• Empty chair 'lynchings': Anti-Obama protests gone too far?

    Courtesy of Burnt Orange Report

    A folding chair and an American flag hang from a tree in front of a home in northwest Austin, Texas.

    By James Eng, NBC News

    At least two recent incidents in which empty chairs were hung from trees by rope have critics decrying what they say are racially offensive displays meant to symbolize the “lynching” of President Barack Obama.


    In Austin, Texas, a homeowner hung an empty folding chair from a tree branch in front of his house and later attached an American flag to it. He reportedly told a Democratic political blogger who said she had concerns, “You can take it and go straight to hell and take Obama with you.”

    In Centreville, Va., an empty chair with a sign reading “Nobama” was strung from a tree in or near a park. “In short, this appears to be a crude metaphor for the lynching of President Obama,” wrote the blogger who posted the photo.

    The image of an empty chair has been associated with Obama ever since Clint Eastwood’s headline-grabbing, non-conformist speech at the Republican National Convention three weeks ago in Tampa, Fla. The 82-year-old actor-director talked to an empty chair as if the Democratic president were sitting in it, criticizing and mocking the “invisible Obama” for 12 minutes.

    “When somebody doesn't do the job, you've got to let them go," Eastwood said before making a throat-slashing gesture.

    Hollywood star Clint Eastwood speaks at the RNC in Tampa, Fla.

    In Austin, Katherine Haenschen, editor of Burnt Orange Report, a Texas liberal-leaning political blog, said someone forwarded her a photo this week of an empty folding chair hanging from a tree in front of a home in the city’s northwest. A few days later the homeowner apparently added a small American flag to the display, according to a picture taken by a neighbor and forwarded to Haenschen on Thursday. [Picture above].

    Haenschen said she called the man who she said lives in the home with his wife on Wednesday night to express her concerns about the display.  Here’s what she said he told her: 

    “He replied, and I quote, "I don't really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not. You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you. I don't give a [expletive]. If you don't like it, don't come down my street."

    NBC News tried reaching out to the man for comment, but a telephone message left Thursday morning was not returned.

    Haenschen said the display has apparently caused “great consternation” in the neighborhood.

    “There are other neighbors up there who are Republicans who find this as offensive as anybody else does,” Haenschen told NBC News.

    “Someone always wants to say, 'you’re making a big deal out of it, it’s just a chair.' But I don’t see how you can dismiss the racial message of lynching a symbol of the first African-American president. It’s really tough for me to see how folks might, after the Eastwood speech, not view this as a racially charged message and a symbol of a threat to the president’s life.”

    Rosemary Edwards, chairwoman of the Travis County Republican Party in Austin, said she was not aware of the display. She said if anything racial is suggested by the display, it would be "deplorable."

    In Virginia, a photo posted on Tuesday on Blue Virginia, a Democratic-leaning political blog, shows an empty chair with a handmade "Nobama" sign strung from a tree by a rope.

    Courtesy of Blue Virginia

    A chair with an anti-Obama slogan hangs from a tree in Centreville, Va.

    The blogger, who goes by the username “lowkell,” said photos of the display were taken with a cellphone by someone who was leaving the KORUS festival, an annual gathering organized by a local Korean-American association, at Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville over the weekend.

    “Obviously, it's beyond grotesque (it also boggles my mind that this was allowed to be put up, let alone to stay up, at a festival presumably visited by thousands of people - wtf?),” lowkell wrote.

    Lowkell told NBC News the photo was forwarded to him by a source who "wants to remain anonymous."

    The display was on private property neighboring the park, a park official told the Centreville Patch. The park is about eight miles from Centreville High School, where Obama appeared at a campaign rally in July. It was not known who put up the display.

    The Secret Service said it was looking into the empty chair incidents. "The Secret Service is aware of this and will conduct appropriate followup," spokesman Brian Leary told NBC News.

    Lynching, the killing of people, usually by hanging or shooting, by mobs who take the law into their own hands, occurred most frequently in the U.S. from the late 1800s through the 1950s. Most of the lynchings took place in the South, and most of the victims were black.

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  • Black pastor uses lynching photo to help get out the vote

    A roadside sign in Indianapolis shows the 1930 lynching of two black men. The Greater St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church is using the sign to encourage nearby residents to vote.

    By Andrew Mach, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A pastor in Indiana has put up a sign that uses a historical image of the 1930 lynching of two black teenagers in an effort to recharge the black vote.


    Rev. Joy Thornton, the senior pastor of Greater St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in Indianapolis, said he’s concerned that African-Americans have grown complacent about voting, and he wants to urge people to exercise the right he says was hard won, the Associated Press reported.

    The sign, which has stood for nearly a week along the street in front of the church, shows, on one side, a white mob gathered around the teens to watch the lynching in Marion, Ind. Atop the photo is the word “VOTE!!!” Beneath it is the question: “Is this a reason to vote?” The other side of the sign shows an image of slaves in chains, with wording beneath it that reads, “Lest we forget.”

    “[The sign] is to let people know there’s been a price paid for the privilege of voting,” Thornton, a black pastor of what he describes as a multiracial congregation, told Indianapolis' WISH TV. “Oftentimes people get complacent and don’t realize that people made a sacrifice, matter of fact, the ultimate sacrifice for such a privilege.”

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    But not all like to be reminded of one of the most painful chapters in the state’s history.  

    Ronnie Judd, who was delivering medical supplies in the neighborhood when he saw the sign last week, said he found the sign embarrassing. Judd is white, and said he interpreted the photo to mean that if blacks don’t vote for President Obama in November, the days of lynching will return.

    “We have come too far to go back to those ways,” Judd told the AP.

    Mary Bishop, who works across the street from the church, said she doesn’t agree with the sign.

    “It’s not a good example for him to have it like that,” Bishop told WISH TV. “He meant well, but he went about it in the wrong way.”

    Thornton said the sign isn’t meant to sway voters to vote for any particular party, but rather to urge participation in November's presidential election. He said he believes some black voters have grown complacent because of President Obama's stance on same-sex marriage. 

    “Regardless of who you vote for, you need to exercise your privilege, which is voting,” Thornton said.

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    Joyce Hise, who also works across the street from the church, said she didn’t have a problem with the sign.

    “It was just kind of a little shocker,” Hise told WISH TV. “It made me stop to think. So many people don’t know, and they don’t realize this was part of our history, and it is a reason to vote.”

    Joe Slash, president of the Indianapolis Urban League, told WISH TV that he agrees with the need to urge people to vote, but he doesn’t agree with the photos used for the sign.

    Thornton, however, defended the shock value of the sign.

    “I don’t think it is as harsh as the fact that when we talk about African-Americans being murdered and killed at an alarming rate,” Thornton said. “It’s not as harsh as the fact we make up about 12 percent of the population and about 90 percent of the incarceration. It is not as harsh as the drugs that we are being exploited within our communities.”

    Thornton, who said he’s received two complaints about the sign since it was put up, has no plans to take it down “until the Lord says so.”

    Watch WISH-TV’s full report.

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  • Prosecutors aim new weapon at Occupy activists: lynching allegation

    http://youtu.be/8UAj4Ohsce4

    Screen grab from youtube video showing the arrest of Occupy LA activist Sergio Ballesteros on Thursday, Jan. 12. Ballesteros, 30, was released on $50,000 bail early Tuesday. He is charged with "lynching"--a felony charge originally drafted to deal with vigilante mobs.

    By Kari Huus, NBC News

    Sergio Ballesteros, 30, has been involved in Occupy LA since the movement had its California launch in October. But this week, his activism took an abrupt turn when he was arrested on a felony charge — lynching.

    Under the California penal code, lynching is “taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer," where "riot" is defined as two or more people threatening violence or disturbing the peace. The original purpose of the legal code section 405(a) was to protect defendants in police custody from vigilante mobs — especially black defendants from racist groups.

     Whether the police allegation in this case will be pursued by by California’s courts is uncertain. But the felony charge — which carries a potential four-year prison sentence — is the kind of accusation that can change the landscape for would-be demonstrators.

    "Felonies really heighten the stakes for the protesters," said Baher Azmy, legal director at Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. "I think in situations where there are mass demonstrations and a confrontation between protesters and police, one always has to be on the lookout for exaggerated interpretations of legal rules that attempt to punish or squelch the protesters."

    Ballesteros, a teacher-turned-social-activist, was one of two people arrested during an "art walk" in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday. He and other Occupy LA activists — maybe 200, he said — had joined the procession to bring their message about social injustice to the thousands of gallery-goers.

    Adam Alders, a protester who was playing a drum was arrested after stepping off the curb into the street. Ballesteros said that in doing so, the drummer was joining hundreds of other people who could not fit on the crowded sidewalk.

    Ballesteros said he was across the street when he saw the arrest — which he said looked excessively rough -- and it was “startling.” Under legal advice, Ballesteros is not providing additional detail, but apparently he objected — in some fashion — to the arrest. A video of the crowded scene posted on YouTube shows Ballesteros on the ground, being handcuffed.

    The police report says officers called for backup when Ballesteros pulled Alders out into the crowd, which was "hostile."

    A video of the event shows the crowd chanting "let him go!"

    He was booked into jail on a felony charge, the Los Angeles Police department confirmed, and released on $50,000 bail early Tuesday morning.

    'I can't go out and express myself'
    Ballesteros is not the first protester to face this 1933 California law.

    Occupy Oakland activist Tiffany Tran, 23, was arrested Dec. 30 and charged with "lynching." At an arraignment four days later,  prosecutors opted not to file the charges, the San Francisco Bay Guardian reported. They could change their decision until the one-year statute of limitations expires.

    "Now I feel I can’t go out and express myself as I should be able to," Tran told the paper.

    In the handful of protest cases in which lynching has been used as a charge in the past, it later has been dropped. However, in one case, a court concluded that “lynching” could include “a person who takes part in a riot leading to his escape from custody."

    Many states have laws against lynching — largely drafted to prevent white supremacists and other vigilante groups from using violence against African Americans and white people who supported them. Hundreds of lynchings of this sort took place in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s.

    Ballesteros' lawyer said use of this law was perhaps less appealing to the District Attorney than to the police.

    Ballesteros is an activist outside the Occupy movement -- building homes through Habitat for Humanity during his spring breaks, aiding at a children's camp for the poorest kids in the Appalachians during the summer, and acting as mentor for disadvantaged kids in the Los Angeles area.

    "Whether the District Attorney has the stomach to charge this model young man with a felony is questionable," saidd Mieke ter Poorten, an LA criminal defense attorney who is handling this case pro bono.

    Trying to silence?
    Ballesteros, who spoke to msnbc.com on Tuesday, said that he does not believe he will be convicted of lynching.

    “They don’t have much,” he said of the case against him.

    He also faces a misdemeanor charge for his arrest Nov. 30, when he was among more than 200 people who defied eviction from an encampment on the grounds of Los Angeles' City Hall. There was an arraignment for protesters arrested that day, but they were told no charges yet had been filed.

    “They have a year to do so,” said Ballesteros. "Now they certainly will. It’s obvious. It’s all political.”

    Ballesteros took part in a live video forum between Occupy movement activists and Tea Party activists just a day before his arrest. Click here to hear the discussion.

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