# Just how common were lynchings in the south? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 13, 2007, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748 "2007-03-13T14:35:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cynical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5fc32e/32.png) [@Cynical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cynical1)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/1 "2007-03-13T14:35:10Z")
I was reading an editorial this morning by Jonathan Kay about how Pepsi began systematically marketing to blacks in the 30’s, figuring that it was a vast, untapped market. They did this by sending black salesman around the country. While I found the topic interesting, a quote from the editorial gave me pause: “As late as the 1950s, lynchings remained common in many parts of the U.S. south.” As a cynic, I have to ask the question… Were lynchings really all that common? After all, we all “know” that witches were burned at the stake in Salem, that legislators in Washington DC actually write laws, and that an alien craft crashed at Roswell… I’m not asking if they ever happened. I know that at least some did. I just wonder if they were as common as “they” would have us believe… ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/2 "2007-03-13T14:45:13Z")
According to Wikipedia: > **[Lynching in the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States)** > > Lynching was the widespread occurrence of extrajudicial killings which began in the United States' pre–Civil War South in the 1830s and ended during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became the primary targets of white Southerners. Lynchings in the U.S. reached their height from the 1890s to the 1920s, and they primarily victimised eth... there was one lynching in 1951 and three in 1955. There weren’t very many (compared to previous decades) in the 1940’s. While it’s true that there were four lynchings in the 1950’s, the period of lynching more or less ended in the 1940’s. ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/3 "2007-03-13T14:48:21Z")
Well, here’s a [yearly breakdown](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingyear.html) that indicates that while lynchings still occurred in the 1950’s, they probably couldn’t be described as “common”. Obviously, though, one is too many, and in the context of the Pepsi article, those salesmen were still taking a real risk if they seemed “uppity”. ---
**Author:** ![fruitbat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fruitbat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fruitbat)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/4 "2007-03-13T14:52:31Z")
I also think you would have to take into account the risk of beatings, framings, and simply being run out of town when you are looking at the safety of black men in the South. Still lynchings, as the statistics show, were fairly rare after the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/5 "2007-03-13T14:52:51Z")
In Freakonomics, this is discussed. Apparently, lynchings were much more common around the turn of the century and dwindled by mid-century. The author concluded that lynchings were less common because they had the desired effect, i.e. terrorizing southern black people to the point that they were no longer “uppity”. FWIW, Rob ---
**Author:** ![Cynical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5fc32e/32.png) [@Cynical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cynical1)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/6 "2007-03-13T16:23:10Z")
So, as I expected, not exactly what you would call “common”. Thanks all for the quick replies. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2007, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/7 "2007-03-13T17:34:35Z")
[QUOTE=Cynical1] So, as I expected, not exactly what you would call “common”. [/QUOTE] I agree with a caveat. Prior to the 1870s, “lynching” could mean hanging or it could mean tar-and-feathering or beatings or other actions. If we kept that same definition (which is not likely, but is possible, for a person discussing race relations in the U.S.), then “lynchings” in the sense of violent physical intimidation very definitely continued into the 1960s. Of course, an author that wrote to that effect regarding activities in the 20th century would probably be misleading to most readers subsequent to the 1960s who were probably not aware of any meaning that did not include hanging. ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/8 "2007-03-15T00:00:21Z")
I noticed in the link that in the 1880s more white than black people were lynched. What would that have been for? Rustling. rape? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2007, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/9 "2007-03-15T00:12:57Z")
[QUOTE=scm1001] I noticed in the link that in the 1880s more white than black people were lynched. What would that have been for? Rustling. rape? [/QUOTE] This passage from Huckleberry Finn is an interesting take on the overall phenomenon: > [@](#): > > "The idea of YOU lynching anybody! It’s amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a MAN! Because you’re brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a MAN? **Why, a MAN’S safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind—as long as it’s daytime and you’re not behind him.** > > "Do I know you? I know you clear through was born and raised in the South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man’s a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in the daytime, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people—whereas you’re just AS brave, and no braver. \*\*Why don’t your juries hang murderers? Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark—and it’s just what they WOULD do. > > "So they always acquit; and then a MAN goes in the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. \*\*Your mistake is, that you didn’t bring a man with you; that’s one mistake, and the other is that you didn’t come in the dark and fetch your masks. You brought PART of a man—Buck Harkness, there—and if you hadn’t had him to start you, you’d a taken it out in blowing. > > “You didn’t want to come. The average man don’t like trouble and danger. YOU don’t like trouble and danger. But if only HALF a man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts ‘Lynch him! lynch him!’ you’re afraid to back down—afraid you’ll be found out to be what you are—COWARDS—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man’s coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any MAN at the head of it is BENEATH pitifulness. Now the thing for YOU to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. \*\* If any real lynching’s going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they’ll bring their masks, and fetch a MAN along. \*\* Now LEAVE—and take your half-a-man with you”—tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this. The Shurburn monolouge is one of my favorite passages–it’s so very bitter. The novel is set before the heyday of lynchings, of course, but written as they were becoming more common, and Twain was a pretty keen obsever of human nature. Link to the chapter: [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/76/76-h/p5.htm#c22](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/76/76-h/p5.htm#c22) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2007, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/10 "2007-03-15T00:34:57Z")
[QUOTE=scm1001] I noticed in the link that in the 1880s more white than black people were lynched. What would that have been for? Rustling. rape? [/QUOTE] Rustling, murder, and “cleaning up the town” for the most part. Here are a collection of pages related to the first list by date: [Lynching Statistics](http://faculty.berea.edu/browners/chesnutt/classroom/lynchingstat.html) Which leads to the previous list by year as well as [Lynchings, by State and Race, 1882-1968\*](http://faculty.berea.edu/browners/chesnutt/classroom/lynchings_table_state.html) and [Causes Of Lynchings, 1882-1968\*](http://faculty.berea.edu/browners/chesnutt/classroom/lynching_table_causes.html) ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/11 "2007-03-15T02:11:29Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] [Causes Of Lynchings, 1882-1968\*](http://faculty.berea.edu/browners/chesnutt/classroom/lynching_table_causes.html) [/QUOTE] Odd that the second highest percentage on that list is “All other causes”. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2007, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-common-were-lynchings-in-the-south/395748/12 "2007-03-15T02:14:09Z")
I presume “lynching”, lethal or not, refers to a deliberately public display. What about any number of people who were simply killed with no witnesses and the body disposed of?