The Surprise

"It's TODAY!" were the first words Jenny said as she opened her eyes. She knew it would be the day of The Surprise; Jenny's twelfth birthday, May 15, 1916.

Although Jenny didn't know the details, she knew it would be a wonderful day. The whole family was dressing in their finest, packing blankets and pillows, and going to The Surprise in Paw-Paw's truck. Riding in the truck was always thrilling as the wind would flap the hair and skirts of the girls whenever paw-Paw would drive fast, teasing that he would go 25 miles an hour some day!

Jenny wasn't sure just what The Surprise was, but she did hear Mam-Maw saying that they would head towards Waco, and that was over six miles away from Woodway! Imagine being able to get all that way in less than an hour!

Smiling to herself Jenny giggled aloud as she put on her Summer dress, white sock, and Sunday shoes. She had a secret, too. Her friends Mary and Sissy were going to be there, too, wherever it would be. Their families were packing a picnic lunch and traveling to be part of The Surprise and Jenny's special day.

The road to Waco was busy that day; the usual horse, cars, and folks ambling by were mixed among wagons with lemonade, cakes, and savory barbeque. There was music, too, as several fiddlers carried a tune on one block while members of a brass band made the children clap with joy.

Paw-Paw slowed and then pulled into a grassy area about a mile outside of the center of town and just next to the City Hall; Jenny could see other families unpacking lunch in the hot sun and was glad Paw-Paw had found a shady tree for them to sit under. The chicken, biscuits, and a small iced cake kept everyone quiet for several minutes.

"The trial should be about over", said Paw-Paw as he wiped his moustache clean of biscuit crumbs. "Shouldn't take them too long to deliver a guilty verdict. There's a lot planned for afterwards and we'll need to have the wood stacked and ready. Clarence told me to pick a good wide spot so that people could see, but not too close to the building. I think this will be just right. There's several sturdy limbs and plenty of leaves for shade."

Mam-Maw nodded, reaching into the basket for her shawl. "Billy Joe and Bobby can help you with the wood after they have a bite to eat. I see Bobby's wagon coming around the bend." Mam-Maw set out two plates heaped with chicken, potato salad, and biscuits for the two teens while Jenny watched, wondering when the rest of The Surprise would happen and hoping for the arrival of her friend.

Family after family continued to arrive, and willing hands made short work of the wood in Bobby's wagon. In no time there was a huge pile perfect for a long-burning bonfire, and Billy Joe shimmied up the tree and out on the biggest branch, bouncing on the broad limb. Bobby called him back down and handed him a length of coiled chain then boosted Billy Joe to give him some help as he climbed with the added weight back to his spot just over the fire.

Two things happened just as Billy Joe looped chain around the branch: Jenny saw Sissy and Mary running towards her, and a roar rose into the air from the center of town. Hundreds, likely thousands of people created a wave of sound, what was it? Not fear. Not happiness. It was excitement, although Jenny couldn't make out words it sounded like the baying of the hound dogs when they treed a fox.

"They've got 'im! Ah, they've got 'im boys. Get the hook on that chain and drop it, then clear the wagons and cars from around the tree", yelled Paw-Paw. Mam-Maw packed the picnic basket and placed it in the back of the truck just before Paw-Paw moved it a half mile back down the road towards home, practically propelled by the force of the voices moving towards them.

Jenny knew this was The Surprise, she knew it as sure as she knew her last name was Goodwin. Bobby and Billy Joe wrapped multi-colored wool rovings around long branches and dunked them in kerosene jugs retrieved from a wagon, then thrust the burning torches into the stacked wood.

The dry wood caught with a woosh as great shrieking crowd wove, in fits and starts, closer to the clearing in front of City Hall. It shrank and expanded, most faces turned toward the center, with fathers hoisting their children on shoulders to give them a look at the rise and fall of arms, fists, and hands fast clasping knives. Was it a wolf, after all? The Surprise was a community hunt?

It was a hunt, indeed, although not for a wolf. The hands clasping the Black beaten and bloody bounty held a seventeen year old boy, and although Jenny didn't know him by name, it was Jesse Washington. Jesse had just been convicted of murdering a white woman, and the good and righteous people of Waco and surrounding areas had waited for the verdict before closing in to deliver the punishment.

Jenny, along with a crowd of up to 15,000 men, women, and children, saw Jesse Washington beaten, stabbed, doused with kerosene, and hung from the chain suspended from that sturdy tree. She saw her neighbors and friends cut his toes, genitals, and fingers and packing them in their baskets as souvenirs.

As the photographers carefully framed their pictures, Jenny stood between Paw-Paw and Mam-Maw, her face flushed and surrounded by her friends, as part of the community that had gathered for the advertised lynching of this boy. Those photographs would be made into postcards, showing smiling white faces pushed forward for the camera's eye to capture for posterity.

Jenny stood with her family and friends watching the chain lift and lower, as Jesse tried to climb above the flames with fingerless palms slick with blood. After two hours, when Jesse had burned to death and his body dragged from among the ashes, she was one of the children that snapped a tooth from Jesse's skull to take away for her treasure box.

~~~~~~

This couldn't happen today, could it? The gleeful and purposeful dehumanization, capture, torture and more, all captured by photographic evidence? Approved by the masses? White faces eager to be included in the photographic proof?

I say it can and it does; it has within these past six months.

United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem photographed in front of prisoners with no hope, sent by the United States to live in inhuman conditions until they die. Used as marketing to establish United States, and particularly, White dominance. A mockery of law and our Constitutional rights. No due process, no trial. Staged. Gleeful.

West Virginia Representative Riley Moore traveled to El Salvador specifically to 'visit' the maximum security center for his photo op, too, and flashes the now-familiar Trump-approved double thumbs up. Men shaved and dressed in as minimal clothing as possible, standing at attention. Dehumanized while Moore extends the narrative of unfounded criminalization and deportation of people not as white as he.

Jenny's story is a fictionalized account from the viewpoint of one of the dozens of children included in the mob around Jesse Washington. His trial verdict was indeed publicized in papers, the thousands of people attending and participating were documented by photographers that sold the images, making money from the murder of a black man. Thousands of people really did travel to attend, witness, and participate in the murder of this man.

In Texas, 1916, a photographer asked for and received permission to witness the lynching, in front of City Hall, which was publicized. These lynching photos, which were common in the United States for years, were often made into postcards.

Lynching photos until that time mainly showed the aftermath of the brutality; the ones from that May day chronicled the entirety of Jesse's killing. Such photos were usually traded among white families and weren't made into postcards until the 1930s: that is less than 100 years ago. It is within the generation of your parent or grandmother.

Lynching photos often resembled the hunting photos now seen on Facebook- white people surrounding their prey. Instead of fish or deer, though, they crowd around a murdered black person, smiling into the camera. Children smile.

The posing of Moore and Noem fit right in to the history of documenting racial terror lynching. Explicit separation, explicit warning, explicit cruelty. Social media is replacing the postal service in legitimizing and spreading these racial threats and horrors, one click at a time.

Now we see videos of car windows being smashed and people dragged across the broken glass, handcuffed, and 'disappeared'. Amateur closeups of sobbing spouses as their loved ones are cuffed and carts away by masked and unidentified thugs.

This is the circulated cruelty created to disorient and terrify.

This was America, and this is America.

Racism exists. It can be seen purposefully and casually in our everyday lives. Don't believe me? How about:

The waving of 'Mass Deportation' signs at the GOP rallies? The flash bangs in public before people are whisked away? Tacking people as they leave a courtroom after they have complied with sanctuary law? The deliberate creation of 'other' to bear and be punished for all ills and troubles?

I will NOT show the images of Jesse Washington, you can find them online, and a more complete telling of his murder in history books or the Wikipedia page below. You can find these images--- and other more graphic- for yourself.

Is this what YOU want? Is this who you want to be? SPEAK UP. Become involved. Are you protected by white privilege? Then for the love of humanity, God, country, your soul: USE IT.

Learn more:

Read the book The Cruelty is the Point by Adam Serwer. Available at your library or local bookstore, or an e-book through my affiliate link here to support indie bookstores.

Other sources: