by Jack Merridew

Created on: June 16, 2009   Last Updated: June 19, 2009

Hanging a noose is a terrifying act implying threat of execution; however, the simple tying of a rope around a tree or any other suspended object cannot be perceived as a threat directed at a group of people, otherwise known as a hate (or biased) crime. Unless hung with specific instructions as to whom the noose may be threatening, or with an effigy that represents the potential victim, there is no evidence to determine a group of people the gruesome symbol means to intimidate. Thus, draping a noose from a tree is only a personal expression.

Why is hanging such a feared symbol? Death from hanging would come mercifully quick, in the case of a broken neck; or agonizingly slow, in the case of occlusion of the blood vessels. Mistakes were often made in deciding the necessary slack needed for the ligature, which varied with each execution. Hanging stands the test of time as one of the more infamous forms of execution, facilitated in almost every country at one time or another. On December 30, 2006, Saddam Hussein, the maniacal dictator of Iraq, was put to death by hanging.The last sanctioned execution by hanging in the United States was that of Delaware convict, Billy Bailey in 1996. New Hampshire law permits hanging as an option of execution, should authorities find lethal injection "impractical" for certain convicts; Washington State, however, conducts hanging as an alternative, at the discretion of the accused.

The practice of hanging nooses dates back to post-civil war America, when the Ku Klux Klan and other sympathizers of the defunct Confederacy attempted to terrorize the newly-emancipated African-Americans back into submission. After the surrender of the Confederacy, the South was still in turmoil, and in a state of martial law. With the former slaves gaining their rights established in the Emancipation Proclamation, they were free at last, but at dire cost. Their old masters, and other proponents of slavery would stop at nothing to make the South lawless, and beleaguer the victorious North. The clan would use many scare-tactics to control the former slaves, including: murder, vandalism, assault, arson, verbal threat, and noose-hanging. As hanging (known also as lynching) was the preferred method of execution at the time, the symbol would have struck a morbid tone with any passerby who happened upon it. Imagine you are a slave following the dirt roads of the South toward the civility, and opportunity of the North when you encounter a hideous thing: a noose hanging from the branch of a tree. The terror you would feel! You, the defenseless slave, realize you are being watched. Sprinting, with hounds barking from far off, you look back and know that that noose represents your fate if you stay.

But unlike arson, vandalism, and murder, noose hanging is covered in the first amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights as "freedom of expression"; and as disgusting as some expressions may be, people are, as they should be, hesitant to ask for their rights to be taken away. When the liberties of the citizen are taken away, over time things like slavery become possible.

Hanging is barbaric; to try to intimidate anyone with it is disgusting. There is no reason in today's society why anyone should celebrate this, or any kind of bullying. Freedom of expression is exactly what the slaveholders of the past thought their slaves didn't deserve; and yet, their white heritage of the twenty-first century now use their freedom of expression in the most vial, abominable way. But sadly, unless we want other freedoms to be lost, noose hanging is a symbol that will forever remind us that the archaic, hateful values of our past still corrupt our future.

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