Without Sanctuary

Classes still haven't begun, but the education certainly has.

Today I participated in an exploration of Chicago's diverse and segregated neighborhoods, guided by the international students who have been on campus for the last two months studying English.

The three Korean students leading the group I was assigned to had been visiting African American neighborhoods, talking with officials and people on the streets, eating soul food, and taking lots of pictures, if today was any indication.

Rather than taking us to these neighborhoods, they said they wanted us to see the most powerful thing they saw in their two months, so we found our way to the Chicago Historical Society's exhibit on the history of lynching in America, called "Without Sanctuary."

I'm sure I've seen documentaries on the Ku Klux Klan, but nothing before today has made me realize the horror of extralegal "justice" carried out by mobs as late as the 1960s. Torturing, hanging, beating, and often mutilating or burning people for such slights as whistling at a woman took place in every region of this country. It affected blacks as well as Jews, the old and the young -- like Chicago's own 14-year-old Emmett Till.

Several of the most gruesome photos were from Omaha, Nebraska, which for me is close to home. While it wasn't touched upon in this exhibit, I was reminded of another dark piece of history close to home: the site of the largest mass hanging in U.S. history, at Alexandria, MN, in 1862.

The most disturbing photos were the ones in which little white girls in white dresses had front row seats for the spectacle, and where whole crowds stood smiling proudly at the camera beyond the dangling bodies. One mob included two former Supreme Court justices, one ex-sherrif, and at least one clergyman.

A small group of African American women were shufflling through the exhibit ahead of us. I can't describe the pit in my stomach that developed when I saw one woman wave her hands in despair at the graphic images and turn away quickly. I later heard her tell a security guard that when she was growing up in the south, her dad would detour the family vacations around Mississippi because of its infamous tendency toward mob justice.

This week perhaps a million residents of the Gulf coast are famously "without sanctuary" following Hurricane Katrina. While the era of lynching may be over, that of marginalization is not.

Strange Fruit
by Abel Menopal (later sung by Billie Holiday)

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root.
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is the fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop.
Here is a strange and bitter crop.