U.S. Ends First Year in 70 Years With No Lynchings
The United States ended the year with 1952 being the first year with no known lynchings.
Lynchings had been declining for years, with no more than 8 per year beginning in 1936. Ten lynchings occurred between 1955 and 1964, with three each in 1955 and 1964.
The decline of lynchings of African-Americans was due in part to the gradual changes in American attitudes toward race. Outside the south, white Americans were increasingly sympathetic to the idea of racial justice and equally horrified about lynchings.
The famous Scottsboro Case, which began in March 1931, is believed to have had a significant effect on the attitudes of white southerners. The case involved nine young African-American men who were prosecuted for raping two white women. National organizations quickly made the case a national issue of racial justice. (The organizations included the Communist Party and the NAACP, with the ACLU playing a peripheral role.) The national spotlight on the racism of the southern criminal system was embarrassing (and this included two landmark Supreme Court decisions), and this led to more informal pressure against lynchings and efforts to “prove” that the southern justice system was “just.”
Read the important report: Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror (2015)
Read the new report: Equal Justice Initiative, Reconstruction in America:Racial Violence After the Civil War (2020)
Go to the Equal Justice Initiative web site: http://www.eji.org/
Learn about the famous Scottsboro case: Dan T. Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South (1969)
Learn more about the NAACP anti-lynching campaign: http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history-anti-lynching-bill
Study a timeline on racial injustice in American history
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here