“A Man Was Lynched Yesterday.”
In 1936, a black flag heralding this message was famously flown outside the NAACP headquarters in New York City. That “yesterday” is today for Marcellus Williams. He will be put to death—executed—in what is best described as a modern-day and state-sanctioned lynching.
Earlier today, in trying to process my thoughts, I started writing, with the hope of not having to publish this. This was as far as I got, and I did not want merely to restate what so many people have already stated, regarding Marcellus Williams’ wrongful conviction. I was angry and sad. And I am still angry and sad. I had hoped that Marcellus Williams’ life would be spared. But it was not.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied the application for stay of execution, with the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. Marcellus Williams’ final written statement: “All Praise Be To Allah In Every Situation!!!”
As I so often do in times of grief, rage, loss, and disappointment, when at a seeming loss for words of my own, I turn to and seek solace in the words of others, others who are well acquainted with the emotions that I am trying to make sense of.
James Cone, in his book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, writes:
“Both Jesus and blacks were publicly humiliated, subjected to the utmost indignity and cruelty. They were stripped, in order to be deprived of dignity, then paraded, mocked and whipped, pierced, derided and spat upon, tortured for hours in the presence of jeering crowds for popular entertainment. In both cases, the purpose was to strike terror in the subject community. It was to let people know that the same thing would happen to them if they did not stay in their place.”
Cone goes on to write:
“If the American empire has any similarities with that of Rome, can one really understand the theological meaning of Jesus on a Roman cross without seeing him first through the image of blacks on the lynching tree? Can American Christians see the reality of Jesus’ cross without seeing it as the lynching tree?”
James Baldwin, in his book, No Name in the Street, writes:
“Power, then, which can have no morality in itself, is yet dependent on human energy, on the wills and desires of human beings. When power translates itself into tyranny, it means that the principles on which that power depended, and which were its justification, are bankrupt. When this happens, and it is happening now, power can only be defended by thugs and mediocrities—and seas of blood.”
Baldwin goes on to write:
“The truth is that this country does not know what to do with its black population now that the blacks are no longer a source of wealth, are no longer to be bought and sold and bred, like cattle; and they especially do not know what to do with young black men, who pose as devastating a threat to the economy as they do to the morals of young white cheerleaders. It is not at all accidental that the jails and the army and the needle claim so many, but there are still too many prancing about for public comfort.”
Marcellus Williams was lynched by the state of Missouri, under the powers of the empire that is America. Marcellus Williams was lynched, with complete and utter disregard for truth or justice. Marcellus Williams should be alive, but he no longer is.
A man was lynched today.
Marcellus Williams.
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