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On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century
Nearly 5,000 black Americans were lynched between 1890 and 1960. Over forty years later, Sherrilyn Ifill’s On the Courthouse Lawn examines the numerous ways that this racial trauma still resounds across the United States. While the lynchings and their immediate aftermath were devastating, the little-known contemporary consequences, such as the marginalization of political and economic development for black Americans, are equally pernicious.
On the Courthouse Lawn investigates how the lynchings implicated average white citizens, some of whom actively participated in the violence, while many others witnessed the lynchings but did nothing to stop them. Ifill observes that this history of complicity has become embedded in the social and cultural fabric of local communities, who either supported, condoned, or ignored the violence. She traces the lingering effects of two lynchings in Maryland to illustrate how ubiquitous this history is and issues a clarion call for American communities with histories of racial violence to be proactive in facing this legacy today.
Inspired by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as by techniques of restorative justice, Ifill provides concrete ideas to help communities heal, including placing gravestones on the unmarked burial sites of lynching victims, issuing public apologies, establishing mandatory school programs on the local history of lynching, financially compensating those whose family homes or businesses were destroyed in the aftermath of lynching, and creating commemorative public spaces. Because the contemporary effects of racial violence are experienced most intensely in local communities, Ifill argues that reconciliation and reparation efforts must also be locally based in order to bring both black and white Americans together in an efficacious dialogue.
A landmark book, On the Courthouse Lawn is a much-needed and urgent road map for communities finally confronting lynching’s long shadow by embracing pragmatic reconciliation and reparation efforts.
“Professor Ifill has written a sobering and eye-opening book on one of America’s darkest secrets. On the Courthouse Lawn offers a compelling examination of lynchings and describes the failure of people and institutions to adequately address one of America’s tragedies. Racial amnesia would suggest we forget this history. Professor Ifill assures us that we cannot—and should not—forget it. This is a must read for anyone willing to examine our history carefully and learn from it.” —Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice
“On the Courthouse Lawn is an elegantly written and persuasively argued case for local communities to confront their history of lynching and racial violence as a means of healing race relations. Explaining how Truth and Reconciliation worked in South Africa, Ifill explores the possibilities and offers concrete advice on how it could be widely employed in the United States. It is certainly worth trying.” —Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
“In calm, objective but no less moving detail, Sherrilyn Ifill’s book provides the stories that illuminate the photographs and postcards of lynchings, the punishment meted out to some 5,000 black people deemed guilty without trial for matters large and small during the first half of the twentieth century. Too late for justice for the victims of lynch law, Professor Ifill urges that an American version of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission could bring long-denied acknowledgment to whites and a measure of consolation to blacks.” —Derrick Bell, author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well and Ethical Ambition
On the Courthouse Lawn investigates how the lynchings implicated average white citizens, some of whom actively participated in the violence, while many others witnessed the lynchings but did nothing to stop them. Ifill observes that this history of complicity has become embedded in the social and cultural fabric of local communities, who either supported, condoned, or ignored the violence. She traces the lingering effects of two lynchings in Maryland to illustrate how ubiquitous this history is and issues a clarion call for American communities with histories of racial violence to be proactive in facing this legacy today.
Inspired by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as by techniques of restorative justice, Ifill provides concrete ideas to help communities heal, including placing gravestones on the unmarked burial sites of lynching victims, issuing public apologies, establishing mandatory school programs on the local history of lynching, financially compensating those whose family homes or businesses were destroyed in the aftermath of lynching, and creating commemorative public spaces. Because the contemporary effects of racial violence are experienced most intensely in local communities, Ifill argues that reconciliation and reparation efforts must also be locally based in order to bring both black and white Americans together in an efficacious dialogue.
A landmark book, On the Courthouse Lawn is a much-needed and urgent road map for communities finally confronting lynching’s long shadow by embracing pragmatic reconciliation and reparation efforts.
“Professor Ifill has written a sobering and eye-opening book on one of America’s darkest secrets. On the Courthouse Lawn offers a compelling examination of lynchings and describes the failure of people and institutions to adequately address one of America’s tragedies. Racial amnesia would suggest we forget this history. Professor Ifill assures us that we cannot—and should not—forget it. This is a must read for anyone willing to examine our history carefully and learn from it.” —Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice
“On the Courthouse Lawn is an elegantly written and persuasively argued case for local communities to confront their history of lynching and racial violence as a means of healing race relations. Explaining how Truth and Reconciliation worked in South Africa, Ifill explores the possibilities and offers concrete advice on how it could be widely employed in the United States. It is certainly worth trying.” —Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
“In calm, objective but no less moving detail, Sherrilyn Ifill’s book provides the stories that illuminate the photographs and postcards of lynchings, the punishment meted out to some 5,000 black people deemed guilty without trial for matters large and small during the first half of the twentieth century. Too late for justice for the victims of lynch law, Professor Ifill urges that an American version of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission could bring long-denied acknowledgment to whites and a measure of consolation to blacks.” —Derrick Bell, author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well and Ethical Ambition
204 pages, Hardcover
First published February 15, 2007
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May 27, 2019
On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century is a ten year anniversary reissue by Sherrilyn A Ifill. This powerful book uses the Maryland Eastern Shore lynchings in the 1930s, and subsequent racial issues in the area, as a central point and example of what the legacy of lynching is and how we can begin to heal both ourselves and our country.
The horrific details of what transpired on the eastern shore is made even more horrifying when we realize that this took place in many, many small towns as well as cities throughout the south and the rest of the country. While reading this, I spoke with a couple of old friends whose families were many generations rural south. One thing stood out to me, they claimed to agree that it was horrible but also made it sound like it was simply usually just a case of justice served outside the legal system and that they were "simply hangings," as if the people were walked to the gallows and then hung. It appears that many don't think of it as terrorism or each event as something far more than simply a hanging. These were events that brought out the whites, entire families, as the victim was tortured, paraded, and, once lynched, displayed. It was done to send a message and maintain a power imbalance through terror. It was terrorism.
That terrorism was so effective that it is still felt today. Ifill's account is one of the clearest of how this coordinated terrorism perpetrated by the vast majority of whites in the rural south still has an impact. I won't try to paraphrase her explanation and examples but I recommend you read it.
Her proposal for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission approach is both workable and necessary. One aspect I know I often lose sight of when thinking about change is the need for reconciliation to begin at the local level. Communities all across the US need to begin some form of TRC work. The word reparation is often used, and those who usually speak up first in opposition often think this means money and property always and exclusively. Ifill shows how the erection of a memorial to Frederick Douglass could have been used as an opportunity to open discussion and serve as a form of reparation. Instead, there was a long fight over whether, where, and how it could be built. While certainly a step forward, it could have been a bigger step and served to bring the communities, black and white, together rather than remain split and wary of each other.
I recommend this to anyone who cares at all about striving for healing in our country. Looking back and understanding how that past is with us today is necessary. This book goes a long way toward opening that conversation. Or more importantly, many of those conversations throughout the country.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
The horrific details of what transpired on the eastern shore is made even more horrifying when we realize that this took place in many, many small towns as well as cities throughout the south and the rest of the country. While reading this, I spoke with a couple of old friends whose families were many generations rural south. One thing stood out to me, they claimed to agree that it was horrible but also made it sound like it was simply usually just a case of justice served outside the legal system and that they were "simply hangings," as if the people were walked to the gallows and then hung. It appears that many don't think of it as terrorism or each event as something far more than simply a hanging. These were events that brought out the whites, entire families, as the victim was tortured, paraded, and, once lynched, displayed. It was done to send a message and maintain a power imbalance through terror. It was terrorism.
That terrorism was so effective that it is still felt today. Ifill's account is one of the clearest of how this coordinated terrorism perpetrated by the vast majority of whites in the rural south still has an impact. I won't try to paraphrase her explanation and examples but I recommend you read it.
Her proposal for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission approach is both workable and necessary. One aspect I know I often lose sight of when thinking about change is the need for reconciliation to begin at the local level. Communities all across the US need to begin some form of TRC work. The word reparation is often used, and those who usually speak up first in opposition often think this means money and property always and exclusively. Ifill shows how the erection of a memorial to Frederick Douglass could have been used as an opportunity to open discussion and serve as a form of reparation. Instead, there was a long fight over whether, where, and how it could be built. While certainly a step forward, it could have been a bigger step and served to bring the communities, black and white, together rather than remain split and wary of each other.
I recommend this to anyone who cares at all about striving for healing in our country. Looking back and understanding how that past is with us today is necessary. This book goes a long way toward opening that conversation. Or more importantly, many of those conversations throughout the country.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
November 5, 2023
I read this book for my Community Psychology class, where we have been focusing on lynching, specifically in the area of our university, the lower eastern shore of Maryland. This book dug deep into the history that surrounds this area. It was detailed, raw, and most importantly, it gave a place for stories to be told.
I am personally from the northern part of the eastern shore of Maryland. A town close to my hometown, Elkton, was mentioned repeatedly as a place where two men in danger of being lynched were brought to await further trial safely. That personal connection in the book kept bringing me back to the reality of this book. I was educated in school on matters of racism. I even had a young teacher in my high school US history class teach about Black Wall Street in Tulsa, years before it was brought to the nation's attention how little American students were being taught the racist realities of American history. But this book had more detailed accounts of an act of racism I was taught little about.
There were moments when reading this book where the information was hard to digest. It was even harder when you made the realization that black people had to live with the knowledge and fear that this was happening to people like them. It needed to be the detailed truth.
Reading this book in conjunction with the resources my professor has provided the class with has been an immersive experience. Walking the streets of Salisbury, seeing today the building which was once the hotel. We have even had open conversations with members of the community who have family connections to the lynching and the people witnessing them, one of those members was even quoted in this book.
After reading this book, you are not just moving on. You carry knowledge and understanding about the way prejudice and racism still structure the nation we are today. Ifill did an amazing job doing the research and providing the background to truly understand the gravity of this part of our nation's history.
I am personally from the northern part of the eastern shore of Maryland. A town close to my hometown, Elkton, was mentioned repeatedly as a place where two men in danger of being lynched were brought to await further trial safely. That personal connection in the book kept bringing me back to the reality of this book. I was educated in school on matters of racism. I even had a young teacher in my high school US history class teach about Black Wall Street in Tulsa, years before it was brought to the nation's attention how little American students were being taught the racist realities of American history. But this book had more detailed accounts of an act of racism I was taught little about.
There were moments when reading this book where the information was hard to digest. It was even harder when you made the realization that black people had to live with the knowledge and fear that this was happening to people like them. It needed to be the detailed truth.
Reading this book in conjunction with the resources my professor has provided the class with has been an immersive experience. Walking the streets of Salisbury, seeing today the building which was once the hotel. We have even had open conversations with members of the community who have family connections to the lynching and the people witnessing them, one of those members was even quoted in this book.
After reading this book, you are not just moving on. You carry knowledge and understanding about the way prejudice and racism still structure the nation we are today. Ifill did an amazing job doing the research and providing the background to truly understand the gravity of this part of our nation's history.
August 6, 2018
I ordered this book after encountering oral history transcriptions of a specific lynching that occurred in Salisbury, of Matthew Williams in 1931. The Director of the Nabb Center, Creston Long, alerted me to this book, which proved to be a thoroughly researched account of multiple lynchings on the Easter Shore; Ifill makes a strong argument regarding the dire need for reconciliation and reparations for the terror inflicted on the black population. It was at times a difficult read, but an important illustration of the failure of these communities and their institutions to acknowledge the full extent of racial terror campaigns.
August 22, 2023
"Douglass reportedly wanted to accept a commission to join the Union army, but he was prevented from doing so by the Lincoln administration because of fear of white reaction."
"Between 1900 and 1935 courthouse lawns on the Eastern Shore were routinely the sites of lynchings or near lynchings, involving the participation of hundreds and sometimes thousands of white onlookers. The most infamous of these courthouse lynchings were, of course, the Williams and Armwood lynchings of the early 1930s in Eicomico and Somerset Counties."
"For many blacks on the Shore, this was the lesson of lynching passed down from generation to generation: ordinary whites were not to be trusted."
"In fact, for many on the Shore who believed that the formal justice system was elitist and stacked against them, lunch law was more legitimate."
"The courthouse lawn, therefore, was a very deliberate choice of venue for lynching. Lunch mobs used the location to assert what they regarded as a legitimate annd necessary rebellion against the elitist trappings of the formal legal system."
"Edward Taylor, a retired school principal and later county councilman in Wicomico County, had so deeply internalized the description of the 1931 lynching of Mathew Williams he'd heard as a child that he grew up believing that he'd actually see the lynching. It was not until he was a grown man that he realized he was not even born when the lynching occured."
"When one takes into account that nearly five thousand lynchings took place in the United States between 1885 and 1960, it becomes clear that the damage caused by lynching in black communities throughout the United States is both widespread and deep. Indeed, more than the poll tax, the grandfather clause, and Jim Crow segregation, lynching and the threat of lynching helped regulate and restrict all aspects of black advancement, independence, and citizenship in many small towns for half a century."
"The terror visited upon African American communities on the Eastern Shore in the 1930s has not just disappeared into thin air. It lives in the seep wells of distrust between blacks and whites, in the sense that blacks still must keep their place and that both blacks and whites must remain silent about this history of lynching."
"The white community's perpetual fear of a black uprising after the lynchings may have made the decision to physically split the black community with the new highway an easy one. The construction of Route 13 scattered much of the existing black community and uprooted churches and a score of black businesses. Route 13 cut through the black community like a scythe, the road standing like an open wound through what had once been a vibrant black district. Over the next sixty years the town would approve the construction of two more major highways, one plowing through the remaining black community, and the other adjacent to it."
"Lynching was a public crime, in which hundreds and sometimes thousands of whites were complicit. And it is this characteristic of lynching that should compel us to face this American form of racial terrorism and to begin to assess the long-term effects of lynching on black and white communities."
"Public spaces have yet to become part of the formal reparation or racial reconciliation conversation for black Americans. It is a curious ommission because in towns all over the United States, and not only on the Eastern Shore, public spaces were used to enforce the message of white supremacy, often violently, Lynching, particularly in the twentieth century, was most often an explicity public act."
"Most lynchings were not secret murders carried out in the woods without the knowledge of white community members. The central location of lynching and the role of hundreds or thousands of white spectators undermine the desperate effort of some to recast lynching as a covert act carried out by a few bad apples, ruffians, or out-of-towners. Instead, the responsibility for lynching sits squarely at the door of every member of a community who watched, who listened, but who failed to interfere, who refused to identify the lynchers, or who particpated in the conspiracy of silence in the weeks, months, and years following a lynching."
"Likewise, acknowledging lynching in key public spaces in towns throuout the United States would compel townspeople and visitors to reflect on the complicity of ordinary people in systematic violence."
"Much of white supremacy is about the semiotics of place. In fact, "staying in one's place" was, for decades, a kind of mannerly way of describing the crude requirements of white supremacy. During the Jim Crow era, the "place" for blacks was understood to be below, behind, after, and under that of whites."
"The Eastern Shore of Maryland saw a fairly steady pattern of lynchings, near lynchings, and racial murders during the early part of the twentieth century. In each case, no white person was tried and convicted for murder."
"In America in the 1930s, death was an even more segregated experience than life."
"In the fourteen cases of reported lynchings in Maryland beginning in 1885 and ending in 1933, no suspected lynchers were ever indicted."
"In essence, whites' shared interest in maintaining white supremacy lay at the core of the conspiracy of silence following a lynching...Passive participants of lynching had more in common with the violent ruffians who pulled the rope or lit the match than with blacks or with whites who were less dependent on black labor and black subordination for the maintenance of their livelihood. And so many whites, even those secretly repulsed by the lynchings, closed ranks with their neighbors to protect the status quo."
"In the context of the Supreme Court's long history, the Brown decision is a bump in the road along a path marked more consistently by the Court's embrace and reaffirmation of inequality and exclusion based on race, wealth, and gender."
"The criminal justice system, in particular, played a critical role in subordinating and marginalizing blacks in southern states. Blacks were regularly excluded from serving on juries in the South, especially in cases where a black defendant was alleged to have committed a violent crime against a white victim."
"Whites-especially those in positions of power and authority, such as judges and prosecutors-had the choice to act honorably or dishonorably. Too few chose the former. And the consequences of this chouce continue to shape black and white responses to, and involvement with, the legal system in communities throughout the United States."
"Race was an explicit dimension of the local papers' report on interracial crimes. Black defendants were expressly identified by race, and their guilt in local papers seemed a certainty. The names of black defendants were optional."
"The news blackout on the Williams lynching enabled whites to minimize the significance of this hideously violent racial act. Christmas shopping continued apace in the town."
"Reconciliation should influence local public policy decisions, school curricula, law enforcement policy, land use and planning, and cultural resource allocations-in short, all of the decision making that shapes the future direction of a community."
"The loss of language is part of the experience of being a victim of violence..."
"Public policy discussions about failing schools, welfare reform, immigration, criminal sentencing, teen pregnancy, family values, and personal responsibility are, in part, all conversation about race in disguise."
"The oppressor demands silence of both the victims of the oppression and of the passive beneficiaries. Only one story may be told-the one constructed by the oppressor."
"Whites do not talk about historical incidents of racial violence even among themselves. The reasons for maintaining this silence are plentiful. Some whites simply do not regard these incidents as having continuing relevance in the twenty-first century. For them, discussing lynching is merely an excercise in dredging up the past, and an unpleasant past."
"Whites are often ynable, even among themselves, to engage honestly and openly in conversation about the meaning of their community's history of racial violence."
"Entrenched racism over time protects itself by ensuring that the day-today functioning of a community's institutions is dependent on old order actors."
"On the Eastern Shore, the absence of black lawyers and judges, even in counties with large black populations, shows that similar disparities continue to exist. In fact, it was only in 2006 that the first black judge was appointed to the District Court bench on the Eastern Shore."
"In fact. only six balck lawyers practice law on the entire Eastern Shore."
"But on the Eastern Shore, blacks who wanted to enjoy the beach at Ocean City were still limited to only three days a year until well into the 1960s."
"Between 1900 and 1935 courthouse lawns on the Eastern Shore were routinely the sites of lynchings or near lynchings, involving the participation of hundreds and sometimes thousands of white onlookers. The most infamous of these courthouse lynchings were, of course, the Williams and Armwood lynchings of the early 1930s in Eicomico and Somerset Counties."
"For many blacks on the Shore, this was the lesson of lynching passed down from generation to generation: ordinary whites were not to be trusted."
"In fact, for many on the Shore who believed that the formal justice system was elitist and stacked against them, lunch law was more legitimate."
"The courthouse lawn, therefore, was a very deliberate choice of venue for lynching. Lunch mobs used the location to assert what they regarded as a legitimate annd necessary rebellion against the elitist trappings of the formal legal system."
"Edward Taylor, a retired school principal and later county councilman in Wicomico County, had so deeply internalized the description of the 1931 lynching of Mathew Williams he'd heard as a child that he grew up believing that he'd actually see the lynching. It was not until he was a grown man that he realized he was not even born when the lynching occured."
"When one takes into account that nearly five thousand lynchings took place in the United States between 1885 and 1960, it becomes clear that the damage caused by lynching in black communities throughout the United States is both widespread and deep. Indeed, more than the poll tax, the grandfather clause, and Jim Crow segregation, lynching and the threat of lynching helped regulate and restrict all aspects of black advancement, independence, and citizenship in many small towns for half a century."
"The terror visited upon African American communities on the Eastern Shore in the 1930s has not just disappeared into thin air. It lives in the seep wells of distrust between blacks and whites, in the sense that blacks still must keep their place and that both blacks and whites must remain silent about this history of lynching."
"The white community's perpetual fear of a black uprising after the lynchings may have made the decision to physically split the black community with the new highway an easy one. The construction of Route 13 scattered much of the existing black community and uprooted churches and a score of black businesses. Route 13 cut through the black community like a scythe, the road standing like an open wound through what had once been a vibrant black district. Over the next sixty years the town would approve the construction of two more major highways, one plowing through the remaining black community, and the other adjacent to it."
"Lynching was a public crime, in which hundreds and sometimes thousands of whites were complicit. And it is this characteristic of lynching that should compel us to face this American form of racial terrorism and to begin to assess the long-term effects of lynching on black and white communities."
"Public spaces have yet to become part of the formal reparation or racial reconciliation conversation for black Americans. It is a curious ommission because in towns all over the United States, and not only on the Eastern Shore, public spaces were used to enforce the message of white supremacy, often violently, Lynching, particularly in the twentieth century, was most often an explicity public act."
"Most lynchings were not secret murders carried out in the woods without the knowledge of white community members. The central location of lynching and the role of hundreds or thousands of white spectators undermine the desperate effort of some to recast lynching as a covert act carried out by a few bad apples, ruffians, or out-of-towners. Instead, the responsibility for lynching sits squarely at the door of every member of a community who watched, who listened, but who failed to interfere, who refused to identify the lynchers, or who particpated in the conspiracy of silence in the weeks, months, and years following a lynching."
"Likewise, acknowledging lynching in key public spaces in towns throuout the United States would compel townspeople and visitors to reflect on the complicity of ordinary people in systematic violence."
"Much of white supremacy is about the semiotics of place. In fact, "staying in one's place" was, for decades, a kind of mannerly way of describing the crude requirements of white supremacy. During the Jim Crow era, the "place" for blacks was understood to be below, behind, after, and under that of whites."
"The Eastern Shore of Maryland saw a fairly steady pattern of lynchings, near lynchings, and racial murders during the early part of the twentieth century. In each case, no white person was tried and convicted for murder."
"In America in the 1930s, death was an even more segregated experience than life."
"In the fourteen cases of reported lynchings in Maryland beginning in 1885 and ending in 1933, no suspected lynchers were ever indicted."
"In essence, whites' shared interest in maintaining white supremacy lay at the core of the conspiracy of silence following a lynching...Passive participants of lynching had more in common with the violent ruffians who pulled the rope or lit the match than with blacks or with whites who were less dependent on black labor and black subordination for the maintenance of their livelihood. And so many whites, even those secretly repulsed by the lynchings, closed ranks with their neighbors to protect the status quo."
"In the context of the Supreme Court's long history, the Brown decision is a bump in the road along a path marked more consistently by the Court's embrace and reaffirmation of inequality and exclusion based on race, wealth, and gender."
"The criminal justice system, in particular, played a critical role in subordinating and marginalizing blacks in southern states. Blacks were regularly excluded from serving on juries in the South, especially in cases where a black defendant was alleged to have committed a violent crime against a white victim."
"Whites-especially those in positions of power and authority, such as judges and prosecutors-had the choice to act honorably or dishonorably. Too few chose the former. And the consequences of this chouce continue to shape black and white responses to, and involvement with, the legal system in communities throughout the United States."
"Race was an explicit dimension of the local papers' report on interracial crimes. Black defendants were expressly identified by race, and their guilt in local papers seemed a certainty. The names of black defendants were optional."
"The news blackout on the Williams lynching enabled whites to minimize the significance of this hideously violent racial act. Christmas shopping continued apace in the town."
"Reconciliation should influence local public policy decisions, school curricula, law enforcement policy, land use and planning, and cultural resource allocations-in short, all of the decision making that shapes the future direction of a community."
"The loss of language is part of the experience of being a victim of violence..."
"Public policy discussions about failing schools, welfare reform, immigration, criminal sentencing, teen pregnancy, family values, and personal responsibility are, in part, all conversation about race in disguise."
"The oppressor demands silence of both the victims of the oppression and of the passive beneficiaries. Only one story may be told-the one constructed by the oppressor."
"Whites do not talk about historical incidents of racial violence even among themselves. The reasons for maintaining this silence are plentiful. Some whites simply do not regard these incidents as having continuing relevance in the twenty-first century. For them, discussing lynching is merely an excercise in dredging up the past, and an unpleasant past."
"Whites are often ynable, even among themselves, to engage honestly and openly in conversation about the meaning of their community's history of racial violence."
"Entrenched racism over time protects itself by ensuring that the day-today functioning of a community's institutions is dependent on old order actors."
"On the Eastern Shore, the absence of black lawyers and judges, even in counties with large black populations, shows that similar disparities continue to exist. In fact, it was only in 2006 that the first black judge was appointed to the District Court bench on the Eastern Shore."
"In fact. only six balck lawyers practice law on the entire Eastern Shore."
"But on the Eastern Shore, blacks who wanted to enjoy the beach at Ocean City were still limited to only three days a year until well into the 1960s."
August 26, 2020
On the Courthouse Lawn is an eye-opening book that exposes the ways local systems are set up to perpetuate racist behaviors. Sherrilyn Ifill does a great job of taking readers through the history of the lynchings on the eastern shore of Maryland, while also sharing what policies (both legal and institutional) allowed the lynchings to go unreported by the media and without convictions by the court. She also provides practical ideas for how communities can enhance these conversations on a local level.
The discouraging thing about this book is that it was originally published 13 years ago, and we still haven’t reached nearly the level of systemic change or localized conversations that might lead to such change.
The discouraging thing about this book is that it was originally published 13 years ago, and we still haven’t reached nearly the level of systemic change or localized conversations that might lead to such change.
Read
January 12, 2020The history -- Ifill focuses on the 1930s lynchings of Matthew Williams and George Armwood on Maryland's Eastern Shore -- is disturbing and compelling enough. I was surprised to find, though, that my favorite part of this powerful book is the latter half, in which the author (president and lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund) investigates and advocates for possibilities for reparations. Ta-Nehisi Coates's outstanding work in The Atlantic brought the topic of reparations back into the broader public consciousness; in 2019, several national politicians spoke out about and generally on behalf of reparations. But most Americans have a very simplistic view of the topic.
Ifill's book, with its examination of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the analogous work in post-genocide Rwanda, should be a crucial milestone in the U.S.'s continued march toward a full accounting of our nation's ugly past. This is not merely a book about lynching. It fulfills its subtitle's promise to "[confront] the legacy of lynching" now, "in the 21st century."
Ifill's book, with its examination of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the analogous work in post-genocide Rwanda, should be a crucial milestone in the U.S.'s continued march toward a full accounting of our nation's ugly past. This is not merely a book about lynching. It fulfills its subtitle's promise to "[confront] the legacy of lynching" now, "in the 21st century."
April 10, 2016
Riveting and powerful. Exceptionally written. EVERYONE interested in history should read this book. It truly opens your eyes to American History. The author is truly a phenomenal person and woman!!!
March 24, 2018
Author's effort to bring attention to the sordid history of lynchings and ongoing quiet complicity within the local communities is timely. This is especially so given the thinly veiled welcome to ongoing discrimination and injustice being perpetrated upon people of color in the United States by the elected leadership in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, Ms.Ifill's constant and lengthy repetitions throughout the book of facts and details surrounding the lynchings quickly loses the reader's attention and interest. Secondly, as the book's primary geographic focus is on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which is likely unfamiliar to most readers, it would have been helpful with the understanding of local geopolitics if a sketch map of the area had been included. On a technical point, the author's misstatement of facts surrounding the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York City (page 76) questions accuracy of other details in the book. In this instance Ms. Ifill states Mr. Diallo "was shot by New York City police officers 41 times" when in fact the officers fired 41 shots but hit him only 19 times. Lastly, the author offers three principles for reconciliation (page 127), but limits them to local communities. Regardless of the strengths or weaknesses of these particular principles, the limitation is short-sighted in scope. All-in-all, a very difficult book to stick with to the end.
Read
March 8, 2020DNF at page 105. I'll probably come back to this some day, and I'll rate it then. Right now, I'm having an awful lot of trouble with it.
Even only reading half the book, I feel I've learned an incredible amount about the generational impact of lynching. One of the more interesting things is that she chose case studies on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. As I went to school on the southernmost tip of the western shore, and have spent a little time in the counties mentioned, it had a closer to home feeling than books about race that only talk about the deep South.
Obviously, every part of lynching is the worst part about lynching, but trying hard for the most upsetting fact is that no one was ever convicted for a lynching. She had one case study where four men were arrested and tried, but the prosecutor had no interest in actually prosecuting, and they all walked free to the cheers of thousands. That combined with her opening statement that in towns with a lynching past, when she was doing interviews in the 90s, the black communities could vividly recount details of lynchings that happened 60 years ago, and the white communities either barely knew that a lynching had occurred or claimed it was conducted by "out-of-towners" was all both deeply upsetting and spoke clearly about the maintenance effort that goes into white supremacy.
I hope to return to this book some day, as I'm learning a lot.
Even only reading half the book, I feel I've learned an incredible amount about the generational impact of lynching. One of the more interesting things is that she chose case studies on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. As I went to school on the southernmost tip of the western shore, and have spent a little time in the counties mentioned, it had a closer to home feeling than books about race that only talk about the deep South.
Obviously, every part of lynching is the worst part about lynching, but trying hard for the most upsetting fact is that no one was ever convicted for a lynching. She had one case study where four men were arrested and tried, but the prosecutor had no interest in actually prosecuting, and they all walked free to the cheers of thousands. That combined with her opening statement that in towns with a lynching past, when she was doing interviews in the 90s, the black communities could vividly recount details of lynchings that happened 60 years ago, and the white communities either barely knew that a lynching had occurred or claimed it was conducted by "out-of-towners" was all both deeply upsetting and spoke clearly about the maintenance effort that goes into white supremacy.
I hope to return to this book some day, as I'm learning a lot.
May 1, 2024
Why We Must Never Forget Terrorism, Unnecessary Violence + Fear
I was sheltered from the understandable violence, in the 70's, in Houston, Texas with forced intergration, by my mother. She did me no favors, as the Panhandle of Texas intentionally withheld the S.Ct. decision of Topeka Board of Education vs. Brown which chopped down separate but equal, forever. In High School I was not exposed to this information to allow me to make an informed decision. I had to find this topic without a roadmap. Virginia vs. Loving ; Hernandez vs. Texas; Ida B. Wells; Suddenly Iffil; Bryan Stevenson; John Lewis; Malcolm X; Martin Luther King, jr; Lyndon B. Johnson; Medgar Evans; Enmity Till; George Floyd; Plessy vs. Fergusson; Thurgood Marrshal; Abraham Lincoln; countless unwitting victims whose all have one thing, in common: they are all Americans. Voting Rights Act of 1965; Civil Rights Act of 1964; Title IX; I had to look for the needle in the haystack! I had to understand Jim Crow + what I found was should never be in a horror movie! I watch PBS + my go to educators are Dr. Henry Louis Gates + Ken Burns, thank you for teaching me this.
I am part white and quarter Cherokee; 65 yrs. old. We will revisit this history if we fail to learn from it! We have to learn how to compromize , and Love our fellow humans. Our strengths are our differences.
I hope we never forget these images to learn from!
Shiloh Shalom
Neal Harville, MS,MS,BS,BS.
Amarillo, Texas
I was sheltered from the understandable violence, in the 70's, in Houston, Texas with forced intergration, by my mother. She did me no favors, as the Panhandle of Texas intentionally withheld the S.Ct. decision of Topeka Board of Education vs. Brown which chopped down separate but equal, forever. In High School I was not exposed to this information to allow me to make an informed decision. I had to find this topic without a roadmap. Virginia vs. Loving ; Hernandez vs. Texas; Ida B. Wells; Suddenly Iffil; Bryan Stevenson; John Lewis; Malcolm X; Martin Luther King, jr; Lyndon B. Johnson; Medgar Evans; Enmity Till; George Floyd; Plessy vs. Fergusson; Thurgood Marrshal; Abraham Lincoln; countless unwitting victims whose all have one thing, in common: they are all Americans. Voting Rights Act of 1965; Civil Rights Act of 1964; Title IX; I had to look for the needle in the haystack! I had to understand Jim Crow + what I found was should never be in a horror movie! I watch PBS + my go to educators are Dr. Henry Louis Gates + Ken Burns, thank you for teaching me this.
I am part white and quarter Cherokee; 65 yrs. old. We will revisit this history if we fail to learn from it! We have to learn how to compromize , and Love our fellow humans. Our strengths are our differences.
I hope we never forget these images to learn from!
Shiloh Shalom
Neal Harville, MS,MS,BS,BS.
Amarillo, Texas
October 27, 2021
After reading James Cone's The Cross and the Lynching Tree, I wanted to read Ifill's book on confronting lynching today. She uses the Eastern Shore of Maryland as the locus of her inquiry. It speaks well for the author that she was able to take this very particular area I knew nothing about and keep my attention by making it universally true. The public approval of the lynchings, the white silence after the fact, laying the blame on "outsiders," fierce anger at being reminded of their ancestor's actions—it could have been moments of Mississippi I know so well. She clearly places lynching inside the long-running war waged by white supremacists in America to enforce Black oppression. As to the "confronting the legacy" in the title, I appreciated the suggestions on communal reparations, which is different from so much of the individual approaches I've read on the subject. I was also glad to read in the update that the statue of Frederick Douglass had been erected in Talbot County "on the courthouse lawn."
p.s. I also learned that Thad Cochran for whom the new federal courthouse in Jackson is named, just couldn't bring himself to vote yes on the senate's formal apology for never passing anti-lynching legislation. Guess Mississippi having the most lynchings in the nation didn't bother him enough...
p.s. I also learned that Thad Cochran for whom the new federal courthouse in Jackson is named, just couldn't bring himself to vote yes on the senate's formal apology for never passing anti-lynching legislation. Guess Mississippi having the most lynchings in the nation didn't bother him enough...
February 20, 2022
While I was struck repeatedly while reading this book how far we've come as far as basic awareness of the history of lynchings and mass violence in America since it was first published, it remains painfully relevant, particularly in its discussion of the process of reconciliation.
I suspect what I'll take away from it most is Ifill's emphasis on the multi-generational impact of lynchings as a tool of social control - the way the scars lingered and the stories were still vividly remembered by Black communities for years to come, continuing to serve as a threat to those who might challenge the order of white supremacy. Also will be hard to forget her review of the discussion of lynchings after the fact in white communities and how much of the language is echoed by defenders and excusers of white violence in the 21st century, and the sheer extent of mass communal complicity in these murders.
I suspect what I'll take away from it most is Ifill's emphasis on the multi-generational impact of lynchings as a tool of social control - the way the scars lingered and the stories were still vividly remembered by Black communities for years to come, continuing to serve as a threat to those who might challenge the order of white supremacy. Also will be hard to forget her review of the discussion of lynchings after the fact in white communities and how much of the language is echoed by defenders and excusers of white violence in the 21st century, and the sheer extent of mass communal complicity in these murders.
March 17, 2018
Such a difficult read that I'm celebrating it's completion with a piece of chocolate cake. Professor Ifill "issues a clarion call for the many American communities with histories of racial violence to be proactive in facing this legacy." The reason that I applaud Ifill's work is that she actually provides concrete ideas for communities to accomplish truth-telling, reparation and racial reconciliation. Bravo!
March 25, 2018
There's a really good book in here somewhere. There's a lot of shameful history that deserves to be known (and taught), Ifill has some really good points. But the first half is confusingly written, jumping back and forth in time, and repetitious. I was quite confused in places. In many ways it reads like a doctoral dissertation. If I weren't reading this for my book club, I'd have given up on it early on.
February 1, 2025
** listened to the audiobook **
there are excerpts of this book that i think should
be mandatory reading for anyone who lives within 100 miles of maryland's eastern shore. with that said, i just didn't love the writing and found it a bit circuitous. i had a hard time following the timeline and kept getting sidetracked by the passages about south africa. the narration wasn't my favorite, either. all in all, though, clearly well-researched and important work
there are excerpts of this book that i think should
be mandatory reading for anyone who lives within 100 miles of maryland's eastern shore. with that said, i just didn't love the writing and found it a bit circuitous. i had a hard time following the timeline and kept getting sidetracked by the passages about south africa. the narration wasn't my favorite, either. all in all, though, clearly well-researched and important work
January 24, 2020
A little confusing in the beginning as it wends back and forth among time and cases, but the second half which is an analysis of the reconciliation process is highly researched, well-written, and informative. I learned a great deal from her perspective on how to effectively address the lasting effects of lynching.
June 12, 2020
Ifill looks at the legacy of lynching by doing a deep dive into a few cases in the East Shore area of Maryland. It was interesting to look at how this played out in one particular place and the impact that left on the community. I think it's a helpful addition to the history and understanding of the role of lynching in America.
July 29, 2018
Very informative and very disturbing. This book relates the horrors of lynching and the systematic compliance and total acceptance of this treacherous procedure by law enforcement officers.
July 21, 2020
The information is good but it’s very repetitive.
December 15, 2020
Mandatory reading for white folks.
June 20, 2021
Brilliant, eloquent, and necessary.
February 19, 2014
A thoughtful and thoughtprovoking expose. Professor Ifill challenges readers to find ways to confront the ugly history of lynching and the lasting scars that a failure to confront has left upon society and individuals.
Focusing primarily on Maryland's Eastern Shore, On the Courthouse Lawn documents in great detail a number of 20th century lynchings, many of which happened at or around local courthouses. This is not simple a show-and-tell tale though. Professor Ifill shows in great detail the great lengths that these communities went to in order to silence and ignore the atrocities that were perpetuated under their noses, by their own people, against their own people. Subtitled, Confronting the Legacy of Lynching, that is exactly what Ifill challenges readers (and residents of the Eastern Shore) to do.
Comparisons are made to South Africa's TRC and other efforts at restorative, or more accurately, transformation justice efforts. Such efforts, Ifill argues, are the only truly effective (and morally correct) ways to deal with past atrocities and their vestigial implications. In turn, the books calls for, and describes some efforts at, opening up dialogues about America's violent racial relations, in order to ensure that history does not repeat itself, and, also, that the wounds of yesterdays violence are not allowed to fester in a pool of ignorance and willful indifference.
A powerful read and a great primmer for localities looking to confront their past in order to make a safer and stronger present, and of course, future.
Focusing primarily on Maryland's Eastern Shore, On the Courthouse Lawn documents in great detail a number of 20th century lynchings, many of which happened at or around local courthouses. This is not simple a show-and-tell tale though. Professor Ifill shows in great detail the great lengths that these communities went to in order to silence and ignore the atrocities that were perpetuated under their noses, by their own people, against their own people. Subtitled, Confronting the Legacy of Lynching, that is exactly what Ifill challenges readers (and residents of the Eastern Shore) to do.
Comparisons are made to South Africa's TRC and other efforts at restorative, or more accurately, transformation justice efforts. Such efforts, Ifill argues, are the only truly effective (and morally correct) ways to deal with past atrocities and their vestigial implications. In turn, the books calls for, and describes some efforts at, opening up dialogues about America's violent racial relations, in order to ensure that history does not repeat itself, and, also, that the wounds of yesterdays violence are not allowed to fester in a pool of ignorance and willful indifference.
A powerful read and a great primmer for localities looking to confront their past in order to make a safer and stronger present, and of course, future.
August 27, 2012
A very tough subject, often gripping for its story of man's inhumanity to man. What a horrific chapter in US History. The scary part of these accounts is that they took place on the eastern Shore of Maryland in the 1930s. People who were involved or complacent witnesses were alive at the same time as I, so this can not be dismissed as the far away past. Ifill, a civil rights lawyer and law professor paints a truly heart wrenching picture of the nature of lynching in society, and how it shaped both the society of the victim and the aggressor, and the spaces they shared.
The author does an interesting job tying the troubled legacy of lynching with the equally troubling legacy of apartheid and genocide in the world. She refers to the the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and International Tribunals in Bosnia and Rwanda to resolve questions of reconciliation between the different groups involved in the former terrors. She proposes a similar model to confront the hurtful history if lynching in the South (and North).
While the book is often scary, sad, and engaging, it is often too unnecessarily repetitive in its information. This does allow the read to move quickly and skim some sections, but it distracts from the weight of the subject.
Ifill's connection between lynchings and modern issues of apartheid and genocide are insightful. The book, and the topic is important. Stylistically, it needs some work.
The author does an interesting job tying the troubled legacy of lynching with the equally troubling legacy of apartheid and genocide in the world. She refers to the the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and International Tribunals in Bosnia and Rwanda to resolve questions of reconciliation between the different groups involved in the former terrors. She proposes a similar model to confront the hurtful history if lynching in the South (and North).
While the book is often scary, sad, and engaging, it is often too unnecessarily repetitive in its information. This does allow the read to move quickly and skim some sections, but it distracts from the weight of the subject.
Ifill's connection between lynchings and modern issues of apartheid and genocide are insightful. The book, and the topic is important. Stylistically, it needs some work.
June 7, 2009
There is one way to understand why we are where we are today; that is to understand history. So much of history has been white-washed, sanitized, hidden from us. This powerful book shines a light on one aspect of history that is difficult to face: the legacy of lynching of African American people in the United States. Ifill makes a powerful case for communities to confront their own history of lynching and racism and for readers to examine our own lives for ways in which we continue to be unconsciously complicit in perpetuating injustice.
Read
February 8, 2009Ifill posted at Beacon Broadside about the strange contrast between last fall, when nooses and racial tension filled the news, and where we seem to be now: on the brink of nominating our first black presidential candidate. She's a phenomenal writer.
June 22, 2008
A powerful introduction to the intersecting issues of race, history, and reconciliation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The writing is concise but effective in capturing the chilling character of the events the author describes.
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