Lynchings past and present
When history is looked at in its complexity, it plays havoc with the present moment.
"This wasn't done by the Klan, or people who had to wear a mask. This was done by teachers and clergy and law enforcement officers."
This is Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, talking to Oprah Winfrey on last week about the lynching 80 years ago of Wes Johnson, in an Alabama cotton field. It was one of multi-thousands of lynchings in the South and across the country in the wake of the Civil War -- lynchings meant both as
