RACES: No Neckties

• Share

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

Thebulging eyes and the twisted mouth;

Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh—

And the sudden smell of burning flesh . . .

—Strange Fruit

Lewis Allan's macabre picture of lynching has faded away. In 1953, for the second year running (and for the second time since the records were begun in 1912), there were no lynchings in the U.S., according to Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. In making the announcement last week, Tuskegee concluded that "lynching as traditionally defined and as a barometer for measuring the status of race relations . . . seems no longer to be a valid index." Henceforth, the institute will base its annual report on other criteria.

The disappearance of lynching does not mean that the U.S. has reached an idyllic pattern of race relations. Three attempts at lynching (only one in the South) were frustrated last year. And other methods of mob violence (such as bombings and riots against mixed housing), the institute reported, are on the rise.