Public Memory, Memorials, & the Act of Remembering Lynchings

There is a peculiarity to the history of lynching in the United States. It is simultaneously reduced in scope, intentionally avoided, ever present, and mostly forgotten in the psyche of American citizenry. Those who may feel the semblance of dread in what a lynching was appear to avoid confirming their suspicions of the vastness of lynchings of Black people and the vastness of lynching’s impact on the Black (and other non-White) population in the U.S. At the corner of First Street and Second Avenue in Duluth, MN in the United States, stands a memorial in honor of three Black men who were fatally beaten by a White mob, and then hung from a light post only to be lowered for the proud mob to pose with bodies on June 14, 1920 (Fedo, 2000, Doss, 2010). Although it is remarkable that the present-day citizens of Duluth embraced this tragic note in heritage of the city by erecting such a memorial, what is equally remarkable is that this is the only such memorial beyond a few indiscriminately placed markers throughout the country. With the c. 5000 reported cases of lynching, of which c. 4000 highlighted the spectacle and festive killing of Black men and women, what reconciliatory role could memorials have with a heritage of racial violence (Equal Justice Initiative, 2015; Mowatt, 2007, 2012; White, 1992)? This is especially poignant as lynching effigies, imagery, rhetoric, and occurrences seem to be on an uptick within the United States (Mowatt, 2015).