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National
New Docs: 4,000 Lynched In Jim Crow South
Seven Warehouse Workers Awarded $15M In Racial Harassment Suit
It’s been revealed in a new document from the Equal Jus- tice Initiative that during the Jim Crow South era 4,000 Black people were lynched.
Nearly every name was writ- ten as a part of the research file, as another 700 more of other racial backgrounds were included in this huge blemish of American history.
The numbers are a part of EJI’s in-depth piece Lynching In America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror. The approximate number of lynch- ings are 3,959, from 1877 to 1950. Georgia executed the most people with a whopping number of 586. Mississippi is second with 576. Louisiana is third with 540. An even more specific, and shocking, detail EJI discovered was that
in Florida, their lynching rate was the highest “per capita (meaning on average) with 0.594 Black residents being lynched annually per 100,000.”
Like our history classes taught us, a majority of the “reasons” behind lynchings were for mainly innocuous in- cidents, like a Black person bumping into a White person, or controversial, hearsay gos- sip of sexual relationships. An example of this is that in 1940, Jesse Thornton was lynched for “forgetting” to say “Mister” while talking to a White cop in Alabama. The victims were targeted solely because they were racially different, but also sometimes based on religious matters.
A federal jury awarded nearly $15 million to seven warehouse workers who filed a complaint against a trucking company of separating Black workers from their white counterparts and hurling racial epitaphs against them. Six of the plaintiffs who are Black and from Mali were fired due to their race and a white whistle-blower was fired from Matheson Trucking and Matheson Flight Extenders
Inc. for speaking out against the racist treatment his co- workers received, filed the suit in 2010.
Supervisors would call Blacks, “lazy stupid Africans” and allow their white col- leagues to use the N-word freely throughout the work- place.
In the lawsuit, plaintiffs stated once an employee yelled out that “all Blacks should be shot,” a superior
who heard the disgusting re- mark never reprimanded or disciplined the employee. Later on, the white employee who yelled out the nasty com- ment was promoted to a su- pervisor.
Dean Patricelli, a white co-worker and plaintiff in the suit spoke up to his bosses about the vicious treatment, was called, “the tribe’s assis- tant,” according to the filling and was quickly fired after- wards.
Single Mom Of 4 Is 1 Of 3 Lotto Winners
SHALLOT, NC - When Marie Holmes, 26 woke up last Thursday morning; she was $188 million dollars richer. The single mother of four, including a child with cerebral palsy, was unem- ployed and looking for work.
The first thing she plans to do with the money – tithe. She told CBS 6 in North Carolina that without God, she would have never had the blessing. She says she is grateful that she won so that she can help her family, but wishes the
MARIE HOLMES
grandmother who helped raise
her could have lived to see her windfall. Holmes said she usually didn’t play the lottery because she did not have the money, however decided to play when she heard how much it was.
The resident of Shallote, North Carolina, a coastal town, bought the winning ticket from her uncle. She says she is heading to Raleigh to consult financial advisors about the best options for her windfall, before she even turns in the ticket.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 19