U.S. Senate Resolution 39 Apologizes for Inaction

I thank you all for your comments and contributions to this comment thread! Swan, I do my best to document any information I provide.
 
Jordan, I may humbly consider the title Sifu (Teacher), provided the title does not indicate a specific gender! I'm not sure I am a Shaolin Master! LOL!
 
All everyone has stated here illustrates the importance of learning history in context, with all of the layers necessary to provide understanding. I do not mean what is often referred to as the opposing point of view.
 
In many cases, that is a required and necessary tool but, I think it a crime against humanity for anyone to attempt to defend any position that advocates acts of terrorism, aimed at individuals because of any difference noted by another group.
 
Terrorism is defined as the systematic use of terror as a means of coercion and lynching was used in the United States of America as a means to terrorize those of African descent, to prevent any attempt at challenging the existing status quo. Anti lynching crusader Ida B. Wells and others have documented that lynching was often used as a tool to rob so called Negroes of their property as well, as in the case of land disputes, disputes that resulted when Black citizens declined to sell or move off their land.
 
Entire towns were set aflame, the Black side of town, and in some cases, evidence of its existence entirely erased, the town's Black citizens murdered, at the hands of mob violence, targeted because of their race, as in the town of Rosewood, Florida, laid siege to in 1923 and burned for an entire week, this town's story immortalized in John Singleton's film by the same name.
 
Many laws and statutes have been enacted that were meant to legally 'sweep away' the forms of injustice on the books that existed in America but, as Swan so clearly and succinctly states, many of the attitudes of those who found nothing wrong with the behaviors exhibited and acts perpetrated upon the so called Negro, the polite term used for African Americans during that time period, never went away, they simply went underground.
 
During and after the War Between the States, a.k.a. the Civil War, there existed elements on both sides of the fray that did not necessarily want equal rights for the Negro and in the case of many Southerners, the defeat of the Confederate States of America meant a cessation of the life that those in the Confederacy were fighting so hard to maintain. After all, the states that seceded from the Union did so to oppose what was viewed by the Confederacy as an undesired and unacceptable direction for the country.
 
After the Civil War came the Black Codes, then Jim Crow laws, with each state in the newly reunited Union deciding how their particular form of discrimination against Negroes should proceed. After the Compromise of 1877, resulting in federal troops' withdrawal from the Southern states, troops that aided in enforcing the newly obtained freedoms Negroes had gained, among those, according to some estimates, close to 1,000 elected Negro officials, the period known as Reconstruction came to an end.
 
Throughout this period, during and after slavery, lynching was used as a form of terror, against many individuals but mostly against the so called Negro.
 
It is a form of terror, aimed at the Black community, when, once the Negro lynch victim had succumb as a result of his or her torture, the body is left, prominently displayed, in the middle of town, as a warning. It is terror, when the intended victim is paraded through town, on his or her way to the lynching. All of these things and many more examples were meant to convey that Negroes were not protected in any way and could become the next victim whether or not any crime or offense was committed. Remember, even if a crime had been alleged, lynching deprived the accused of due process.
 
Local and state law enforcement's involvement in the process of terror perpetrated upon the Black community cannot be denied. Almost all of the victims that met their end by the instrument of mob violence, had listed as the cause of death ".... death caused at the hand or hands of person or persons unknown ", with this statement in so many cases being an obvious, unmitigated lie.
 
Numerous accounts of the incidents that preceded lynchings reveal that the victims were 'removed' from jails while in the custody of local and state law enforcement officers and no, the kidnappers were not always masked.
 
After the grisly deed was accomplished, photos were taken with the victim, with many of these photos reproduced on post cards and mailed using a federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service, known as the Post Office Department, at that time, despite a 1908 ban on sending that type of material through the mail system.
 
I find it extremely difficult to believe that it was impossible for law enforcement to identify the perpetrators of these murders when so many posed proudly beside their handy work and that of their compatriots.
 
There exist accounts that document adverts were submitted to newspapers, announcing a lynching scheduled to occur. Minimally, officials of law enforcement could have been there to prevent such an act and possibly to arrest those illegally plotting such a deed as well.
 
After slavery was abolished, the first civil rights act was introduced by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in 1866, passed after his death as the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which upon close inspection, bore many similarities to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
 
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1883 that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional, also stating that the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery without being duly convicted of a crime, did not protect Blacks from individual acts of discrimination. The same court later in that year ruled that the 15th Amendment did indeed guarantee the right to vote but did not guarantee the right not to be discriminated against once arriving at the polls to vote.
 
Why wouldn't those who felt Negroes should be treated differently and denied the stated ".... unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", listed in the Declaration of Independence, given the attitudes and rulings of those seated on the highest court in the land and the fact that punishment or reprisal for the behavior of those instigating lynching and acts of terror were virtually never applied, feel confident that their acts were sanctioned, through noninterference as acceptable and, as argued by the senators on Capitol Hill, the duty of its citizens, aiding in the process of maintaining order?
 
These historical facts and the inaction on the parts of so many helped to sustain the reign of terror inflicted upon the citizens within the community of the so called Negro, most commonly known today as the Black or African American community, for hundreds of years and continues to influence the attitudes of many today, with some longing for the good old days.             

Many people were lynched, in the West, horse thiefs, cattle rustlers. American Indians, Dakota Sioux, even white women. this isn't just about blacks, Karen.