"As Jesus was an innocent victim of mob hysteria and Roman imperial violence, many African Americans were innocent victims of white mobs, thirsting for blood in the name of God and in defense of segregation, white supremacy, and the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race. Both the cross and the lynching tree were symbols of terror, instruments of torture and execution, reserved primarily for slaves, criminals, and insurrectionists--the lowest of the low in society. Both Jesus and blacks were publicly humiliated, subjected to the utmost indignity and cruelty. They were stripped, in order to be deprived of dignity, then paraded, mocked, and whipped, pierced, derided and spat upon, tortured for hours in the presence of jeering crowds for popular entertainment. In both cases, the purpose was to strike terror in the subject community. It was to let people know that the same thing would happen to them if they did not stay in their place." (James Cone, The Cross & Lynching Tree, p. 31)

In his analysis of Reinhold Niebuhr, whose own writings on the social gospel influence many theologians, including King, James Cone reveals the problems associated with Niebuhr's gradualism; if not now, then when will justice become real? "Like most whites," Cone avers, "Niebuhr did not realize the depth of black despair because he did not listen to Malcolm X and other Black Nationalists, who were speaking at Temple No. 7 and in the streets of Harlem, only a few blocks away. Had he turned on the radio or television, he could have heard the eloquent and powerful voice of Malcolm talking about the limits of the bourgeois civil rights movement and its leaders. Malcolm was not interested in proximate justice defined by liberal whites. "The price of freedom is death," he told Harlem blacks. Niebuhr probably heard Malcolm (who could be in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s and not know about Malcolm?) and thought he was just another "crazy Negro." Mike Wallace's 1959 television documentary series "The Hate that Hate Produced" was a media event that few people with even a marginal interest in race missed. Since Niebuhr did not heed Martin King on race but preferred Faulkner and Carter, it is very unlikely that he would have listened to the fiery message of Malcolm X. "While Dr. King was having a dream," Malcolm told a reporter shortly after King's 1963 March on Washington address, "the rest of us Negroes are having a nightmare."" (Cross & Lynching Tree, 48-49). Particularly for whites, Malcolm X is neglected if not vilified. By no means does he receive the attention accorded Martin Luther King Jr. Yet the two learned from one another and died demanding justice.

A contemporary artist who identifies strongly with Malcolm X, adopting also the moniker "Red", is Jidenna. The word-play and commentary on race in America contained in his song "Knickers" directly mirrors the opening dance scene of Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992). (Spike Lee attests to the difficulties they faced in the making of the film due to widespread opposition to his artistic biopic.). Artists like Lee and Jidenna have found ways to render Malcolm's life and message visible and audible for the contemporary world. Malcolm's witness cannot be forgotten and should never be neglected in our engagement with racism in America. For the purposes of our course, you could compare Lee's scene to Jidenna's video:

America continues to struggle with white supremacy, further accented now by gun violence. If we were in class together, we would be viewing Spike Lee's BlackkKlansman both to appreciate Lee's artistic abilities and to understand the kind of parables he offers us today about racism and violence in America. Here is an interview where he describes his film project during the Trump presidency:

The film helps us to understand what James Cone is writing about in chapter 1 of The Cross and the Lynching Tree when he mentions Thomas Dixon's work, especially The Clansman (1905), which D.W. Griffith made into The Birth of a Nation (1915). In his research, Cone uncovered horrific evidence of the impact this film had on white audiences, and subsequently on the kind of environments inhabited by black communities whose white supremacist "neighbors" read this material as a new social gospel. "Whites, especially in the South, loved Birth and regarded seeing it as a "religious experience." It "rendered lynching an efficient and honorable act of justice" and served to help reunite the North and South as a white Christian nation, at the expense of African Americans. After seeing Birth, one white man in Kentucky left the theater so excited that he shot and filled a fifteen-year-old African American high school student. By 1930, according to one report, 90 percent of white southerners had seen Birth." (Cross & Lynching Tree, 5). As scholars and historians have noted, it was first screened at the White House and "praised enthusiastically by President Woodrow Wilson." For some basic evidence that this relationship between white supremacy and the presidency is a problem under Trump, see the various reports from the FREE PRESS pertinent to Trump's rhetoric and relationship with David Duke.

Childish Gambino provides us with another set of artistic eyes on the ongoing problem of lynching in America in his wildly successful "This is America." Speculations abound concerning Donald Glover's choices of imagery, but it is certain that the hooded figure that is shot is carrying multiple references, including reference to Abu Ghraib. "When I heard about the physical and mental abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq," laments Cone, "I thought about lynching. The Roman Empire that killed Jesus at Calvary was similar to the American Empire that lynched blacks in the United States and also created the atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many white Americans seemed surprised and even shocked that such torture and abuse could come from the U.S. military. But most blacks were neither surprised nor shocked. We have been the object of white America's torture and abuse for nearly four hundred years." (Cross & Lynching Tree, 164)

"We cannot separate the cross from the Christian gospel as found in the story of Jesus and as lived and understood in the African American community. The resurrected Lord was the crucified Lord. Whatever we think about the meaning of the cross for black women should arise out of their experience of fighting for justice, especially as seen in their collective lives and struggles in the civil rights movement. God's salvation is a liberating event in the lives of all who are struggling for survival and dignity in a world bent on denying their humanity." (Cross & Lynching Tree, 151)

Oh Mary, don't you weep, don't you moan,

Oh Mary, don't you weep, don't you moan,

Pharaoh's army got drownded,

Oh Mary, don't you weep.