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William Lynch Speech
The William (or Willie) Lynch Speech (or Letter) is a text of modern origin which drew widespread attention when it circulated throughout the Internet during the 1990s. It purports to be an address given by William Lynch to an audience on the bank of the James River in Virginia in 1712 regarding control of slaves within the colony.[1][2][3] The speaker, William Lynch, is said to have been a slaveowner in the West Indies, summoned to Virginia in 1712; in part due to several slave revolts in the area prior to his visit, and his alleged reputation of being an authoritarian and strict slaveowner.[1][2][3] No provenance for the speech has ever been supplied, and 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, historians such as William Jelani Cobb of Spelman College consider the Willie Lynch speech to be an internet hoax.[4]
Louis Farrakhan, in his open letter regarding the Millions More Movement, cites Willie Lynch's alleged scheme as an obstacle to unity among African Americans.[5]
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