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#1
22 October 2007, 08:26 PM
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Closed Thursdays for lynchings
Comment: A co-worker of mine stated that she couldn't go to the post
office one Thursday afternoon. After asking her about it, she stated that in her community of Monticello, FL (in the panhandle) almost all businesses (banks, USPS, Stores, etc) close at noon on Thursday. This is a tradition carried over from the days when the lynching of black people were held as public demonstrations on Thursday afternoons. Everyone needed to get off work to come and watch. Supposedly, the tradition of closing for the day still occurs. Is this true? 
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#2
22 October 2007, 08:32 PM
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I guess my small town in Wales lynches its negroes on a Wednesday. And at half past ten on Sunday night.
__________________
"You does not need none cigarette, it is abundance of smokin ' above inside" ~~~Ai am in mai prrraime!~~~
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#4
22 October 2007, 08:38 PM
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Their City Hall doesn't honor this tradition.
Quote:
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Because what isn't delightful about turtles?
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#5
22 October 2007, 08:38 PM
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Quote:
__________________
"You does not need none cigarette, it is abundance of smokin ' above inside" ~~~Ai am in mai prrraime!~~~
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#6
22 October 2007, 08:48 PM
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__________________
Because what isn't delightful about turtles?
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#7
22 October 2007, 09:05 PM
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A good number of places in our town close at noon on Wednesday. I've been told it's a tradition based on Wednesday church meetings. Our kids don't even have band practice that evening...
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#8
22 October 2007, 08:38 PM
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Given that Lynchings are extra judicial summary judgements I doubt they ever occured on a scheduled basis. It is possible the town did have a scheduled day for hangings, but it seems unlikely that all businesses would close for the event (when public hangings were a popular entertainment refreshments would be sold, for example).
Far more likely is that early closings on Thursday just wound up being a practical business matter for local businesses, and they either (though mutual agreement, or coincidental fall off in business at that time) decided to close early on that day.
__________________
Please ignore mispellings and poor gramar, I'm probably drunk =o)
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#9
22 October 2007, 09:16 PM
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Quote:
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Not everyone has the time or energy to end 21st century slavery, but everyone can let the yellow mellow.--rhiandmoi
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#10
22 October 2007, 10:07 PM
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How funny. Uh, I grew up right outside of there, and my mom still lives in the countryside right next to it.
I just called my mom to confirm, but she's never heard of this or noticed it being true. She banks/goes to the post office a couple days a week and has never been turned away on Thursday (but then, she's not with Farmers and Merchants). I called the hardware store downtown, and they have standard hours and are open all day Thursday. Plus, many of the shops open in town at this time are owned by relative newcomers, who would certainly not be beholden to a lynching tradition. Not to mention, you know, that many businesses are owned by black folks. Now, there is a big oak known as the "hanging tree" out by the courthouse, where criminals were hung back in the old days, according to local stories. Monticello has a big reputation as a haunted town, ghost tours and all that, and the hanging tree figures in with those stories. But that's not exactly the same as lynching blacks every Thursday. Right now, I'm pretty sure, Monticello has a higher black population than white. I doubt that'd be true if there was an extensive history of that kind of violent, systematic racism, even that long ago, since a large part of the population over all has deep roots in the community.
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#11
22 October 2007, 10:47 PM
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In the town I grew up in, most stores used to close at 1pm on Wednesdays. These were the small privately owned businesses, and I was always told that it was so the owners could go to church that evening.
I always found it odd, since no church in town had an earlier service Wednesday nights than 7pm, and I remember looking at some of them and wondering what took them six hours of preparations. I'm pretty sure nothing there closes at 1pm on Wednesdays anymore, but there's virtually no small privately owned businesses left, either.
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#12
22 October 2007, 10:49 PM
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The Monticello Post Office does close on Thursday at noon, but their last pickup of the day is the same as every other weekday. There may be other branches in Jefferson County that stay open later, so it wouldn't be strange that piiw's mother could go to the post office that day.
__________________
Because what isn't delightful about turtles?
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#13
22 October 2007, 10:58 PM
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My village bank and post office shuts at noon on a Wednesday, but as far as a I know we haven't hanged anyone in the village for well over three hundred years, certainly since they built Maidstone prison in 1818 to deal with that sort of thing, and started executions there in 1831. Prior to that prisoners were executed at Penenden Heath. After 1930, condemed prisoners were sent to Wandsworth for the drop.
We still have the village stocks, but they are in the churchyard and seem to be purely decorative, and the old county courthouse, but now that's a greengrocer's shop and has been as long as I've lived here. Last edited by Eddylizard; 22 October 2007 at 11:08 PM.
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#14
23 October 2007, 04:17 PM
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#15
26 October 2007, 09:04 AM
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Quote:
Also, I doubt that lynching was ever so pervasive that any given community (especially one so comparitively small) would have one every week - as there were only 257 recorded lynchings of black in all of Florida between 1882 and 1968. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...ingsstate.html - Il-Mari
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