Lynching

The Mechanics of Lynching

Each lynching was wholly unique. They were generally spontaneous events—a response to a local crisis, rumored or real—that escalated into a deadly drama. Lynch mobs were often made up of a collection of local rabble and respected upper-class citizens who added moral authority and legitimacy to the lynching process. Some lynch mobs consisted of only two, three, or four “righteous” citizens; others were composed of hundreds, even thousands, of participants and curious onlookers, including women and children. Some mobs held informal trials; others dispensed with any semblance of legal formality.

Moreover, they did not always kill their victims. Whipping, beating, branding, and tarring and feathering were sometimes used for lesser offenses, especially before the 1880s. But serious crimes, especially attacks on White women by “savage Black beasts,” warranted a more dramatic and bloody response, one that would serve as an example and deterrent to other “disrespectful niggers.” Hanging, burning, and a variety of barbaric tortures—for example, cutting off fingers, toes, or ears—were common. Rapists were frequently castrated. The sexual organ was a prized souvenir.

The 1899 execution of Sam Hose in Georgia reflects the elaborate rituals and bloody carnival of fury that surrounded many Black lynchings. Hose, a farm hand charged with killing his employer and then ravishing his wife, was captured by a lynch mob on April 23, 1899. A crowd of more than 3,000 spectators—some coming aboard a special excursion train from Atlanta, arriving after church services—assembled to witness the ritual. Hose was stripped, chained to a tree, surrounded with logs, and doused with kerosene. His face was skinned and his fingers, ears, and genitals cut off. Then, the fire was lit. After death, his bones were broken and sold as souvenirs, along with his extremities and body parts. Hose's knuckles were put in a jar and placed on display in a grocery store. Mob members were proud of their work. They traveled to the state capitol to present the governor with a souvenir from their work. He declined.

Spectacles of Hose-like public savagery were common. Jesse Washington was dragged from a Waco, Texas, courtroom on May 8, 1916, minutes after a jury convicted him of raping a White woman. Washington was kicked, beaten, stabbed, doused with oil, and suspended from a tree limb. His fingers, toes, ears, and penis were cut off. Then, he was set on fire. A man on horseback dragged his charred corpse through the streets.

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