Enraged by a spate of police murders, New Orleanians protest on March 31, 2012.

Between 1882 and 1968, close to 5,000 lynchings
– 73 percent of the victims were Black – took place on American soil,
and that is of course an estimate that does not account for the
countless unknown souls who lost their lives at the hands of white
supremacy. According to Richard Perloff, racial lynchings had become commonplace in part of because of the media’s failures to bring the injustice into light.

Gus Rugley, 21, was murdered in 2004 by San Francisco police who
stopped his car for no known reason, surrounded it and fired at him from
all sides – 36 bullets hitting him, six of them in the head.

Activists and Black journalists responded to American media that
often downplayed the practice of white-on-Black violence and/or named
African Americans as deserving of torment and murder. According to Perloff,
writing in The Journal of Black Studies: “It is next to impossible to
locate a newspaper article that does not identify the victim as a Negro
or that refrains from suggesting that the accused was guilty of the
crime and therefore deserving of punishment. For example, The New
Orleans Picayune described an African-American who was lynched in
Hammond, Louisiana, for robbery as a ‘big, burly Negro’ and a ‘Black
wretch.’”

Lige Daniels is lynched in Center, Texas, on Aug. 3, 1920. Center
is the county seat near all-Black East Liberty, where Bay View publisher
Willie Ratcliff was born and raised. Like Ida B. Wells, he is committed
to ending lynchings, whether by the KKK or police, and is being
recognized by New American Media with a community advocacy award for
being the first and sometimes only voice challenging the official
version of police killings.

Amid this silence and sanctioning of white-on-Black violence, Ida
B. Wells-Barnett and others within the Black press not only documented
each and every lynching, but in providing the graphic details, they
challenged the very fabric of American racism. From displaying signs
announcing “A Lynching Happened Today” to the publication of various
pamphlets, activists worked to force America to come to grips with the
contradiction between its purported creed and the ongoing violence
perpetuated within its boundaries.

A video seen by hundreds of thousands shows Kenneth Harding
fighting for his life in a fast-growing pool of his own blood while
police aim their guns at him and the crowd to prevent anyone from aiding
or comforting him. After a half hour, medics finally arrived, but it
was too late. – Video frame: TheOneNonly457

In the first six months of 2012, the police, security guards and
self-appointed agents of “justice” have killed 110 African-American men,
women, and children. Since the report’s publication, 10 additional
killings have been confirmed, which means that from Jan. 1 through June
30, 2012, there was one killing every 36 hours.

Denika Chatman, mother of Kenneth Harding, the 19-year-old
murdered by SFPD over a $2 Muni fare on July 16, 2011, speaks to the
press on July 13, 2012, about the weekend of activities to commemorate
the first anniversary of his death. She held the press conference on the
sidewalk at Third Street and Oakdale in Hunters Point where Kenny bled
to death. – Photo: Poor News Network

Many of these deaths are the consequences of stop and frisk
policies, racial profiling and a culture of white racist stereotyping of
African Americans as criminals and suspects. According to Rosa
Clemente, a member of Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and former vice
presidential candidate of the Green Party, “Nowhere is a Black woman or
man safe from racial profiling, invasive policing, constant surveillance
and overriding suspicion.” In the press release, she notes, “All Black
people – regardless of education, class, occupation, behavior or dress –
are subject to the whims of the police in this epidemic of state
initiated or condoned violence.”

Raymond Smoot, beaten by guards in Baltimore’s Central Booking Jail in 2005, died in the hospital.

With only 33 percent of the killings resulting from an actual
investigation, we must begin to ask: Police are protecting and serving
whom?

Holding a sign protesting the Chicago PD murder of their aunt,
Rekia Boyd, are Omarr Hatcher, 9, and Darian Boyd, 7. The protest, one
of many, was held April 7, 2012. – Photo: Jim Slosiarek, KCRG

And there is Anton Barrett, “who was allegedly driving without
headlights and running stop signs when a DUI Saturation Patrol signaled
him to stop. According to the report,
“he led the officers on a high speed chase; when his tires went flat,
he fled on foot. One officer confronted him in a darkened alley and shot
him multiple times, claiming he thought he saw him pull a ‘metallic
object’ from his sweatshirt pocket. After Barrett was shot, he attempted
to rise and a second officer tasered him. He was cuffed and died at
hospital. Police admit they mistook wallet for gun.”

Raheim Brown was murdered by Oakland school police as he sat,
unarmed, in a car after a school dance. Supporters of Raheim and other
Blacks murdered by police joined in the Oscar Grant Memorial March and
Rally Jan. 1, 2012. – Photo: Bradley Stuart, Indybay

In the spirit of Ida B. Wells and other freedom fighters, this
report continues the tradition of bearing witness to the atrocities of
state violence. Under a cloud of silence, denial and denied
accountability, the death toll rises.

Ida B. Wells

To read the report, visit http://mxgm.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/MXGM-Report-on-Black-Peo.... For information on the petition, visit http://www.ushrnetwork.org/content/webform/trayvon-martin-petition.

--
SIGN THE JERICHO COINTELPRO PETITION!

Free All Political Prisoners!
www.jerichony.org