The Noose That Reminded of Private Sector Frontier Justice is Being Removed

The Placerville, California city council on Tuesday voted unanimously to remove the image of the noose that is part of its logo.

You can guess the context. To some residents, the noose carries racial undertones and a representative of the greater Sacramento NAACP urged residents to be inclusive and remove the image.

But the noose never referenced black hangings.

According to a 2008 version of the El Dorado Visitors Guide, it was all about the California gold rush.

Placerville was originally a gold camp that sprang up along a canyon creek. It was first known as Dry Diggins and later became known as Hangtown Creek.

The guide reports:

Robberies and murders were prevalent for a time, and with no organized justice system the citizens were compelled to deal out their own justice. When men were suspected of a crime, the townspeople would convene and try the case. Dry Diggins was nicknamed “Hangtown” after several men were hung from an oak tree. The stump of the oak tree is still under the floor of the present saloon, the Hangman’s Tree.

By the summer of 1849, tens of thousands of people flooded every canyon and ravine in the area as part of the gold rush. Historians estimate the population swelled to 200,000 people.

In 1854, hangings being a thing of the past, the town of Hangtown Creek changed its name to Placerville. The noose in the logo was simply a reminder of its history as well as the words "Old Hangtown" on the logo.

It was all a reminder of frontier justice that is all.

Indeed, black lynchings, mostly in the south, didn't start taking place until 30 years later, around 1882.

The NAACP explains:

Throughout the late 19th century racial tension grew throughout the United States.  More of this tension was noticeable in the Southern parts of the United States.  In the south, people were blaming their financial problems on the newly freed slaves that lived around them.  Lynchings were becoming a popular way of resolving some of the anger that whites had in relation to the free blacks.

From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States.  Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black. ...

Most of the lynchings that took place happened in the South.  A big reason for this was the end of the Civil War.  Once black were given their freedom, many people felt that the freed blacks were getting away with too much freedom and felt they needed to be controlled.  Mississippi had the highest lynchings from 1882-1968 with 581.  Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493...

Of the lynching that did not take place in the South, mainly in the West, were normally lynchings of whites, not blacks.  Most of the lynching in the West came from the lynching of either murders or cattle thief’s.  There really was no political link to the lynching of blacks in the South, and whites in the West.

And so another bit of history is removed, even though it has no connection to blacks at all.

The truth of the matter is that the BLM and woke crowds are miserably ignorant of history. If they understood history, they would recognize other real big fat evil anti-black targets very close by.

In fact, I wonder if they can read, while complaining about the noose they didn't complain about "Old Hangtown" that is printed on the logo.

 -RW