Twisting in the wind

LA GRANGE - Drivers heading east on U.S. 70 got an unwelcome sight Thursday after crossing into Lenoir County: a straw dummy hanging from a billboard, as if it had been lynched.

The dummy was dressed in a jacket, jeans and shoes and was dangling by a length of wire - it was attached to the back of the jacket by a hook - from a billboard that advertised a coastal marina on one side and truck services on the other.

Area resident Carolyn S. Edwards contacted The Free Press on Thursday morning after her husband, who drives a truck along U.S. 70 each day, spotted the dummy hanging from the billboard.

She drove out to the site and took pictures of the dummy, which was blowing back and forth in the wind.

"It's just hurtful that we're living in this decade and this time and somebody uses that method of communicating," Edwards said. "It's just devastating."

Edwards, who is black and grew up near where the dummy was found, wasn't sure if any of her ancestors had been lynched during the eras of slavery and segregation.

"I had some that were beaten, though," she said.

Nothing could be seen on the dummy that indicated it was meant to intimidate blacks. Controversies have erupted in recent years after nooses were found hanging in areas where black high school students congregate in Louisiana and elsewhere.

Racist graffiti calling for the lynching of President-elect Barack Obama was also recently sprayed on a wall at N.C. State University.

Lenoir County Sheriff W.E. "Billy" Smith said hanging the dummy could not be considered a criminal act if it was not intended to harass any individual or group of people.

"I didn't see anything that would indicate targeting of any particular group," he said.

The sheriff said he contacted the billboard's owner about the dummy. If caught, those who hung the dummy could be charged with trespassing on the billboard owner's property.

The dummy elicited outrage across racial lines. A white woman driving by Wednesday pulled off on the shoulder, got out of her car and asked: "Is this for real?"

Two white men who were working on billboards across the highway, Floyd Parker and Jimmy Manning of Rocky Mount, were also offended.

"It freaked me out," Parker said. "I thought, ‘doggone, someone's jumped off the sign and hung himself.' "

He added: "Whoever did it, they need a swift kick in the butt; that's not funny."

David Anderson can be reached at (252) 559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.