Lynching is a way of execution where the person is deprived of any legal authority and set to be hanged by the mob. Lynching was meant to enforce laws to maintain white dominance.
Lynching differs from a murder because California has defined it in statutes since 1933 as, “The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer action.”(1)
A Murder, CA Penal Code 187, is defined as “the unlawful killing of a human being or a fetus with malice aforethought”. (2)
The type of individuals who would most likely be lynched in Jim Crow America were African Americans and white people.
People were lynched for minor offenses like arguing with a white man, stealing a cow, establishing a business, attempting to