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

Lynching describes the public killing of a person outside of the process of the law. Individuals killed by lynching are not afforded an investigation or a trial. During the 19th and 20th centuries, lynchings were common in the American South. Black citizens were tortured and killed; the methods were brutal and varied, though victims were often hanged from trees. White mobs were most often responsible for enacting a lynching, and spectators—including women and children—observed the killings as entertainment. Photos of lynchings, as well as items gathered from relic hunters such as teeth or pieces of rope, were often sold. The NAACP estimates that approximately 4,743 lynchings were committed between 1882 and 1968. Black citizens represented the highest portion of victims of lynchings, and it is estimated that 3,446 of the 4,743 were people of color (“History of Lynching in America” NAACP). However, that number is likely higher, as many lynchings were never reported.

Many Black citizens fled the American South to escape the terrorization of white supremacists and lynchings. This massive shift in population is referred to as the Great Migration. Criminals who committed lynchings were rarely identified, investigated, or charged.

Lynchings were broadly used as a form of social intimidation and control of Black citizens following Emancipation. By spreading fear, white supremacists maintained a hold on political and social power. In 1955, the lynching of a 14-year-old boy named Emmett Till drew international attention. According to reports, Till was killed for flirting with a white woman. When Till’s murderers were acquitted and later bragged about their violent crime to a national magazine, civil rights activists were energized to put an end to this form of vigilante injustice.

Lynch Law refers to the form of judgment performed by white mobs upon Black citizens in the American South. The term describes how white citizens took justice into their own hands and killed, suspected, and accused Black citizens of crimes without due process. Mobs often performed lynchings with little to no evidence; in many instances, Black citizens were killed in association with crimes by white crowds, who held full knowledge of their innocence.

One of the biggest excuses for lynching was the alleged rape of white women. Some of these were false accusations by white women, but white supremacists also labeled consensual relationships between Black men and white women and any type of offense to a white woman as rape. Approximately 25% of lynchings were tied to supposed sexual assault. The Southern states of Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana have the highest number of historical lynchings. Although the majority of lynchings took place in the American South, the crime was also committed in the North, including free cities like New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Tulsa.