U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
PRESS RELEASE
2-21-12
Class of Blacks Subjected to Noose Display and Racial Slurs, Federal Agency Charged
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Ready Mix USA, a major cement and concrete products company, will pay $400,000 and furnish other relief to settle a lawsuit for racial harassment filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.
The EEOC charged in its lawsuit that a class of African American males at Ready Mix’s Montgomery-area facilities was subjected to a racially hostile work environment. The EEOC said that a noose was displayed in the worksite, that derogatory racial language, including references to the Ku Klux Klan, was used by a direct supervisor and manager and that race-based name calling occurred. Ready Mix denies that racial harassment occurred at its worksites.
Racial discrimination and harassment violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit against Ready Mix USA LLC, doing business as Couch Ready Mix USA LLC (EEOC v. Ready Mix USA 2:09-CV-923) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.
The consent decree settling the suit provides that Ready Mix will pay a total of $400,000 in compensatory damages to be apportioned among the seven class members. Each party will bear its own litigation costs and attorneys’ fees. The two-year decree enjoins Ready Mix from engaging in further racial harassment or retaliation and requires that the company conduct EEO training. Ready Mix will be required to modify its policies to ensure that racial harassment is prohibited and a system for investigation of complaints is in place. The company must also report certain complaints of harassment or retaliation to the EEOC for monitoring.
“Employees have a right to expect that harassment based on race will be kept out of the workplace,” said Delner Franklin-Thomas, district director for the EEOC Birmingham District. “This case involved not only racist language, but a noose, a threatening symbol of cruelty that has no place in any American workplace.”
EEOC Birmingham District Regional Attorney C. Emanuel Smith said, “We are pleased that Ready Mix has taken these steps to address this very alarming situation and improve its work environment. We encourage all employers to help make workplace race discrimination a thing of the past.”
According to company information, Ready Mix provides cement and concrete products to construction projects in industrial, commercial, residential and municipal projects.
In Fiscal Year 2011, the EEOC received 35,395 charges alleging race-based discrimination and 8776 of those alleged race-based harassment. Historically, race-based charges account for more than 35% of all charge filings nationwide.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the Commission is available on the agency’s web site at www.eeoc.gov.
http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/2-21-12.cfm
Showing posts with label nooses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nooses. Show all posts
Monday, February 27, 2012
Thursday, March 25, 2010
UC regents sorry for acts of hate on campuses
sfgate.com
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, March 25, 2010
It's taken a series of venomous events - among them a hanging noose, a swastika etched in a Jewish student's door, and anti-gay slurs scribbled on walls - to shake University of California leaders into recognizing that the diversity problem on their campuses is serious.
But recognize it they did on Wednesday as regents, chancellors and UC President Mark Yudof spent the morning apologizing to students for allowing an atmosphere of hatred to fester on at least two campuses, San Diego and Davis. They acknowledged that racial tension undoubtedly exists on other UC campuses.
They laid out plans to make the largely white and Asian American schools more inclusive. And they decried the repeated, hateful incidents that began in February with a San Diego frat party mocking black students. A noose in the school's library followed. Then there was a student's closed-circuit TV rant using a racial slur for black people, and another student's photo that had been darkened and circulated.
At UC Davis, someone defaced the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center with derogatory words. And no fewer than six swastikas have been found on campus, the latest just days ago.
"I want to extend a personal apology to every African American kid, every Latino student and Jewish kid, and to every student that became aware of this," Eddie Island told fellow regents and dozens in the audience, from students to staff members. The regents are in San Francisco this week conducting their monthly meeting.
"We as a board failed to provide a nurturing environment," Island said. "We didn't intend to, but we have failed."
Full Story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/24/BAH81CK9BM.DTL
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, March 25, 2010
It's taken a series of venomous events - among them a hanging noose, a swastika etched in a Jewish student's door, and anti-gay slurs scribbled on walls - to shake University of California leaders into recognizing that the diversity problem on their campuses is serious.
But recognize it they did on Wednesday as regents, chancellors and UC President Mark Yudof spent the morning apologizing to students for allowing an atmosphere of hatred to fester on at least two campuses, San Diego and Davis. They acknowledged that racial tension undoubtedly exists on other UC campuses.
They laid out plans to make the largely white and Asian American schools more inclusive. And they decried the repeated, hateful incidents that began in February with a San Diego frat party mocking black students. A noose in the school's library followed. Then there was a student's closed-circuit TV rant using a racial slur for black people, and another student's photo that had been darkened and circulated.
At UC Davis, someone defaced the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center with derogatory words. And no fewer than six swastikas have been found on campus, the latest just days ago.
"I want to extend a personal apology to every African American kid, every Latino student and Jewish kid, and to every student that became aware of this," Eddie Island told fellow regents and dozens in the audience, from students to staff members. The regents are in San Francisco this week conducting their monthly meeting.
"We as a board failed to provide a nurturing environment," Island said. "We didn't intend to, but we have failed."
Full Story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/24/BAH81CK9BM.DTL
Monday, June 8, 2009
FLORIDA CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES SUED FOR RACIAL HARASSMENT, THREATENING BLACK WORKER WITH NOOSE
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
PRESS RELEASE
6-3-09
EEOC Says Crom Companies Subjected African Americans to Racial Insults, Physical Abuse
MIAMI – The Crom Corporation and Crom Equipment Rentals violated federal law when they allowed the racial harassment of black employees, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today. The EEOC also says the Florida-based construction companies unlawfully suspended an African American employee for complaining about severe racial insults, threats and physical abuse.
According to the suit, a white employee at Crom’s Holly Hill, Fla., location locked a black coworker in a tool shed and then spray-painted the shed door with the word “Jail.” The EEOC said that the same white employee also put a hangman’s noose around the black employee’s neck, hung the noose in his work area, and threatened to decapitate him. Another African American employee was offended when he saw the noose hanging at the Holly Hill site. Crom was aware of the harassment but didn’t stop it, according to the suit. Instead, the EEOC said, Crom suspended the black worker after he complained about the noose and rewarded the white offender with a higher-paying position.
“It is shocking and sobering that such cruelty can still occur at an American workplace,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “The EEOC will not falter in its quest to put an end to such injustice.”
Racial harassment violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida (EEOC v. The Crom Corporation, Case No. 1:09-cv-00128-SPM-AK) after first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement.
EEOC Miami District Director Jacqueline McNair said, “Even in 2009, nooses still make their way into work environments. The EEOC will vigorously prosecute cases with this sort of workplace terror.” EEOC Miami Regional Attorney Nora E. Curtin, added, “The nightmarish abuse endured in this case is appalling. The hangman's noose is a haunting symbol of racial hatred and must never be tolerated. Employers must take swift and meaningful action to punish those responsible for such outrageous conduct.”
Crom Corporation and Crom Equipment Rentals sell concrete water tanks and scaffolding and operate throughout Florida and in at least nine other states.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.
PRESS RELEASE
6-3-09
EEOC Says Crom Companies Subjected African Americans to Racial Insults, Physical Abuse
MIAMI – The Crom Corporation and Crom Equipment Rentals violated federal law when they allowed the racial harassment of black employees, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today. The EEOC also says the Florida-based construction companies unlawfully suspended an African American employee for complaining about severe racial insults, threats and physical abuse.
According to the suit, a white employee at Crom’s Holly Hill, Fla., location locked a black coworker in a tool shed and then spray-painted the shed door with the word “Jail.” The EEOC said that the same white employee also put a hangman’s noose around the black employee’s neck, hung the noose in his work area, and threatened to decapitate him. Another African American employee was offended when he saw the noose hanging at the Holly Hill site. Crom was aware of the harassment but didn’t stop it, according to the suit. Instead, the EEOC said, Crom suspended the black worker after he complained about the noose and rewarded the white offender with a higher-paying position.
“It is shocking and sobering that such cruelty can still occur at an American workplace,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “The EEOC will not falter in its quest to put an end to such injustice.”
Racial harassment violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida (EEOC v. The Crom Corporation, Case No. 1:09-cv-00128-SPM-AK) after first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement.
EEOC Miami District Director Jacqueline McNair said, “Even in 2009, nooses still make their way into work environments. The EEOC will vigorously prosecute cases with this sort of workplace terror.” EEOC Miami Regional Attorney Nora E. Curtin, added, “The nightmarish abuse endured in this case is appalling. The hangman's noose is a haunting symbol of racial hatred and must never be tolerated. Employers must take swift and meaningful action to punish those responsible for such outrageous conduct.”
Crom Corporation and Crom Equipment Rentals sell concrete water tanks and scaffolding and operate throughout Florida and in at least nine other states.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
New York outlaws displaying nooses as a threat
The Washington Post
By VALERIE BAUMAN
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 15, 2008; 7:15 PM
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The state of New York has outlawed the display of a noose as a threat, following several high-profile cases involving the symbol of racist lynchings.
Gov. David Paterson signed the law Thursday to make such displays a felony punishable by as many as four years in prison.
"It is sad that in these modern times there remains a need to address the problem of individuals who use nooses as a means of threat and intimidation," he said in a statement. "But it is a reality, and if we ignore it we would be derelict in our duty."
Nooses were found last year on a black professor's door at Columbia University, outside a post office near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in Manhattan, and on Long Island.
They also have shown up in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag aboard a cutter and on a Maryland college campus. One of the more prominent cases involved black teenagers charged with beating a white student after nooses were hung from a tree at a Louisiana high school.
Conduct already covered by the law includes the display of swastikas on property without the permission of the property owner, as well as the burning of crosses.
Connecticut passed a bill this year making noose displays a misdemeanor unless property is damaged, which would be a felony. At least two other states, Louisiana and Maryland, have considered similar rules, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051503403_pf.html
By VALERIE BAUMAN
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 15, 2008; 7:15 PM
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The state of New York has outlawed the display of a noose as a threat, following several high-profile cases involving the symbol of racist lynchings.
Gov. David Paterson signed the law Thursday to make such displays a felony punishable by as many as four years in prison.
"It is sad that in these modern times there remains a need to address the problem of individuals who use nooses as a means of threat and intimidation," he said in a statement. "But it is a reality, and if we ignore it we would be derelict in our duty."
Nooses were found last year on a black professor's door at Columbia University, outside a post office near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in Manhattan, and on Long Island.
They also have shown up in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag aboard a cutter and on a Maryland college campus. One of the more prominent cases involved black teenagers charged with beating a white student after nooses were hung from a tree at a Louisiana high school.
Conduct already covered by the law includes the display of swastikas on property without the permission of the property owner, as well as the burning of crosses.
Connecticut passed a bill this year making noose displays a misdemeanor unless property is damaged, which would be a felony. At least two other states, Louisiana and Maryland, have considered similar rules, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051503403_pf.html
Friday, April 4, 2008
Hanging Doll Investigated as Hate Crime
The Washington Post
By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2008; Page B06
A black doll suspended from a noose at the University of Richmond is being investigated as a possible hate crime and has sparked emotional forums and discussions about race at the school.
Last month, just before spring break, a staff member found the roughly two-foot-long doll hanging from a noose in a studio theater with a sign reading "Art is dead -- long live art."
While some students and faculty wondered whether it was a joke or an artistic statement, many worried that it was the latest in a series of symbols evoking lynching that have been found recently on university campuses and other public spaces, including an apparent noose at the University of Maryland last year.
The noose and the doll, with dark skin and hair, were leftover props. According to the student newspaper the Collegian, which first reported the story, the doll had a green hat and clothes, and a professor who saw it hanging at first thought it could be a leprechaun. It had become a sort of mascot for the department; students played with it and it would pop up in various places, sitting on a chair or left in other spots around the theater.
The university police department is trying to determine who left the doll this time and why, said university spokesman Brian Eckert. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040302541.html?wpisrc=newsletter ]
By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2008; Page B06
A black doll suspended from a noose at the University of Richmond is being investigated as a possible hate crime and has sparked emotional forums and discussions about race at the school.
Last month, just before spring break, a staff member found the roughly two-foot-long doll hanging from a noose in a studio theater with a sign reading "Art is dead -- long live art."
While some students and faculty wondered whether it was a joke or an artistic statement, many worried that it was the latest in a series of symbols evoking lynching that have been found recently on university campuses and other public spaces, including an apparent noose at the University of Maryland last year.
The noose and the doll, with dark skin and hair, were leftover props. According to the student newspaper the Collegian, which first reported the story, the doll had a green hat and clothes, and a professor who saw it hanging at first thought it could be a leprechaun. It had become a sort of mascot for the department; students played with it and it would pop up in various places, sitting on a chair or left in other spots around the theater.
The university police department is trying to determine who left the doll this time and why, said university spokesman Brian Eckert. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040302541.html?wpisrc=newsletter ]
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Fired black worker claims white boss put noose on him
CNN.com/US
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- A black former hotel worker who claims his white supervisor put a noose around his neck at an event on one of the country's oldest plantations said he was fired when he complained about it.
John Green, 62, said he was scared and embarrassed by his boss's actions at the Charleston Place Hotel function at Boone Hall Plantation in October.
Green and his attorney, Ed Brown, said a complaint was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's office in Savannah, Georgia. However, Mason Barrett, director of that office, said he would not confirm whether his office had received a complaint.
The hotel's general manager said in a statement he had not seen a complaint from the commission and that Green was fired for violating company rules. Those rules were not specified.
Green, a former event supervisor at the hotel, said his boss laughed about the incident and "he thought it was funny."
"He was actually showing another guy from another country how to make a hangman's noose," Green said. "He sneaked up from behind me and slipped the noose over my neck and began tightening the noose."
Green said he was fired about a month later when he complained to hotel managers.
He said he recorded a meeting with hotel managers after he was fired, and when he told them about the recording, Green's boss was fired.
Pippa Isbell, vice president of corporate communications for Orient-Express Hotels, which owns Charleston Place, confirmed that the supervisor was fired "as a direct result of the incident with the noose."
Hotel general manager Paul Stracey said in a statement the company has a strong policy against discrimination. [To see the entire article, go to: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/13/worker.noose.ap/index.html]
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- A black former hotel worker who claims his white supervisor put a noose around his neck at an event on one of the country's oldest plantations said he was fired when he complained about it.
John Green, 62, said he was scared and embarrassed by his boss's actions at the Charleston Place Hotel function at Boone Hall Plantation in October.
Green and his attorney, Ed Brown, said a complaint was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's office in Savannah, Georgia. However, Mason Barrett, director of that office, said he would not confirm whether his office had received a complaint.
The hotel's general manager said in a statement he had not seen a complaint from the commission and that Green was fired for violating company rules. Those rules were not specified.
Green, a former event supervisor at the hotel, said his boss laughed about the incident and "he thought it was funny."
"He was actually showing another guy from another country how to make a hangman's noose," Green said. "He sneaked up from behind me and slipped the noose over my neck and began tightening the noose."
Green said he was fired about a month later when he complained to hotel managers.
He said he recorded a meeting with hotel managers after he was fired, and when he told them about the recording, Green's boss was fired.
Pippa Isbell, vice president of corporate communications for Orient-Express Hotels, which owns Charleston Place, confirmed that the supervisor was fired "as a direct result of the incident with the noose."
Hotel general manager Paul Stracey said in a statement the company has a strong policy against discrimination. [To see the entire article, go to: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/13/worker.noose.ap/index.html]
Monday, January 28, 2008
HENREDON FURNITURE INDUSTRIES TO PAY $465,000 FOR RACIAL HARASSMENT, HANGMAN’S NOOSES
EEOC Settles Class Suit for Black Employees at Racially Hostile Workplace
HIGH POINT, N.C. -- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced the settlement of a racial harassment lawsuit for $465,000 and significant remedial relief against Henredon Furniture Industries, Inc. on behalf of African American employees who were subjected to a persistent racially hostile work environment at a furniture plant.
According to the EEOC, from approximately 1998 through January 2006, African American employees at Henredon’s High Point manufacturing plant were subjected to racial slurs and name calling -- including the “N-word” -- as well as threats by hangman’s nooses that were displayed at the plant. The suit alleged that the harassment occurred almost daily. Henredon Furniture, a subsidiary of Furniture Brands International, operated a furniture plant in High Point, N.C., until January 2006. Furniture Brands International is America’s largest home furnishings manufacturer.
“This case is the latest indicator that racial harassment in general, and nooses in particular, remain persistent problems at some job sites nationwide,” said EEOC Chair Naomi C. Earp. “It’s time for corporate America to be more proactive in preventing and eliminating racist behavior in the workplace. The EEOC intends to make clear that race and color discrimination in the workplace, whether verbal or behavioral, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
In addition to the $465,000 in compensatory damages to be divided among the seven class members, the three year consent decree resolving the case (EEOC v. Henredon Furniture Industries Inc., Case No. 1:06CV00744, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina), includes injunctive relief enjoining Henredon Furniture from engaging in racial harassment or retaliation; requires anti-discrimination training; requires the posting of a notice about the settlement; and requires the company to report complaints of racial harassment to the EEOC for monitoring.
EEOC Charlotte District Director Reuben Daniels, Jr. said, “This settlement should remind employers of the potentially serious consequences of failing to take effective action to prevent and remedy racial harassment. It is in the best interest of all employers to create inclusive, discrimination-free work environments in accordance with the law.”
Lynette A. Barnes, regional attorney for the federal agency’s Charlotte District, which oversees North Carolina, Virginia, and most of South Carolina, added: “The EEOC is committed to the elimination of racial discrimination in the workplace as evidenced by the prosecution and resolution of this case, in addition to many others nationwide. We will not hesitate to take action against companies that allow employees of any race to be subjected to ongoing harassment.”
The Commission has observed a surge of racial harassment cases over the past two decades, some of which involve hangman’s nooses and verbal threats of lynching. Racial harassment charge filings with EEOC offices across the country have more than doubled from 3,075 in Fiscal Year 1991 to approximately 7,000 in FY 2007 (based on preliminary year-end data).
In addition to investigating and resolving charge filings brought to the EEOC, the agency has sued more than three dozen employers this decade in noose cases and reached several major settlements. In one recent case, the EEOC obtained more than $1 million for a black worker who was racially harassed and choked with a noose by his coworkers in a company bathroom.
On Feb. 28, 2007, Chair Earp launched the Commission’s E-RACE Initiative (Eradicating Racism And Colorism from Employment), a national outreach, education, and enforcement campaign focusing on new and emerging race and color issues in the 21st century workplace. Further information about the E-RACE Initiative is available on the EEOC’s web site at http://www.eeoc.gov/initatives/e-race/index.html.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available at its website at http://www.eeoc.gov/.
HIGH POINT, N.C. -- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced the settlement of a racial harassment lawsuit for $465,000 and significant remedial relief against Henredon Furniture Industries, Inc. on behalf of African American employees who were subjected to a persistent racially hostile work environment at a furniture plant.
According to the EEOC, from approximately 1998 through January 2006, African American employees at Henredon’s High Point manufacturing plant were subjected to racial slurs and name calling -- including the “N-word” -- as well as threats by hangman’s nooses that were displayed at the plant. The suit alleged that the harassment occurred almost daily. Henredon Furniture, a subsidiary of Furniture Brands International, operated a furniture plant in High Point, N.C., until January 2006. Furniture Brands International is America’s largest home furnishings manufacturer.
“This case is the latest indicator that racial harassment in general, and nooses in particular, remain persistent problems at some job sites nationwide,” said EEOC Chair Naomi C. Earp. “It’s time for corporate America to be more proactive in preventing and eliminating racist behavior in the workplace. The EEOC intends to make clear that race and color discrimination in the workplace, whether verbal or behavioral, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
In addition to the $465,000 in compensatory damages to be divided among the seven class members, the three year consent decree resolving the case (EEOC v. Henredon Furniture Industries Inc., Case No. 1:06CV00744, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina), includes injunctive relief enjoining Henredon Furniture from engaging in racial harassment or retaliation; requires anti-discrimination training; requires the posting of a notice about the settlement; and requires the company to report complaints of racial harassment to the EEOC for monitoring.
EEOC Charlotte District Director Reuben Daniels, Jr. said, “This settlement should remind employers of the potentially serious consequences of failing to take effective action to prevent and remedy racial harassment. It is in the best interest of all employers to create inclusive, discrimination-free work environments in accordance with the law.”
Lynette A. Barnes, regional attorney for the federal agency’s Charlotte District, which oversees North Carolina, Virginia, and most of South Carolina, added: “The EEOC is committed to the elimination of racial discrimination in the workplace as evidenced by the prosecution and resolution of this case, in addition to many others nationwide. We will not hesitate to take action against companies that allow employees of any race to be subjected to ongoing harassment.”
The Commission has observed a surge of racial harassment cases over the past two decades, some of which involve hangman’s nooses and verbal threats of lynching. Racial harassment charge filings with EEOC offices across the country have more than doubled from 3,075 in Fiscal Year 1991 to approximately 7,000 in FY 2007 (based on preliminary year-end data).
In addition to investigating and resolving charge filings brought to the EEOC, the agency has sued more than three dozen employers this decade in noose cases and reached several major settlements. In one recent case, the EEOC obtained more than $1 million for a black worker who was racially harassed and choked with a noose by his coworkers in a company bathroom.
On Feb. 28, 2007, Chair Earp launched the Commission’s E-RACE Initiative (Eradicating Racism And Colorism from Employment), a national outreach, education, and enforcement campaign focusing on new and emerging race and color issues in the 21st century workplace. Further information about the E-RACE Initiative is available on the EEOC’s web site at http://www.eeoc.gov/initatives/e-race/index.html.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available at its website at http://www.eeoc.gov/.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Bill Moyers' Journal: What is the Meaning of the Nooses?
"The 'Lynching Tree' is a metaphor for race in America..." Professor James Cone
November 23, 2007
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL.
Our subject in this hour is one you don't hear discussed very often in politics or around the dining table. It's buried so deeply in the American psyche that rarely does anyone bring it front and center. Our silence on it is one reason we have so much difficulty coming to terms with race in America. I'm reluctant to raise it even now, because it's anything but a comfortable subject for television. But I went online not long ago and listened to a speech at Harvard University that I simply can't forget and I wanted you to meet the man who delivered it.
JAMES CONE: …blacks and whites and other Americans who want to understand the meaning of the American experience need to remember lynching.
BILL MOYERS: His name is James Cone and he has a powerful message about seeing America through the experience of the cross and the lynching tree.
JAMES CONE: ..to make sense out of the cross, the central symbol of the Christian faith, and the lynching tree…
BILL MOYERS: That's right - the cross on which Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified in the Roman Empire, and the lynching tree that meant agony and death for thousands of black people. Their connection is the subject of our broadcast. Be forewarned: you will see some disturbing images.
JAMES CONE: Yes, that is a noose…
BILL MOYERS: In the past few months we've all seen these chilling reports:
REPORTER: ...one in Farmingdale and just yesterday in Roosevelt. Those two..."
BILL MOYERS: Nooses tied to a school yard tree in Jena, Louisiana.
REPORTER: ...historically reserved for white students…
BILL MOYERS: Nooses left for a black member of the US Coast Guard.
REPORTER: ...at New London, Connecticut…
BILL MOYERS: A noose on the door of a university professor's office here in New York City.
REPORTER: ...here at Columbia University…
VOICE: ...because today it's a noose and tomorrow they trying to put some bodies head in it…
BILL MOYERS: The reappearance of nooses is a haunting reminder of the dark side of American history, when after the civil war black Americans were forced to live in the shadow of the lynching tree. Thousands of human beings, tortured and hanged by the neck until dead.
BILLIE HOLIDAY SINGING Southern trees bear strange fruit... ...blood on the leaves and blood at the root, black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze...
JAMES CONE: ...'fruit hanging from the poplar trees'. Billie singing her signature song.
BILL MOYERS: James Cone knows that song well. As one of America's pioneers of black theology, he has never been able to forget its message, and he wants his students at Union Theological Seminary here in New York City, to remember it, too.
JAMES CONE: ...so that the brutal facts of history, keeps that from being a sort of pie in the sky thing.
BILL MOYERS: James Cone has been at Union Seminary since 1969, teaching systematic theology through the black experience in America...
JAMES CONE: ...it seemed to me that Martin and Malcolm represented two poles of my identity.
BILL MOYERS: He grew up in rural Arkansas, and soon found his calling in the church. He was ordained by the African Methodist Episcopal Church and went on to the life of teacher and scholar. Among his many books and articles are these - MARTIN & MALCOLM & AMERICA, BLACK THEOLOGY & BLACK POWER AND GOD OF THE OPPRESSED - all translated in nine languages.
JAMES CONE: ...not many black theologians and preachers have made an explicit...
BILL MOYERS: Right now he's thinking through how the cross and the lynching tree enable us to interpret America today.
JAMES CONE: ...so I want to start a conversation about the cross and the lynching tree and thereby break our silence on race and Christianity in American history.
BILL MOYERS: And Dr. James Cone is with me now. Welcome to THE JOURNAL. Glad to have you.
JAMES CONE: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
BILL MOYERS: That old Billie Holiday number that-- that we played, Strange Fruit-"Southern trees bear strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze. Strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree." I mean, nobody sings that anymore. You don't hear it. But, yet, that is deep in our DNA, is it not?
JAMES CONE: Yes, it's deep. Because lynching is so deep. And that song is about lynching. It's about black bodies hanging on trees. And that's deep in the American experience. Particularly after the Civil War. But, it's connected with slavery too. Although, lynching didn't take place in slavery because black people were worth too much.
BILL MOYERS: I didn't know that.
JAMES CONE: So, they're-- oh, no-- no. They didn't lynch them during the time of slavery. It's after slavery. And it's in order to control the community. It's to put fear and terror in their hearts so that they would be forced to obey and stay out in the fields and work and not loiter. And to remember that whites controlled the world. Even though the south lost the war, they are still in control of their section of America.
BILL MOYERS: After the Civil War.
JAMES CONE: After the Civil War.
BILL MOYERS: I mean, it was--
JAMES CONE: That's when lynching started.
JAMES CONE: They wanted to remind black people that they were in charge and that whites controlled, for the same reasons why Romans-- crucified people in the first century.
BILL MOYERS: It worked, didn't it?
JAMES CONE: Yes, it worked.
BILL MOYERS: It worked.
JAMES CONE: It worked to a certain degree. It only worked in the sense that it reminded black people and white people that whites actually had political and social control and economic control. But, they didn't have control of their humanity. See, that's what religion is about. Religion is a search for meaning when you don't have it in this world. So, while they might have controlled the black people physically and politically and economically, they did not control their spirit. That's why the black churches are very powerful forces in the African American community and always has been. Because religion has been that one place where you have an imagination that no one can control. And so, as long as you know that you are a human being and nobody can take that away from you, then God is that reality in your life that enables you to know that.
BILL MOYERS: And even though you're living under the shadow of the lynching tree.
JAMES CONE: Even though you're living under the shadow of the lynching tree. Because religion is a spirit that is not defined by what people can do to your body. They can kill your body, but they can't kill your soul. We were always told that. There is a spirit deep in you that nobody can take away from you because it's a creation that God gave to you.
Now, if you know you have a humanity that nobody can take away from you, they may lock you up. They may lynch you. But, they don't win.
BILL MOYERS: But when you were growing up in that part of the world -- well, we grew up only about a hundred miles or so apart. I grew up in east Texas. You in southwestern Arkansas. I'm a little older than you. But, we come out of that same culture. Did you in your community, Fordyce and Bearden, talk about lynching very much?
JAMES CONE: Yes, my mother and father did-- my mother and father did. We didn't talk so much about it publicly. But, my mother and father talked about it all the time. They told us stories about lynching. I think that happened with many black families. It's that we didn't talk about it much publicly like in schools and in churches. But, we did talk about it at home.
BILL MOYERS: In the white community of my deeply segregated hometown, I honestly don't remember our talking about it.
BILL MOYERS: When my father died, I found in his effects a yellow newspaper from Paris, Texas where he was born and lived. And I lived there for a little while. And it was a lynching- a photograph of a lynching near his farm. Five thousand people had come to watch this man lynched.
JAMES CONE: Yeah--spectacle lynchings were-- were especially prominent just after the Civil War and in the beginning of the 20th century, spectacle lynchings. And they didn't stop until the 30s, the late 1930s.
BILL MOYERS: How do you explain the current spate of the appearance of the noose again? Up comes this story right here from the suburbs of New York. A noose found in the basement-a locker room of the village police department. The deputy chief of police is black. And then you've got Jena and you got what happened at the Columbia, near your office. You think these people who-- do you think they understand what that's the symbol of? Of what actually happened to human beings when that noose was placed around the neck? Or is this just some kind of-- you know, some kind of grim game?
JAMES CONE: Well, you know, you don't have to know all about the Nazi hol-- Holocaust to understand what a swastika is. You don't have to understand all about the history of lynching to know what a noose is. Everybody knows that. Somehow, that-- that gets-- you don't have to know that history. It's in-- it's in American culture. As you say, it's in the DNA. It's our-- it's white America's original sin and it's deep. Like, for a long time, we didn't want to talk about slavery. They don't like to talk about 246 years of it. Then a hundred years of legal segregation and lynching.
Now, you don't get away from that by not talking about it. That's too deep. Germany is not going to get away from the Holocaust by not talking about it. It's too deep. So, America must face up that we are one community. We-- you know, if anybody in this society-- if anybody is brother and sister to the other, it's black people and white people because there is a-- there is a tussle there that you cannot get out of. It is a-- it is deeply engrained in our relationship to each other in a way that's not with anybody else-- [To see the entire transcript and the video, go to: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11232007/watch.html ]
November 23, 2007
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL.
Our subject in this hour is one you don't hear discussed very often in politics or around the dining table. It's buried so deeply in the American psyche that rarely does anyone bring it front and center. Our silence on it is one reason we have so much difficulty coming to terms with race in America. I'm reluctant to raise it even now, because it's anything but a comfortable subject for television. But I went online not long ago and listened to a speech at Harvard University that I simply can't forget and I wanted you to meet the man who delivered it.
JAMES CONE: …blacks and whites and other Americans who want to understand the meaning of the American experience need to remember lynching.
BILL MOYERS: His name is James Cone and he has a powerful message about seeing America through the experience of the cross and the lynching tree.
JAMES CONE: ..to make sense out of the cross, the central symbol of the Christian faith, and the lynching tree…
BILL MOYERS: That's right - the cross on which Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified in the Roman Empire, and the lynching tree that meant agony and death for thousands of black people. Their connection is the subject of our broadcast. Be forewarned: you will see some disturbing images.
JAMES CONE: Yes, that is a noose…
BILL MOYERS: In the past few months we've all seen these chilling reports:
REPORTER: ...one in Farmingdale and just yesterday in Roosevelt. Those two..."
BILL MOYERS: Nooses tied to a school yard tree in Jena, Louisiana.
REPORTER: ...historically reserved for white students…
BILL MOYERS: Nooses left for a black member of the US Coast Guard.
REPORTER: ...at New London, Connecticut…
BILL MOYERS: A noose on the door of a university professor's office here in New York City.
REPORTER: ...here at Columbia University…
VOICE: ...because today it's a noose and tomorrow they trying to put some bodies head in it…
BILL MOYERS: The reappearance of nooses is a haunting reminder of the dark side of American history, when after the civil war black Americans were forced to live in the shadow of the lynching tree. Thousands of human beings, tortured and hanged by the neck until dead.
BILLIE HOLIDAY SINGING Southern trees bear strange fruit... ...blood on the leaves and blood at the root, black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze...
JAMES CONE: ...'fruit hanging from the poplar trees'. Billie singing her signature song.
BILL MOYERS: James Cone knows that song well. As one of America's pioneers of black theology, he has never been able to forget its message, and he wants his students at Union Theological Seminary here in New York City, to remember it, too.
JAMES CONE: ...so that the brutal facts of history, keeps that from being a sort of pie in the sky thing.
BILL MOYERS: James Cone has been at Union Seminary since 1969, teaching systematic theology through the black experience in America...
JAMES CONE: ...it seemed to me that Martin and Malcolm represented two poles of my identity.
BILL MOYERS: He grew up in rural Arkansas, and soon found his calling in the church. He was ordained by the African Methodist Episcopal Church and went on to the life of teacher and scholar. Among his many books and articles are these - MARTIN & MALCOLM & AMERICA, BLACK THEOLOGY & BLACK POWER AND GOD OF THE OPPRESSED - all translated in nine languages.
JAMES CONE: ...not many black theologians and preachers have made an explicit...
BILL MOYERS: Right now he's thinking through how the cross and the lynching tree enable us to interpret America today.
JAMES CONE: ...so I want to start a conversation about the cross and the lynching tree and thereby break our silence on race and Christianity in American history.
BILL MOYERS: And Dr. James Cone is with me now. Welcome to THE JOURNAL. Glad to have you.
JAMES CONE: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
BILL MOYERS: That old Billie Holiday number that-- that we played, Strange Fruit-"Southern trees bear strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze. Strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree." I mean, nobody sings that anymore. You don't hear it. But, yet, that is deep in our DNA, is it not?
JAMES CONE: Yes, it's deep. Because lynching is so deep. And that song is about lynching. It's about black bodies hanging on trees. And that's deep in the American experience. Particularly after the Civil War. But, it's connected with slavery too. Although, lynching didn't take place in slavery because black people were worth too much.
BILL MOYERS: I didn't know that.
JAMES CONE: So, they're-- oh, no-- no. They didn't lynch them during the time of slavery. It's after slavery. And it's in order to control the community. It's to put fear and terror in their hearts so that they would be forced to obey and stay out in the fields and work and not loiter. And to remember that whites controlled the world. Even though the south lost the war, they are still in control of their section of America.
BILL MOYERS: After the Civil War.
JAMES CONE: After the Civil War.
BILL MOYERS: I mean, it was--
JAMES CONE: That's when lynching started.
JAMES CONE: They wanted to remind black people that they were in charge and that whites controlled, for the same reasons why Romans-- crucified people in the first century.
BILL MOYERS: It worked, didn't it?
JAMES CONE: Yes, it worked.
BILL MOYERS: It worked.
JAMES CONE: It worked to a certain degree. It only worked in the sense that it reminded black people and white people that whites actually had political and social control and economic control. But, they didn't have control of their humanity. See, that's what religion is about. Religion is a search for meaning when you don't have it in this world. So, while they might have controlled the black people physically and politically and economically, they did not control their spirit. That's why the black churches are very powerful forces in the African American community and always has been. Because religion has been that one place where you have an imagination that no one can control. And so, as long as you know that you are a human being and nobody can take that away from you, then God is that reality in your life that enables you to know that.
BILL MOYERS: And even though you're living under the shadow of the lynching tree.
JAMES CONE: Even though you're living under the shadow of the lynching tree. Because religion is a spirit that is not defined by what people can do to your body. They can kill your body, but they can't kill your soul. We were always told that. There is a spirit deep in you that nobody can take away from you because it's a creation that God gave to you.
Now, if you know you have a humanity that nobody can take away from you, they may lock you up. They may lynch you. But, they don't win.
BILL MOYERS: But when you were growing up in that part of the world -- well, we grew up only about a hundred miles or so apart. I grew up in east Texas. You in southwestern Arkansas. I'm a little older than you. But, we come out of that same culture. Did you in your community, Fordyce and Bearden, talk about lynching very much?
JAMES CONE: Yes, my mother and father did-- my mother and father did. We didn't talk so much about it publicly. But, my mother and father talked about it all the time. They told us stories about lynching. I think that happened with many black families. It's that we didn't talk about it much publicly like in schools and in churches. But, we did talk about it at home.
BILL MOYERS: In the white community of my deeply segregated hometown, I honestly don't remember our talking about it.
BILL MOYERS: When my father died, I found in his effects a yellow newspaper from Paris, Texas where he was born and lived. And I lived there for a little while. And it was a lynching- a photograph of a lynching near his farm. Five thousand people had come to watch this man lynched.
JAMES CONE: Yeah--spectacle lynchings were-- were especially prominent just after the Civil War and in the beginning of the 20th century, spectacle lynchings. And they didn't stop until the 30s, the late 1930s.
BILL MOYERS: How do you explain the current spate of the appearance of the noose again? Up comes this story right here from the suburbs of New York. A noose found in the basement-a locker room of the village police department. The deputy chief of police is black. And then you've got Jena and you got what happened at the Columbia, near your office. You think these people who-- do you think they understand what that's the symbol of? Of what actually happened to human beings when that noose was placed around the neck? Or is this just some kind of-- you know, some kind of grim game?
JAMES CONE: Well, you know, you don't have to know all about the Nazi hol-- Holocaust to understand what a swastika is. You don't have to understand all about the history of lynching to know what a noose is. Everybody knows that. Somehow, that-- that gets-- you don't have to know that history. It's in-- it's in American culture. As you say, it's in the DNA. It's our-- it's white America's original sin and it's deep. Like, for a long time, we didn't want to talk about slavery. They don't like to talk about 246 years of it. Then a hundred years of legal segregation and lynching.
Now, you don't get away from that by not talking about it. That's too deep. Germany is not going to get away from the Holocaust by not talking about it. It's too deep. So, America must face up that we are one community. We-- you know, if anybody in this society-- if anybody is brother and sister to the other, it's black people and white people because there is a-- there is a tussle there that you cannot get out of. It is a-- it is deeply engrained in our relationship to each other in a way that's not with anybody else-- [To see the entire transcript and the video, go to: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11232007/watch.html ]
Monday, November 26, 2007
The Geography of Hate
November 25, 2007
Op-Chart
The Geography of Hate
By MARK POTOK, LUKE VISCONTI, BARBARA FRANKEL and NIGEL HOLMES
FROM the 1880s to the 1960s, at least 4,700 men and women were lynched in this country. The noose remains a terrifying symbol, and continues to be used by racists to intimidate African-Americans (who made up more than 70 percent of lynching victims).
In the past decade or so, only about a dozen noose incidents a year came to the attention of civil rights groups. But since the huge Sept. 20 rally in Jena, La., where tens of thousands protested what they saw as racism in the prosecution of six black youths known as the “Jena 6,” this country has seen a rash of as many as 50 to 60 noose incidents. Last Tuesday, for example, a city employee in Slidell, La., was fired after being accused of hanging a noose at a job site a few days earlier.
These incidents are worrying, but even more so is the social reality they reflect. The level of hate crimes in the United States is astoundingly high — more than 190,000 incidents per year, according to a 2005 Department of Justice study.
And the number of hate groups, according to the annual count by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has shot up 40 percent in recent years, from 602 groups in 2000 to 844 in 2006.
It seems that the September rally in Jena — much as it was seen by many civil rights activists as the beginning of a new social movement — signaled not a renewed march toward racial and social justice, but a surprisingly broad and deep white backlash against the gains of black America.
The graphic, above, shows some of the reported sightings of nooses in the past two years.
Mark Potok is the director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Luke Visconti is the co-founder and Barbara Frankel is the executive editor of the magazine DiversityInc. Nigel Holmes is a graphic designer. [To view the accompanying graphic/map where noose incidents have occurred, go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/opinion/25potok.html?th&emc=th
Op-Chart
The Geography of Hate
By MARK POTOK, LUKE VISCONTI, BARBARA FRANKEL and NIGEL HOLMES
FROM the 1880s to the 1960s, at least 4,700 men and women were lynched in this country. The noose remains a terrifying symbol, and continues to be used by racists to intimidate African-Americans (who made up more than 70 percent of lynching victims).
In the past decade or so, only about a dozen noose incidents a year came to the attention of civil rights groups. But since the huge Sept. 20 rally in Jena, La., where tens of thousands protested what they saw as racism in the prosecution of six black youths known as the “Jena 6,” this country has seen a rash of as many as 50 to 60 noose incidents. Last Tuesday, for example, a city employee in Slidell, La., was fired after being accused of hanging a noose at a job site a few days earlier.
These incidents are worrying, but even more so is the social reality they reflect. The level of hate crimes in the United States is astoundingly high — more than 190,000 incidents per year, according to a 2005 Department of Justice study.
And the number of hate groups, according to the annual count by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has shot up 40 percent in recent years, from 602 groups in 2000 to 844 in 2006.
It seems that the September rally in Jena — much as it was seen by many civil rights activists as the beginning of a new social movement — signaled not a renewed march toward racial and social justice, but a surprisingly broad and deep white backlash against the gains of black America.
The graphic, above, shows some of the reported sightings of nooses in the past two years.
Mark Potok is the director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Luke Visconti is the co-founder and Barbara Frankel is the executive editor of the magazine DiversityInc. Nigel Holmes is a graphic designer. [To view the accompanying graphic/map where noose incidents have occurred, go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/opinion/25potok.html?th&emc=th
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Few Answers About Nooses, but Much Talk of Jim Crow
The New York Times
By PAUL VITELLO
BALDWIN, N.Y., Oct. 19 —
All the nooses are different, the police say. Some are coiled six times, some eight. Some are simple knots. The one found here the other day, suspended from a fence in a Highway Department yard, was wrapped with duct tape. All are blunt instruments of racial intimidation because of what they represent.
“They represent terrorizing black people and keeping them in their place,” said Ruth Roberson, a parks employee who is black, pausing on Friday morning while raking leaves. “Now they don’t lynch you. It’s all about jobs.”
At least seven times in the past few weeks, nooses have been anonymously tossed over pipes or hung on doorknobs in the New York metropolitan area — four times here on Long Island, twice in New York City, once at a Home Depot store in Passaic, N.J. The settings are disparate. One noose was hung in a police station locker room in Hempstead, where the apparent target was a black police officer recently promoted to deputy chief. Another was draped over the doorknob of the office of a black professor at Columbia University.
The question of why these things were happening — whether linked to events somewhere else, like in Jena, La., or part of some new homegrown vernacular of race hate — seemed to wait in line last week behind the question of where the next noose would be found.
Three noose episodes took place on Long Island in three days. On Wednesday, two were found at a sanitation garage in the Town of Hempstead — one of them looped around the neck of a stuffed animal with its face blackened. On Thursday, a noose was discovered hanging in a Nassau County highway department yard in Baldwin. On Friday, a worker at the Green Acres shopping mall in Valley Stream found one slung over a door at a construction site.
Public officials said they were outraged, determined to catch the culprits — and stumped.
“It would diminish the seriousness of these events to call any of them copycat situations,” said Kate Murray, the supervisor of the Town of Hempstead, a sprawling township of 750,000 residents, about 15 percent of them black, where all of last week’s incidents occurred. “But I’m not a sociologist. I am surprised by it.”
[To see the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/nyregion/21noose.html?th&emc=th ]
By PAUL VITELLO
BALDWIN, N.Y., Oct. 19 —
All the nooses are different, the police say. Some are coiled six times, some eight. Some are simple knots. The one found here the other day, suspended from a fence in a Highway Department yard, was wrapped with duct tape. All are blunt instruments of racial intimidation because of what they represent.
“They represent terrorizing black people and keeping them in their place,” said Ruth Roberson, a parks employee who is black, pausing on Friday morning while raking leaves. “Now they don’t lynch you. It’s all about jobs.”
At least seven times in the past few weeks, nooses have been anonymously tossed over pipes or hung on doorknobs in the New York metropolitan area — four times here on Long Island, twice in New York City, once at a Home Depot store in Passaic, N.J. The settings are disparate. One noose was hung in a police station locker room in Hempstead, where the apparent target was a black police officer recently promoted to deputy chief. Another was draped over the doorknob of the office of a black professor at Columbia University.
The question of why these things were happening — whether linked to events somewhere else, like in Jena, La., or part of some new homegrown vernacular of race hate — seemed to wait in line last week behind the question of where the next noose would be found.
Three noose episodes took place on Long Island in three days. On Wednesday, two were found at a sanitation garage in the Town of Hempstead — one of them looped around the neck of a stuffed animal with its face blackened. On Thursday, a noose was discovered hanging in a Nassau County highway department yard in Baldwin. On Friday, a worker at the Green Acres shopping mall in Valley Stream found one slung over a door at a construction site.
Public officials said they were outraged, determined to catch the culprits — and stumped.
“It would diminish the seriousness of these events to call any of them copycat situations,” said Kate Murray, the supervisor of the Town of Hempstead, a sprawling township of 750,000 residents, about 15 percent of them black, where all of last week’s incidents occurred. “But I’m not a sociologist. I am surprised by it.”
[To see the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/nyregion/21noose.html?th&emc=th ]
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