The Cross and the Lynching Tree

[struggle4progress]

The Cross and the Lynching Tree
by James H. Cone
Orbis Books 2011
introduction + 166pp + notes + index
hardback $28

Professor Cone, of Union Theological Seminary, began writing black theology in the late 60s

Here he considers, in some detail, the fact that: The lynching tree -- so strikingly similar to the cross on Golgotha -- should have a prominent place in American images of Jesus' death. But it does not ...

You will hear James Baldwin tell Reinhold Niebuhr after the 1963 church bombing: The only people in this country at the moment who believe either in Christianity or in the country are the most despised minority in it.

And Emmett Till's mother cry out: Lord, you gave your son to remedy a condition, and who knows, but what the death of my only son might bring an end to lynching!

And parts of Mary, Don't You Weep. And of WEB Du Bois' Jesus Christ in Texas.

Jesus Christ in Texas
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?

Mary, Don't You Weep

id=DubDark.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=11&division=div1

Leading to Langston Hughes Christ in Alabama, the author notes: However, the lynched Black Christ was not the only Christ that artists saw. They also saw a mean White Christ symbolized in white Christian lynchers, the ones who justified slavery and segregation.

Christ in Alabama
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma05/dulis/poetry/Hughes/hughes2.html

This is an excellent book, that will bear more than one reading. And lest we become too complacent regarding some realities of our history and culture, perhaps it is reasonable to close with a recent news story:

Port St. Joe - A Port St. Joe man is charged with attempted murder, with a hate crime enhancement, after admitting to shooting a black man in the head Monday night. Gulf County Sheriff's deputies arrested Walton Henry Butler, 59, just after 9pm at the Pine Ridge Apartments off Garrison Avenue. Deputies say he admitted to shooting the victim, 32-year-old Everett Gant, with a 22 caliber rifle. Gant is in guarded condition at Bay Medical Center, he is expected to survive.

Deputies say Butler had been calling black children in the apartment complex racial slurs and Gant went to talk with him about the comments. Witnesses say Butler opened the door and shot Gant in the face. Butler told deputies after he shot Gant, he shut the door, called 911 and finished cooking dinner.

When Sheriff Nugent arrived Butler told him he did not understand the problem and acted as if he was being inconvenienced. "He was brought to the investigation unit where he was interviewed and basically admitted to shooting the victim and said he shot a, used a racial slur, and said that is what he shot and acted like it was not like a big deal or anything to him," said Gulf County Sheriff Joe Nugent ...

Posted: Tue 4:22 AM, Jul 31, 2012
Reporter: Meredith TerHaar
Updated: Tue 8:32 AM, Jul 31, 2012
Port St. Joe Man Faces Attempted Murder and Hate Crime Charges
http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/Port-St-Joe-Man-Faces-Attempted-Murder-and-Hate-Crime-Charges-164397736.html

[Goblinmonger]

1. I don't know if I buy all this guy is selling, but Hughes' poem is awesome.

"Christ in Alabama" http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma05/dulis/poetry/Hughes/hughes2.html

Christ is a nigger,
Beaten and black:
Oh, bare your back!

Mary is His mother:
Mammy of the South,
Silence your mouth.

God is His father:
White Master above
Grant Him your love.

Most holy bastard
Of the bleeding mouth,
[FONT COLOR="FFFFFF"]MMMMM[/FONT]Nigger Christ
[FONT COLOR="FFFFFF"]MMMMM[/FONT]On the cross
[FONT COLOR="FFFFFF"]MMMMM[/FONT]Of the South.

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I think the metaphor Hughes' is giving us goes way beyond and much deeper than Cone's but could be because I am so partial to Hughes.

[struggle4progress]

2. He was a brilliant poet, of course. I think that Cone has a pretty clear idea

of what Hughes was up to in that poem -- and in several others that he discusses

Tales of rape of white women by black men pervaded the mythology of lynch law, but the actual widespread crime -- the rape of black women by white men -- was passed over in silence. So this poem operates at multiple levels

[Goblinmonger]

3. I'm not trying to intimate that Cone doesn't understand the poem.

Just that I like Hughes' metaphor better than Cone's.

And this poem has a whole shitload of layers. As do pretty much all of Langston's poems. One of my consistent favorite American poets.