You Think Barack Obama's Emergence is unrelated to the Noose incidents?

by Syreeta McNeil - CPA, JD

On or about May 2, 2007, it was reported by news outlets that Senator Barack Obama announced he would seek the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States. It is amazing that reporters stated that Obama’s announcement invoked the memory of President Abraham Lincoln as he made his announcement in Springfield, Illinois. It is kind of ironic the comparison of Senator Obama to President Lincoln. President Lincoln’s election compelled the Confederacy to break from the Union in 1861 and eventually led to the assassination of President Lincoln on April 14, 1865 (just five (5) days after the end of the American Civil War), but I will get into that a little bit later.

Now since Senator Obama’s announcement, we have had a string of incidents that invoke a very dark period in America’s history. The following list of incidents is not complete but illustrative of this essay’s purpose:

A 6-inch string tied as a noose was found in an African-American cadet's sea bag in July 2007
A white female civil rights instructor found a small noose in her office at the academy in New London, Connecticut in August 2007
Nooses hung under a perceived “white only” tree at Jena, LA High School on or about September 1, 2007
A noose was discovered at the University of Maryland in a tree near a building that houses several black campus groups in September 2007
A noose appeared in the locker room of the Hempstead, N.Y., police department, which recently touted its efforts to recruit minorities on or about September 29, 2007
A noose was seen hanging on a utility pole at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama on or about October 2, 2007
A noose hangs outside a Columbia University professor's office on in New York on or about October 9, 2007
Nooses hung before a tolerance rally at Cal State Fullerton on or about November 7, 2007
Ms. Kelly Tighman’s, who is a native of Myrtle Beach, SC, comments that we should “lynch him (Tiger Wood’s) in a back alley” on the Golf Channel broadcast on Friday, January 4, 2008

Some Americans and international viewers think the mention of “lynching” or placement of “hangman nooses” are jokes and no big deal. Even supporters of Obama state that his platform is not about race and it should not be an issue. However, below is a little history that might shed light on the recent talk of lynching and emergence of hangman nooses. I believe it is not a coincidence, but is a historical message that has reared its ugly head again.

Excerpt from MSN Encarta Encyclopedia on “lynching” states the following:
Lynching, hanging or other types of executions, in punishment of a presumed criminal offense, carried out by self-appointed commissions or mobs, without due process of law. The term lynching is generally believed to be derived from the name of a Virginia justice of the peace, Charles Lynch, who ordered extralegal punishment for Tory acts during the American Revolution (1775-1783). Frontier settlements in the United States often lacked established law enforcement agencies and, instead, exercised summary justice through vigilantes. Western pioneers punished murder, rape, horse thievery, and other capital crimes by resorting to lynching.
Even before the American Civil War (1861-1865), many lynchings took place in Southern states. The violence was usually directed at members of the abolitionist movement or others who worked to end the system of slavery. After the war lynching became a method of terrorism against black people in the South. During the period of Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan used lynching to intimidate freed blacks who were voting and assuming political power in many parts of the South.

As illustrated by the historical text on lynching, the use of lynching and hangman nooses signifies opposition to black progress in voting and assuming political power. Hence, I believe opponents of black political progress are trying to intimidate those who support Obama becoming the first black president of the U.S. Some people ask why I would make that assertion. Well, if you do not know, history can and often does repeat itself. That is what is happening with the recent occurrences of these symbols of racial hatred.

Another illustration to support my assertion is that two prominent presidents, President Abraham Lincoln (16th President of the United States from 1861 to 1865) and President John F. Kennedy (35th President of the United States from 1961 to 1963) suffered horrible deaths at the hands of agents or locations associated with the Confederate South. Both presidents, just happened to be white, sought to implement change of political status for African-Americans in key points of each of their respective terms.

President Lincoln initiated the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to free slaves confined in the Confederate South. The Confederate South rejected this legislation for two years until the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Also, the Confederate South, signaled their displeasure of this promising legislation to blacks by having their agent, John Wilkes Booth, assassinate President Lincoln on April 14, 1865 (five (5) days after the end of the American Civil War).

Similar to President Lincoln, President Kennedy made a speech on the evening of June 11, 1963 after sending Alabama National Guardsmen to help two African-American students attend classes at the University of Alabama even-though Alabama Governor George Wallace threatened to prevent it. In President Kennedy’s speech, he informed the American public that he would request Congress to pass laws to give blacks equal access to jobs, public accommodations, voting, and education under federal law. What later became known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 did not pass under President Kennedy’s presidency. Unfortunately, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX on November 22, 1963, roughly four (4) months later after this speech to work to bring legislation to better blacks’ lives in America.


Now, we have Obama, a black man, who many perceive has a legitimate shot to attain the highest office of the executive branch in America in the upcoming 2008 presidential election. Is this truly a coincidence of the recent occurrence of talks of lynching and emergence of hangman nooses? Or are the supporters of the Confederate South trying to send supporters of Obama a message as they had done to President Lincoln and President Kennedy? Black America, are you really ready to see what consequences can emerge with the growing possibility of Obama reaching the pinnacle of the oval office in America in 2008?

If you are, my advice to you is TO BRACE YOURSELF, because supporters of the Confederate South and its methodology are going to make it very difficult or even impossible for that dream of an Obama Presidency in 2008 to be a SUSTAINABLE reality.