Lynching Laws in the 20th Century
[a cross-post from H-CivWar]
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996
From: Kurt Mosser
Subject: lynching
A student of mine is interested in investigating lynching laws in the 20th century. Any suggestions for a general survey or two on this topic?
kurt mosser
mosser@checkov.hm.udayton.edu
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996
From: Joan Browning
Subject: Lynching Laws
A good introduction -- to the universe in which lynching operated, with some attention to law -- is W. Fitzhugh Brundage's LYNCHING IN THE NEW SOUTH: GEORGIA AND VIRGINIA, 1880-1930. 1993.
Joan C. Browning
Roncevete WV
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996
From: Chris Waldrep
Subject: Lynching Laws
The sources for lynching law:
(1) James Harmon Chadbourn, *Lynching and the Law*
(2) Robert L. Zangrando, *The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950*
(3) James Elbert Cutler, *Lynch-Law*
Chadbourn is THE secondary source for anti-lynching statutes. Zangrando is good for the NAACP's failed effort to get a federal anti-lynching law. Hall's *Revolt Against Chivalry* also deals with that issue. I note someone suggested Brundage's new book. Yes, he deals with law a bit and has some interesting observations re. how popular attitudes toward law shape the lynching mentality, but it's not his focus. Another new book is Tolnay and Beck, *Carnival of Violence*. They dismiss the legal argument, insisting that economic factors drove lynchers, not attitudes toward law. They try to prove this by using the number of executions as a proxy for legal effectiveness and show that lynchers lynched regardless of how many executions the state carried out in the years immediately before lynchings. Not persuasive in my judgment. We know shockingly little about popular attitudes toward law but one thing that seems clear is that folks do not base their judgment of courts' effectiveness on executions. George Wright's book about lynching in Kentucky has only a thin analysis. He insists executions carried out by the state were the same as extralegal lynchings--both expressed white racism. So, I guess you could say he has something to say about the law as well. Chadbourn is still the book, though it is old (1933).
Chris Waldrep
Department of History
Eastern Illinois University
H-Law@msu.edu
P.S. - I have a small article about lynching and the law in *Register of the Kentucky Historical Society* 90 (Spring 1992).
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996
From: Michael J. Pfeifer
Subject: Lynching Laws
Re: the inquiry concerning lynching and the law, the most comprehensive (though dated) work on this subject is James Chadbourn, _Lynching and the Law_ (1933; reprint New York, 1970), which surveys the range of state laws regarding lynch mobs. For national and state legislative campaigns concerning anti-lynching laws in the 1930s and 1940s, check out the pertinent chapters in the studies by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Jacquelyn Hall, and Robert Zangrando.
Michael J. Pfeifer
Department of History
University of Iowa
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 09:05:11 -0500 From: Cathleen Thom
Subject: Lynching Laws
Although I am unaware of any one source which covers the entire 20th century, here are two sources that together cover the period:
(1)Robert L. Zangrando, "The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950" (1980)
(2) Michal R. Belknap, "Federal Law and Southern Order: Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post-Brown South" (1987)
Cathleen Thom
Marquette University
Thomabd@aol.com
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996
From: Porter Raper
Subject: Lynching Laws
For a reference that documents lynchings in the 20th century, you may want to check out a work that was instigated by the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching in the 1930's: Arthur F. Raper's *The Tragedy of Lynching*,reprinted in 1969 by Patterson Smith, Inc.
--- Porter Raper, Portland Community College (praper@pcc.edu)
Humanities & Social
Sciences Online
