Hanging death of a black man

The last confirmed lynching of a black man in this country occurred more than two decades ago.

That fact points to marked maturation of a society where, for better than half a century, the barbaric act was commonplace, especially in the Deep South. America's civil-rights leadership apparently refuses to acknowledge this fundamental progress.

Every time a young black man is found hanged, civil-rights leaders are quick to blame a white lynch mob -- even when all evidence points toward suicide. ...

Now comes another national frenzy over the hanging death of 32-year-old Feraris Ray Golden in Belle Glade, Fla., where a judge -- after a rare public inquest -- ruled logically that Golden killed himself.

Civil-rights leaders refused to accept the ruling, demanding an investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. ...

America has a long ways to go toward achieving the goal of total racial equality, but King, Jackson and others do the cause a disservice with their wacky conspiracy theories and insistence beyond logic that every hanged black man is a victim of white hatred.

-- The Clarksdale Press Register, Clarksdale, Mississippi