Last week a video of Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Job Tour made the rounds of the Internet. In this video Carson claimed the Tea Party was preventing African Americans from making progress toward equality with whites. He said “This is the effort that we are seeing of Jim Crow. Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now with this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me…hanging on a tree.”

Let’s just take a look at the historical record and see who was hanging who from trees, who was trying to get it stopped, and who was thwarting that effort.

The Tuskegee University has recorded 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites lynched between 1881 and 1968.

After the Civil War, there was a period of heavy violence in the South. White Democrats attacked blacks and white […] → Keep reading