James Byrd Jr's banemän avrättas

"Here is the entry for Coweta county, Georgia, tucked away in one of the memorial’s corners. On it is stamped: “Sam Hose 04.23.1899.” Look behind those two words and three numbers and you discover that the lynching of Sam Hose was planned days in advance and witnessed by a crowd of about 2,000 white people.

Many had travelled on trains laid on for the occasion from Atlanta, some custom-provided for people coming straight from church. Platform criers hurried passengers along with the refrain: “Special train! All aboard for the burning!”

Hose was accused of murdering his white employer before assaulting the wife – claims that were all thoroughly debunked by an investigation launched by the great anti-lynching advocate and journalist Ida B Wells. In truth, the 23-year-old had acted in self-defence when his employer put a loaded gun to his head.
The classic image of the lynch crowd is of a mob of “white trash”, the unrestrained and uneducated dregs of society who knew no better. Incorrect.

As Wells’s research revealed, Hose’s death was actively instigated by many of white society’s most upstanding Christian leaders: the banker who urged his customers to “make an example of Sam”, the manager of one of the largest mills who called for a burning, the governor of Georgia who refused to stop it, the local newspaper that advertised it and egged on its readers.

They tied Hose to a sapling and laid kindling at his feet. As the flames began to lick, first they cut off his left ear, then his right. Next they cut the skin off his face, hacked off his fingers, slashed his legs and opened up his stomach to pull out his entrails. They did so slowly, meticulously, so as to ensure that he remained conscious throughout.
Then they poured oil on the fire and watched him burn. The crowd, which included many women and children, looked as though it was having great fun. The only disappointment, as Wells’s investigation noted, was that the black man declined to give the participants the pleasure of hearing him beg for mercy. He never once cried out. His only utterance was a quiet groan: “Oh, Lord Jesus,” he said.

When it was all over, children and adults scrabbled among his remains for relics to be later cherished or sold, including his charred liver and bones.

For Bryan Stevenson, such barbarism, such sadism, served a purpose. It also exacted a heavy price.

“People were being asked to prove their commitment to white supremacy by their willingness to engage in ever more extreme forms of violence,” the lawyer said. “The problem with that is you get disconnected from decency and kindness, you get lost in it. Whether you were the person cutting off fingers or the person enjoying deviled eggs and lemonade as the spectacle unfolded, something tragic and destructive was happening to you.”