Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T01:33:19.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Gallows, the Mob, and The Vote: Lethal Sanctioning of Blacks in North Carolina and Georgia, 1882 to 1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

E. M. Beck ,
James L. Massey  and
Stewart E. Tolnay
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between lynchings and executions of blacks in North Carolina and Georgia between 1882 and 1930 as well as before and after the political disenfranchisement of blacks in both states. The findings are used to assess two competing models of the relationship between these different types of lethal sanctioning. No supporting evidence is found for a “substitution model,” which predicts a negative relationship between lynchings and executions. The evidence for Georgia, especially for the pre-disenfranchisement period, does offer moderate support for the “conflict model,” which hypothesizes a positive association between lynchings and executions. Although the direction of the relationship between lynchings and executions was insensitive to disenfranchisement in both states, our analysis reveals that total lethal sanctioning (lynchings plus executions) did decline in Georgia after several restrictive voting statutes were implemented. No similar effect is observed for North Carolina.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , 1989 , pp. 317 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 The Law and Society Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was partially funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. SES-8618123) and the University of Georgia Research Foundation. We thank Cynthia Holiny, Linda Kelley, and Joseph Park for their assistance in preparing the data. Martha Myers, Charles Phillips, Shari Seidman Diamond, and two anonymous referees provided valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

References

AMES, Jesse (1942) The Changing Character of Lynching. Atlanta: Commission on Interracial Cooperation.Google Scholar
AYRES, Edward L. (1984) Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the 19th Century American South. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
BLACK, Donald (1976) The Behavior of Law. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
BOWERS, William (1984) Legal Homicide: Death as Punishment in America, 1864-1982. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
CORZINE, Jay, James, CREECH, and Lin, CORZINE (1983) “Black Concentration and Lynchings in the South: Testing Blalock's Power Threat Hypothesis,” 61 Social Forces 774.Google Scholar
CUTLER, James E. (1907) “Capital Punishment and Lynching,” 29 The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 622.Google Scholar
DANIEL, Pete (1985) Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
GOTTMAN, John M. (1981) Time-Series Analysis: A Comprehensive Introduction for Social Scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
HENRI, Florette (1975) Black Migration: Movement North, 1900–1920. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday.Google Scholar
HOVLAND, Carl, and Robert, SEARS (1940) “Minor Studies of Aggression: Correlation of Lynchings with Economic Indices,” 9 Journal of Psychology 301.Google Scholar
INVERARITY, James (1976) “Populism and Lynching in Louisiana, 1889-1896: A Test of Erikson's Theory of the Relationship Between Boundary Crises and Repressive Justice,” 41 American Sociological Review 262.Google Scholar
KLECK, Gary (1981) “Racial Discrimination in Criminal Sentencing: A Critical Evaluation of the Evidence with Additional Evidence on the Death Penalty,” 46 American Sociological Review 783.Google Scholar
KOUSSER, J. Morgan (1974) The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
MINTZ, Alexander (1946) “A Re-Examination of Correlations Between Lynchings and Economic Indices,” 41 Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 154.Google Scholar
NAACP: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE ([1919] 1969) Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1918. New York: NAACP.Google Scholar
PHILLIPS, Charles (1987) “Exploring Relations Among Forms of Social Control: The Lynching and Execution of Blacks in North Carolina, 1889–1918,” 21 Law & Society Review 361.Google Scholar
PHILLIPS, Charles (1986) 1 “Social Structure and Social Control: Modeling the Discriminatory Execution of Blacks in Georgia and North Carolina, 1925–35,” 65 Social Forces 458.Google Scholar
RAPER, Arthur (1933) The Tragedy of Lynching. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
REED, John Shelton (1972) “Percent Black and Lynching: A Test of Blalock's Theory,” 50 Social Forces 356.Google Scholar
REED, John Shelton, Gail E., DOSS, and Jeanne S., HURLBERT (1987) “To Good to Be False: An Essay in the Folklore of Social Science,” 57 Sociological Inquiry 1.Google Scholar
SCOTT, Emmett (1920) Negro Migration During the War. New York: Oxford Universitv Press.Google Scholar
TOLNAY, Stewart E., E. M., BECK, and James L., MASSEY (1989) “Black Lynchings: The Power Threat Hypothesis Revisited,” 67 Social Forces 605.Google Scholar
TURK, Austin (1969) Criminality and Legal Order. Chicago: Rand-McNally.Google Scholar
WHITE, Walter ([1929] 1969) Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch. New York: Arno Press.Google Scholar
WILLIAMS, Daniel T. (1968) Amid the Gathering Multitude: The Story of Lynching in America, A Classified Listing. Unpublished manuscript. Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, Alabama.Google Scholar
WILLIAMSON, Joel (1984) The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South Since Emancipation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
WOODSON, Carter ([1918] 1969) A Century of Negro Migration. New York: Russell and Russell.Google Scholar