5 ms·

We shouldn't limit ourselves to just the South. Lynching was prevalent nationwide. Though the vast majority of lynchings happened in the South, it is worth no

We shouldn't limit ourselves to just the South. Lynching was prevalent nationwide. Though the vast majority of lynchings happened in the South, it is worth noting that the practice "spilled over" into other areas of the country. Unfortunately, any American in the early twentieth century could have partaken. http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64pct8rc9780252037467.html http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64pct8rc9780252... http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/01/08/lynching_map_tuskegee_institute_s_data_on_lynching_from_1900_1931.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/01/08/lynching_map...

maxerickson 12y ago
17 of the states on the slate chart have 0 or 1 lynching listed (I think 1 incident does not indicate prevalence). The mob violence outside the south was also less racially directed: https://books.google.com/books?id=CR0TMCIfE14C&lpg=PA154&ots=SznqZP7aFg&dq=lynching%20by%20states%20and%20race%201959%20paper&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=lynching%20by%20states%20and%20race%201959%20paper&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=CR0TMCIfE14C&lpg=PA154&ots...
- Shivetya 12y ago
  do note they purposefully excluded any death where they could not find three perpetrators. Really curious why two on one is not included, that would seem a more likely occurrence.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    I think it just comes down to trying somehow to separate it from murder. Tacit acceptance of murders isn't a whole lot better than mob violence, but it is interesting to try to examine them separately. The accounts of some lynchings are simply barbaric, large crowds dismembering and beating the victims, then burning them, all of it sort of in a picnic atmosphere. Even announcements of the coming lynching in the newspaper. That's a really different thing than 2 people conspiring to hang someone (and still really different than 3 people doing it, but I guess a clear line simplifies the compilation).
  - eastbayjake 12y ago
    I think their methodology didn't count the infamous Emmett Till lynching, which was two white men acting alone (but sanctioned by 12 white jurors refusing to convict them): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      Page 87 of this dissertation indicates that they did classify Emmett Till's murder as a lynching: http://www.africanafrican.com/folder12/african%20african%20american3/Atlantic%20slave%20trade/Flournoy_dis.pdf http://www.africanafrican.com/folder12/african%20african%20a... The text supported by citation 22. (I've been poking around for a copy of the Tuskegee Institute 1959 report and had seen that before I read your comment, I'm not angrily trying to refute you or anything like that. Finding a copy of 100 Years of Lynching looks like the easiest way to see the report.)
      - eastbayjake 12y ago
        I know the Tuskegee Institute (as well as the NAACP) classified Till's murder as a lynching, but the Equal Justice Initiative's methodology required that three or more people participate in the lynching, which would disqualify Till from being counted in their report.
        maxerickson 12y ago
        The slate articles says: In 1959, Tuskegee defined its parameters for pronouncing a murder a “lynching”: “There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. That person must have met death illegally. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to justice, race or tradition.” So I was thinking from there.

maxerickson 12y ago

17 of the states on the slate chart have 0 or 1 lynching listed (I think 1 incident does not indicate prevalence). The mob violence outside the south was also less racially directed: https://books.google.com/books?id=CR0TMCIfE14C&lpg=PA154&ots=SznqZP7aFg&dq=lynching%20by%20states%20and%20race%201959%20paper&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=lynching%20by%20states%20and%20race%201959%20paper&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=CR0TMCIfE14C&lpg=PA154&ots...

Shivetya 12y ago
do note they purposefully excluded any death where they could not find three perpetrators. Really curious why two on one is not included, that would seem a more likely occurrence.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I think it just comes down to trying somehow to separate it from murder. Tacit acceptance of murders isn't a whole lot better than mob violence, but it is interesting to try to examine them separately. The accounts of some lynchings are simply barbaric, large crowds dismembering and beating the victims, then burning them, all of it sort of in a picnic atmosphere. Even announcements of the coming lynching in the newspaper. That's a really different thing than 2 people conspiring to hang someone (and still really different than 3 people doing it, but I guess a clear line simplifies the compilation).
- eastbayjake 12y ago
  I think their methodology didn't count the infamous Emmett Till lynching, which was two white men acting alone (but sanctioned by 12 white jurors refusing to convict them): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    Page 87 of this dissertation indicates that they did classify Emmett Till's murder as a lynching: http://www.africanafrican.com/folder12/african%20african%20american3/Atlantic%20slave%20trade/Flournoy_dis.pdf http://www.africanafrican.com/folder12/african%20african%20a... The text supported by citation 22. (I've been poking around for a copy of the Tuskegee Institute 1959 report and had seen that before I read your comment, I'm not angrily trying to refute you or anything like that. Finding a copy of 100 Years of Lynching looks like the easiest way to see the report.)
    - eastbayjake 12y ago
      I know the Tuskegee Institute (as well as the NAACP) classified Till's murder as a lynching, but the Equal Justice Initiative's methodology required that three or more people participate in the lynching, which would disqualify Till from being counted in their report.
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        The slate articles says: In 1959, Tuskegee defined its parameters for pronouncing a murder a “lynching”: “There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. That person must have met death illegally. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to justice, race or tradition.” So I was thinking from there.