The text of the speech appeared on the internet as early as 1993, when a reference librarian at the University of Missouri–St. Louis posted the document on the library's [(protocol)|Gopher server]. The librarian later revealed that she had obtained the document from the publisher of a local newspaper, The St. Louis Black Pages, in which the narrative had recently appeared. The librarian elected to leave the document on the Gopher server, as she believed that "even as an inauthentic document, it says something about the former and current state of African America," but added a warning about the provenance of the document.
The text contains numerous anachronisms ("self-refueling", for example, since the word "refueling" dates only to the early twentieth century, or "fool proof", a word not attested until the early twentieth century). For these reasons, along with others, historian William Jelani Cobb of Spelman College believes that the Willie Lynch speech is an internet hoax.
Popular references
Louis Farrakhan, in his open letter regarding the Millions More Movement, cites Willie Lynch's scheme as an obstacle to unity among African Americans.
In the 2005 direct-to-video film Animal, the Speech is used as a plot device to bring together the two main characters, and passed on from Father to Son to Grandson.
In the 2007 movie The Great Debaters, Denzel Washington's character Melvin B. Tolson refers to the Willie Lynch speech as being the definition of the black slave.
The Willie Lynch speech continues to appear in popular culture, with articles, books, and videos being produced purporting to teach people to deprogram themselves and "turn off your Willie Lynch Chip".
On the hip-hop group Black Star's 1998 self-titled album (lyrics by Mos Def and Talib Kweli), the song "RE-DEFinition" contains a lyric referring to the speech: "...'How to Make a Slave' by Willie Lynch is still applyin'...".
The spoken-word artist Taalam Acey makes reference to William Lynch in his "Market for Niggas", which contains the sentence: "I guarantee everybody right now a thousand dollars your record will sell as long as it sounds like Willie Lynch wrote it."
William Lynch
Some attribute the terms "lynching" and "Lynch law" to William Lynch's name. However, the etymological Captain William Lynch was born in 1742, thirty years after the alleged delivery of this speech. A document published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1836 that proposed William Lynch as the originator of "lynch law" may have been a hoax perpetrated by Edgar Allan Poe. A better documented early use of the term "lynch law" comes from Charles Lynch, a Virginia justice of the peace and militia officer during the American Revolution.References
See also
External links
- The Slave Consultant's Narrative: The life of an Urban Myth?. . (The first traceable online publisher)
- Willie Lynch dispute
- Examination of text's inaccuracies by William Jelani Cobb
- Death of Willie Lynch Speech (Part I) by Prof. Manu Ampim
- Full speech of Willie Lynch (the making of a slave)
- Movie "Animal" on IMDB, which prominently refers to the speech
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Last updated on Saturday October 11, 2008 at 09:38:08 PDT (GMT -0700)
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