Michael J. Pfeifer, Ph.D.

Michael J. Pfeifer is the author of _Rough Justice: Lynching and American
Society, 1874-1947_ (University of Illinois Press, 2004).
http://academic.evergreen.edu/p/pfeiferm/home.htm

Questions and Answers

Since I have included Lynchings on my website “Before the Needles” a number of questions have been brought to my attention. I wonder if you would be kind enough to share your opinions with me and my readers.

Q-  Colonel Charles Lynch administered his justice in the 1780’s and 1790’s and it is said he never killed anyone in the process. Why did his name get associated with the atrocities of the late 19th and 20th centuries? 

M.P.-  The term "lynching" came to mean an act of summary justice performed collectively (usually  by flogging) by the early to mid nineteenth century; by the 1840s and 50s it came to represent summary collective killing (usually by hanging).  For a long time, the term continued to mean both things.  Historians have not studied "lynching" in this early period much yet.

Q-  What is your definition of a lynching as opposed to a murder?

M.P.-  I use the 1940 Tuskegee definition, which says lynching is an illegal killing done by three or more persons in service to justice, race, tradition.  It is murder, but a special kind--collective murder, that is, murder done by the community.

Q-  According to the Tuskegee Institute figures, between the years 1882 and 1951, 4,730 people were lynched in the United States: 3,437 Negro and 1,293 white. What is your best estimation of the number of people lynched including those prior to 1882 and after 1951? Between what years did these lynchings occur? 

M.P.-  There are many inaccuracies in the Tuskegee lists, but their overall figures for that period are pretty close to the mark I think, probably a slight understatement.  Sociologists Tolnay and Beck came up with similar ones for that period with more accurate data.  I'd roughly estimate that several thousand, probably around 80% of them African-American, were lynched in the Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877); and that between 500-600 were lynched before the Civil War (1820-1860), maybe a third black, a third Mexican, a third white.  After 1951, I can only offer a highly speculative guess, since lynching went underground after that date and there is not solid data, perhaps 20-100 victims. 

Q-  Were the 11 Negroes hung without trial as a result of the New York City Draft Riot of 1863 murdered or lynched?      
http://www.civilwarhome.com/draftriots.htm

M.P.-  I'd call those racially motivated lynchings or racially motivated collective murders by Irish laborers.

Q-  Were Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney (of Mississippi Burning fame 1964) murdered or lynched? (By the KKK?)   
http://www.core-online.org/history/chaney.htm

M.P.-  Here it gets tricky.  According to the definition, it depends on how big "the mob" was.  If it was three or more, it's a lynching (yes, it's rather arbitrary).  They were collectively murdered.  Regardless, it was a heinous, cowardly act.

Q-  Was Emmet Till murdered or lynched by 2 White men in 1955? (Here is a little trivia regarding this case. Emmit Till's father is also listed in "Before the Needles". The U.S. Army executed Private Louis Till in Italy in 1945 for raping two Italian women and killing a third. The telegraph to Mrs. Mamie Till stated that Louis Till was killed in Italy due to "willful misconduct.")
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/index.html

M.P.-  Here the definition that a mob requires 3 or more persons is just not very helpful.  The collective murder of Emmett Till was racially motivated and the event was and still is termed a lynching, and that's how it was understood at the time.

Q-  Was Malcolm X murdered or lynched in New York City on February 21 1965? Three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage. They shot him 15 times at close range.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/assassins/malcolm_x/

M.P.-  Technically, this fits the definition of a lynching.  But "assassination" seems more appropriate.

Q-  Was Town Bully Ken Rex McElroy murdered or lynched by the good people of Skidmore, Missouri on July 10, 1981?   
http://newstribune.com/stories/070901/fea_0709010006.asp

M.P.-  A lynching and a collective murder--the town did it.

 Q-  Was James Byrd Jr. murdered or lynched on June 7, 1998 in Jasper, Texas?
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/jasper/byrd/

M.P.-  Lynched and collectively murdered.  Three white men did it.  It was racially motivated.  This does fall on the edge of the definition.  One eminent historian of violence, Richard Maxwell Brown, argues that today's hate crimes are the successors to lynchings.

Q-  On July 17, 1999 Florida State Prison's X-Wing inmate Frank Valdez died of injuries suffered in a melee with nine guards. Correction officers claimed he hurt himself by jumping off his bed. Valdez was on Death Row for murdering a Correction officer.  Is this a murder, a lynching or suicide?
 http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~archives/ABOLISH/rick-halperin/july99/0176.html (2nd article)

M.P.-  If the guards used excessive force, then it could justifiably be called a lynching and a collective murder.

Michael J. Pfeifer, Ph.D., teaches American history at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.  He has published articles on lynching in the Midwest, West, and South, and a book on lynching across the the United States, _Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947_  (University of Illinois Press, 2004).

http://academic.evergreen.edu/p/pfeiferm/home.htm