Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America

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These pictures are shocking visual testimony to the unspeakable ferocity of violence against blacks in this country in the not-too-distant past. I sometimes say I can't understand the depravity and wickedness of humanity in that we do these things AND also claim to be a great nation--but it is who we are, and nothing will change about our present until we both look at the past and repent, and change our behaviors today. This book should be required reading for all because it touches upon the long history of racism in this country and it gives context to what is happening in this day and age. Today, one of the coldest days of the year, the wait is three hours, and still the line stretches down the block. This is the extremely unsettling book containing texts by Hilton Als, Congressman John Lewis and Leon F.

By looking at the pictures, she asked, do we act as critical witnesses to an ugly chapter in American history, or do we join the spectacle depicted? His 1979 book Been in the Storm So Long won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the Francis Parkman Prize and the National Book Award. For weeks thousands of visitors have crowded in for a glimpse of a dimly lit chapter of American history.I thought of Als’s essay for a long time before finishing this piece, before choosing to refer to the image that I have, before exposing these bodies to another set of eyes in another place far away. Or, for that matter, a decapitated and dismembered man photographed, with a warning about not speaking to white women. The essays at the beginning are also useful, too, though Hilton Als' is the only one that will stand up to the test of time. Just a terrible, tragic history that needs to be exposed so we can be reminded of what we do when our community approves of our monstrous behaviors.

I fear that some appalling violence will be depicted (some no doubt Tarantino's anachronistic fantasy) that will prompt her to ask me, "Were white people as cruel as this to black people? In several images there were thousands of attendees, some of whom traveled from great distances to watch and/or participate in the torture.But the reality of these gruesome photos is something I was totally unprepared for (my textbooks didn't exactly have any pictures in them.