"At the Hands of Parties Unknown?": Convicting Lynchers of African Americans, 1889-1934

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

There is a common perception that no one was ever convicted for lynching an African American. Laura Wexler noted that prior to 1946, when the Department of Justice first convicted a lyncher, convictions occurred in fewer than one percent of cases in which an African American was lynched. Joseph Chadbourn claimed that convictions in occurred in eight tenths of one percent of lynchings (0.008%) Thus, based on data from the Equal Justice Initiative, fewer than 33 cases resulted in convictions. This project has identified 20 cases in which courts convicted lynchers in cases involving African Americans. This papers of this panel will present three cases in order to determine why and how lynchers were convicted in these cases, and what these rare exceptions tell us about African Americans and the legal system during the Jim Crow era. Scholarship on lynching identifies complicity of a community as a characteristic distinguishing lynching from murder. These cases raise questions about the limits of community complicity involved in lynching and the code of silence associated with it. Invariably coroners’ inquests stated that the lynching victim met his death “at the hands of persons unknown.” These cases contradict that idea, showing that it was possible to identify, arrest, try, convict, and sentence members of lynch mobs who murdered African Americans. This raises several questions for the understanding of African Americans’ ability to receive justice from the legal system during the Jim Crow era.

Sub Unit

• 102nd Annual Meeting and Conference of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History

Chair

• David Leon Reed, Bowie State University

Individual Presentations

• Convicting Lynchers of African Americans, 1889-1934 - Nicholas Creary, Bowie State University

• Place Holder - Tyriana Evans, Bowie State University

• Place Holder - Aundrea Dyson, Bowie State University

Commentator

• ASALH Audience, .