Works of Booker T. Washington - Booker T. Washington [42]
Lynching was instituted some years ago with the idea of punishing and checking criminal assaults upon women. Let us examine the facts, and see where it has already led us and is likely further to carry us, if we do not rid ourselves of the evil. Many good people in the South, and also out of the South, have gotten the idea that lynching is resorted to for one crime only. I have the facts from an authoritative source. During last year one hundred and twenty-seven persons were lynched in the United States. Of this number, one hundred and eighteen were executed in the South and nine in the North and West. Of the total number lynched, one hundred and two were Negroes, twenty-three were whites, and two Indians. Now, let every one interested in the South, his country, and the cause of humanity, note this fact,--that only twenty-four of the entire number were charged in any way with the crime of rape; that is, twenty-four out of one hundred and twenty-seven cases of lynching. Sixty-one of the remaining cases were for murder, thirteen for being suspected of murder, six for theft, etc. During one week last spring, when I kept a careful record, thirteen Negroes were lynched in three of our Southern States; and not one was even charged with rape. All of these thirteen were accused of murder or house-burning; but in neither case were the men allowed to go before a court, so that their innocence or guilt might be proven.
When we get to the point where four-fifths of the people lynched in our country in one year are for some crime other than rape, we can no longer plead and explain that we lynch for one crime alone.
Let us take another year, that of 1892, for example, when 241 persons were lynched in the whole United States. Of this number 36 were lynched in Northern and Western States, and 205 in our Southern States; 160 were Negroes, 5 of these being women. The facts show that, out of the 241 lynched, only 57 were even charged with rape or attempted rape, leaving in this year alone 184 persons who were lynched for other causes than that of rape.
If it were necessary, I could produce figures for other years. Within a period of six years about 900 persons have been lynched in our Southern States. This is but a few hundred short of the total number of soldiers who lost their lives in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. If we would realise still more fully how far this unfortunate evil is leading us on, note the classes of crime during a few months for which the local papers and the Associated Press say that lynching has been inflicted. They include "murder," "rioting," "incendiarism," "robbery," "larceny," "self-defence," "insulting women," "alleged stock-poisoning," "malpractice," "alleged barn-burning," "suspected robbery," "race prejudice," "attempted murder," "horse-stealing," "mistaken identity," etc.
The evil has so grown that we are now at the point where not only blacks are lynched in the South, but white men as well. Not only this, but within the last six years at least a half-dozen coloured women have been lynched. And there are a few cases where Negroes have lynched members of their own race. What is to be the end of all this? Furthermore, every lynching drives hundreds of Negroes out of the farming districts of the South, where they make the best living and where their services are of greatest value to the country, into the already over-crowded cities.
I know that some argue that the crime of lynching Negroes is not confined to the South. This is true; and no one can excuse such a crime as the shooting of innocent black men in Illinois, who were guilty of nothing, except seeking labour. But my words just now are to the South, where my home is and a part of which I am. Let other sections act as they will; I want to see our beautiful Southland free from this terrible evil of lynching. Lynching does not stop crime. In the vicinity in the South where a coloured man was alleged recently to have committed