blog #11

After the civil war, many whites blamed the African Americans for their hardships and many whites sought out lynching to deal with that.  Although many African Americans were innocently killed, many whites felt that it was appropriate to use the newly freed people as a scapegoat for their problems.  As I was reading, I kept thinking about what it would be like to be a slave for so long and finally have my freedom, but not fully be free.  African Americans were tortured for so long as slaves, but even as freed men and women, they still had to suffer through all the prejudice towards them.  I also thought about how frightening it much have been to walk through the streets of what is suppose to be your home, but still have to look over your shoulder because people were out looking for a reason to kill you.  In Claude McKay’s poem “If We Must Die’” he says “Haunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs (McKay, stanza 2, 3).”  With these stanzas, McKay allows readers to imagine what it would be like to be cornered by a mad mob of people that are accusing you of a crime and in turn are going to hang you without a fair trial. But McKay also writes, “Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!” to encourage the African Americans to not fall victims to the mobs of white people.  But instead to be brave and let the whites know that they are not going to be easily defeated. I never really knew the definition of lynching, but after learning its definition and reading the poems of Claude McKay, I can only imagine how the African Americans felt to see their family members innocently killed due to the extreme prejudice and hatred that the white Americans had towards them.