When he reached his third-story workstation at a construction site near Pittsburgh two weeks ago, Errol Madyun saw the noose – strong enough to hang a man.
“It was intimidating,” said Madyun, a black ironworker.
More than 400 miles south in North Carolina, Terry Grier, superintendent of Guilford County schools, saw the same type of noose last month at predominantly black T.W. Andrews High near Greensboro.
Law enforcement authorities, including the Justice Department, are expressing concern over a recent spate of noose sightings that have occurred in the aftermath of events in Jena, the small Louisiana lumber town that has been engulfed by racial strife and was the scene of a recent civil rights demonstration.
Nooses have been looped over a tree at the University of Maryland, knotted to the end of stage ropes at a suburban Memphis theater, slung on the doorknob of a black professor’s office at Columbia University in New York and draped around the neck of a black Barbie doll in a Pittsburgh suburb.
Last week, the Justice Department called the placing of nooses “shameful” and deplored the sense of fear and intimidation they are meant to convey.
“Many of these cowardly actions may also violate federal and state civil rights and hate crime laws,” acting Attorney General Petre Keisler said. “The offenders should be aware, and the American people can trust, that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation … are actively investigating these incidents.”
