Blog #11

After reading Pauline Hopkins' "As the Lord Lives On, He is One of Our Children" and Claude McKay's six poems, I was constantly wondering how someone from our country could be so cruel to hang another human. I cannot imagine having enough hatred in my heart to hang another person. I've always just heard the facts of the African Americans being hung, but I've never read actual stories about it happening. This was obviously quite a large issue since it is brought up in both Hopkins' story and a few of McKay's poems. In Hopkins' story lynching is mentioned several times, in fact it is mentioned that it was a major concern.. "The only way you can teach these niggers a lesson is to go to the jail and lynch these men as an object lesson" (Hopkins). This is so appalling to me. I have always wondered what these people thought they were accomplishing by hanging the blacks. First, the blacks were not doing anything wrong in the first place, the whites just didn't want them doing what they were or having any kind of freedom at all. Second, hanging them doesn't seem like a good punishment because they just killed them, they couldn't change what they were doing because they were already dead. Also, in both author's pieces it is mentioned that the bodies were just left hanging for everyone to see "Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view/ the ghastly body swaying in the sun"(McKay). I just cannot see the justification in any of these actions or why anyone would be able to do this.