The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States

“In considering the third reason assigned by the Southern white people for the butchery of blacks, the question must be asked, what the white man means when he charges the black man with rape. Does he mean the crime which the statutes of the civilized states describe as such? Not by any means.”

In this passage, Wells outlines three excuses used by white people to justify racist violence. The last excuse proves to be the most viable; white supremacists perpetuate a myth that Black men are a danger to white women. Most of the lynchings Wells discovers in public records are attributed to rape, but she challenges the meaning of the word in these cases, creating doubt by using a hypothetical question. By digging into how the term “rape” is applied in lynching cases, Wells uses Research and Testimony as Activism. Many might believe that rape is a justifiable cause for lynching, but Wells uncovers how the term is applied to any relationship between a Black man and a white woman, including both consensual and non-sexual encounters.

“The purpose of the pages which follow shall be to give the record which has been made, not by colored men, but that which is the result of compilations made by white men, of reports sent over the civilized world by white men in the South.”

In Chapter 1, Wells outlines the parameters of her study and her source material. She uses the testimonies and articles of white citizens to expose Racist Violence as a Mechanism for Power. By using the testimonies of white men, Wells ensures that her readers will not claim biased or false source material. The estimated number of lynchings that occurred during Reconstruction varies, largely because many were left unreported and uninvestigated. However, Wells’s research suggests a number higher than 10,000. By establishing this number, she makes the case that lynchings deserve careful examination and study.

“The only excuse which capital punishment attempts to find is upon the theory that the criminal is past the power of reformation and his life is a constant menace to the community.”

Before Wells dives into the various reasons for lynchings, she challenges the notion of lynchings as a viable form of punishment on a larger scale. She suggests that the function of capital punishment is to secure public safety by removing a dangerous criminal from the population. However, lynchings have little to do with removing dangerous individuals. Instead, they occupy a space within Racist Violence as a Mechanism for Power.

“Thus acts the mob with the victim of its fury, conscious that it will never be called to account.”

Wells is careful to include descriptions of white mobs at public lynchings to emphasize the irrationality and recklessness informing their false sense of justice. After the murder of Hamp Briscoe, the sheriff refused to name the perpetrators of violence. Wells argues that this silence, enshrined by systemic racism, safeguards Mob Mentality and White Immunity.

“No one was himself now. Every man, woman, and child in that awful crowd was worked up to a greater frenzy than that which actuated Smith’s horrible crime.”

This record, recounted by Reverend King at Henry Smith’s lynching, describes the mob mentality that led to Smith’s brutal murder. He is careful to note how the individual disappears in a mob, which means that individual moral codes also disappear. In comparing their actions to Smith’s, he acknowledges that no crime could reasonably be punished through mob justice.

“If no other reason appealed to the sober sense of the American people to check the growth of Lynch Law, the absolute unreliability and recklessness of the mob in inflicting punishment for crimes done, should do so.”

In Chapter 4, Wells highlights the myriad cases in which Black citizens were killed for committing no crime or for being merely suspected of a crime. As crowds entered a mob mentality, they sought blood and retribution from any source, regardless of evidence or witnesses’ testimonies. Wells challenges the idea that lynchings are justified and a form of vigilante retribution, revealing that they are performed widely and often without cause.

“None of the leaders of the mob were apprehended, and no steps whatever were taken to bring the murderers to justice.”

Lynchings were illegal under federal and state law; however, they were prevalent across the American South and often supported by local law enforcement and political figures. In alignment with the theme of Mob Mentality and White Immunity, Wells highlights how white mobs were allowed to perform lynchings without fear of facing charges themselves.

“The protection of the law was withdrawn from C. J. Miller, and he was given to a mob by this sheriff at Sikeston, who knew that the prisoner’s life depended on one man’s word.”

C. J. Miller’s story emphasizes several important points in Wells’s argument. The perpetrator of the crime of murdering two young girls was identified by multiple witnesses as a white man. However, the Kentuckian mob was determined to punish Miller for the crime. By intimidating witnesses and manipulating evidence, Miller was killed for a crime he did not commit. Even though his rights as a citizen were outlined in the Constitution and both state and federal law, Miller was not granted the due process afforded to the average white citizen.

“It tells the world, with perhaps greater emphasis than any other feature of the record, that Lynch Law has become so common in the United States that the finding of the dead body of a Negro, suspended between heaven and earth to the limb of a tree, is of so slight importance that neither the civil authorities nor press agencies consider the matter worth investigating.”

One of the ways Racist Violence as a Mechanism for Power functions is by normalization and desensitization. During Reconstruction, the commonality of lynchings caused the public to become desensitized to stories of racist violence, and the prevalence of rape accusations solidified a harmful myth about Black men. Normalization and desensitization ensured that white supremacists could attack and kill Black citizens with impunity and, as a result, maintain a structural foundation of white power.

“They were dead and out of the way and as no one would be called upon to render an account for their taking off, the matter was dismissed from the public mind.”

In this passage, Wells offers another example of how normalization and desensitization safeguarded a white mob from consequences after murdering Black citizens for the crime of “sauciness.” In these two cases, the Black person’s offense amounted to little more than speaking back to a white person. The white mob’s impunity and the uninvestigated murder of innocent Black citizens reveal that lynching was never intended as a tool for justice. Instead, it is used to preserve the egos of white supremacists and secure unimpeded power.

“The rioters appeared to become frenzied at the determined stand taken by the men and Captain Bird, and finally a crowd of excited men made a rush for the side door of the jail.”

This case from Roanoke reveals how far lynch mobs were willing to take their quest for racist violence. When the mayor of Roanoke insisted that justice would be served legally, a white mob attacked white soldiers who stood guard outside the jail. Despite killing nine men, no member of the mob was investigated or charged. Wells highlights how mob mentality frenzied the crowd to the point of turning against other white people.

“The hanging of one victim on an unproven charge did not begin to satisfy the mob in its bloodthirsty demands and the result was that even after the women had been discharged, they were at once taken in charge by a mob, which hung them by the neck until they were dead.”

Wells is careful to point out the many ways lynchings function outside of justice. In this case, the wife and mother-in-law of the accused were killed simply because the mob had been stirred to the point of demanding more violence. Lynchings were not just forms of retribution for heinous crimes; instead, they were mechanisms of power; it did not matter which Black citizen was killed so long as someone was killed to instill a message of fear and intimidation.

“It is certain that lynching mobs have not only refused to give the Negro a chance to defend himself, but have killed their victim with a full knowledge that the relationship of the alleged assailant with the woman who accused him, was voluntary and clandestine.”

In Chapter 6, Wells turns her attention to the frequent charge of rape brought against Black men. She exposes how the false myth of Black men as dangers to white women creates a moral justification for killing Black men. The charge of rape could be applied to any encounter between a Black man and a white woman, and in many of the cases Wells offers, the relationship was often consensual. The high number of lynchings tied to alleged rape helped solidify harmful stereotypes about Black men and desensitize the public to racist violence.

“It is not the same thing for a white man to assault a colored woman as for a colored man to assault a white woman, because the colored woman had no finer feelings nor virtue to be outraged!”

At the closing of Chapter 6, Wells emphasizes the difference in how encounters between Black men and white women and white men and Black women are treated. Any type of encounter—consensual or otherwise—is identified as rape between a Black man and a white woman. However, white men frequently sexually assaulted Black women without consequence. This is due to racist and misogynistic views of Black women as unvirtuous or unfeminine. Here, Wells anticipates intersectional feminist arguments about how white supremacist patriarchy subjugates Black women, alongside highlighting the hypocrisy when discussing white perpetrators of sexual violence.

“If stating the facts of these lynchings, as they appeared from time to time in the white newspapers of America—the news gathered by white correspondents, compiled by white press bureaus and, disseminated among white people—shows any vindictiveness then the mind which so charges is not amenable to argument.”

Wells uses white records to support Research and Testimony as Activism. By using these resources, she escapes any challenges of falsehood regarding the facts she presents. She uses white testimony to bring a mirror to the reality of racist violence and white immunity. Although Wells centers her advocacy on systemic change, she encourages individual readers to consider facts and to think for themselves, independent of mob mentality and pervasive social sentiments.

“No matter how heinous the act of the lynchers may have been, it was discussed only for a day or so and then dismissed from the attention of the public.”

Wells explains how the prevalence of racist violence contributes to normalization and desensitization. Stories of lynchings captivate readers, but their interest is captured only for a short period before moving on to something else. The pervasiveness of racist violence renders it commonplace and, therefore, invisible.

“Then these lynchers went quietly away and the bodies of the woman and three men were taken out and buried with as little ceremony as men would bury hogs.”

This stark description highlights yet another difference between how accused white and Black citizens are treated. White citizens who are accused and executed for violent crimes are still treated with dignity; however, Black citizens are killed for nonviolent or nonexistent crimes. Wells emphasizes that the four victims in this case were never granted a Christian burial, showing the extent of their dehumanization by their society.

“Such outrages indicate to my mind that where life is held to be of such little value there is even less assurance that the laws will protect property.”

Just as Wells uses white testimony to dismantle lynching from within, a similar tactic is employed by quoting powerful international figures. This quotation by an English nobleperson reveals the disdain for lynching among European citizens and introduces the prospect of using capital to change things. Wells understood that galvanizing European sentiments would concern Southern legislators who had a vested financial interest in maintaining good relations with foreign countries that bought their goods.

“Colored men have been lynched for assault upon women, when the facts were plain that the relationship between the victim lynched and the alleged victim of his assault was voluntary, clandestine and illicit.”

One of the most pervasive accusations against Black men during Reconstruction was the charge of rape. Wells reveals that these charges were often misnamed, characterizing consensual relationships between Black men and white women or describing innocent exchanges. In another case, a Black man asked two white women for food, an act which incited a white mob to murder him. Wells spends multiple passages combatting this pervasive racist myth.

“When asked what concerted action had been taken by churches and great moral agencies in America to put down Lynch Law, I was compelled in truth to say that no such action had occurred.”

In Chapter 8, Wells directly calls out Frances Willard and the WCTU for failing to participate in efforts to abolish lynching. Later, Wells shares Willard’s direct quotations, in which she cites concerns over immigrants and illiterate Black citizens voting, further revealing her racism. Willard’s sentiments expose Racist Violence as a Mechanism for Power. Even though Willard denounces racism and advocates for the sanctity of the law, she does not speak out against lynching directly, recognizing that a voting Black population threatens the power of the white majority.

“It is not fair that they should vote, nor is it fair that a plantation negro, who can neither read nor write, whose ideas are bounded by the fence of his own field and the price of his own mule, should be entrusted with the ballot.”

This quote by Willard reveals her desire to secure white supremacy within political and social contexts. At one point, Willard emphasizes the importance of adhering to the law. In this passage, however, her rhetoric denounces Black citizens’ right to vote as established in the Constitution. She justifies her argument with racist stereotypes and compares free Black citizens to enslaved people, showing a belief that they are inferior regardless of their legal status.

“The safety of woman, of childhood, of the home is menaced in a thousand localities at this moment.”

In this passage, Willard supports the claim that Black men are a threat to white women and children, a stereotype that Wells carefully deconstructs throughout the text. Willard’s argument is the outcome of Racist Violence as a Mechanism for Power. By enacting widespread violence against Black men and charging them with the crimes of rape and murder, white supremacists established the narrative of the dangerous Black man, which Willard perpetuates.

“The word of the accuser is held to be true, and the excited bloodthirsty mob demands that the rule of law be reversed.”

One element of Mob Mentality and White Immunity is the countless ways that mobs ignore evidence and incite further violence. Wells explains that white mobs performing lynchings have little concern for the truth or for hearing the testimony of the accused. In many cases, white mobs kill innocent bystanders or family members to satisfy a frenzied thirst for violence.