Lynching History

The conclusions drawn from applying a material culture methodology to individual images of African American lynchings seem to confirm the contextualization of these murders as racial persecution; in terms of semiology, they also seem to confirm ‘signs' of permeating ideas of ‘white supremacy.' However, the overall information from the tables, and material culture methodology when applied to white victims, refuted some of this. One of the foremost historians on lynching history, W. Fitzhugh Brundage, has produced two books on the subject (one of which he edited) that provided some interesting comparisons to the collection.7

From colonial times, the United States has a history of mob violence and lynching. During the American Revolution, according to Brundage, it had become an ‘established custom,' moving west with the frontier as a violent means to impose social order. Yet by the late 19th century it increasingly became a Southern phenomenon as 'Jim Crow' laws on racial segregation became established: lynching reached its peak in 1892.8 Indeed, Brundage produces statistics that tie in with the wider racial theme of the exhibition(s), book and website, as well as underscoring the role of African American, as well as interracial resistance to lynching; particularly the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the Commission on Interracial Cooperation; and theAssociation of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching.9

Source: Ed. by James Allen, Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America ( Santa Fe : Twin Palms Publishers, 2000) and http://www.musarium.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html

It seems the above images reflect the racial characteristics of lynching. Yet the comparison between the statistics offered by Brundage and those of the material culture examination reveal similarities and some interesting differences. While Brundage shows lynchings peaked in 1892, the collection places the majority of the images between 1900 and 1920 (70%), with only 3% falling between 1890-1895. The collection shows lynching images from 22 states. Brundage argues that from the 1880s to the 1920s lynching had become almost a purely Southern phenomenon, with 95% of mob murders taking place in the South by the 1920s. And in terms of race, Brundage's figures reveal stark statistics: outside the South and Border States, 83% of mob victims were white, while in the South and Border States 85% were black; in fact between 1880 and 1930 white victims decreased from 32% to 9%; in the collection 17% of all those lynched are white. As a narrative of racial persecution then, Brundage reveals the collection accurate. Yet there is a rupture in terms of historical time; lynching peaked in the early 1890s and the body of the collection is the early 20 th century. Could research into wider Southern historiography shed new light on this slippage?

Please click on 'Wider Southern History' to find out