Lynching
Lynching is murder (mostly by hanging) conceived by its perpetrators as extra-legal execution. Victims of lynching have generally been members of groups marginalized by society.
History of Lynching in the US
Lynching was named for Colonel Charles Lynch who used the practice during the American Revolutionary War to deal with Tories and criminal elements.
After the war, as the nation expanded so did the practice of lynching.
The rule of lynching as a method to maintain the social order was referred to as lynch law.
Before the US Civil War, lynching was used primarily on civil rights supporters, horse thieves, gamblers and various rogues.
However by the 1880s, lynching expanded to low-status groups such as blacks, Jews, Native Americans, and Asian immigrants.
The practice is particularly associated with the killing of African Americans in the southern United States in the period before the civil rights reforms of the 1960s.
There were often two components to motivation for lynchings in the southern United States.
The first was the social aspect--righting some social wrong or perceived social wrong (such as a violation of Jim Crow etiquette).
The second was the economic aspect.
For example, upon successful lynching of a black farmer or immigrant merchant, the land would be available and the market opened for white farmers.
Lynchings, like other public executions throughout history, were sometimes treated as a spectacle—even a form of family entertainment.
A notorious lynching in the United States was that of Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory manager in 1915. It turned the spotlight on anti-semitism in the United States and marked a revival in the Ku Klux Klan, with a pronounced anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, and anti-immigrant stance.
Lynching outside the US
World War II
While lynching may be most strongly associated with the American South in the first part of the 20th century, it is also seen in other parts of the world. In 1944, Wolfgang Rosterg, a German prisoner of war known to be unsympathetic to the Nazi regime in Germany, was lynched by Nazi fanatics in a prison camp in Comrie, Scotland. The perpetrators were hanged after the end of the war.
Palestine
Lynching has recently cropped up in the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Its main victims are Jews and people suspected to be collaborating with Israel. Executions without trial of suspected collaborators with Israel were common even before the Al-Aqsa Intifada but the first violent murder which was cited as "lynching" was the manslaughter of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah on October 13th, 2000 . Vadim Norzich and Asi Avrahami were slaughtered by Palestinian officers who threw them out of the window of the Ramallah police station into the hands of a furious Palestinian mob who mutilated their bodies. Since then, nineteen Jews and dozens of Palestinians have been lynched by Palestinian gangs and militias.
Iraq
On April 1, 2004, an Iraqi mob lynched 4 American mercenaries in Fallujah, Iraq. The car in which the 4 Americans were driving was attacked by resistance fighters. All four mercenaries were killed. Then set on fire by a mob of angry Iraqi civilans After the car and people were burned, the bodies were mutilated and two of them were hanged on the main bridge leading to the city.
Billie Holiday
The Billie Holiday song "Strange Fruit," written by Lewis Allen in 1939, refers to lynching. The lyrics are: "Southern trees bear strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the roots. Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant south, the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth. Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh. Then the sudden smell of burning flesh. Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, for the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, for the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, here is a strange and bitter crop."
The song was performed by other artists, including Nina Simone. It was also remixed by the British artist Tricky.
