Blog #3

"The Lynching of Jube Benson" by Paul Laurence Dunbar is the story of a man named Jube Benson who is lynched after being accused of a crime he did not commit. Jube Benson was accused of raping seventeen year old Annie, the daughter of the man he worked for. When Annie was found, battered and helpless, she was asked who had beat and raped her. Her last words before her dying breath were "That Black---". Under the assumption that Jube fled from the scene, the crowd of worried neighbors automatically pinned him to this crime. In actuality Jube had simply gone out to see his lady Lucy. The infuriated crowd went off in search of Jube and found him while as he was making his way back to his boss's house. The group lynched Jube even after he pleaded his innocence with them. Right as Jube died, hanging, the man who commited the crime was found hiding in the barn. He was a white man named - "the worst white ruffian in the town". He was described by Annie as "The Black---" because he had blackened his face with dirt to imitate the complexion of a "Negro". Jube was lynched simply because of the color of his skin and Annie's vague description of her abusers complexion. Jube though innocent lost his life due to racism and false accusation.

"The Lynching of Jube Benson" by Paul Laurence Dunbar is comparable to his novel "Sport of the Gods". In "Sport of the Gods" Berry Hamilton, an emancipated black man is wrongly accused of stealing a large money from the Oakley residence in which he works as a butler. The money is actually misplaced by Francis Oakley, who was careless with the money and the key to the safe in which the large sum was in. Berry Hamilton was found guilty of theft and is sentenced to ten years of hard labor. Berry, similar to Jube, is falsely accused due to racism. He has ten years of his life taken from him for a crime he did not commit. 

There are many differences in these stories simply because of the length of each story. "The lynching of Jube Benson" is intense because of the crime and murder that occurs in such a short story. "Sport of the Gods" is a longer in length being that it is a novel, but it is still an intense story based on the hardships and realities faced when dealing with race related crimes such as the imprisonment of Berry Hamilton, who is not guilty of theft.

I would have guessed that these stories were written by the same author because of their similarity in themes. The main themes are racism, false accusations, and crime.