The Body Count: Lynching in Arkansas

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Author:

Center for History and New Media/American Social History Project

Subject:

Humanities

Institution Name:

American Social History Project/Center for History and New Media

Collection:

Many Pasts (CHNM/ASHP)

Grade Level:

Secondary, Post-secondary

Abstract:

From the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, the term "lynching" did not have any racial implications. Starting in the 1880s, however, mob violence was increasingly directed at African Americans. The 1890s witnessed the worst period of lynching in U.S. history. The grim statistical record almost certainly understates the story. Many lynchings were not recorded outside their immediate locality, and pure numbers do not convey the brutality of lynching.In this 1892 report printed in Philadelphia's Christian Recorder, Reverend E. Malcolm Argyle recounted events in Arkansas and described the efforts of his fellow black ministers to secure passage of anti-lynching legislation. In response to the rising tide of lynchings of African-Americans across the South during the 1890s, Memphis, Tennessee, newspaper editor Ida Wells-Barnett launched a national anti-lynching crusade. Despite decades of determined effort, the anti-lynching movement never succeeded in securing federal passage of an anti-lynching law. Although Congress never passed even a moderate anti-lynching statute brought before it for more than forty years, parts of the 1968 Civil Rights Act provided for federal intervention on behalf of individuals injured in the exercise of their civil rights.

Languages:

English

Material Type:

Primary Source

Media Format:

Text/HTML

Conditions of Use:

Custom License
Fair Use for educational purposes

Copyright Holder:

Copyright 1998-2005 American Social History Productions, Inc. All rights reserved.