
Map of 73 Years of Lynchings - eastbayjake
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/10/us/map-of-73-years-of-lynching.html?_r=0
======
personlurking
Related: Without Sanctuary (NSFW)

"Searching through America's past for the last 25 years, collector James Allen
uncovered an extraordinary visual legacy: photographs and postcards taken as
souvenirs at lynchings throughout America."

"Without Sanctuary is a photo document of proof, an uncartiring of crimes, of
collective mass murder, of mass memory graves excavated from the American
conscience. Part postal cards, common as dirt, souvenirs skin-thin and fresh-
tatooed proud, the trade cards of those assisting at ritual racial killings
and others acts of mad citizenry. The communities' best citizens lurking just
outside the frame. Destined to decay, these few survivors of an original photo
population of many thousands, turn the living to pillars of salt", said James
Allen.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGrXCOIx6QQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGrXCOIx6QQ)
[5m]

[http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html](http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html)

~~~
vanderZwan
That website has broken CSS - presumably it's from the IE6 era or before (it
seems to be optimised for 800x600 or lower resolutions too).

I hope it gets fixed at some point, because it is a subject that deserves more
attention.

------
etrevino
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/64pct8rc9780252...](http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64pct8rc9780252037467.html)

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/01/08/lynching_map...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/01/08/lynching_map_tuskegee_institute_s_data_on_lynching_from_1900_1931.html)

~~~
maxerickson
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...](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)

~~~
Shivetya
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.

~~~
eastbayjake
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
Page 87 of this dissertation indicates that they did classify Emmett Till's
murder as a lynching:

[http://www.africanafrican.com/folder12/african%20african%20a...](http://www.africanafrican.com/folder12/african%20african%20american3/Atlantic%20slave%20trade/Flournoy_dis.pdf)

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
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
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.

------
alexbecker
It seems lynching density goes beyond mere population density, especially
along the Mississippi river valley: [http://mcdc-
maps.missouri.edu/totalpop1790-2010/images/1920....](http://mcdc-
maps.missouri.edu/totalpop1790-2010/images/1920.jpg)

~~~
IndianAstronaut
This seems like an opportunity for predictive analytics to figure out which
areas are most prone to lynchings and some intervention methods to prevent
them.

~~~
maxerickson
Yes, there was a lot of energy put into stopping this sort of thing in the US
in the 1960s. That's why it stopped.

(Wikipedia seems to have good coverage of it:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-
American_Civil_Rights_M...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-
American_Civil_Rights_Movement_%281954%E2%80%9368%29) )

~~~
maxerickson
I've probably overstated the role of the civil rights movement there.
Certainly, part of the outcome of the civil rights movement was a national
expression of the unacceptability of racially motivated mob violence, but
things like state police forces and the national guard (both were more willing
to resist mobs than local police had been) and changing attitudes in the south
had contributed to starting the decline.

------
yummybear
Holy hell, I had no idea lynchings were so common (non-US cititizen). 600
lynchings a year, that's pretty crazy. EDIT: Oh it's over a five year period.
(Not to imply that makes it better).

~~~
Shivetya
every country has their dark times, most grow out of it. Some unfortunately
don't or worse lapse back into them.

~~~
mkr-hn
Or change targets.

------
gadders
Whenever I read about how black people were terrorised in the Southern US, the
tactics used remind me of how the Spartans treated the Helots.

------
JHof
Phillips County, Ark., home of Marvell Academy. Founded as a segregationist
school in 1966 and still 100% white -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvell_Academy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvell_Academy)
[http://marvellacademy.org/](http://marvellacademy.org/)

------
aaron695
Lynching doesn't mean killing.

[http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/french-female-
collaborator-p...](http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/french-female-collaborator-
punished-head-shaved-publicly-mark-1944/)

and I think it's not a play on current excepted English, I think it's an
important distinction.

~~~
aikah
> Lynching doesn't mean killing.

In USA, in the south when it was negroes who were lynched it meant exactly
that. KILLING negroes.

~~~
yaddayadda
It wasn't just negroes, but also suspected supporters, and it was almost
always by hanging.

~~~
wkimeria
Hanging was used some of the times, but something that was almost always
present was parading the soon to be lynched through the black parts of town
(including schools) as an object lesson as well as torture. Torture was almost
always involved (for example, in the case of a black woman pregnant lynched,
having her child cut out of her stomach beforehand while she was still alive
and having the childs head smashed). The torture served the purpose of keeping
the black population in a constant state of terror, afraid of even attempting
to assert their rights (this also explains the killings during the Civil
Rights Era)

The lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco Texas had all the elements (I
apologize for the graphic details)

"A chain was placed around his neck and he was dragged toward city hall by a
growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly
beaten with blunt objects. By the time he arrived at city hall, a group had
prepared wood for a bonfire next to a tree in front of the building.[24]
Washington, semiconscious and covered in blood, was doused with oil, hung from
the tree by a chain, and then lowered to the ground.[27] Members of the crowd
cut off his fingers, toes, and genitals.[24] The fire was lit and Washington
was repeatedly raised and lowered into the flames until he burned to death.
German scholar Manfred Berg posits that the executioners attempted to keep him
alive to increase his suffering.[28] Washington attempted to climb the chain,
but was unable to, owing to his lack of fingers.[29] The fire was extinguished
after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the
lynching, including Washington's bones and links of the chain.[24] One
attendee kept part of Washington's genitalia;[30] a group of children snapped
the teeth out of Washington's head to sell as souvenirs."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Jesse_Washington](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Jesse_Washington)

The sending of Lynching Postcards was so prevalent that the Postmaster General
banned the sending of such cards.

------
guard-of-terra
And now USA practices much more humane (but also widespread) approach of
locking the same people in prisons.

