Study: More Blacks Killed In Chicago Than Lynched in the Deep South

By: Laura Meyers

A detailed report on the horrors of lynching in the historic, slavery-bound South was released earlier this year by the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama. The report was titled Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, and it was a collection of data from five years of research and 160 visits to historic sites around the South.

In a comparison of data, Austin Rhodes from Metrospirit reports that black Americans are killed at a higher frequency in the crime-filled city of Chicago now than black slaves were lynched in the Deep South.

Rhodes reports,

As bad as things were for black citizens in America for hundreds of years, the violence we see in Chicago alone these days dwarfs the infamous Southern lynchings detailed over a 73-year period.

Again to compare, the EJI report tells us there were 3,959 “racial terror lynchings” of blacks in that time. That averages out to about 55 lynchings a year.

In 2014 there were 353 known black murder victims in Chicago, arguably one of the most dangerous cities of its size in the world. In 2015 (as of press time), Chicago has recorded the murders of 282 black victims, well on their way to outpacing last year’s total.

It is a reputation that it has been earning for generations. During Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley’s 22-year run as a very popular and respected city leader, there were 14,653 murders. That is more than three times all the “southern lynchings” documented for the seven decades covered in the report.

Despite the city’s ban on firearms, Chicago’s crime rates are heavily influenced by gun-related violence.

“So far this year, someone is shot in Chicago every three hours and 16 minutes. There is a human that dies from gunshots in Chicago every 18 hours. That is all week, every week, so far in 2015. Because there are so many “uncleared” murders in Chicago, it is difficult to get a handle on what percentage of the victims are killed by what race, but the FBI reports nationally (in 2013 crime reports) that the black on black murder rate is slightly north of 90 percent,” Rhodes reports.

Last year, an organization called Rebel Pundit produced a video featuring black members of the Chicago community calling on Obama to help save their city from crime.

One of them goes on to say that President Obama will “go down as the worst president ever elected” in America because of his disinterest in helping to curb crime in black communities, especially in his home town of Chicago, but instead working to increase funding for immigration.

Eradicating the confederate flag that symbolizes violence against blacks in a historic America is one thing, but eradicating the actual violence against black lives that really do matter should be our first priority.