Lynching in America / The Lynchings of Henry and Ephraim Grizzard

Lynching in America, also, The Lynchings of Henry and Ephraim Grizzard. Community Remembrance Project. Lynching in America . Thousands of African Americans were the victims of lynchings and racial violence in the United States between 1877 and 1950. After the Civil War, violent resistance to equal rights for African Americans and an ideology of white supremacy led to violent abuse of racial minorities and decades of political, social, and economic exploitation. After the end of Reconstruction, the lynching of African Americans became the most public and notorious form of racial terrorism, intended to intimidate black people and enforce racial hierarchy and segregation. It was not unusual for white mobs to seize their victims from jails, prisons, courtrooms, or out of police hands. Though officers were charged to protect those in their custody, police almost never used force to resist white mobs and sometimes gave black people over to mobs that were allowed to engage in racial terror and brutal violence with impunity. Terror lynchings often included burning and mutilation, sometimes in front of crowds numbering in the thousands, as was the case for Ephraim Grizzard. Many of the names of lynching victims were not recorded and remain unknown, but over 200 documented lynchings took place in Tennessee alone, at least four having taken place in Davidson County., The Lynchings of Henry and Ephraim Grizzard . In the spring of 1892, one of the most violent public events in Nashville's history occurred at this site. On April 24, 1892, two black men were accused of assaulting two white women near Goodlettsville. Henry Grizzard and Ephraim Grizzard, brothers, were arrested on suspicion, along with three other black men. During this era, the deep racial hostility that permeated Southern society burdened black people with a presumption of guilt that often focused suspicion on black communities after crimes were alleged. whether evidence supported that suspicion or not. Without a trial, Henry was lynched the next day by white residents of Davidson and Sumner County at Mansker's Creek. Ephraim, however, was taken to Nashville's jail to await trial. On April 30th, leaders of an angry white mob violently abducted Ephraim from the jail and hanged him from the Woodland Street Bridge before piercing his body with hundreds of bullets. Thousands of "well-to-do, respectable citizens" supported lawless mob violence that threatened the black community. Ephraim Grizzard's body was taken back to Goodlettsville, where it was burned publicly to further terrorize black residents. Black community members who sought to protest and complain about racial terror lynchings were themselves threatened with violence and forced to flee the community, adding to the trauma and tragedy surrounding these lynchings.,