Silence in Sikeston | Before Lynching Became a Crime
Clip: Season 8 Episode 12 | 56sVideo has Closed Captions
Before the death of Cleo Wright in 1942, lynching was never prosecuted as a federal crime.
In 1942, Cleo Wright was lynched by a white mob before Sikeston, Missouri's Black community. Wright's death was the first federally investigated lynching but not before 3,842 had occurred around the country. Before the 2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act, an anti-lynching campaign that began in the late 1800s, and led by Ida B. Wells, the NAACP and many activists, aimed to make the offense a crime.
Funding for Silence in Sikeston provided by the Ford Foundation. Funding for Local, USA provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Wyncote Foundation.
Silence in Sikeston | Before Lynching Became a Crime
Clip: Season 8 Episode 12 | 56sVideo has Closed Captions
In 1942, Cleo Wright was lynched by a white mob before Sikeston, Missouri's Black community. Wright's death was the first federally investigated lynching but not before 3,842 had occurred around the country. Before the 2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act, an anti-lynching campaign that began in the late 1800s, and led by Ida B. Wells, the NAACP and many activists, aimed to make the offense a crime.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship-[Kevin McMahon] Before the lync there were 3,842 lynchings in th and the Department of Justice had not fully investigated any o -[Margaret Burnham] Lynchings cl These were murders, the worst forms of murders.
(mob yelling) - [Reporter] In the park, the ye -[Margaret] But the states weren and lynching was never a federal (dramatic music) - [Kevin] There were movements to pass anti-lynching legislatio but it never became law.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship
Funding for Silence in Sikeston provided by the Ford Foundation. Funding for Local, USA provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Wyncote Foundation.