Washington (CNN) At a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, Donald Trump, the Republican nominee states: "Our African American communities are absolutely in the worst shape they've ever been in before. Ever, ever, ever."

The statement is so patently absurd, fact-checking it seems kind of silly.

But rather than just give the general response of "What about slavery?" or "How about segregation?" or "How about when black people couldn't vote?" a couple of empirical data points and a bit of history provide just a few examples of how wrong the statement is.

The famous and horrifying image of the killing of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana, in 1930.

Consider:

- A number of black men have been shot and killed by police officers in recent years. That is tragic. But between 1882 and 1931, there were 3,318 black people lynched. That's, on average, more than 1 black person strung up without a trial every week during a 50-year-period.

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