Urban Word(s) of the Day - 2/17/09

Lynching –
Lynching in the United States was the 19th and 20th century practice of killing people by extrajudicial mob action in the. This type of murder is most often associated with hanging, although it often included burning and various types of torture. It was rare for culprits of lynching to receive punishment for their crimes. Lynching is often associated with Southern efforts to retain and enforce so-called "white supremacy" after the victory of the Union in the American Civil War. The granting of civil rights to freedmen in the Reconstruction era after the Civil War aroused anxieties among white citizens, who came to scapegoat African Americans for their wartime hardship, economic loss, and forfeiture of social privilege. African American citizens, and Caucasian Americans active in the pursuit of equal rights, were frequently lynched during the Reconstruction era. Notable lynchings of civil rights workers during the 1960s in Mississippi contributed to galvanizing public support for the Civil Rights Movement and civil rights legislation.

The Little Rock Nine –
The Little Rock Nine were the nine African-American students involved in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School. Their entrance into the school in 1957 sparked a nationwide crisis when Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, in defiance of a federal court order, called out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the Nine from entering. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by federalizing the National Guard and sending in units of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division to escort the Nine into the school on September 25, 1957. The military presence remained for the duration of the school year. The “Little Rock Crisis” is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.