Vanessa Gregory wrote about the murder of Elwood Higginbotham by a white mob in 1935 and his family’s search for answers. Lynching in America represented an entire extrajudicial system that operated parallel to the law, while outside the law. Race controlled labor, housing, education, medical services, all basic municipal services like water, sewage, paved roads. In lynching photos, it was common to see young white boys as they were initiated into this system of control. As this article points out, the long shadow of slavery and Jim Crow casts darkness on the American soul to this day.

Source: New York Times May 11, 2018 13:18 UTC