Lynching
is a form of
murder
. It is normally by
hanging
. Lynching is often by a group of people as a form of
punishment
. In the
United States
, lynchings happened more often after the
American Civil War
in the early-to-mid 1860s.
[1]
Although the number of lynchings went down in the 1920s, they have continued into the 21st century.
[2]
Most, but not all, lynchings were of
African American
men in the
South
. Ninety-two women were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1927. The lynchings of black people by white people happened in the
Midwest
and
border states
. There were also lynchings of
Native Americans
,
Hispanics
and
Asian Americans
in the
West
.
[3]
White people
were also lynched but these lynchings were less common.
According to the
Tuskegee Institute
, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the United States. This includes 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 whites. More than 73 percent of lynchings after the
Civil War
happened in the Southern states.
[4]
According to the
Equal Justice Initiative
, 4,084 African-Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1950 in the South.
[5]
Whites lynched blacks to defend
white supremacy
. Blacks were lynched for violating social norms, including
segregation
(the separation of whites and blacks), and the lower status of blacks. White acted together to lynch an individual black person.
[6]
In the Deep South, lynching was also used to scare blacks away from
voting
.
[7]
After the Civil War, nearly four million
slaves
in the South were made free. In some
states
and many
counties
, freed blacks made up over half the people who lived there. The first
Ku Klux Klan
was founded in 1866 by
Confederate
veterans
in
Tennessee
. Ku Klux Klan groups were then founded by veterans throughout the South. They wanted to keep African Americans in fear, as they were before the war. This was when lynchings became common. In the 1890s, African American
journalist
and anti-lynching fighter
Ida B. Wells
was one of the first people to study lynching cases. She found that black lynching victims were accused of
rape
or attempted rape about one-third of the time. The most common accusation was
murder
or attempted murder. Other accusations were verbal and physical
aggression
, competitive businesses and independent thinking.
[8]
In 1940,
sociologist
Arthur F. Raper
investigated one hundred lynchings after 1929. He said that about one-third of the victims were falsely accused.
[9]
The
stereotype
of lynching is
hanging
. Hangings are what crowds of people saw. Hanging is also easy to
photograph
.
[10]
There are other forms of lynching. They include being
shot
repeatedly, being burned, dragged behind
cars
and being forced to jump from a
bridge
.
[11]
In the late-1800s to early-1900s South, photographs were taken at lynchings. These were used in
postcards
and
newspapers
.
[12]
These images usually showed an African-American lynching victim and all or part of the crowd that attended. Women and children often watched lynchings. The people who killed the victim were not identified.
[13]
At one lynching, nearly 15,000 people were in the crowd.
[12]
Often lynchings were
advertised
in newspapers before the event so photographers could be there.
[14]
After the lynching, photographers would sell their pictures as-is or as postcards. They could cost as much as fifty cents each, or $9, as of 2016.
[13]
Lynching demographics (worst years for lynchings in the United States)
[
change
|
change source
]
Year
|
White Victim
|
Black Victim
|
Total Victims
|
1892
|
69
|
161
|
230
|
1884
|
160
|
51
|
211
|
1894
|
58
|
134
|
192
|
1885
|
110
|
74
|
184
|
1891
|
71
|
113
|
184
|
1895
|
66
|
113
|
179
|
1889
|
76
|
94
|
170
|
1897
|
35
|
123
|
158
|
1893
|
34
|
118
|
152
|
1886
|
64
|
74
|
138
|
- ↑
Civil War Legacy Lynchings accounts and pictures
- ↑
DeNeen L. Brown (2021-08-08).
"
'Lynchings in Mississippi never stopped'
"
.
The Washington Post
.
- ↑
Lynching in the West
. The Duke University Press
. Retrieved
October 19,
2018
.
- ↑
"Lynching, Whites and Negroes, 1882 ? 1968"
(PDF)
. Tuskegee University. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on March 13, 2016.
- ↑
Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
(Report) (3rd ed.). Montgomery, Alabama:
Equal Justice Initiative
. 2017. Archived from
the original
on 2018-05-10.
- ↑
Smangs, Mattias (2016). "Doing Violence, Making Race: Southern Lynching and White Racial Group Formation".
American Journal of Sociology
.
121
(5): 1329?1374.
doi
:
10.1086/684438
.
PMID
27092388
.
S2CID
10753622
.
- ↑
White, Paul; Strickler, Ryan; Witko, Christopher; Epperly, Brad (2019). "Rule by Violence, Rule by Law: Lynching, Jim Crow, and the Continuing Evolution of Voter Suppression in the U.S.".
Perspectives on Politics
.
18
(3): 756?769.
doi
:
10.1017/S1537592718003584
.
S2CID
225243828
.
- ↑
Ifill, Sherrilyn A. (2007).
On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century
. Boston: Beacon.
- ↑
Myrdal, Gunnar (1944).
An American Dilemma
. New York: Harper. p.
561
.
- ↑
"Legacy of Lynching"
. PBS
. Retrieved
October 19,
2018
.
- ↑
An Obsessive Quest
(Report). Archived from
the original
on March 18, 2017
. Retrieved
October 19,
2018
.
- ↑
12.0
12.1
Ifill, Sherrilyn A. (2007).
On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century
. Boston: Beacon.
- ↑
13.0
13.1
Goff, Jennie (2011).
Blood at the Root Lynching as American Cultural Nucleus
. Albany: State U of New York.
- ↑
Kim, Linda (2012). "A Law of Unintended Consequences: United States Postal Censorship of Lynching Photographs".
Visual Resources
.
28
(2): 171?193.
doi
:
10.1080/01973762.2012.678812
.
S2CID
159670864
.
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