Old and New Directions in the History of Lynching

Professional studies of lynching and its tragic history, especially its unique American character, depth, and dynamics, evolved in critically important ways from the pioneering scholarship of W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells in the 1890s and 1900s across the 20th century and into the 21st century, their different stages introducing fresh categories of analysis amidst moments of dramatic civil rights protests. The first stage was heralded by pioneering research by African American intellectuals, such as Du Bois and Wells, and growing black demands for an end to discrimination in the late 19th century. Joining them in the early 20th century was a small group of social scientists whose case studies of lynching illuminated race relations in local communities or, from a very different vantage, saw them as symptoms of the violence so common in American society. The push to end racial and gender segregation and the passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s and 1970s encouraged historians to review lynchings from new perspectives, including gender, sexuality, religion, memory, and black community formation and resistance, stressing their centrality to modern southern history. The late 20th century saw a comparative turn. Historians evaluated lynching across America to identify common patterns of racial subjugation, but also to see how it was used to punish a wide range of Americans, including Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans. By 2000, the field shifted again, this time toward memorialization and community remembrance. Scholars and lawyers recalculated the total number of lynchings in America and found a large number of unrecorded killings, asked why so little was known about them, and created memorials to the victims. They demanded, too, that the causes and long-term consequences of the nation’s history of racial violence be discussed openly and taught in public schools. This effort is of particular resonance in 2020 as America confronts rising protests over a culture of mass incarceration and police brutality that disproportionately affects men and women of color. Indeed, the historical study of lynching has never been so vital as it is in the early 21st century.