“Take me out to the lynching.

Take me out with the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks.

I don’t care if I never get back.

Let me root, root, root for the lynching,

Cut off the fingers and toes.

Sell them or give them as gifts to friends.

At the old lynching.”          

– Source: ”When lynching became a family affair,” W. Spivey

Well there I was having just completed the second of our third leg of planned visits to African American historical museums in the South when the horrific images popped up on my computer. I wish that they were figment of my imagination but they’re not. They’re real, errily real and represent only a few of the more grostesque ones I’ve seen over the years.

Our first stop was at the Museum of African American Culture and History in Mound Bayou, Mississippi while enroute to the Blues & Biscuit Festival in Arkansas. We followed that a month later to the R.R. Moton museum in Farmville, Virginia. Both, as I wrote in two recent columns, were as motivating as they were breathtaking.

The pictures of slain civil rights icon Medgar Evers plus the replicas of the grossly mutilated body of Emmett Till in the Mound Bayou museum were unnerving. Equally riveting were grainy black and white photos of Black students – some as young as age 16 – who started a protest against segregated schools in Farmville that led to a landmark decision by the U. S. Supreme Court that declared segregation of schools illegal. 

Now if those were not enough, enter author William Spivey’s photo narrative, “When lynching became a family affair” that I referenced earlierl.

Famously wrote poet Robert Burns, “the best laid plans of mice and men,” meaning that even our most carefully thought out plans, in my case to visit the next museum, will may go awry due to unforeseen circumstances. So call it coincidence, but the Spivey piece came to my attention in the middle of my planning to visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice that’s dedicated to the victims of racial lynchings, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Now although the publication you’re currently reading may have decided not to include them, at the risk of causing strong emotional reactions, I’ve embedded a few photos from the Spivey piece as a stark reminder of an ugly reality in American history…..lynching!

“As horrifying as the sight of the victims in the photos may be, I am more concerned about the crowds watching, some of them gleeful about the murder of human beings that they convinced themselves was justice,” wrote Spivey. “The faces of the men, women and children speak for themselves. I have nothing to add.”

As the saying goes, “pictures speak volumes.” And often pictures can be enriched with the addition of lyrics and reactions to those pictures.

Let’s begin with lyrics from Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit” about the institution of slavery in the United States:

“Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on Pastoral scene of the gauntlet south

The bulging eye and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnoliars, sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

The leaves and blood at the root.

Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”

Turning now to some reactions from folks I shared the Spivey photo narrative with.

Wrote Shirley, “I find it unbelievable that entire families would leave Sunday morning church services and attend afternoon lynchings.”

Wrote Lewis, “This suggests to me that African Americans were never considered human beings, just objects of distain and hate.”

Wrote Andy, “I wonder if any whites who are alive today, or their descendents, ever came to terms with or regretted being at a public lynching or know someone in their family who were present.”

Wrote Bernie,  “It’s this kind of stuff that the proponents of banning books want to erase from our history. Why? Because they worry that these realities may evoke feelings of embarassment and guilt on the part of white kids or anger on the part of Black kids.”

Wrote Lisa, “What I found the most shocking are the faces of young children, some probably less than ten years old, watching fellow humans being put to death. What does that suggest about a parent who would expose that to a kid? I’m speechless.”

Wrote Ronnie, “I was unable to ignore the pictures, especially the faces of the victims. I studied each person’s face hanging from a rope and asked them “What can I do today to atone for the pain and suffering you endured just for being Black?” As I listened in silence to their responses, this is what I heard. “Let no one forget me. Please use how you live your life and your voice as messages to others that our lives were not taken away in vain.”

Wrote Arturo, “Wow Terry, this piece is so timely. I say that because of the national trend in banning books and other reading material relating to slavery and other so-called controversial topics. Undeniably, there’re efforts to rewrite history in its entirely or just sweep our ugly history under the rug. If Project 2025 becomes a reality and the Department of Education facing elimination, what does that portend for topics like slavery and lynching?”

In closing and in parting, like William Spivey, I have nothing else to add.

I’m spent.

I’m done.

So back now to planning that trip to Montgomery.

Terry Howard is an award-winning trainer, writer, and storyteller. He is a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The American Diversity Report, The Douglas County Sentinel, Blackmarket.com, recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and winner of the Georgia Press Award.