Digital
History>eXplorations>Lynching>A
Southern Anti-Lynching Movement Arises>Jessie Ames
Jessie Daniel Ames, The Changing Character of Lynching,
1942
It is not the part of wisdom to accept the decreasing number of
lynchings as indicative of any degree of permanency . . . with
the coming of peace [the end of World War II] these same people,
perhaps more of them, will come back to a jobless, poverty-stricken
existence. Unless there is productive work waiting to absorb their
energies and to give them hope, the passions and hatreds which
have characterized their lives in the past will again be aroused
. . . Minority peoples who are physically marked as distinct from
the majority may well become the target for the expression of
frustration of an unemployed and angry majority....
The
white South still believes in the inherent right of the white
race to rule supreme over Negroes . . . that certain jobs are
the exclusive prerogative of white people . . . [that] equal protection
and adminstration of the law for all, and the free exercise of
the ballot imperil white supremacy. . . .
If
the South is saved from a post-war era of violence, bloodshed,
lynching, and torture, it will be because sane white Southerners
begin now to work for, as well as talk for, the principles of
Democracy.
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