Aleecha Marie McCune
Anti-Lynching Movement Overview
WGS 222- Prof Potuchek
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Slide 1: Title Page
Slide 2: Anti-Lynching Movement
The anti-lynching movement was aimed to abolish the practice of lynching.
Climax of the movement was between 1882 -1930.
The movement was composed white and black people who tried to persuade politicians
to put an end to the practice.
After the failure of this strategy they pushed for anti-lynching legislation.
This was also unsuccessful.
African American women helped in the formation of the movement and a large part of
the movement was composed of women's organizations
Slide 3: Lynching
What Is Lynching?: The practice of killing someone (esp. by hanging) for an alleged
offense with or without a legal trial.
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History of the Word: The term lynching originated during the American Revolution
when a man named Charles Lynch, a Virginia justice of the peace, ordered a punishment
for Loyalists.
Slide 4: Lynching Statistics
There are three primary sources for lynching statistics:
 Chicago Tribune
 NAACP
 Tuskegee University (Formerly Tuskegee Institute)
Facts About this slide:
 None of the three cover the entire time period of lynching in the United States.
 Before 1882, no reliable statistics are available.
 In 1882, the Chicago Tribune began to record lynching.
 Then, in 1892, Tuskegee Institute began a systematic collection of lynching statistics,
primarily relying on newspaper reports.
 Following that in 1912, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
started a record of lynching.
 The numbers of lynching from each source vary slightly.
Slide 5: Women in the Movement
 African-American women took the lead in the 1890s in vocally opposing lynching in the
South.
 The growth of an interracial movement after 1910.
Slide 6: Organizations
Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching
 Obtained the signatures of 40,000 women to their Pledge Against Lynching.
 Used virtues of true womanhood to get involved in the movement.
 Under the leadership of Jessie Daniel Ames, the Association mobilized middle- and
upper-class white Southerners to oppose the practice.
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National Association of Colored Women (NACW):
“Lifting as we climb”
Founders of the NACWC included Harriet Tubman, Margaret Murray Washington,
Frances E.W. Harper, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell.
Its two leading members were Josephine Ruffin and Mary Church Terrell.
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Their original intention was "to furnish evidence of the moral, mental and material
progress made by people of color through the efforts of our women".
NAACP: (Black and white, men and women)
The Anti-Lynching Crusaders
Founded under the NAACP
Sent 1,850 letters to "white women known to be sympathetic to social reform."
"A Million Women United to Stop Lynching"
Aim was to get one million women to donate "at least" one dollar each toward the
NAACP anti-lynching campaign.
Slide 7: Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Slide 8: Jessie Daniel Ames
Born: July 16, 1862
Born: November 2, 1883
Holly Springs, Mississippi
Died: February 21, 1972
Died: March 25, 1931
Occupation:
Chicago, Illinois
Civil rights activist in the South
Education:
Single mother
Freedman's School, Rust College, Fisk
Founder of the Association of Southern
University
Women for the Prevention of Lynching
Occupation:
Civil rights & Women's rights activist
*She was one of the first Southern white
Spouse:
women to speak out and work publicly
Ferdinand L. Barnett
against lynching of blacks.*
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Slide 9: NAACP
Formed on February 12,1909
Founded by a multi-racial and multi-religious group of social and political activists
including:
- W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Ida B. Wells, Henry Moskowitz and William English
Walling
 Mission:
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"to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to
eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination"
Slide 10: Legislative Process
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Dyer Bill
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Introduced into Congress in 1918 by Leonidas C. Dyer.
Passed by the House of Representatives in of January 1922.
Did not pass the Senate due to a Southern Majority.
This bill was revised twice and still failed to pass.
The Costigan Wagner Bill
 Introduced in 1934 by Robert F. Wagner and Edward Costigan.
 Proposed federal trials for any law enforcement officers who failed to
execute responsibilities during a lynching incident.
 Called for lynching to be considered a Federal crime in order to remove it
from state administration.
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Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress during 1882-1968.
Only three passing the house.
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No bill was approved by the Senate because of the powerful opposition of the
Southern Democratic.
Slide 11: Migration
Great Migration: (1910-1930)
 Movement of 1.6 million African Americans out of the southern states to the urban cities
of the northeast, and west.
Second Great Migration: (1940-1970)
 After the Great Depression 5 million people moved from the South.
 By the end of the Second Great Migration, African Americans had become an urbanized
population.
 More than 80 percent of blacks lived in cities.
 53% remained in the South, while 40% lived in the North, and 7% in the West.
Slide 12: Opposition
Ku Klux Klan (KKK):
 Far-right organizations in the United States
 Advocated extremist action such as:
o white supremacy
o white nationalism
o anti-immigration
 Historically expressed this through terrorism.
 Members adopted white costumes: robes, masks, and hats, designed to be terrifying,
and to hide their identities.
 The second wave KKK flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, and introduced
cross burnings.
 The third wave KKK emerged after World War II and was associated with opposing the
Civil Rights Movement and progress among minorities.
Slide 13: Lynching Laws Today
 Lynching eventually became something that was not publicly accepted and died off.
 Some states have a lynching law but a federal amendment was never passed due to the
Southern block within Senate.
 In 2005 Senate apologized for appealing past lynching laws.
Slide 14: Overview
Although, lynching was never outlawed by federal amendment, it is believed that due to the
work of the many organizations it spread a common attitude towards this issue and this helped
to eventually discontinue the practice.
Last reported lynching was in 1998, three men murdered a man named James Byrd Jr. in
Texas.
 Byrd was a 49-year-old father of three, who had accepted an early-morning ride home
with the three men.
 They attacked him and dragged him to his death behind their truck.
 The three men dumped their victim's mutilated remains in the town's segregated
African-American cemetery and then went to a barbecue.
 Local authorities immediately treated the murder as a hate crime and requested FBI
assistance.
 The murderers were caught and stood trial. Brewer and King were sentenced to death;
Berry was sentenced to life in prison.
References
Bragg, Susan. "The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Long
Struggle for Civil Rights in the United States." Georgia Southwestern State University.
http://www.blackpast.org/perspectives/national-association-advancement-colored-people-andlong-struggle-civil-rights-united-s
Wormser, Richard. "Jim Crow Stories." PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_nacw.html
Wormser, Richard. "Jim Crow Stories." PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_kkk.html
"The Timeline: Interactive Timeline Experience". NAACP. http://www.naacp.org/
(June 13, 2005). Associated Press, FOX NEWS.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/06/13/senate-apologizes-for-not-passing-anti-lynchinglaws/
Wells, Ida B.. (1893). "History is a weapon".
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/wellslynchlaw.html
Femi, Lewis. About.com Guide. http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/segregation/a/AntiLynching-Movement.htm
Kellogg, Charles Flint. NAACP, A History of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967);
Meier, August and Bracey, Jr., John H.. “The NAACP as a Reform Movement, 1909-1965: ‘To
Reach the Conscience of America’.” The Journal of Southern History LIX (February 1993): 3-30;
Morris, Aldon. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for
Change (New York: The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan, Inc., 1984);
Watson, Denton L.. “Assessing the Role of the NAACP in the Civil Rights Movement,” The
Historian 55 (1993): 453-68.
"Lynching growing unpopular". (1899, Dec 01). Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922).
Palmer Jr, L. F., (1959). "Lynching -- America's disgrace". The Chicago Defender (National
Edition.) 1921-1967
Wells-Barnett, Ida Bell. "Chapter: The black and white of it in on lynchings". New York, NY:
Humanity Books, 32-38
"Women focus attention on lynching bill". (1937, Jun 05). The Chicago Defender (National
Edition) 1921-1967.
"Women organize league to stop lynching evil". (1925, May 02). The Chicago Defender
(National Edition) 1921-1967.
"Classroom". (January, 1999). Temple University press/ University of North Carolina Press/
University of Illinois Press/ Bedford Books.
"The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950". (1980). Temple University Press.
Philadelphia.
"Lynching and the Law". (1933). University of North Carolina Press. Chapel Hill.
"Lynching in the New South". (1993). University of Illinois Press. Yrbana and Chicago.
"Southern Horrors and Other Writing". (1997). Bedford Books. Boston.
"Women organize to fight lynching evil in the south". (1932, Nov 26). The Chicago Defender
(National Edition)