Lynching in America / The Lynching of John Humphries

Lynching in America, also, The Lynching of John Humphries. Community Remembrance Project. Lynching in America. Thousands of Black people were the victims of racial terror lynching in the United States between 1865 and 1950. After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution ended slavery and extended constitutional rights to Black people. White communities responded with violence and lynching as tools for re-establishing white supremacy. Racial terror lynching emerged as a stunning form of violent resistance to emancipation and equal rights for African Americans, intended to intimidate Black people and to maintain white economic, political, and social control. Black women, men, and children were lynched for resisting economic exploitation, violating perceived social customs, engaging in interracial relationships, or being accused of crimes even when there was not any evidence tying the accused to any offense. African Americans had to navigate their private and public lives with the constant threat of unpredictable, arbitrary, and lethal violence. As lynching became the most public and notorious form of subordination directed at Black people, law enforcement and elected officials tolerated, and even supported, the practice. Like John Humphries, many Black people were kidnapped from jails or given over to mobs by law enforcement officials. At least 120 racial terror lynchings have been documented in North Carolina during this era, including at least three Black people lynched in Buncombe County., The Lynching of John Humphries. On July 15, 1888, a mob of 25 to 40 white men lynched John Humphries, a Black teenager. On July 14, the daughter of a white. suburban planter reported being assaulted in the woods. Race-based suspicion was immediately directed towards Black men and boys. Later that evening, without any evidence connecting him to the report, police arrested teenaged John Humphries. Police officers forced John to change into a striped shirt and remove his shoes so that he would fit the description of the alleged assailant before they took him to the white planter's home, where a false identification was obtained. John was then jailed. The following morning. a masked mob broke into the jail and law enforcement unlocked the cell doors, allowing the mob to forcibly remove John Humphries. The mob then lynched John by hanging him from a tree within a few hundred yards of the jail. White mobs regularly displayed complete disregard for the legal system and the constitutional rights of their Black victims. Law enforcement routinely failed to protect Black people in their custody. even though they had a legal obligation to do so. As in this case, officers sometimes directly assisted or even participated in lynchings. Although two people, including the sheriff, identified the name of a mob member, no one was ultimately held accountable for the racial terror lynching of John Humphries.