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5. “An Example Must Be Made”: Lynch Mobs and the Response of African Americans
- University of Virginia Press
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144 5 “An Example Must Be Made” Lynch Mobs and the Response of African Americans The size, purpose, and nature of lynch mobs varied across time and space. During the first phase of the lynching epidemic, white-only mobs avoided directing their fury against the African American community asawhole, andsomeAfrican Americansparticipatedin lynchmobsthat were punitive in purpose. Black mobs generated anxiety among whites, however, who found the prospect of African Americans inflicting extralegalvengeancedisquieting . Aslynchingbecame racialized, largermobs became more frequent and African Americans abandoned the practice. Large mobs often formed where the perceived depredations of rootless black laborers generated anxiety among whites, who worried about the negative effect that aimless blacks might have on the local economy. In regions where African Americans formed a large majority of the population and had more independence from whites, however, lynch mobs tended to be smaller and often killed for offenses such as assault or property crimes. In the lynch-prone Yazoo Delta, mobs tended to be smaller notonlybecauseofthehighconcentrationofAfricanAmericansbutalso becauseDelta whitespreferredtorepresstenant transgressions withprivatelysanctionedvengeance .Smallermobsalsoformedinregionswhere classdivisionsdividedthewhitepopulation.Onastatelevel,Mississippi mobs were larger, more resolute, and more cruel than mobs in South Carolina because the racial climate in Mississippi was more acrimoni- Lynch Mobs and the Response of African Americans 145 ous than in South Carolina. African American resistance to lynching eventually reduced the size of mobs, but lynching continued in regions whereconflictbetweenwhitelandlordsandblacktenantsremainedpart of the daily fabric of life. As the lynching era waned, however, the ability of a mob to elicit communal support in defense of its murderous work became less evident. The collective behavior of mobs has usually been explained in terms of the need to regularly reaffirm white male supremacy.1 The ritualistic aspects of mob behavior have received particular attention because racial ritual was the mortar of white solidarity and helped define caste roles that prevailed in the South.2 Many mobs first wanted to redress individualgrievances,however,andonlysecondarilyactedinsupportof communal white supremacy. Given the social, economic, political, and legal predominance of whites in the post-Reconstruction South, white southerners frequently wondered why mobs lynched. “There is not a negroJudgeontheBenchinanySouthernState,noranegroprosecuting attorney, and the jury box is almost exclusively filled with white men,” observed the Charleston News and Courier, which asked, “Why should there be a resort to mob violence when the law and the Courts are competent ?”3 Mississippi governor Edmond Noel also struggled to understand mobs. With white people in complete control of “every power of our state government” and the punishment of black criminals a virtual certainty in the South, Noel could not comprehend why “the superior and ruling race” should “contest for the evil distinction of preeminence in lawless savagery.”4 Mobs often acted in support of white supremacy within an emotionally charged context of violent confrontation between individual whites and blacks. The inequities of the southern caste system created an underlying tension that was the catalyst for much lynching. Mobs did not necessarily reinforce white solidarity, however, when they lynched to make an example of a black man who had violently resisted the constrictions of caste. After a senseless lynching from a communal point of view, for instance, the Charleston News and Courier observed that a “man described as a ‘lyncher’ is one accused of having joined in a community [3.89.56.228] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 16:19 GMT) 146 a deed so accursed act,” but many lynch mobs were not a “community in the colloquial sense.” Instead, the paper charged that mobs were often nothing more than “bloody assassins” who had revenge as their primary motive.5 The desire of a mob for retribution could often overwhelm the preference of authorities for a legal affirmation of white supremacy. When a mob lynched Bob “Snowball” Davis, for example, it ignored the impassioned plea of South Carolina governor Duncan Heyward, who viewed mob violence as a stain on the character of whites. Davis, who was a day laborer with extremely dark skin, had a bad reputation in Greenwood County, which was in the Western Piedmont of South Carolina.6 Local whites considered Davis mentally deficient, and thirteen years previously a mob of whites and blacks had lynched Davis’s half-brother Jake, ostensibly for raping the wife of a local Mexican War hero.7 Davis was in his early twenties and had already served a sentence on the county chain gang. In August 1906, whites accused Davis of the attempted rape of Jennie Brooks, the twenty-year-old daughter of a prosperous Greenwood County farmer and merchant. The brutal...