Without Sancturary

I had previous knowledge about lynchings and how frequently they took place pre and post Civil Rights movements. Watching the short film evoked strong emotions of hatred, anger and disgust. It also made me begin to contemplate the actions of the students that were involved in the Jena 6 incident. The great thing about the film being placed online is that we as a nation have no excuse for our ignorance of the past. We as a nation will not be able to ignore the past and work together to make sure that these horrid acts will not happen again regardless of what side we stand for on race. I remember learning in one of my classes a few years back that parents would pack meals and bring their children to watch the events. I was told that it was how they established the term picnic, it was said that they would "pick a n*****" to hang as a festivity while they ate and socialized with friends and family. When I heard of this notion I became frustrated and vowed that I would not take part in a picnic again. Another bothersome entity that I learned about lynching was that it was used for towns people to be the judge and jury for people, whether they had evidence or not. Some times all it took for a man or woman to get hung was for a white person to accuse them of a crime, that person's accusation was all that was needed to end a life. The reality is that we as a nation have come a long way from hanging each other in trees. We have even more work to do to rid our nation of racism but I do not feel that we should not forget about this horrible past, to ensure that we do not repeat it.