t the Jim Crow Laws to enforce the “second-class status” of the blacks during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and encouraging more Lynchings in the South especially in the state of Florida and Georgia. 302 Lynchings were recorded by the Tuskegee Institute.
The exact number of recorded Lynching can’t be known but the Tuskegee Institute has recorded 3446 blacks and 1297 whites lynched between 1882 and 1968 with an annual pick in 1890. A study published in 2015 by the Equal Justice Initiative found nearly 3959 black men, women, and children lynched in the 12 southern states during 1877-1950. The state of Georgia led with 586.
African Americans Intellectuals and Journalists started protesting and lobbying against Lynching and government complicity. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) produced anti-lynching plays and literary works, publicizing injustices, investigating incidents. They wanted to pass federal legislation. From 1882 to 1968 nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were Introduced in Congress but only 3 passed the House. 7 presidents petitioned congress between 1890 and 1952 to pass a federal law but none succeeded.
Charles Lynch, a Virginia Justice of the peace came with this punishment of loyalist and termed it the “Lynch Law”. They applied this law to members of the abolitionist movement and other people opposing slavery.
During the second war, southern home guard unit will lynch white southerner suspected to be a Unionist. A major motive was to maintain an effort to have white supremacy. The more black Population the higher the number of Lynching. The economic competition was also another factor, predominance of Democrats, competition among church groups, Low cotton price. White will lynch black for financial gain or to establish political or economic dominance.
An African American journalist, Ida B. Wells discovered in her investigations in 1890, that one-third of blacks who die by Lynching was accused of Rape or Attempted Rape, another third was accused with Murder or attempted Murder and the last third was accused of verbal or physical aggression, business competition, Independent mind. She was an early leader Of the civil rights movement.
About the Midwest, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate historical facts from the Mythology of the Old West because the law enforcement was provided mainly by the US Marshals.
The Treaty of 1848, after the Mexican-American war, has announced the California Gold Rush, and around 25000 Mexicans were residents of California. The US territory expanded one third its size annexing Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. In 1850, California became the 31st state. The Mexicans were experienced miners and became successful in the search for gold, creating animosity among the white prospectors who used intimidation or committed violence. It is believed that between 1848 and 1860, white Americans were responsible for at least 163 Lynchings of Mexicans in California alone.
Committees of Vigilance were created in San Francisco and Los Angeles but were portrayed as a positive response to the government corruption in crimes committed against Mexican American or Chinese American. The Johnson County War in 1890 is well known as a dispute over land in Wyoming in which ranchers hire mercenaries to lynch smaller ranchers.
Many cartoons from 1865-1877, were published in journals talking about the lynching performed by the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama and Mississippi.
The first KKK group was founded in Tennessee in 1866 by Confederate veterans performing Lynchings against freedmen. White Democrats attacked black and white republicans with insurgents, murdering about 1300 voters across various southern states. Occasionally whites will whip their victims to remind them of their former Status as Slaves or will raid their home to confiscate their arms or prevent them from voting. This consisted in the “Black Code”, invalidated by the 14th and 15th amendments in 1868 and 1870.
President Ulysses Grant and Congress passe