Episode 102 The Lynching - Claude McKay

In this episode Connor and Jack discuss the powerful anti-lynching poem "The Lynching" by Claude McKay. They discuss the history of anti-lynching literature, the ways that white terror was enacted for decades, the horror of lynchings as public acts, how lynchings have continued to the present day, and much more.

More on Claude McKay, here.

Find the poem, here.

The Lynching
By: Claude McKay

His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven.
His father, by the cruelest way of pain,
Had bidden him to his bosom once again;
The awful sin remained still unforgiven.
All night a bright and solitary star
(Perchance the one that ever guided him,
Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim)
Hung pitifully o'er the swinging char.
Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view
The ghastly body swaying in the sun:
The women thronged to look, but never a one
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;
And little lads, lynchers that were to be,
Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.