African-Americans are not exempt from suicide. According to the Journal of Black Psychology, on an average day in the United States, 1 African-American dies by suicide (not lynching) every 4.5 hours.
Lynching is a premeditated murder committed by a person or group of people by extrajudicial action. The purpose of public lynching served to enforce white supremacy and intimidate black people through racial terrorism.
Ida B. Wells, a black journalist and editor stated in the 1890s, the lynching of successful black people was a means of subordinating potential black economic competitors and the consensual sex between black men and white women. A new report brings the number of victims of racial terror killings between 1865 and 1950 to almost 6,500 souls who were lost to domestic terrorism. These headlines validated her writings.
December 8, 1933 – Published in The New York Times: “Negro Is Slain by Texas Posse: Victim’s Heart Removed after His Capture by Armed Men.
July 6, 1933 – “Negro and White Scuffle; Negro is Jailed, Lynched – The Atlanta Constitution.
1956- Just months after Emmett Louis Till’s murder, Look Magazine published “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi.”
Public lynching of blacks was big business. A market was developed to satisfy the bloodthirsty savages. Graphic photos were sold on postcards with racist words and poems. As the mutilated bodies hung from trees, they were surrounded by gleeful whites, sometimes with their children, looking upon corpse(s).
In the three weeks since Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd, a disturbing old trend has emerged: Four Black men have been discovered hanging from trees.
May 31, 2020 – Malcolm Harsch, 38, was found hanging from a tree near the homeless encampment he was living in Victorville, California.
June 9, 2020 – A 27-year-old Bronx resident Dominique Alexander was found hanging from a tree in a Manhattan park.
June 10, 2020 – 24-year-old Robert Fuller was found hung across the street from City Hall in Palmdale, California.
June 17, 2020 – In Houston, Texas, an unidentified Black teenager was found hanged to death outside of an elementary school.
After 120 years of failure, our Congress refuses to pass a law-making lynching a federal crime. Black Americans are cognizant of what a noose represents. The noose is symbolic to white power and the Ku Klux Klan. Please be advised this murderous organization has never been listed as a terrorist group in the United States.
Allow me to digress and ask you, what are your thoughts? Do you believe black people are standing in line to reenact the horrors of our ancestors? Keep in mind, these dreadful images of lynched blacks are alive and well in the minds of our elders. A black man committing suicide by hanging is unusual. A black man found hanging from a tree is NOT suicide!
In today’s toxic climate of racial divide, black Americans are dying at alarming rates, especially while in police custody. Repeatedly, police perspectives and reports will indicate the deaths of black people by hanging are suicides.
Here is a simple suggestion to help protect yourself. Write or post a note of your well-being and place it in a safe place.
(Date)
To Whom This May Concern,
I am NOT suicidal. I am in my right mind without any mental issues.
Regardless of what someone tells you, remember, “I didn’t lynch me!”
The Traveler Weekly 