In case you have ever wondered why African-American families are so sensitive about the symbol of the noose, you should take a look at a book I recently got through inter-library loan. I saw it reviewed on C-Span and found that my local library had it but it was missing. The book is a series of 98 plates of lynchings in the very late 19th and early 20th century in many sections of the U.S. I did not look at all of the plates but instead read through the description/location of the plates at the rear of the book. I was looking for North Carolina lynchings in particular since I remembered my grandmother revealing that she had known of a lynching in Salisbury, NC in her young adult years (she was born in 1879). Strangely I only found two plates in NC--one in Salisbury in 1906 and another in Goldsboro, NC in 1916. Of course, many of the plates are from unknown times/locations but are similar to the identified photos in that they were saved in their times by being preserved as lithographs on postcards, many of them with post marks to argue that they had actually been sent through the U.S. mail. The horror of these historic photos is that the individuals who were hanged were most often snatched from jails where they were awaiting trial for some offense--vigilante parties couldn't wait for justice but mindlessly acted on accusations only; local law enforcement even enabled the lynchings on occasion. On-lookers (often children) and vigilantes most often didn't hide their faces. The photos in the book represent mostly locations in the South, Middle West, and West, often as far as California. Not one was from the New England section of our country. The latest photo was in the early 1940s. Even some women were lynched. This must be the one my grandmother hinted at: Plate 12: "The lynching of five African American males--Nease Gillepsie, John Gillepsie, "Jack" Dillingham, Henry Lee, and George Irvin--with onlookers shown in the photo. August 6, 1906, Salisbury, NC. Lithographed photo postcard. Printed on border: Nease and John Gillespie and Jack Dillingham, murders of Lyerly family. A mob numbering in the thousands wrenched five black men from the civil authorities of Salisbury on the night of August 6th. They accused the men of murdering members of a local family named Lyerly. The New York Times reported that the five men were tortured with knives before being hanged and then riddled with bullets. The authorities in NC, alarmed at the scope of the mob violence, took unusual steps to punish its leaders. After the governor ordered the National Guard to restore order, local officials arrested more than two dozen suspected leaders. One of the killers (George Hall) was convicted and sentenced to 15 years hard labor in the state penitentiary. It is felt that Gov. Glenn was not helped in his political prospects. Plate 20: John Richards hanging on a tree, jubilant lynchers, a freshly hewn pine coffin. January 12, 1916, Goldsboro, NC. Early on the cold morning of January 12, 1916, a masked mob of some 200 dragged John Richards from his jail cell in Wayne Co. NC. He was accused of the murder of a local farmed named Anderson Gurley. According to newspaper accounts, he was taken to the scene of Gurley's murder and hanged. He appears to have been castrated and cut to pieces by gunfire. A sad commentary on our past. WITHOUT SANCTUARY: LYNCHING PHOTOGRAPHY IN AMERICA Ed. James Allen, Hilton Als, John Lewis, Leon F. Litwack Photos/Postcards in Allen/Littlefield Collections Dept., Robert W. Woodruff Library Emory University Twin Palms Publishers , Sante Fe, NM Pub. 2000 ISBN - 0-944092-69-1 Betty Pace