Confronting Terrorism: Teaching the History of Lynching through Photography

Section I Lynching Photographs and the United States Fall 2006 Wka-13 Confrontin~ Terrorism: Bridget Cooks Realizing th at most of the students in my ethnic studies and art history courses did not know abo ut lynching was at first sho cking, then infuriating, an d th en cha lleng ing. I don't remember when I first found out abo ut lynching. Although I must have learn ed abo ut it, the fact that racial violence happ ens seems like something I have always known. My students, un aware of this truth of American culture, canno t readily position them selves to make social cha nge. Even more troublesome , if I do not expose them to the history of lynching they mi ght not ever find out about it. Teaching lynching photography in my ethnic studies an d art history courses has allowed me to fulfill a political goal of my pedagogy, to teach difficult cha pters of race relations in Ame rica;I and it has ma de a connection for my students between what they perceive to be th e ancie nt history of the cur riculum (even if we are studying some thing created twenty-five years ago ) and the contem po rary world that we all sha re. Studying lynchi ng ph ot ography has helped sensitize many students to racial tension s today and it has taught them how to be critical of terrorism and the American "wa r on ter ror" that have become an inescapable part of our daily reality. The majority of my students learn about lynching for the first time in one of my courses, at a private Jesui t university in California dedica ted to social justice as a guiding idea l. They have registered for o ne of three co urses: In troduction to Africa n American Studies, Int roduction to the Study of Race and Ethnicity in th e United Sta tes , or African Americans and Photography. The class is taught by the on ly African American woma n professor in the ~ Journal of Contemporary African Art Teaching the History of Lynching through Photography Spectators at the lynching of Jesse Washington, one man raised for a better view. May 16, 1916, Waco, Texas. Gelatin silver print. Real photo postcard. 5 1/2x3 1/2" IMka'15 undergraduate college, and most students have never had an African American professor before. Students expect to find a classroom environment that is different from any other on campus, but they are a bit nervous about what the differences will be. My students' context for learning about lynching is in a class dedicated to challenging racist ideologies and exploring the complexity of interracial histories in America. My cultural and racial identity differs from that of most of my students, and many feel challenged by the task of discussing issues of race with someone whose identity is different from their own. Because of this situation it is imperative that the classroom environment be a space in which students respect cultural differences and feel comfortable participating in discussion, skills that they cultivate during the course. I teach lynching as an important part of American history that we all inherit as Americans regardless of our racial and ethnic identity. At the same time, students learn that there are important cultural differences between individuals in the classroom that affect our feelings about analyses of lynching photography. Although we all inherit the history of lynching as a part of American culture, we are not equally affected by the tradition of racial hatred and violence. I aim to make students aware of these differences and their significance in various contexts. The exhibition Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America serves as the primary visual resource for my pedagogical project. I was intrigued by the popularity of the exhibition in New York in 2000. I wanted to learn more about the exhibit because it seemed like an important teaching tool; my experience as visitor to the Without Sanctuary exhibition is part of my pedagogical practice in the classroom. I thought I knew about lynching and yet to teach using the photographs meant going through a learning process that would be...