LYNCHING

LYNCHING. Defined as an act of violence perpetrated for the purpose of punishment (usually torture and death) for an alleged crime carried out by an extralegal mob, lynching has a long history in the United States. Historians have traced its roots to seventeenth-century Ireland; the American Revolutionary War Colonel Charles Lynch, from whose name the term derives, was said to have indiscriminately meted out the punishment of flogging for Tory sympathizers. Lynch law, or mobrule, became part of the fabric of the United States; lynchings took place in every geographic section of the nation, and victims included African Americans, immigrants, and native-born whites. Alleged crimes varied, but most lynchings involved a perceived transgression of community values or a violation of societal honor codes.

During the antebellum period, lynch mobs across the country preyed upon individuals and groups deemed dangerous because they were political, religious, or racial "others." Abolitionists, Catholics, Mormons, Asian, Mexican, and European immigrants and African Americans all were targets. The pattern of mob violence and lynching changed after the Civil War. During the five decades between the end of Reconstruction and the New Deal, there were three specific transformations in the character of American lynching: increased numbers over all; increased likelihood that African Americans would fall victim to lynch mobs; and a concentration of lynchings in the South, particularly after 1886. The Tuskegee Institute started recording statistics on lynchings in 1882 (later, the Chicago Tribune and the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE [NAACP] also collected statistics). The first decade of those statistical findings best illustrates the transformation of lynching patterns. In 1882, 113 people were lynched, sixty-four whites and forty-nine African Americans. The year 1885 was the last during which more whites than African Americans were lynched, and 1892 witnessed the largest number of lynchings in U.S. history (230). From 1882 to 1903, there were approximately one to two hundred lynchings annually. Between 1882 and 1968, there were 4,742 recorded lynchings (3,445 of the victims were African American, or approximately seventy-five percent). During World War I

and the postwar red scare, race riots swept the country, wreaking havoc in Chicago, St. Louis, Tulsa, Omaha, Washington, D.C., and other cities. Lynchings decreased dramatically during the New Deal era, and the period between 1952 and 1954 was the longest during which no lynchings were recorded. But lynch mobs did not disappear completely. As civil rights workers stepped up their campaigns for desegregation and voting rights, they were beaten, killed, and tortured. Although some argue that race relations have improved, the tragedy of American lynching has not been completely eradicated. The dragging death of James Byrd, in Texas, and the beating and crucifixion murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming have been called late twentieth-century lynchings.

There was, however, clearly a decline in lynching during the twentieth century, and this was a result of long and hard-fought battles of anti-lynching crusaders. In 1892, after three prominent Memphis businessmen were lynched, Ida B. Wells, the renowned journalist, began speaking out about the violence. She used Memphis newspaper, the Free Speech, to spread her outrage. She was soon joined by other prominent individuals and organizations. The founders of the NAACP in 1909 cited lynching as key to its formation and agenda. The organization was joined by the ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN WOMEN FOR THE PREVENTION OF LYNCHING in the 1930s. Wells's research did the most to destroy the myths about the causes of lynching, though it took decades for her findings to permeate mainstream American consciousness. In her pamphlet, "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases," Wells argued that the majority of alleged rape charges were not only impossible to prove—that sexual liaisons between many black men and white women might have been consensual—but that rape was not even cited by mobs as the cause of lynching. Retribution for alleged homicide and assault were the most common reasons for the formation of lynch mobs. Legislation was a key goal of those who fought to punish the violence. Although many had tried to use the Fourteenth Amendment to prosecute lynchers, most efforts failed. In 1922, the House of Representatives passed the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which had been sponsored by the NAACP. The bill died in the Senate, however, thanks to a filibuster by southern senators. Similar tactics were used to kill bills in 1937 and 1940. President Truman's Committee on Civil Rights recommended anti-lynching legislation but was ignored by Congress. Finally, in 1968, under the Civil Rights Act, the federal government could take action against mob violence and lynching.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. Lynchings in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880–1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

Raper, Arthur F. The Tragedy of Lynching. New York: Dover, 1970.

Schechter, Patricia A. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880–1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

White, Walter. Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.

Williamson, Joel. The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations n the American South since Emancipation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Caroline Waldron Merithew

See also Civil Rights Act of 1964; Civil Rights and Liberties; Civil Rights Movement.