As we celebrate and mourn what would have been #EmmettTill's 79th birthday, I want to talk about a subject that gets glossed over way too frequently: lynching's effect on Black women.

You may know that Black women have always been at the forefront of fighting lynching, with women like Ida B. Wells & Mamie Till Mobley (Emmett's mother) leading the charge. Till Mobley's insistence on an open casket- despite the personal pain- galvanized the Civil Rights Movement

Less talked about are the female victims of lynching.

Take for example Laura Nelson, a Black Oklahoman gang raped and lynched alongside her son. While particularly dark skinned Black men were the primary targets of lynching, many female victims are largely forgotten

Part of this is because the sexual violence Black women experience(d) is never taken seriously.

As Black feminist scholar Hazel Carby has stated, "The institutionalized rape of black women has never been as powerful a symbol of black oppression as the spectacle of lynching. Rape has always involved patriarchal notions of women...outwardly inviting a sexual attack."

We see this plainly with how George Floyd's name is synonymous with the protests in media coverage and Toyin Salau's name has mostly been lifted up by other Black women.

Both deserve justice.

Even though Black women fleeing sexual violence was a deciding force behind the Great Migration, Black women are frequently asked to take a step back to support the cause against lynching (even though Black women have been on the frontlines there already!)

(See more about sexual violence and the great migration in D.C. Hines' work https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174692  )

So you get the term lynching be used to silence Black women who speak against sexual violence to say they are "against liberation" or "anti-Black."

Clarence Thomas called the Anita Hill hearings a "high tech lynching."

R. Kelly called #MuteRKelly a lynching too

We don't need no more babies dying so we celebrate birthdays without them

We dont need no more lynchings, no more rapes

But we do need to acknowledge the historical weight these words carry and use them with care

And we always gotta support Black women doing this work

Another thing I should mention: part of the reason Black women are less likely to be believed is because white women (and of course white men) have so deeply weaponized false claims of rape against Black men that the gut reaction is often distrust of survivors' voices.

So this violence once again costs Black women directly and indirectly.

Last thing: I know this thread talks about gender in a pretty binary way, but that binary is important historically and for explaining this foolishness.

Anyway, check out and support orgs like @survivepunish , @BlackWomensBP , and @SisterSong_WOC

Love + liberation yall