Homework Question #4

After watching “Without Sanctuary” I'm full of feelings of sadness, anger, and disgust. To me, lynching was a cowardly action. It symbolizes the anger that arose from the fear of white southerners that the people they worked so hard to label and treat as animals were now free, were actually human beings, but even worse were their equals. From watching this short film I learned that clearly, their anger also drove them to lose any human like characteristics; outside of clearly deranged individuals, I don't understand how human being could commit or stand to watch such grotesque acts of violence.

It was the U.S. History class I took in high school that first introduced me to lynching as a community activity. Prior to that I was under the impression that lynching was orchestrated by an angry mob of white men, not that it was further put on as some sort of show for the entire community to sadistically enjoy. Although I already knew about it, these photographs say the thousands of words my textbook never did. One of the most disturbing images was that of the woman, Lonnie Nelson, hanging off of the bridge with dozens of white people watching on the bridge above her. The background of the photograph, with the sun glowing on the still water, looks so calm and not at all indicative of the horrifying actions going on in the forefront. The artistic characteristic of this photo is my last example of what “Without Sanctuary” taught me. I had no clue and still can’t understand the fact that lynching wasn’t a sick enough action for these people, “it had to be photographed, reproduced, and distributed as a souvenir facilitating the endless replay of anguish.” It’s so sad what our country used to be but it’s remarkable where it is today. I feel an African-American man as our President indicates how hard African-Americans have worked and how far they’ve gotten. Although I greatly believe we’ve come far from where we once were, I still don’t believe we’ve come full circle.