If given a chance, would you ever join a lynch mob?
Tulsa, Oklahoma. May 31st, 1921.
Dick Rowland is in jail.
It’s too late now to know if he actually attacked Sarah Page in the elevator.
The Tulsa Tribune says that’s what happened.
Says so in the story under the headline that screams:
NAB NEGRO FOR ATTACKING GIRL IN ELEVATOR
His arrest certainly wasn’t the consensus story of the day.
Across town, the Tulsa Globe didn’t even bother to mention it.
Tim Madigan, author of The Burning, suggests that’s because the local police were quite skeptical of Miss Page’s accusation.
Rowland had a reputation of a ladies man, and in retrospect there is significant evidence that their first meeting was certainly NOT at the elevator in question.
What happened over the next few days has become an historic and cultural touchstone of what happens when good race relations go bad.
Dick Rowland was black.
Sarah Page was white.
In those days, the accusation alone was enough to turn racially progressive Tulsa into a violent inferno.
The crowd didn’t so much … need … facts, as they needed to satisfy their thirst for blood.
The ensuing riot prematurely ended as many as 300 lives, destroyed the city of Tulsa, and ruined one of the greatest economic success stories in the history of blacks in America.
There were a LOT of lessons to be learned. The ’21 riot in Tulsa put some of America’s worst problems on the sort of display that outlives all of the participants.
It’s a story of bad media, racism, lynching, violence, rushes to judgment, and mob thought.
It is one of those stories that black people use to illustrate the ridiculous way the country has treated us.
But I’d like to use it for a different purpose.
Clarence Thomas described the Anita Hill portion of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a “high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks.”
It was almost a throwaway line, but an appropriate one at the time, because the execution in question was not of his person—but of his character.
But the phrase hearkened back to Tulsa, and 1921.
To have a proper lynching, you need three things--a mob, suspension of the legal process long enough for the mob to make up its mind, and an execution.
In the Thomas example, the execution wasn’t going to end his life, but it was certainly going to kill his good name and reputation.
It was perhaps an overstatement, because his “lynching” was happening as part of the legal process, but the execution was real.
Thanks to the mob of television cameras and breathless news anchors offering play-by-play analysis during every recess, one of the largest international news audiences ever counted up to that point were introduced to pubic hair on Coke cans, and Long Dong Silver.
Dick Rowland might have preferred a high-tech digital lynching to the violent and painful end he suffered.
Good thing the country doesn’t lynch people—digitally or otherwise, anymore.
Durham, North Carolina. March 16th, 2006.
Reade Seligmann has been indicted.
So have Collin Finnerty and David Evans.
They are students of the prestigious Duke University. They are athletes, wealthy, good students, and alcohol consumers.
It’s too late now to get a clean first impression of whether or not they actually raped “Precious,” a local woman, mother, student, and stripper during a lacrosse team party in their city.
Because that’s what the headlines screamed on CNN, Fox, ABC, and ESPN and in every major newspaper in the country.
Of course, we’ve become quite a bit more civilized in the intervening 85 years. Now we use words like “alleged,” and “accused” instead of putting it all out there. Litigation has taught us to be careful. So the mob has to read a little bit between the lines.
If you can believe 60 Minutes, trust the words of Ed Bradley, and have confidence in the video record of the immediate media blitz that followed the initial accusation, the local police are far from skeptical about the claim, as evidenced by their rush to collect evidence of the rape even if it means throwing out all of the rules of evidence in the process.
The district attorney has behaved very badly too, desperately wanting to use the “mob” thoughts to further his career, legal ethics be damned.
“Precious” is black.
Reade, Collin, and David are white.
In these days, the accusation alone was enough to turn racially improving Durham into a festering sore of raw racial passions.
Shall we have us an old fashioned “high-tech lynching for uppity Whites?”
Here’s the debate I don’t ever want to have to blindly score point totals on:
A hired stripper goes into a roomful of drunk college boys. She takes off some or all of her clothing because that’s what she’s been hired to do, things get out of hand, and later she says she was raped.
Did it happen? Is it possible? She said? Or he said?
Who’s telling the truth?
I have no idea, which is why I really dig the idea of having a court trial about it.
Remember those?
In the interim, the crowd is gathering, made up of millions of people who’ve already decided on the truth.
Since Sunday's edition of 60 Minutes, the following question is no longer rhetorical.
You and I have the chance. Shall we join the lynch mob?
Tulsa, Oklahoma. May 31st, 1921.
Dick Rowland is in jail.
It’s too late now to know if he actually attacked Sarah Page in the elevator.
The Tulsa Tribune says that’s what happened.
Says so in the story under the headline that screams:
NAB NEGRO FOR ATTACKING GIRL IN ELEVATOR
His arrest certainly wasn’t the consensus story of the day.
Across town, the Tulsa Globe didn’t even bother to mention it.
Tim Madigan, author of The Burning, suggests that’s because the local police were quite skeptical of Miss Page’s accusation.
Rowland had a reputation of a ladies man, and in retrospect there is significant evidence that their first meeting was certainly NOT at the elevator in question.
What happened over the next few days has become an historic and cultural touchstone of what happens when good race relations go bad.
Dick Rowland was black.
Sarah Page was white.
In those days, the accusation alone was enough to turn racially progressive Tulsa into a violent inferno.
The crowd didn’t so much … need … facts, as they needed to satisfy their thirst for blood.
The ensuing riot prematurely ended as many as 300 lives, destroyed the city of Tulsa, and ruined one of the greatest economic success stories in the history of blacks in America.
There were a LOT of lessons to be learned. The ’21 riot in Tulsa put some of America’s worst problems on the sort of display that outlives all of the participants.
It’s a story of bad media, racism, lynching, violence, rushes to judgment, and mob thought.
It is one of those stories that black people use to illustrate the ridiculous way the country has treated us.
But I’d like to use it for a different purpose.
Clarence Thomas described the Anita Hill portion of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a “high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks.”
It was almost a throwaway line, but an appropriate one at the time, because the execution in question was not of his person—but of his character.
But the phrase hearkened back to Tulsa, and 1921.
To have a proper lynching, you need three things--a mob, suspension of the legal process long enough for the mob to make up its mind, and an execution.
In the Thomas example, the execution wasn’t going to end his life, but it was certainly going to kill his good name and reputation.
It was perhaps an overstatement, because his “lynching” was happening as part of the legal process, but the execution was real.
Thanks to the mob of television cameras and breathless news anchors offering play-by-play analysis during every recess, one of the largest international news audiences ever counted up to that point were introduced to pubic hair on Coke cans, and Long Dong Silver.
Dick Rowland might have preferred a high-tech digital lynching to the violent and painful end he suffered.
Good thing the country doesn’t lynch people—digitally or otherwise, anymore.
Durham, North Carolina. March 16th, 2006.
Reade Seligmann has been indicted.
So have Collin Finnerty and David Evans.
They are students of the prestigious Duke University. They are athletes, wealthy, good students, and alcohol consumers.
It’s too late now to get a clean first impression of whether or not they actually raped “Precious,” a local woman, mother, student, and stripper during a lacrosse team party in their city.
Because that’s what the headlines screamed on CNN, Fox, ABC, and ESPN and in every major newspaper in the country.
Of course, we’ve become quite a bit more civilized in the intervening 85 years. Now we use words like “alleged,” and “accused” instead of putting it all out there. Litigation has taught us to be careful. So the mob has to read a little bit between the lines.
If you can believe 60 Minutes, trust the words of Ed Bradley, and have confidence in the video record of the immediate media blitz that followed the initial accusation, the local police are far from skeptical about the claim, as evidenced by their rush to collect evidence of the rape even if it means throwing out all of the rules of evidence in the process.
The district attorney has behaved very badly too, desperately wanting to use the “mob” thoughts to further his career, legal ethics be damned.
“Precious” is black.
Reade, Collin, and David are white.
In these days, the accusation alone was enough to turn racially improving Durham into a festering sore of raw racial passions.
Shall we have us an old fashioned “high-tech lynching for uppity Whites?”
Here’s the debate I don’t ever want to have to blindly score point totals on:
A hired stripper goes into a roomful of drunk college boys. She takes off some or all of her clothing because that’s what she’s been hired to do, things get out of hand, and later she says she was raped.
Did it happen? Is it possible? She said? Or he said?
Who’s telling the truth?
I have no idea, which is why I really dig the idea of having a court trial about it.
Remember those?
In the interim, the crowd is gathering, made up of millions of people who’ve already decided on the truth.
Since Sunday's edition of 60 Minutes, the following question is no longer rhetorical.
You and I have the chance. Shall we join the lynch mob?
(16 Oct 06)
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