Chapter 1: “Nobody Knows de Trouble I See:” | The Cross and the Lynching Tree

Lyrical Assembly

This past week, we began reading the Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone together, and began unpacking what this books mean as creatives who make art.

In case you missed Reads for the Resistance, here's a Chapter 1 Review and Chapter 2 Preview to prepare you for the upcoming reading tomorrow.

We need a theology that sustains our communities, uplifts the marginalized, and preaches a gospel of love and justice. This book club is created for people who are interested in decolonizing their faith, and learning about a Jesus that stands with the oppressed.

Reviewed by Lacy Nguyen and Kirk Davis.

“The cross is a paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last.” (Pg. 2)

“The fear of lynching was so deep and widespread that most blacks were too scared to talk publicly about it.” (Pg. 15)

“If the blues offered an affirmation of humanity, religion offered a way for black people to find hope.” (Pg. 18)

“The final word about black life is not death on a lynching tree but redemption in the cross — a miraculously transformed life found in the God of the gallows.” (Pg. 23)

Chapter 1 Summary:

Cone begins his first chapter by observing that there are several parallels between the cross of Jesus and the lynching tree terror that stretched between 1880 and 1940, mostly in the Southern States. Both cross and lynching tree are wooden upright structures used to hang victims. Both are forms of spectacle torture designed to shame victims publicly. Both were used to reinforce social dominance by one group or cultural standard. And both have had an impact on Black Americans, especially those living under the terror of being lynched.

Douglas Decelle