Contested Terrain: the State versus Threatened Lynch Mob Violence

Prior research on mob violence in the American South has focused on lynchings that were successfully completed. Here, the authors explore new territory by studying the relationship between state interventions in threatened mob violence and industrial expansion in the South. Using a newly available i...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Beck, E. M. (Author)
Contributors: Tolnay, Stewart Emory ; Bailey, Amy Kate
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2016
In: The American journal of sociology
Year: 2016, Volume: 121, Issue: 6, Pages: 1856-1884
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Keywords:
Lynch mob violence
New South
Racialized inequalities
Southern lynching
State intervention in regard to lynch violence
Description
Summary:Prior research on mob violence in the American South has focused on lynchings that were successfully completed. Here, the authors explore new territory by studying the relationship between state interventions in threatened mob violence and industrial expansion in the South. Using a newly available inventory of lynching threats, they find that the frequency of extraordinary state interventions to avoid mob violence between 1880 and 1909 was positively related to the strength of the manufacturing sector within counties and negatively related to the prevalence of a “Deep South cotton culture.” The authors’ research offers support for the hypothesis that mob violence was incompatible with the image of the “New South” and that contradiction motivated state authorities to make extraordinary interventions when lynching was threatened.
ISSN:1537-5390
DOI:10.1086/685473