Democracy Abroad, Lynching At Home: Racial Violence In Florida is a 2015 history book by Tameka Bradley Hobbs that discusses how lynchings have changed in the United States, with a focus on the mid 20th century Florida lynchings of Arthur C. Williams, Cellos Harrison, Willie James Howard, and Jesse James Payne. The book won a 2015 Bronze Florida Book Award and the 2016 Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award from the Florida Historical Society.
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| Author | Tameka Bradley Hobbs |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | History of Florida |
| Published | 2015 (University Press of Florida) |
| Publication place | USA |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 273 |
| Awards | 2015 Bronze Florida Book Award, 2016 Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award from the Florida Historical Society |
| ISBN | 9780813062396 |
| OCLC | 892431968 |
| Text | Democracy Abroad, Lynching At Home: Racial Violence In Florida at Wikisource |
Synopsis
editHobbs reviews how lynchings have been conducted in United States with a focus on four African American men and boys lynched in Florida between 1941 and 1945: Arthur C. Williams, Cellos Harrison, Willie James Howard, and Jesse James Payne.[1] Hobbs argues World War II shifted public opinion and behavior in the United States, leading to private mob violence against African Americans instead of public lynchings, and to what Hobbs describes as "legal lynchings."[1]
Reception
editIn a review for The Journal of American History, W. Fitzhugh Brundage writes "Tameka Bradley Hobbs makes a convincing argument that these lynchings reveal important insights into the evolution of white supremacy in twentieth-century America."[2] In a review for the Journal of Southern History, Mari N. Crabtree writes that Hobbs "provides valuable insights into the devastating impact of lynching on African American families and communities over the past seventy-five years. With so much of the literature on lynching focused on white southerners, her interviews with African American survivors provide a poignant and, at times, gut-wrenching glimpse into the intergenerational trauma of lynching."[1]
Historian Michael Hoffmann writes in a review for The Florida Times-Union, "An important insight of 'Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home' is the long-term psychological damage suffered by blacks who experienced white violence during the Jim Crow era."[3] In a review for The Florida Historical Quarterly, Billy Townsend writes,
- America uses so many euphemisms - lynching, Jim Crow, racism - for forcing a man to watch his son murdered as a traditional method of governing. They are inadequate to the task of documenting the compounding generational desolation of living at the sharp end of that system. To strip away the euphemism, reveal what's beneath, and link what has happened to what is happening should be the purpose of history. It's where Hobbs' book succeeds brilliantly and heartbreakingly.[4]
In a review for The American Historical Review, Michael J. Pfeifer writes, "Some scholars of lynching (and this includes my own work) have not focused sufficiently on the responses of African Americans to white mob violence, and Hobbs offers an extremely useful example of how fully incorporating the black response presents a more comprehensive and accurate analysis of the context for these events."[5] Brandon T. Jett writes in a review for H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social Sciences that "Hobbs's most important contribution [...] rests in her examination of the short- and long-term effects of lynchings on black communities, and how World War II fundamentally shaped many Americans' and the federal government's response to lynchings."[6]
Awards
edit- 2015 Florida Book Award Bronze Medal[7][8][9]
- 2016 Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award from the Florida Historical Society[10]
Contents
edit- Lynched twice: Arthur C. Williams, Gadsden County, 1941
- A Degree of Restraint: The Trials of Cellos Harrison, 1940-1943
- The Failure of Forbearance: The Lynching of Cellos Harrison, Jackson County, 1943
- "A Very Cheap Article": The Lynching of Willie James Howard, Suwannee County, 1944
- Still At It: The Lynching of Jesse James Payne, Madison County, 1945
- Conclusion
- Epilogue. Strange Fruit, Bitter Seeds: The Echoes of Lynching Violence.
References
edit- ^ a b c Crabtree, Mari N. (November 3, 2016). "Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida by Tameka Bradley Hobbs". Journal of Southern History. 82 (4): 950–951. doi:10.1353/soh.2016.0286. S2CID 159674568. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
- ^ Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (December 2016). "Review of Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida (Book)". Journal of American History. 103 (3): 823–824. doi:10.1093/jahist/jaw453. ISSN 0021-8723. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
Hobbs's account is especially useful in tracing the tortured responses of Governors Spessard Holland and Millard F. Caldwell.
- ^ Hoffman, Michael (November 28, 2015). "Book Review: 'Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida' by Tameka Bradley Hobbs". The Florida Times-Union. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
- ^ Townsend, Billy (Winter 2016). "Review of Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida by Tameka Bradley Hobbs". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 94 (3). Florida Historical Society: 541–543. JSTOR 24769289. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- ^ Pfeifer, Michael J. (October 4, 2016). "Review of Tameka Bradley Hobbs. Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida". The American Historical Review. 121 (4). American Historical Association: 1309–1310. doi:10.1093/ahr/121.4.1309. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
Throughout her narrative and especially in a powerful epilogue, Hobbs provides a highly valuable analysis of the effects of the four lynchings on the families of the lynching victims as well as on local black communities. For the families and descendants of lynching victims, migration and broken family relationships often ensued, as did painful silences; for the larger African American community in localities, oral histories reconstructed events in instrumentalist ways that stressed the dangerously unjust ways of white supremacy.
- ^ Jett, Brandon T. (February 2016). "Jett on Hobbs, 'Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida'". H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social Sciences: 1–3. ISSN 1538-0661. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- ^ Hollinger, Michelle (March 10, 2016). "Hobbs wins bronze medal for book on lynching". South Florida Times. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- ^ "Three Tallahassee writers win Florida Book Awards". Tallahassee Democrat. March 5, 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
- ^ "Congratulations to our 2015 Florida Book Awards Winners!". The Florida Book Awards. Archived from the original on 16 June 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
- ^ "End Notes: Florida Historical Society News". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 94 (4). Florida Historical Society: 698. Spring 2016. JSTOR 24769245. Retrieved 15 September 2021.