Charles Lynch Essay

In the 1800s there was racial conflict all over America, especially the south. White people thought they were the superior race and treated blacks terribly. As racial tensions rose in the south, Lynching took place given it represented the white hatred for blacks. Lynching occurred in America during the 18th century and through the 1960’s. It took place in the southern Border states of the U.S. Lynching was extrajudicial punishment,a way for terrorizing, and killing the blacks for no apparent reasoning. Beck adds, "Lethal mob violence for seemingly minor infractions of the caste codes of behavior was more fundamental for maintaining terroristic social control than punishment for what would seem to be more serious violations of the criminal codes"(Beck).The man who started Lynching was Charles Lynch, He was the leader of the mob called The Patriot Zealots, the mob would accuse loyalist of treason or plotting against the mob and would hang them. Lynching had major social conflicts on local …show more content…
Many blacks were accused and punished harshly for crimes they didn’t do all because whites wanted to keep their white supperity. Lynching happened quite often in the south but in one year 230 were reported which was the most ever, experts say if Lynching was looked at as a practice by white southerners there would've been a lot more. Tolany explains, "2805 [documented] victims of lynch mobs killed between 1882 and 1930 in ten southern states. Although mobs murdered almost 300 white men and women, the vast 2,500 lynch victims were African-American. Of these black victims, 94 percent died in the hands of white lynch mobs. The scale of this carnage means that, on the average, a black man, woman, or child was murdered nearly once a week, every week, between 1882 and 1930 by a hate-driven white mob"(Tolany). In towns called “Soundtowns” if you were black and didn't leave when the whites told you to, you were