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Black women were also affected by Police Brutality

Police brutality has been prevalent before and after the civil rights era. From slave patrols, who monitor and patrol the slaves inside and outside the fields. After the Civil War, the Jim Crow laws helped to keep track and prevent blacks from having too much freedom for which the prison system was created. Black folks famously getting sprayed by a firehouse from the police when protesting for equal rights during the civil rights era. And now police officers today are shooting and assaulting suspects of color for no reason. Police brutality has become a high part in our black history and criminal justice system. To which how the police and prison system was started and how continue to be (a systemic racism), Many riots have been present because of police brutality. Watts Riot of 1965 where two policemen had a brawl with a black motorist for suspecting drunk driving. The crowd felts it was another a situation of race and police brutality, where innocent bystander was harassed by police officers. The public grew understandably grew and irritate about the situation that they looted stores and torch buildings all around south central Los Angeles. The riot left 34 dead, 1,032 injured, nearly 4,000 arrested, and $40 million worth of property destroyed.

       Then you have the L.A. riots in 1992, in which I think it’s the most publicized riot in American history. Rodney King in 1991 was stopped for a traffic stop and was later beaten to near death by four police officers. King was supposedly resisting arrest and this unfortunate incident was caught on tape. The public thought that they will see the light of justice that has been taken for granted for over a 150 years. But as we may know that did not happen. Rodney King was released without charges. The four police officers were all charge for manslaughter and was taken to court. The all white verdict found the four police officer not guilty to the charges. Most of the black and even some white community were shocked about this verdict. Even the mayor of Los Angeles was disappointed and appalled by the actions and decisions that have taken upon in court.

           Violence began to erupt throughout South Central Los Angeles. Just like the Watts Riots in 1965, most if not all were irritated and drain about the verdict that has been continuing for African American in the criminal justice system. The two most powerful and well known gangs in L.A., the blood and the Crips was also at the riot coming together to show their frustration with the government. The riots emotions showed tremendously, Korean shop owners in African-American neighborhoods defended their businesses with rifles. The three days of disorder killed more than 60 people, injured almost 2,000, led to 7,000 arrests, and caused nearly $1 billion in property damage, including the burnings of more than 3,000 buildings.

           Riots and police brutality have continued to play out after 1992 with cases like Sean Bell and the Ferguson riot, it seems that African American male is the primary target for police, criminal justice, and the whole prison system. However, women have also been affected by police brutality. Even though African American males have a huge amount facts and statistics showing higher amount of police brutality than any other race or gender, black women a significant amount of police brutality too. Twenty-five years old Chikesia Clemons in Saraland, Alabama experienced police brutality that was recently on the news this year. A viral video shows officers threatening Chikesia Clemons inside a Waffle House. She questioned the restaurant on why she was charged or plastic utensils, and it quickly increased into a violent police meet. “I’ll break your arm, that’s what I’m about to do,” said an Alabama police officer as he tussled Chikesia Clemons to the ground. While on the ground the officer forcibly pulled shirt where, it revealed Clemons’s breasts, leaving her chest wide open to the public while she was handcuffed. This inequality is part of a large but invisible pattern of violence against black women being ignored when it comes to police brutality. We as a people must remember that the racial biases in policing also applies to black women. Throughout history, black women tolerate the double burden “carrying the weight of a weaponized skin color and the invisibility of a silenced gender.”

           An example of women who experienced police brutality is Sandra Bland, but the difference from most police brutality cases is that it happens in prison and it was broadcast on national news, Sandra Annette Bland who was born on February 7, 1987 in Naperville, Illinois, who was one of five sisters. She attended Willow Brook High School then Prairie View A&M University, where she was a member of the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority. She graduated in 2009 with a degree in agriculture. While at the university, she was a summer counselor for three years, played in a band, and volunteered for a senior citizens advocacy group. Bland returned to Illinois in 2009. She worked in administration for Cook's, a food-service equipment supplier, a job she left not long before her death. She had started a temporary job on August 3, 2015 with Prairie View as a summer program associate. In January 2015, Bland began posting videos about and talked about many heavy subjects, including police brutality against blacks. Sandra Bland began to record the events that occurred in her community involving police brutality among blacks Bland was known as a Civil Rights Activist and also a core member of the Black Lives Matter movement.

           On July 10th a dash cam video captured the traffic stop between Trooper Brian Encinia and Sandra Bland after a minor traffic infraction. The day after her job interview Officer Encinia stopped Bland's car in Prairie View, the video shot from the dashboard camera inside a police cruiser, in it shows a routine traffic stop performed by Brian Encinia asking for her ID, but when he returns to the car and asks her to extinguish her cigarette, the interaction turns into a confrontation. Sandra was asked to exit the car when she refuses to put out her cigarette the Officer repeatedly yells for her to step out of the car and she refuses, demanding to know why. The officer handcuffs Bland off camera, the dash cam recording captured the audio of a shouting match between them. Sandra was screaming Cursing at the officer, demanding to know why she is being arrested. A scuffle follows out of sight, loud screaming was heard by Bland that the officer is about to break her wrists. She then cries out that Encinia slammed her to the ground and she hit her head. On July 10th, Bland made a very phone call from inside the Waller County jail cell in Texas, Sandra spoke to a close friend where she began to explain how she explains to have been "roughed up" by a police officer. A female police officer found Bland's body hanging from a privacy partition at 9:07 a.m. on July 13th, where Sandra was found dead. She was found hanging inside her jail cell in what officials described to be a suicide. Despite her family's claims to the contrary, Texas investigators have repeatedly described Bland's death inside the Waller County jail as a suicide. Sandra Bland a woman who was an activist who experienced police brutality inside and outside of prison. But just like I said throughout my article, they try to twist or change our history of black women, and say what they want to hear.

If you want to look more into this topic here is the resources:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-mcclellan-black-women-police_us_5aeb5b6be4b0ab5c3d634fd5

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sandra-bland-20150728-htmlstory.html

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The Unspoken Story of Ida B. Wells and Women Who Were Lynched

After slavery, there was a new found punishment that turn deadly and it was lynching. Lynching happen around the late 19th century, where African American was free, the civil War had ended, and now the white mass became angry and wanted to do something about it. In 1882 thru 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. 3,446 were black and 1,297 were white. I know it's surprising to hear that whites were lynched too, since it was a race tension issue.  But if a white person was helping any black person or was anti-lynch, then the white person was lynch. Most of the lynchings were happening in the South; Mississippi had the highest rate of lynchings with 581, Georgia fall in second with 531, and lastly Texas was 493. According to the NAACP, 79% of lynching happened in the South. The purpose of lynching was to protect white women from being raped by black men. The white masses actually felt that was a great reasoning and goal after slavery. However, the biggest reason to lynching is the freedom that black have, and they felt that blacks were getting away with too much freedom, and had to take a stand for this or take back control.

           Lynchings became more and more like a festival or an entertainment show, where body parts were passed around for souvenirs and photos that contain happy white people with lifeless bodies hanging from a tree. The saddest and gut-wrenching thing about lynching is that it doesn’t matter if the person was innocent or guilty, if they think you commit what they called offenses, then death will come your way. There were a few states that lynch more white people than black. In the West, a great number of whites were lynched due to political reasons than racial tensions. California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan and so many more were among the states that had more white people lynched than blacks.

Women were lynched too, especially black women. Most of our American history and the media, only displayed or talk about men getting lynched. One famous story, involved Mary Turner, a black woman who was lynched for fighting for her husband’s innocent. An abusive plantation owner named Hampton Smith was shot and killed over a money dispute. After the killing there was a manhunt to find the killer. A week later, Hayes Turner was lynched for being a suspect in the Smith’s murder and thirteen others were also lynched for the same reason. Turner’s wife Mary, who was pregnant was upset and denied the claim that her husband did that crime. She later exposed some of the members of the mob that killed her husband, should be arrested. On May 19th, 1918 Mary tried to run away from the threats but, it later catch up to her. A mob of several hundred took Mary to Folsom’s Bridge in Georgia, where she was tied up by her ankles, and later hang upside-down from a tree. Mary was drenched in gasoline and motor oil, and horrifically was set on fire. She unbelievably survived the horrific ordeal, but it did not end there. Her body was cut open, resulting in her fetus falling to the ground and stomped to death. At the end, the mob fired shots into Mary’s Turner’s body and it was damaged with hundreds of bullets.  Lynching was a sad and pivotal time in our American history that the white masses try to forget about, but African Americans will never let go.

           Ida B. Wells a significant person during the Jim Crow Era. She was a well-known journalist, who famously wrote in many local black newspapers as an editorial and the most well known the Free Speech and Headlight, where she talk about the Jim Crow Era, African American citizen rights, but more importantly lynching. Ida B. Wells was born on July 16th, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Wells was born into slavery and she was the primary caregiver to her six siblings, when both of her parents died from yellow fever.  However, her parents were political activists during the Reconstruction Era, and they made sure that they instill their children on the importance of education. Wells went to Rusts College and was later expelled because of a disagreement she had with the college president. She moved to Memphis because of the yellow fever epidemic in Mississippi and later became an educator to help take care her family.

           Around 1884. Wells experience one of her activism for change in her black community. She filed a lawsuit against Memphis Train Company for racist treatment, after she was kicked off of the first class train (even though Wells had her ticket). The case won in Memphis court, but not in the Supreme Court (as most cases that involved race). Wells heard her three friends getting lynched by white mobs and decided to investigate this epidemic in many local black newspapers. She wanted to know the explanation as to why African Americans are getting lynched, and in 1892, she published a pamphlet called “Southern Horrors,” which explained her findings. Wells refuted the “rape accusation” used by white mobs to validate the lynchings of African Americans. Through her investigation, she found that African Americans had challenged white authority successfully through business or politics. Since her published works, a lot of locals were furious about her works, and decided to burn a lot her works. This incident and many other threats were the deciding factor for Wells to move to Chicago, Illinois.

Since then, Ida B. Wells, became more of an activist, gotten married, and had four children. Wells continues to speak about lynching to foreign audiences. She even confronted the woman suffrage movement for not mentioning lynching, and was later derided for her bold act. On the other hand, Wells was still active in the women’s rights and was the founder of the National Association of Colored Women’s Club. The fascinating and sad thing about Ida B. Wells is that she was one of the founders of the NAACP, but was never mentioned. It goes to show that you may want to block black women's history, but it eventually comes into light to the new generati

To look deeper into lynching and Ida B. wells, here are the resources:

https://listverse.com/2016/04/13/10-gut-wrenching-stories-of-women-who-were-lynched/

https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett

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The Roles Of a Slave Woman

Women have been a huge part of American history, most importantly African American history. We may not see much of their work, contribution, and their heroic nature. However, their work has been played out in many time periods in history. Black women strength is like no other, through hardships and taking a stand for what is right, black women has always been a third class citizen. I did not want to talk about other famous black men through race, crime and punishment, but I want to talk about women who have gone through struggles, but still made sure that their voices be heard. I’m going to talk about three women in three monumental time periods, Slavery, Jim Crow Era, and after the Civil Rights Era.

During slavery, women were a big part of the growth of that time period. They were not only important economically, but sexually and structurally. When purchasing a female slave, they are seen as promiscuous or exotic to their slave master. Their jobs is to do the domestic and agricultural work on the inside and outside the fields, but also intend to the slave owner’s sexual needs. Sexual abuse in slavery was part of the Southern slave culture. Rapes was a common theme during slavery. A white man or a slave master was accused of raping a slave no punishment or harm will be inflicted, but if a black man or a slave was accused of rape, they were sentenced to death. Black women also have roles as fancy maids, which were mistress or prostitution. The slave masters would have “fancy trades” to auctioned black women into fancy maids.

           But the thing that surprised me the most is that women slaves were slave breeders. This act surprises me because black women were looked as unattractive and animal like. Around 1808, Congress ended the slave trade with Africa and West Indies. Since then slave planters were not able to could no longer import additional slaves from Africa or the West Indies. Since Congress passed this law, more and more slave master started to rape female slaves, they also coerced sexual relation between male and female slave. Once the female slave gets pregnant by her slave master, the child last name is the mother’s last name. Slave master has no responsibility for that child. During slavery, there were actually a lot more slave marriages than recorded. The causes for many slave marriages where from slave master who coerced the union for breeding, while others were out of true love. Even though slave marriages were weak and unstable. Slave master will be part of the affairs of the female slaves and just the institution of slavery. Slave master might even sell families or children as punishment or economic gains. The saddest thing that female’s slaves have to endure or couldn’t control is the punishment that their daughter or son might have to face, either being whipped or raped.  

           This reminds me of the story of Patsey from 12 years of slave. Patsey was the good friend of Solomon Northup. Patsey family was from Guinea until they was enslaved and taken to Cuba. Patsey’s mother was sold to a family in the Southern parts of the United States. Some historian says that Patsey was born around 1830 in South Carolina. She was first sold into slavery at 13 in Louisiana. Both Solomon and Patsey were own by Edwin Epps. Solomon called Patsey “the queen of that field”, because she could pick more cottons than any of the slaves.

           The slave owner Edwin Epps was a tall heavy set man who loves to drink and had a sexual attraction to Patsey. He brutally raped Patsey repeatedly and if Patsey do not live up to Epps’s sexual need she will get whipped. Solomon quoted in his memoir “bore the scars of a thousand stripes”. He wrote a particular incident where Patsey was tormented almost to death because she had gone to a neighbor’s plantation to get a bar of soap. When Epps found out about Patsey where’s about, he had her tied to a stick and demanded Solomon to whip her. Patsey was also abused by Epps’s wife Mary, who became jealous of Patsey ever growing attention from her husband. Northup wrote in his memoir, “Nothing delighted the mistress so much as to see her suffer,” Epps’s wife despised Patsey because of what she thought was favoritism from her husband.

           After the abuse, Patsey whole mood and demeanor changed. Solomon describe Patsey as this “joyous creature” and “a laughing, light-hearted girl”, but she was crying on the inside. Solomon   continue to say that “Patsey suffered more, than any of her companions,” “She no longer moved with that buoyant and elastic step.” And also lost the “mirthful sparkle in her eyes,” and “the sprightly, laughter-loving spirit of her youth. She cared her pain through her work in the field, where she was always silent and sad. Solomon continued to say in his memoir that “If ever there was a broken heart—one crushed and blighted by the rude grasp of suffering and misfortune it was Patsey’s.”

           When Solomon was finally free from slavery, Patsey ran up to him and was tearful but happy that he was finally free. But at the end she asks Solomon, “what about me? What will become of me?” Patsey suffering and injustice that she have endured is a representation of all the black women and girl in slavery in the south.  The most wonderful thing about this situation is that Patsey’s story was not lost in history, but it stays alive to tell a true American history.

           After slavery, there was a new found punishment that turn deadly and it was lynching. Lynching happen around the late 19th century, where African American was free, the civil War had ended, and now the white mass became angry and wanted to do something about it. In 1882 thru 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. 3,446 were black and 1,297 were white. I know it's surprising to hear that whites were lynched too, since it was a race tension issue. But if a white person was helping any black person or was anti-lynch, then the white person was lynch. Most of the lynchings were happening in the South; Mississippi had the highest rate of lynchings with 581, Georgia fall in second with 531, and lastly Texas was 493. According to the NAACP, 79% of lynching happened in the South. The purpose of lynching was to protect white women from being raped by black men. The white masses actually felt that was a great reasoning and goal after slavery. However, the biggest reason to lynching is the freedom that black have, and they felt that blacks were getting away with too much freedom, and had to take a stand for this or take back control.

To explore on this topic clink the links down below:

https://journalofthecivilwarera.org/2017/03/enduring-legacy-patsey/

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/08/how_enslaved_women_s_sexual_health_was_contested_in_the_antebellum_south.html