Lynching in America: A History in DocumentsChristopher Waldrep Whether conveyed through newspapers, photographs, or Billie Holliday’s haunting song “Strange Fruit,” lynching has immediate and graphic connotations for all who hear the word. Images of lynching are generally unambiguous: black victims hanging from trees, often surrounded by gawking white mobs. While this picture of lynching tells a distressingly familiar story about mob violence in America, it is not the full story. Lynching in America presents the most comprehensive portrait of lynching to date, demonstrating that while lynching has always been present in American society, it has been anything but one-dimensional. |
Contents
Explanations | 1 |
1 The First Lynchers | 26 |
2 Jacksonian America | 41 |
3 Slavery | 61 |
4 How the West Was Won | 81 |
5 Civil War and Reconstruction | 95 |
Schall the Wheel of Race Agitation Be Stopped? | 115 |
7 State Sovereignty and Mob Law | 134 |