Without Sanctuary

Studying these photos has engendered in me a great disturbance. It is so terrible to look at these photographs and realize that lynching was not a rare occurrence. It happened all the time, and not only that, but white people considered it to be normal and rationalized it to be something that was okay to do. I cannot help but feel incredibly disturbed. We can see the faces of these victims and their severely beaten bodies (such as the photos showing the front and back of an African-American man with lashings and deep wounds all over him). I can only imagine the fear and humiliation that all of these victims must have felt.

At the same time, I feel equally as disturbed by looking at the faces of the onlookers and bystanders as they rally around these scenes as if such events were to be celebrated or treated as triumphs in society. In some pictures, their faces are proud of what they've done.

I also thought of the poem, Bitter River by Langston Hughes, which was dedicated to the memory of two boys lynched under a bridge. There are a few photographs which show the lynch victims hanging from under bridges (Lynching of bound white male, his body hung from a bridge; The Lynching of Laura Nelson and her son; The lynching of Bunk Richardson). I reread Bitter River after seeing these pictures, and I could not stop from seeing these horrible images of the lynch victims hanging from a bridge in my head.

However, I feel that the literature written on this violence can be just as effective as viewing the photographs but in different ways. Through the literature, we are able to hear the voices of so many different points of view. Sometimes, the fear and thoughts of the victim are described to us. Other times, the severely disturbing rationalizations of the people who are doing the lynching are described to us. These portrayals in the literature can create just as much emotion in us as seeing the photographs. Also, many times, so many things are built up leading up to the violence that by the time it happens, I feel not only sad but angry because I wish I could stop the violence from happening. At the same time, I don't think seeing these photographs makes the lynching seem more horrible. Literature can show us the same horror.