end of slavery in the US, became a federal holiday. In 1790, when the first US census was taken, Africans (including slaves and free people) numbered about 760,000—about 19.3% of the population. In 1860, at the start of the Civil War , the African American population had increased to 4.4 million, but the percentage rate dropped to 14% of
17670-399: The United States . Some commentators believed that the defendants had been charged initially with too-serious offenses and had been treated unfairly. A number of events had taken place in and around Jena in the months before the Barker assault, which the media have associated with an alleged escalation of local racial tensions. These events included: the hanging of rope nooses from a tree in
17860-533: The United States population, at about 1.2 million people, largely found within the Puerto Rican and Dominican communities. Self-reported Black immigrants hailing from other countries in the Americas, such as Brazil and Canada, as well as several European countries, represented less than 0.1% of the population. Mixed-race Hispanic and non-Hispanic Americans who identified as being part Black, represented 0.9% of
18050-763: The United States, a period often referred to as the " nadir of American race relations ". These discriminatory acts included racial segregation—upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896—which was legally mandated by southern states and nationwide at the local level of government, voter suppression or disenfranchisement in the southern states, denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide, and private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans unhindered or encouraged by government authorities. The desperate conditions of African Americans in
18240-638: The United States, continuing to flourish until the 1860s. Historians estimate that nearly one million individuals were subjected to this forced migration, which was often referred to as a new "Middle Passage". The historian Ira Berlin described this internal forced migration of enslaved people as the "central event" in the life of a slave during the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Berlin emphasized that whether enslaved individuals were directly uprooted or lived in constant fear that they or their families would be involuntarily relocated, "the massive deportation traumatized Black people" throughout
18430-524: The Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of lifetime slavery when they sentenced John Punch , a Negro, to lifetime servitude under his master Hugh Gwyn , for running away. In Spanish Florida , some Spanish married or had unions with Pensacola , Creek or African women, both enslaved and free, and their descendants created a mixed-race population of mestizos and mulattos . The Spanish encouraged slaves from
18620-410: The assembly. Already pressed for time due to a case under preparation, Walters felt that the students were not paying proper attention to him. He warned them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make life miserable for you or ruin your life. So I want you to call me before you do something stupid". Though black students say Walters was looking at them when he made
18810-646: The attack against him and the huge crowd that gathered. He was lynched at Paris, Texas , in 1893 for killing Myrtle Vance, the three-year-old daughter of a Texas policeman, after the policeman had assaulted Smith. Smith was not tried in a court of law. A large crowd followed the lynching, as was common then in the style of public executions. Henry Smith was fastened to a wooden platform, tortured for 50 minutes by red-hot iron brands, and burned alive while more than 10,000 spectators cheered. Fewer than one percent of lynch mob participants were ever convicted by local courts and they were seldom prosecuted or brought to trial. By
19000-413: The beating. "When this case was brought to me and during our investigation and during the trial, there was no such linkage ever suggested. This compact story line has only been suggested after the fact." Although Washington believed that both the noose hangings and the Barker battery were symptoms of racial tension, he has also said that there was no apparent lingering anger among students at the school after
19190-416: The black attackers claimed that they beat victim Justin Barker because he made a racist joke, but subsequently they advanced the explanation they beat him because they encountered three nooses. Superintendent Breithaupt described the battery as a "premeditated ambush and attack by six students against one. The victim attacked was beaten and kicked into a state of bloody unconsciousness". Barker was released from
19380-403: The cafeteria, although this has been disputed. According to early reports of the school environment, black students when outside typically sat on bleachers near the auditorium, while white students sat under a large tree in the center of the school courtyard, referred to as the "white tree" or " prep tree". According to some of the school's teachers and administrators, the tree in question was not
19570-410: The charges for these four were unaffected by the appellate ruling overturning Bell's conviction. Proceedings were on hold for some time pending resolution of various motions to require Mauffray to recuse himself . On July 31, 2008, Mauffray was removed from the cases by Judge Thomas Yeager for making questionable comments about the defendants. The Louisiana Supreme Court assigned Judge Yeager to hear
19760-580: The civil case by Barker against the Jena Six members had been settled on undisclosed terms. His civil case against the school board was pending. Initially, the Jena Six were largely ignored by the United States national media, though covered locally and within Louisiana. Both The Jena Times and The Town Talk (a regional newspaper published in Alexandria, Louisiana ) covered the story from its inception. A number of African-American bloggers also covered
19950-551: The colonists died shortly afterward, due to an epidemic and the colony was abandoned. The settlers and the slaves who had not escaped returned to the Island of Hispaniola , whence they had come. The marriage between Luisa de Abrego, a free Black domestic servant from Seville , and Miguel Rodríguez, a White Segovian conquistador in 1565 in St. Augustine (Spanish Florida), is the first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in what
20140-430: The colony's slaves, however, were freed upon its surrender to the English. Massachusetts was the first English colony to legally recognize slavery in 1641. In 1662, Virginia passed a law that children of enslaved women would take the status of the mother, rather than that of the father, as was the case under common law . This legal principle was called partus sequitur ventrum . By an act of 1699, Virginia ordered
20330-434: The color line ("attending white girl", "proposals to white woman"). Although the rhetoric which surrounded lynchings frequently suggested that they were carried out in order to protect the virtue and safety of white women, the actions basically arose out of white attempts to maintain domination in a rapidly changing society and their fears of social change. Mobs usually alleged crimes for which they lynched Black people. In
20520-424: The comments, Walters and school board member Billy Fowler, also present, deny it. Walters said that he was irritated at "two or three girls, white girls, [who] were chit-chatting on their cellphones or playing with their cellphones". On November 30, 2006, the main building of the high school was destroyed by arson . Although it would be many months before the perpetrators were known, the news media later widely cited
20710-464: The congestion on the roads leading to Jena, many protesters left their vehicles and continued into town on foot. Attendees included civil rights activists Jesse Jackson , Al Sharpton , and Martin Luther King III , and rappers Mos Def and Salt-n-Pepa . Rapper-actor Ice Cube attended and financially supported the rally. Darryl Hunt , an African American who was wrongfully convicted of
20900-409: The defendants: To be clear, not one of us heard Justin use any slur or say anything that justified Mychal Bell attacking Justin nor did any of us see Justin do anything that would cause Mychal to react. Yeager, who presided over the plea and sentencing, also ordered the youths to avoid criminal activity, and not to disavow the statement made on their behalf in court. On June 26, it was announced that
21090-728: The definitions which are given to specific incidents by those sources. The Tuskegee Institute has recorded the lynchings of 3,446 Blacks and the lynchings of 1,297 Whites, all of which occurred between 1882 and 1968, with the peak occurring in the 1890s, at a time of economic stress in the South and increasing political suppression of Blacks. A six-year study published in 2017 by the Equal Justice Initiative found that 4,084 Black men, women, and children fell victim to "racial terror lynchings" in twelve Southern states between 1877 and 1950, besides 300 that took place in other states. During this period, Mississippi's 654 lynchings led
21280-428: The deportation of all free Blacks, effectively defining all people of African descent who remained in the colony as slaves. In 1670, the colonial assembly passed a law prohibiting free and baptized Blacks (and Native Americans) from purchasing Christians (in this act meaning White Europeans) but allowing them to buy people "of their owne nation". In Spanish Louisiana , although there was no movement toward abolition of
21470-484: The donation link on the NAACP Jena Six support page steered potential donors to the generic NAACP donation page, with no way to designate funds for the Jena Six. Black bloggers objected, and several days later, the link was altered to reach the defense fund. The Southern Poverty Law Center represented Beard, hired local defense counsel to represent Bailey, and helped coordinate the overall defense strategy. In
21660-539: The emergence of the Black Power movement, which lasted from 1966 to 1975, expanded upon the aims of the civil rights movement to include economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from White authority. During the post-war period, many African Americans continued to be economically disadvantaged relative to other Americans. Average Black income stood at 54 percent of that of White workers in 1947, and 55 percent in 1962. In 1959, median family income for Whites
21850-591: The entire historical time period of lynching in the United States. Before 1882, no contemporaneous statistics were assembled on a national level. In 1882, the Chicago Tribune began to systematically tabulate lynchings nationally. In 1908, the Tuskegee Institute began a systematic collection of lynching reports under the direction of Monroe Work at its Department of Records, drawn primarily from newspaper reports. Monroe Work published his first independent tabulations in 1910, although his report also went back to
22040-673: The families have continually received threatening and harassing phone calls. On September 25, 2007, Representative John Conyers (D), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee , announced that he would hold congressional hearings on what he described as "the miscarriages of justice that have occurred in Jena, Louisiana", with the goal of pressuring the United States Department of Justice into taking action. The hearing took place on October 16, 2007; Washington and Sharpton, among others, testified. Walters
22230-434: The fire as a racially charged event leading up to the assault on Barker. On December 28, 2007, LaSalle Parish Sheriff- elect Scott Franklin announced that an investigation had shown that the fire was set in an effort to destroy grade records in the building and to close the school for a time. Six male suspects (three juveniles and three adults) had been arrested, and two more adult males were being sought. Franklin indicated that
22420-500: The fire was not racially motivated, and had no connection to the Jena Six. Two of the arson defendants pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to ten years in prison, with restitution ordered in the amount of $ 10 million. On December 1, 2006, a private party was held at the Jena Fair Barn. Bailey and four other black youths tried to enter the party at about 11:00 p.m. According to U.S. Attorney Washington, they were told by
22610-536: The first African American woman elected to the US Senate . There were 8,936 Black officeholders in the United States in 2000, showing a net increase of 7,467 since 1970. In 2001, there were 484 Black mayors. In 2005, the number of Africans immigrating to the United States, in a single year, surpassed the peak number who were involuntarily brought to the United States during the Atlantic slave trade . On November 4, 2008, Democratic Senator Barack Obama —the son of
22800-445: The five remaining cases by order signed August 4, 2008. Walters appealed the recusal order, but his appeal was dismissed on March 4, 2009, as moot, or no longer relevant, as Mauffray had left the bench at the end of 2008. On June 26, 2009, the remaining five defendants entered pleas of "no contest" to a charge of simple battery. The court found them guilty as charged, and sentenced each to a fine of $ 500 (waived in regards to Shaw due to
22990-423: The focus of violence in Louisiana when they started arriving in greater numbers, their deaths were not tabulated separately from Whites. In earlier years, Whites who were subject to lynching were often targeted because of suspected political activities or support of freedmen, but they were generally considered members of the community in a way new immigrants were not. Other victims included white immigrants, and, in
23180-446: The freshman and his friends sat under the tree. The following morning, students and staff discovered rope nooses hanging from the tree; reports differ as to whether there were two or three nooses. A black teacher described seeing both white and black students "playing with [the nooses], pulling on them, jump-swinging from them, and putting their heads through them" that same day. Craig Franklin, assistant editor of The Jena Times , said
23370-506: The funds. Color of Change responded to the accusations by posting links to canceled checks on their web site. In his November 10 report, Chicago Tribune correspondent Howard Witt noted that Color of Change was the only national civil rights group to be fully transparent with their use of the funds. But Witt raised broader questions about the funds, which totaled more than half a million dollars. He reported that attorneys for Bell claimed that they have yet to receive any money from him, and that
23560-487: The game of football". D. W. Griffith 's 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation , glorified the original Ku Klux Klan as protecting white southern women during Reconstruction, which he portrayed as a time of violence and corruption , following the Dunning School 's interpretation of history. The film aroused great controversy. It was popular among Whites nationwide, but it was protested against by Black activists,
23750-632: The grounds that he should have been tried as a juvenile . Before a retrial in juvenile court , Bell pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of simple battery . The other five defendants later pleaded " no contest " to the same offense and were convicted. The Jena Six case sparked protests by people who considered the arrests and subsequent charges, initially attempted second-degree murder , as excessive and racially discriminatory. The protesters asserted that white Jena youths involved in similar incidents were treated more leniently. On September 20, 2007, between 15,000 and 20,000 protesters marched on Jena in what
23940-442: The hanging of the nooses". Governor Blanco's term of office ended without any pardons being granted. On July 31, 2007, the school had the controversial tree cut down. School Board member Fowler said, "There's nothing positive about that old tree. It's all negative. And I'm serving on the new School Board, and we're wanting to start fresh on some things". According to Fowler, the tree would have had to have been cut down to make way for
24130-407: The high school courtyard, two violent confrontations between white and black youths, and the destruction by fire of the main building of Jena High School. Extensive news coverage related to the Jena Six often reported these events as linked. Federal and parish attorneys concluded from their investigations that assessment was inaccurate for some of the events; for instance, the burning of the high school
24320-514: The historian William Gillette to label it " guerrilla warfare ", and historian Thomas E. Smith to understand it as a form of " colonial violence". The lynchers sometimes murdered their victims, but sometimes whipped or physically assaulted them to remind them of their former status as slaves. Often night-time raids of African American homes were made in order to confiscate firearms. Lynchings to prevent freedmen and their allies from voting and bearing arms were extralegal ways of trying to enforce
24510-463: The late 19th century, however, journalist Ida B. Wells showed that many presumed crimes were either exaggerated or had not even occurred. The ideology behind lynching, directly connected to the denial of political and social equality, was stated forthrightly in 1900 by United States Senator Benjamin Tillman , who was previously governor of South Carolina : We of the South have never recognized
24700-490: The late 19th century, trial juries in most of the southern United States were all white because African Americans had been disenfranchised, and only registered voters could serve as jurors. Often juries never let the matter go past the inquest. Such cases happened in the North as well. In 1892, a police officer in Port Jervis, New York , tried to stop the lynching of a Black man who had been wrongfully accused of assaulting
24890-459: The lynchings which occurred in all of the Southern states. The records of Tuskegee Institute remain the single most complete source of statistics and records on this crime since 1882 for all states, although modern research has illuminated new incidents in studies focused on specific states in isolation. As of 1959, which was the last time that Tuskegee Institute's annual report was published,
25080-409: The media coverage unfairly tarnish the town and have led to a national overreaction, part of the tendency in the 24-hour news cycle. Dallas Morning News columnist Heather MacDonald, while condemning the noose hangings as a "despicable provocation", said that "the media, the (race) advocates and pandering politicians have erupted in an outpouring of seeming joy at the alleged proof that America remains
25270-428: The media. The Associated Press published an article noting the various reporting errors that have been made, including whether the tree was a "white tree", the number of nooses, and the discipline given to the noose-hanging students. Based on this, MTV posted a retraction for incorrect information that it had reported on the case from other news sources. Many major editorial pages and columnists have been sympathetic to
25460-592: The mid-1870s onward, violence rose as insurgent paramilitary groups in the Deep South worked to suppress Black voting and turn Republicans out of office. In Louisiana, the Carolinas, and Florida especially, the Democratic Party relied on paramilitary "White Line" groups, such as the White Camelia , White League and Red Shirts to terrorize, intimidate and assassinate African-American and white Republicans in an organized drive to regain power. In Mississippi and
25650-419: The months following the Jena Six rally, controversy arose about accounting and dispersal of the legal defense funds. Questions about the money were first sparked by photos posted on Robert Bailey's former MySpace account, which show him with quantities of hundred dollar bills stuffed in his mouth. The controversy expanded when radio host Michael Baisden accused Color of Change of being "shady" with their use of
25840-489: The most reported sub-Saharan African groups in the United States. Historically, African Americans have been undercounted in the US census due to a number of factors. In the 2020 census, the African American population was undercounted at an estimated rate of 3.3%, up from 2.1% in 2010. Texas has the largest African American population by state. Followed by Texas is Florida , with 3.8 million, and Georgia , with 3.6 million. After 100 years of African Americans leaving
26030-510: The new social order which was constructed under Jim Crow; Whites acted together, reinforcing their collective identity along with the unequal status of Blacks through these group acts of violence. Lynchings were also (in part) intended as a voter suppression tool. A 2019 study found that lynchings occurred more frequently in proximity to elections, in particular in areas where the Democratic Party faced challenges. Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University , defined conditions that constituted
26220-465: The newborn medium of photography could be used to visually document and encapsulate the brutality and cruelty of slavery. Emigration of free Blacks to their continent of origin had been proposed since the Revolutionary war. After Haiti became independent, it tried to recruit African Americans to migrate there after it re-established trade relations with the United States. The Haitian Union was
26410-511: The nooses were found. Law enforcement arrested six students, eventually dubbed the "Jena Six", who were accused in the attack on Barker. Five of them (Robert Bailey, Jr., then 17; Mychal Bell, then 16; Carwin Jones, then 18; Bryant Purvis, then 17; and Theo Shaw, then 17) were charged with attempted murder. The sixth student, Jesse Ray Beard (also known as Jesse Rae Beard), was charged as a juvenile. Walters charged Mychal Bell as an adult, although he
26600-416: The nooses were hung as a prank by three students directed at white members of the school rodeo team. The school's investigating committee had concluded that "the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history". The names of those who hung the nooses were not publicly disclosed. The school disciplinary process that followed
26790-542: The other assault defendants at trial. All appeals were dropped as part of the plea agreement . On September 4, 2007, charges against Carwin Jones and Theo Shaw were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy, as were those of Robert Bailey, Jr. on September 10. Bryant Purvis was arraigned on reduced charges of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery on November 7, 2007, and pleaded not guilty. Because Louisiana law considers seventeen-year-olds to be adults for purposes of criminal culpability,
26980-451: The overall White vote, although he won a larger proportion of White votes than any previous non-incumbent Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter . Obama was reelected for a second and final term , by a similar margin on November 6, 2012. In 2021, Kamala Harris , the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother, became the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian American to serve as Vice President of
27170-417: The overall population of the country. The vast majority were slaves, with only 488,000 counted as " freemen ". By 1900, the Black population had doubled and reached 8.8 million. In 1910, about 90% of African Americans lived in the South. Large numbers began migrating north looking for better job opportunities and living conditions, and to escape Jim Crow laws and racial violence. The Great Migration , as it
27360-427: The parish's population, but none of the 50 potential jurors who showed up were black. Williams did not challenge the composition of the jury pool. The jury found Bell guilty, and he faced the possibility of up to 22 years in prison. The judge scheduled sentencing for September 20, 2007. Bell's new defense attorneys, Bob Noel, Walter Lee Perkins Jr., Peggy Sullivan, Louis Scott and Carol Powell-Lexing, requested
27550-452: The population. Of the 12.6% of United States residents who identified as Black, around 10.3% were "native Black American" or ethnic African Americans, who are direct descendants of West/Central Africans brought to the US as slaves. These individuals make up well over 80% of all Blacks in the country. When including people of mixed-race origin , about 13.5% of the US population self-identified as Black or "mixed with Black". However, according to
27740-509: The post-war Reconstruction era was initially a time of progress for African Americans, that period ended in 1876. By the late 1890s, Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation and disenfranchisement . Segregation was now imposed with Jim Crow laws, using signs used to show Blacks where they could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat. For those places that were racially mixed, non-Whites had to wait until all White customers were dealt with. Most African Americans obeyed
27930-510: The post–civil rights era. In 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American Supreme Court Justice. In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the US Congress . In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected governor in US history. Clarence Thomas succeeded Marshall to become the second African American Supreme Court Justice in 1991. In 1992, Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became
28120-724: The previous system of social dominance and the Black Codes , which had been invalidated by the 14th and 15th Amendments in 1868 and 1870. Journalist, educator, and civil rights leader, Ida B. Wells commented in an 1892 pamphlet she published called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases that, "The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense." A study published in August 2022 by researchers from Clemson University has stated that, "...rates of Black lynching decreased with greater Black firearm access..." From
28310-478: The primary targets of white Southerners . Lynchings in the U.S. reached their height from the 1890s to the 1920s, and they primarily victimized ethnic minorities . Most of the lynchings occurred in the American South , as the majority of African Americans lived there, but racially motivated lynchings also occurred in the Midwest and border states . In 1891, the largest single mass lynching in American history
28500-468: The rape and murder of a young white newspaper reporter in 1984, was scheduled as a keynote speaker. The demonstrators were addressed by Darryl Matthews, General President of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, who said, "It is sobering to know that in 2007 Martin Luther King's dream of equal treatment, respect, fairness and opportunity is still not realized". Several songs have been produced in response to
28690-642: The ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865. While the Naturalization Act of 1790 limited US citizenship to Whites only, the 14th Amendment (1868) gave Black people citizenship, and the 15th Amendment (1870) gave Black men the right to vote. African Americans quickly set up congregations for themselves, as well as schools and community/civic associations, to have space away from White control or oversight. While
28880-407: The rebuilding of the school after the fire. Others thought that taking down the tree was not an effective way to address any problems of racism in Jena. "Cutting down that beautiful tree won't solve the problem at hand," said Caseptla Bailey, Robert Bailey's mother. "It still happened". The remains of the building have been cleared, and a bid accepted for the reconstruction. Jones and Purvis attended
29070-537: The right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him. Lynchings declined briefly after White supremacists, the so-called " Redeemers ", took over the governments of the southern states in the 1870s. By the end of the 19th century, with struggles over labor and disenfranchisement, and continuing agricultural depression, lynchings rose again. Between 1882 and 1968,
29260-468: The right to carry arms and boosting their earning power. However, actually these privileges distanced free Black men from enslaved Blacks and encouraged them to identify with Whites. Slavery had been tacitly enshrined in the US Constitution through provisions such as Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, commonly known as the 3/5 compromise . Due to the restrictions of Section 9, Clause 1 , Congress
29450-472: The school board did not implement a plan to "discourage the dangerous activity of threatening and attacking other students while in possession of actual knowledge of said threats and prior attacks while the students are on school grounds". The case was on hold pending resolution of the criminal cases. When the Barkers' attorney learned that Jesse Ray Beard was using defense funds (which might be garnished under
29640-690: The second largest ethno-racial group in the US after White Americans . The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States . Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African American, the majority of first-generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. Most African Americans are of West African and coastal Central African ancestry, with varying amounts of Western European and Native American ancestry. African-American history began in
29830-533: The second most common accusation; these accusations were often used as a pretext for lynching African Americans who were accused of violating Jim Crow era etiquette or engaged in economic competition with Whites . One study found that there were "4,467 total victims of lynching from 1883 to 1941. Of these victims, 4,027 were men, 99 were women, and 341 were of unidentified gender (although likely male); 3,265 were Black, 1,082 were white, 71 were Mexican or of Mexican descent, 38 were American Indian, 10 were Chinese, and 1
30020-514: The six families had refused to publicly account for the donations. On September 22, 2007, the FBI opened an investigation of a white supremacist website that listed the addresses of five of the Jena Six and the telephone numbers of some of their families "in case anyone wants to deliver justice". An FBI spokeswoman said the agency believed that the website "essentially called for their lynching ". Civil rights advocate Al Sharpton has said that some of
30210-682: The south in large numbers seeking better opportunities and treatment in the west and north, a movement known as the Great Migration , there is now a reverse trend, called the New Great Migration . As with the earlier Great Migration, the New Great Migration is primarily directed toward cities and large urban areas, such as Charlotte , Houston , Dallas , Fort Worth , Huntsville , Raleigh , Tampa , San Antonio , New Orleans , Memphis , Nashville , Jacksonville , and so forth. A growing percentage of African Americans from
30400-565: The starting year 1882. Finally, in 1912, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People started an independent record of lynchings. The numbers of lynchings from each source vary slightly, with the Tuskegee Institute's figures being considered "conservative" by some historians. Based on the source, the numbers vary depending on the sources which are cited, the years which are considered by those sources, and
30590-456: The story before there was mainstream national press coverage. The first piece on the case to be published by an outside source ran on May 9, 2007, in Left Turn , a small alternative news magazine. The first mainstream US print media outlet to cover the matter was the Chicago Tribune , whose Southwest Bureau Chief, Howard Witt, wrote a piece covering the story on May 20. Witt had received
30780-466: The students wrestled it away from him. According to the black students, as they left the convenience store, they were confronted by Windham with a shotgun. They said they wrestled the gun away from him and fled the scene. Bailey was charged with disturbing the peace, second-degree robbery, and theft of a firearm. A group of black students punched, kicked, and stomped on a white 17-year-old Jena High School student, Justin Barker, on December 4, 2006. At first
30970-445: The supervision of a probation officer. On October 11, 2007, Mauffray found that Bell had violated the terms of his probation for previous convictions. The judge sentenced Bell to 18 months in a juvenile facility on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, and Bell was taken into custody. According to Walters, the matter was unrelated to the assault on Barker, and it had not been referred to during
31160-421: The supporters of the Jena Six. They have used the case to discuss broader trends of racism in the US criminal justice system and to call for a renewed civil rights movement. Most editorials were published around the time of the Jena rally. The New York Post , in a September 23, 2007, editorial, stated "it's impossible to examine the case of the so-called Jena Six without concluding that these black teens have been
31350-741: The system's worst elements. First established in South Carolina in 1704, groups of armed White men— slave patrols —were formed to monitor enslaved Black people. Their function was to police slaves, especially fugitives. Slave owners feared that slaves might organize revolts or slave rebellions , so state militias were formed to provide a military command structure and discipline within the slave patrols. These patrols were used to detect, encounter, and crush any organized slave meetings which might lead to revolts or rebellions . The earliest African American congregations and churches were organized before 1800 in both northern and southern cities following
31540-435: The targets of lynching as well. At the first recorded lynching, in St. Louis in 1835, a Black man named McIntosh (who killed a deputy sheriff while being taken to jail) was captured, chained to a tree, and burned to death on a corner lot downtown in front of a crowd of over 1,000 people. According to historian Michael J. Pfeifer, the prevalence of lynchings in post–Civil War America reflected people's lack of confidence in
31730-401: The teens could be prosecuted, just as he had found no applicable state statute. Walters opined: "The people that [hung the nooses] should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town". The school called police to the school in the days after the noose incident. The principal called an assembly on September 6, 2006. The Jena Police Department asked Parish Attorney Walters to attend and speak at
31920-536: The tennis shoes worn by Bell while allegedly kicking Barker were dangerous weapons. A number of witnesses testified that they saw Bell strike Barker, while other witnesses were unsure Bell was involved at all. Before the trial began, public defender Blane Williams had urged Bell to accept a plea bargain . At trial he rested the defense case without calling any witnesses or offering any evidence. The six members of Bell's jury were all white . The 150-person jury pool included black citizens, who make up 10 percent of
32110-625: The three students were isolated at an alternative school "for about a month", spent two weeks on in-school suspension, served Saturday detentions, had to attend Discipline Court, were referred to Families in Need of Services, and had to have an evaluation before they were able to return to school. The school superintendent was quoted as saying, "Adolescents play pranks. I don't think it was a threat against anybody". Black residents of Jena have said that this comment stoked racial tensions leading to subsequent events. According to US Attorney Donald Washington,
32300-410: The time he spent in jail), $ 500 to be paid as court costs, restitution to be paid to the Barker family (with whom the defendants were ordered to have no contact), and seven days of unsupervised probation. The defendants' lawyers read a statement apologizing to the Barker family and to the town. Addressing the rumors that the attack had been provoked by Barker using a racial epithet, they said on behalf of
32490-487: The total population, declined until 1930 and has been rising since then. By 1990, the African American population reached about 30 million and represented 12% of the US population, roughly the same proportion as in 1900. At the time of the 2000 US census , 54.8% of African Americans lived in the South . In that year, 17.6% of African Americans lived in the Northeast and 18.7% in the Midwest , while only 8.9% lived in
32680-416: The trial, Barker testified that his face was badly swollen after the attack and that he suffered a loss of vision in one eye for three weeks. He said that he had suffered recurring headaches and forgetfulness since the attack. US Attorney Washington stated he did not believe the noose incident and the beatings were related. Walters likewise said that he believed there was no link between the noose incident and
32870-524: The victims of a miscarriage of justice, with a clearly racial double standard at work". Byron Williams, writing on the Huffington Post , was one of several to cite the Urban League 's 2005 finding that the average black male convicted of aggravated assault serves 48 months in prison, one-third longer than a comparable white man. The 2005 report also found that a black male who is arrested
33060-528: The victims were falsely accused. Tuskegee Institute's method of categorizing most lynching victims as either Black or white in publications and data summaries meant that the murders of some minority and immigrant groups were obscured. In the West, for instance, Mexican, Native Americans, and Chinese were more frequent targets of lynchings than were African Americans, but their deaths were included among those of other Whites. Similarly, although Italian immigrants were
33250-523: The west and north are migrating to the southern region of the US for economic and cultural reasons. The New York City , Chicago , and Los Angeles metropolitan areas have the highest decline in African Americans, while Atlanta , Dallas , and Houston have the highest increase respectively. Several smaller metro areas also saw sizable gains, including San Antonio; Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C.; and Orlando. Despite recent declines, as of 2020,
33440-543: Was $ 5,600 (equivalent to $ 58,532 in 2023), compared with $ 2,900 (equivalent to $ 30,311 in 2023) for non-White families. In 1965, 43 percent of all Black families fell into the poverty bracket, earning under $ 3,000 (equivalent to $ 29,005 in 2023) a year. The 1960s saw improvements in the social and economic conditions of many Black Americans. From 1965 to 1969, Black family income rose from 54 to 60 percent of White family income. In 1968, 23 percent of Black families earned under $ 3,000 (equivalent to $ 26,285 in 2023)
33630-402: Was Japanese." A common perception of lynchings in the U.S. is that they were only hangings , due to the public visibility of the location, which made it easier for photographers to photograph the victims. Some lynchings were professionally photographed and then the photos were sold as postcards , which became popular souvenirs in parts of the United States. Lynching victims were also killed in
33820-401: Was a Whites-only establishment, with Blacks (such as Duke Ellington ) allowed to perform, but to a White audience. Black Americans also found a new ground for political power in Northern cities, without the enforced disabilities of Jim Crow . By the 1950s, the civil rights movement was gaining momentum. A 1955 lynching that sparked public outrage about injustice was that of Emmett Till ,
34010-399: Was an attempt to destroy grade records. Six students—Robert Bailey, then aged 17; Mychal Bell, then 16; Carwin Jones, then 18; Bryant Purvis, then 17; Jesse Ray Beard, then 14; and Theo Shaw, then 17—were arrested for the assault of Barker. Mychal Bell was initially convicted as an adult of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. His convictions were overturned on
34200-454: Was called, spanned the 1890s to the 1970s. From 1916 through the 1960s, more than 6 million Black people moved north. But in the 1970s and 1980s, that trend reversed , with more African Americans moving south to the Sun Belt than leaving it. The following table of the African American population in the United States over time shows that the African American population, as a percentage of
34390-463: Was described as the "largest civil rights demonstration in years". Related protests were held in other US cities on the same day. Subsequent reactions included songs alluding to the Jena Six, numerous editorials and opinion columns, and congressional hearings. Jena High School is located in the town of Jena, Louisiana , which has about 3,000 people. Some early reporting indicated that students of different races seldom sat together, for instance in
34580-410: Was invited to testify but declined. Most Republican members of the committee declined to attend. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said to Washington and other Justice Department officials, "Shame on you. ... As a parent, I'm on the verge of tears," and said, "I want to know what you're going to do to get Mychal Bell out of jail!" US Attorney Washington responded that the federal government had
34770-703: Was majority white. Pfeifer also cited "the modern, racialized excesses of urban police forces in the twentieth century and after" as bearing characteristics of lynchings. A major motive for lynchings, particularly in the South, was white society's efforts to maintain white supremacy after the emancipation of enslaved people following the American Civil War . Lynchings punished perceived violations of customs, later institutionalized as Jim Crow laws , which mandated racial segregation of Whites and Blacks, and second-class status for Blacks. A 2017 paper found that more racially segregated counties were more likely to be places where Whites conducted lynchings. Lynchings emphasized
34960-451: Was not among those for which a juvenile may be tried as an adult. Following the appellate ruling, on September 21, 2007, Judge Mauffray denied the request for Bell to be eligible for bail pending possible further appeal. On September 26, Parish Attorney Walters announced that the prosecution would not appeal the appellate ruling, but would try Bell as a juvenile. Bell was released on $ 45,000 bond, subject to electronic monitoring and under
35150-543: Was not uncommon. Some of those photographs were published and sold as postcards. In 2000, James Allen published a collection of 145 lynching photos in book form as well as online, with written words and video to accompany the images. The murders reflected the tensions of labor and social changes, as the Whites imposed Jim Crow rules, legal segregation and white supremacy. The lynchings were also an indicator of long economic stress due to falling cotton prices through much of
35340-439: Was only 16, because of his previous criminal record and because Walters believed Bell initiated the attack. District Judge J. P. Mauffray, Jr. presided over Bell's trial. On the first day of trial, June 26, 2007, Walters reduced the charges to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery. The charge of aggravated battery requires the use of a "dangerous weapon", and Walters argued that
35530-534: Was perpetrated in New Orleans against Italian immigrants . Lynchings followed African Americans with the Great Migration ( c. 1916–1970 ) out of the American South, and were often perpetrated to enforce white supremacy and intimidate ethnic minorities along with other acts of racial terrorism. A significant number of lynching victims were accused of murder or attempted murder . Rape , attempted rape, or other forms of sexual assault were
35720-413: Was similar to slavery. Servants could be bought, sold, or leased, and they could be physically beaten for disobedience or attempting to running away. Unlike slaves, they were freed after their term of service expired or if their freedom was purchased. Their children did not inherit their status, and on their release from contract they received "a year's provision of corn, double apparel, tools necessary", and
35910-430: Was time for landowners to settle accounts with sharecroppers . The frequency of lynchings rose during years of poor economy and low prices for cotton, demonstrating that more than social tensions generated the catalysts for mob action against the underclass. Researchers have studied various models to determine what motivated lynchings. One study of lynching rates of Blacks in Southern counties between 1889 and 1931 found
36100-553: Was unable to pass an Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves until 1807. Fugitive slave laws (derived from the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution— Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 ) were passed by Congress in both 1793 and 1850 , guaranteeing the right of a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave anywhere within the US. Slave owners, who viewed enslaved people as property, ensured that it became
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