The Killing Fields of Black America: A Forbidden Truth About Post-Reconstruction America, Part I

The current state of affairs with the United States, it’s association and alliance with the State of israel, their current strife with other nations in the region of the the Arabian pennisula, and around the globe has the average American worried and fearful that yet, another unwanted war is on the horizon for our country. Let us be honest regarding the reality that many of our sons and daughters may be ushered into a war the country doesn’t want, and most assuredly will result in the ievitable carnage of Americans dying on the battlefield in the name of our country’s propurted fight to secure American democracy. I want to speak truthfully to the heart of such a myth, because America herself really never has.

For more than half a century, this country allowed the open, public torture and murder of Black people while the federal government stood by like a willing accomplice. From the end of Reconstruction forward, lynching was not some random outbreak of lawlessness, or the result of overly pssionate mob violence that got out of hand. It was policy by neglect. It was a custom of terrorism. It was white supremacy enforced with rope, fire, bullets, knives, crowds, cameras, postcards, and applause. In many of these incidents, was carried out on the basis of mere suspicion alone that a black person was guilty.

When the time came for the United States government to act, it refused. Congress tried again and again to pass a federal anti-lynching law. Not once. Not twice. But over 200 times, and what happened? Southern senators got up on the Senate floor and talked, and talked, and talked until the bills died. They weaponized procedure in defense of barbarism. White terror was crafted in the language of “states’ rights” and “constitutional principle,” when what they were really defending was the right of white mobs to hunt, mutilate, burn, and kill Black human beings without federal interference whatsoever, and with complete impunity.

The names of the bills changed, but the moral crime stayed the same.The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill passed the House in 1922 and was strangled in the Senate. The Costigan-Wagner Bill became the next great effort, but it too was abandoned in the face of southern obstruction and presidential cowardice. Then came the Gavagan Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the House in 1937 and was buried in the Senate during the 1938 battle when segregationists again made clear that preserving white domination mattered more to them than law, justice, or human life. Think about what that means.

These were not backwoods lynch mobs acting in secret while Washington looked the other way. These were United States senators, elected officials from sovereign American states, standing in the highest legislative chamber in the land and using the rules of democracy to protect racial murder. They did not merely fail to stop lynching. They fought to continue it and keep the federal government powerless against it. The U.S. government didn’t have a stance of nuetrality, it was complicit, and the blood of black lives are squarely on the hands of American states who supported such barbarism.

The presidents of that era did not save us either. Franklin Roosevelt, despite personally condemning lynching, refused to spend the political capital needed to force the issue because he feared losing southern support for his political agenda. Black lives were often used as bargaining chips for politics in Amerioca’s history. That is the truth America keeps trying to dress up in polite language. Many elected officials chose political convenience over Black life. They chose coalition management over justice and chose legislative strategy over the torn, burned, broken bodies of Black men, women, and children hanging from American trees like a “strange fruit”.

So when people ask why many Black Americans have always had a complicated, wounded, distrustful relationship with this country, the answer is right here before your eyes.Why should Black people rush to die for a nation that spent generations refusing to protect them from domestic racial terror? Why should Black people wave the flag without question when their government allowed them to be butchered in broad daylight and then debated for decades whether their lives were even worth federal protection? Why should we pretend patriotism is simple for Black America when this republic treated Black death as negotiable?

The United States Senate didn’t even apologize for failing to pass anti-lynching legislation until 2005. I said 2005, which was 145 years after the lynching era began. Let that sink in. Not in 1925, in 1935, nor in 1955. Not even during the height of the civil rights movement. It wasn’t until 2005 and even after all that time, a federal anti-lynching law was not actually signed into law until March 2022. That’s a delay and national disgrace that stretched across generations. There is still no accountability!

Who in government was ever punished for allowing this reign of terror to continue decade after decade? What official institution has paid reparations to the descendants of those who were tortured, mutilated, hanged, burned alive, shot to pieces, castrated, dismembered, or dragged through the dirt of this so-called democracy? Who? Where is the justice for the families? Where is the punishment for the lawmakers who defended inaction? Where is the reckoning for the presidents who refused to lead? Where is the repair for a people whose suffering was not incidental, but structural? These aren’t idle questions to simply propagate antagonistically about America’s dark past for an acceptable answer. The answer is that America in all actuality has not truly resolved her race struggles, especially where her children of color are concerned.

The names of black victims who fell prey to racial violence in modern times (although some cases were disputed to be about racism) since the 1970s is a benchmark that clearly illustrates that America’s view of black lives continue to be expendable. For Example:

Here is a representative list, not a complete one, of Black people whose deaths drew national attention because they were tied to racial violence, vigilante violence, police brutality, or police-related deaths since the 1970s. I am excluding people like Rodney King, whose case was nationally pivotal but who was not killed.

Late 1970s–1990s: Arthur McDuffie, Michael Stewart, Eleanor Bumpurs, Yusef Hawkins, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, and Oscar Grant are among the best-known names from that period and its immediate aftermath. McDuffie’s 1979 killing by Miami-area officers helped trigger the 1980 Miami uprising; Yusef Hawkins’s 1989 murder became a national symbol of racist mob violence; Diallo’s 1999 shooting became a national flashpoint over racial profiling and police brutality; Sean Bell and Oscar Grant likewise became nationally recognized symbols of police violence.

2010s: Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stephon Clark, Botham Jean, and Atatiana Jefferson are among the most nationally recognized names. Trayvon Martin’s killing and George Zimmerman’s acquittal helped catalyze the Black Lives Matter movement, and the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014 helped expand it nationally; Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile became major national rallying points in the years that followed.

2020s: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Tyre Nichols, and Sonya Massey are among the names that drew especially broad national attention. Britannica identifies Floyd’s killing, along with the earlier 2020 deaths of Arbery and Taylor, as central to the wave of nationwide and international protest that year; Tyre Nichols’s death again ignited national outrage in 2023, and Sonya Massey’s 2024 killing after she called 911 for help quickly became another nationally watched police-violence case.

Despite these alarming volume of cases, America wants credit now for finally doing in 2022 what it should have done generations earlier, but you don’t get moral applause for arriving at justice nearly a century late. You don’t get to celebrate yourself for finally outlawing what you deliberately tolerated. You certainly don’t get to call yourself righteous when the record shows that, for decade after decade, this nation protected a system of racial violence more than the victims who suffered from it.

This is why many Black Americans hear lofty speeches about freedom and democracy here and abroad, and feel nothing but insult. We know this country’s other language, like abandonment, selective justice, white tears, white innocence, white delay, white excuse, and Black graves. We know the language America, but they expect and demand patriotism from those of us who have been betrayed.

The lynching era was not an unfortunate side chapter in American history. It was America’s history, its original sin, and the foundation from which the American economy was initially built. Not just that though, but it was a domestic theater of racial terror that helped define the nation after Reconstruction. It was a long-running campaign of public cruelty meant to discipline Black existence, crush Black ambition, erase Black citizenship, and remind Black communities that freedom on paper did not mean safety in practice.

The federal government knew. The Senate knew. The presidents knew. America knew. Still, it let it happen. That’s the forbidden truth about the United States. The foundation beneath the myth of “justice and equality for all.” Why would any conscious Black person willingly paricipate in a war to protect a nation whose history of brutality and barbarism agionst them has been perpetuasl since the birth of this nation? Fighting in a war? For who? who what cause? This is why this blog series must be written.

America can preach to anybody else around the globe about civilization, law, order, democracy, or human rights, it must answer for the killing fields it allowed here at home. America did not merely fail Black people during the lynching era. It protected the machinery of our slaughter. It gave killers time, cover, custom, and confidence. It allowed senators to filibuster our humanity, presidents to sidestep our suffering, and generations of white America to pretend that Black death was somebody else’s problem.

So no, Black people do not owe this country blind loyalty, automatic patriotism, or unthinking reverence for symbols that flew over our terror. A nation that let thousands be tortured and murdered without justice does not get to demand devotion from the descendants of the betrayed. They don’t get to request our blood for their wars to perpetuate a system that has never loved her Black citizens. Until America fully tells the truth, fully owns its guilt, and fully repairs what it deliberately allowed, every sermon it preaches about freedom is stained with the blood of Black Americans.

I’m Journalisty and Blogger David B. Adams

The People’s Champion Blog

David Adams

David B. Adams grew up in the Highlandtown section of Baltimore's southeast district and is his parent's youngest child. He experienced pervasive poverty, which taught him humility and compassion for the plight of others. His exposure to violence and gritty urban life were some of his early lessons of life's many hardships. Adams credits the upheavals he endured during his conformity with helping to shape the foundation of his outlook and perspectives on society. With a steadfast commitment to giving voice to the voiceless, Adams is a journalist, crime writer, and blogger renowned for tireless investigative journalism and advocacy on behalf of vulnerable populations. As founder and administrator of The People's Champion, Adams sheds light on critical social issues, championing the rights of: - Homeless individuals - Victims of violent crime and their families - Wrongfully convicted individuals - Missing and exploited children; Additionally, he is a seasoned investigative reporter, Adams has earned recognition for relentless pursuit of truth and justice. With a strong national and global focus, on inspiring meaningful change and crucial conversations impacting all of humanity.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

The current state of affairs with the United States, it’s association and alliance with the State of israel, their current strife with other nations in the region of the the Arabian pennisula, and around the globe has the average American worried and fearful that yet, another unwanted war is on the horizon for our country. Let us be honest regarding the reality that many of our sons and daughters may be ushered into a war the country doesn’t want, and most assuredly will result in the ievitable carnage of Americans dying on the battlefield in the name of our country’s propurted fight to secure American democracy. I want to speak truthfully to the heart of such a myth, because America herself really never has.

For more than half a century, this country allowed the open, public torture and murder of Black people while the federal government stood by like a willing accomplice. From the end of Reconstruction forward, lynching was not some random outbreak of lawlessness, or the result of overly pssionate mob violence that got out of hand. It was policy by neglect. It was a custom of terrorism. It was white supremacy enforced with rope, fire, bullets, knives, crowds, cameras, postcards, and applause. In many of these incidents, was carried out on the basis of mere suspicion alone that a black person was guilty.

When the time came for the United States government to act, it refused. Congress tried again and again to pass a federal anti-lynching law. Not once. Not twice. But over 200 times, and what happened? Southern senators got up on the Senate floor and talked, and talked, and talked until the bills died. They weaponized procedure in defense of barbarism. White terror was crafted in the language of “states’ rights” and “constitutional principle,” when what they were really defending was the right of white mobs to hunt, mutilate, burn, and kill Black human beings without federal interference whatsoever, and with complete impunity.

The names of the bills changed, but the moral crime stayed the same.The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill passed the House in 1922 and was strangled in the Senate. The Costigan-Wagner Bill became the next great effort, but it too was abandoned in the face of southern obstruction and presidential cowardice. Then came the Gavagan Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the House in 1937 and was buried in the Senate during the 1938 battle when segregationists again made clear that preserving white domination mattered more to them than law, justice, or human life. Think about what that means.

These were not backwoods lynch mobs acting in secret while Washington looked the other way. These were United States senators, elected officials from sovereign American states, standing in the highest legislative chamber in the land and using the rules of democracy to protect racial murder. They did not merely fail to stop lynching. They fought to continue it and keep the federal government powerless against it. The U.S. government didn’t have a stance of nuetrality, it was complicit, and the blood of black lives are squarely on the hands of American states who supported such barbarism.

The presidents of that era did not save us either. Franklin Roosevelt, despite personally condemning lynching, refused to spend the political capital needed to force the issue because he feared losing southern support for his political agenda. Black lives were often used as bargaining chips for politics in Amerioca’s history. That is the truth America keeps trying to dress up in polite language. Many elected officials chose political convenience over Black life. They chose coalition management over justice and chose legislative strategy over the torn, burned, broken bodies of Black men, women, and children hanging from American trees like a “strange fruit”.

So when people ask why many Black Americans have always had a complicated, wounded, distrustful relationship with this country, the answer is right here before your eyes.Why should Black people rush to die for a nation that spent generations refusing to protect them from domestic racial terror? Why should Black people wave the flag without question when their government allowed them to be butchered in broad daylight and then debated for decades whether their lives were even worth federal protection? Why should we pretend patriotism is simple for Black America when this republic treated Black death as negotiable?

The United States Senate didn’t even apologize for failing to pass anti-lynching legislation until 2005. I said 2005, which was 145 years after the lynching era began. Let that sink in. Not in 1925, in 1935, nor in 1955. Not even during the height of the civil rights movement. It wasn’t until 2005 and even after all that time, a federal anti-lynching law was not actually signed into law until March 2022. That’s a delay and national disgrace that stretched across generations. There is still no accountability!

Who in government was ever punished for allowing this reign of terror to continue decade after decade? What official institution has paid reparations to the descendants of those who were tortured, mutilated, hanged, burned alive, shot to pieces, castrated, dismembered, or dragged through the dirt of this so-called democracy? Who? Where is the justice for the families? Where is the punishment for the lawmakers who defended inaction? Where is the reckoning for the presidents who refused to lead? Where is the repair for a people whose suffering was not incidental, but structural? These aren’t idle questions to simply propagate antagonistically about America’s dark past for an acceptable answer. The answer is that America in all actuality has not truly resolved her race struggles, especially where her children of color are concerned.

The names of black victims who fell prey to racial violence in modern times (although some cases were disputed to be about racism) since the 1970s is a benchmark that clearly illustrates that America’s view of black lives continue to be expendable. For Example:

Here is a representative list, not a complete one, of Black people whose deaths drew national attention because they were tied to racial violence, vigilante violence, police brutality, or police-related deaths since the 1970s. I am excluding people like Rodney King, whose case was nationally pivotal but who was not killed.

Late 1970s–1990s: Arthur McDuffie, Michael Stewart, Eleanor Bumpurs, Yusef Hawkins, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, and Oscar Grant are among the best-known names from that period and its immediate aftermath. McDuffie’s 1979 killing by Miami-area officers helped trigger the 1980 Miami uprising; Yusef Hawkins’s 1989 murder became a national symbol of racist mob violence; Diallo’s 1999 shooting became a national flashpoint over racial profiling and police brutality; Sean Bell and Oscar Grant likewise became nationally recognized symbols of police violence.

2010s: Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stephon Clark, Botham Jean, and Atatiana Jefferson are among the most nationally recognized names. Trayvon Martin’s killing and George Zimmerman’s acquittal helped catalyze the Black Lives Matter movement, and the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014 helped expand it nationally; Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile became major national rallying points in the years that followed.

2020s: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Tyre Nichols, and Sonya Massey are among the names that drew especially broad national attention. Britannica identifies Floyd’s killing, along with the earlier 2020 deaths of Arbery and Taylor, as central to the wave of nationwide and international protest that year; Tyre Nichols’s death again ignited national outrage in 2023, and Sonya Massey’s 2024 killing after she called 911 for help quickly became another nationally watched police-violence case.

Despite these alarming volume of cases, America wants credit now for finally doing in 2022 what it should have done generations earlier, but you don’t get moral applause for arriving at justice nearly a century late. You don’t get to celebrate yourself for finally outlawing what you deliberately tolerated. You certainly don’t get to call yourself righteous when the record shows that, for decade after decade, this nation protected a system of racial violence more than the victims who suffered from it.

This is why many Black Americans hear lofty speeches about freedom and democracy here and abroad, and feel nothing but insult. We know this country’s other language, like abandonment, selective justice, white tears, white innocence, white delay, white excuse, and Black graves. We know the language America, but they expect and demand patriotism from those of us who have been betrayed.

The lynching era was not an unfortunate side chapter in American history. It was America’s history, its original sin, and the foundation from which the American economy was initially built. Not just that though, but it was a domestic theater of racial terror that helped define the nation after Reconstruction. It was a long-running campaign of public cruelty meant to discipline Black existence, crush Black ambition, erase Black citizenship, and remind Black communities that freedom on paper did not mean safety in practice.

The federal government knew. The Senate knew. The presidents knew. America knew. Still, it let it happen. That’s the forbidden truth about the United States. The foundation beneath the myth of “justice and equality for all.” Why would any conscious Black person willingly paricipate in a war to protect a nation whose history of brutality and barbarism agionst them has been perpetuasl since the birth of this nation? Fighting in a war? For who? who what cause? This is why this blog series must be written.

America can preach to anybody else around the globe about civilization, law, order, democracy, or human rights, it must answer for the killing fields it allowed here at home. America did not merely fail Black people during the lynching era. It protected the machinery of our slaughter. It gave killers time, cover, custom, and confidence. It allowed senators to filibuster our humanity, presidents to sidestep our suffering, and generations of white America to pretend that Black death was somebody else’s problem.

So no, Black people do not owe this country blind loyalty, automatic patriotism, or unthinking reverence for symbols that flew over our terror. A nation that let thousands be tortured and murdered without justice does not get to demand devotion from the descendants of the betrayed. They don’t get to request our blood for their wars to perpetuate a system that has never loved her Black citizens. Until America fully tells the truth, fully owns its guilt, and fully repairs what it deliberately allowed, every sermon it preaches about freedom is stained with the blood of Black Americans.

I’m Journalisty and Blogger David B. Adams

The People’s Champion Blog

David Adams

David B. Adams grew up in the Highlandtown section of Baltimore's southeast district and is his parent's youngest child. He experienced pervasive poverty, which taught him humility and compassion for the plight of others. His exposure to violence and gritty urban life were some of his early lessons of life's many hardships. Adams credits the upheavals he endured during his conformity with helping to shape the foundation of his outlook and perspectives on society. With a steadfast commitment to giving voice to the voiceless, Adams is a journalist, crime writer, and blogger renowned for tireless investigative journalism and advocacy on behalf of vulnerable populations. As founder and administrator of The People's Champion, Adams sheds light on critical social issues, championing the rights of: - Homeless individuals - Victims of violent crime and their families - Wrongfully convicted individuals - Missing and exploited children; Additionally, he is a seasoned investigative reporter, Adams has earned recognition for relentless pursuit of truth and justice. With a strong national and global focus, on inspiring meaningful change and crucial conversations impacting all of humanity.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

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