To see if my view of the world is odd I Googled hanging and found the top hits are a child that hanged himself in his bedroom presumably due to bullying, which seems to be a weekly occurrence in the UK sadly. Hanging of 5 homosexuals in Iran. Hanging of prisoners found guilty at Nuremberg trials. Various other references but nothing about racism.
Looking at the wiki I found this rather gruesome and interesting snippet about being hung upside down between 2 dogs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging#Inverted_hanging.2C_the_.22Jewish.22_punishment
I'm glad I didn't live in those days, check this out: the appeal to the empress was successful, and out of mercy, the Jew was condemned to be merely pinched with glowing pincers, have hot lead dripped into his wounds, and then be broken alive on the wheel.