At the Hands of Parties Unknown? The State of the Field of Lynching Scholarship

• Published in: The Journal of American history (Bloomington, Ind.) Ind.), 2014-12, Vol.101 (3), p.832-846
• Main Author: Pfeifer, Michael J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: African American culture; African American studies; African history; American history; American studies; Black communities; Collective violence; Criminal justice; Keresiouan languages; Lynchings; Prejudice; Sexuality; Social classes; State of the Field: American Lynching History; United States history; Violence; Violent crimes
• ISSN: 0021-8723; 1936-0967; 1945-2314
• DOI: 10.1093/jahist/jau640

American lynching scholarship has developed significantly in recent decades. Southern historians in the last decades of the twentieth century effectively rediscovered lynching violence, excavating its nexus with race, gender, sexuality, and social class in the Jim Crow era. In the early years of the twenty-first century, historians broadened analysis of American mob violence to encompass regions beyond the South and eras before the late nineteenth century and to incorporate the diverse victims of American racial prejudice as well as the relation between lynching, law, and culture. Yet weaknesses persist in the field. Here, Pfeifer argues that scholars might best focus their efforts by keeping the experiences and responses of the victims of racially motivated mob violence at the fore. Among matters in need of attention are the legacies of lynching, collective killing in and outside the South before 1880, compiling a national database that spans eras, and studying American lynching and mob violence in other cultures in comparative, transnational, and global perspectives.