The Public Lynching of Earl Smith, America’s Legacy Of Nooses and Denial

June 11, 2025: Earl Smith, a 58-year-old black man, was found hanging in a tree in Albany, New York. His death was quickly ruled as a suicide by the police, but his family and community are concerned that there was foul play. Smith was found hanging by a rope in a tree in a public park, many believe that the circumstances of his death point to a lynching.

Smith was baptized merely days before his death. His friends and family describe him as a devoted father and grandfather, and he had no criminal history.

In September of 2024, Javion Magee, a 21-year-old black man from Illinois, was found dead against a tree in Henderson, North Carolina. He had a rope around his neck, but it was ruled a suicide as well. Magee’s family says that he had never had suicidal ideation, and suspected foul play.

Lynchings are racially motivated extra-judicial killings, often by hanging. They are most commonly associated with “sundown towns” of the United States; towns that are historically all-white and enforce exclusion of black people through violence and intimidation, so that all non-whites will be gone by sundown.

These killings are conducted by white mobs, and they killed people as a spectacle for the rest of the town to witness. Lynchings were common in the 1800s and 1900s, but they have continued, and they are not confined to the American South.

In 2020 there were two lynchings in California, there names were Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch. Also in 2020, Dominique Alexander was lynched in New York City, and just a few weeks later, Amani Kildea was lynched in New Jersey. Just after that, Vauhxx Booker was nearly lynched in Indiana, but he survived.

Many have called the police complicit in these cases by quickly calling them suicides without investigating much further.

Racism is rooted deeply in American culture, it is at the core of the very foundation of the country, and it has not died. White supremacy lurks behind the scenes, and their communities are coming out of the woodwork.