Amy Kate Bailey

Lynched: The Victims of Southern Mob Violence Amy Kate Bailey

Commendation Quotes: In this ground-breaking book, Amy Bailey and Stewart Tolnay add significantly to our understanding of the lives and circumstances of the persons who were lynched in the postbellum South. Their careful reconstruction of the lives of lynching victims and their vulnerability to lynching violence helps to fill a crucial gap in our knowledge of this horrific practice, its relationship to racism, and its effects on communities. "Lynched" is highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of American lynching or of racial violence.--Michael Pfeifer, John Jay College, City University of New YorkMarc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.; Drawing on new sources to provide the most comprehensive portrait of the men and women lynched in the American South, Amy Bailey and Stewart Tolnay's revealing profiles and careful analysis begin to restore the identities of - and lend dignity to - hundreds of lynching victims about whom we have known little more than their names and alleged offenses. Commendation Quotes: This timely book is a major contribution to the scholarship on lynching that shifts our attention from the event--the act of murder--to the victims. Bringing new degrees of detail and clarity to our understanding of lynching, Amy Bailey and Stewart Tolnay restore a measure of identity to the hundreds of lynching victims who otherwise are barely known.--W. Fitzhugh Brundage, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillCommendation Quotes: "Lynched" breaks new ground with a truly impressive data collection effort that allows the authors to ask and analyze new and important questions about lynching. It allows us to consider the extent to which our theories of racial violence hold water when confronted with evidence about the attributes of individual victims. The authors present their work in a way that is both accessible to a general audience and also deeply meaningful for ongoing debates about conflict and racial violence.--Rory McVeigh, University of Notre DamePublisher Marketing: On July 9, 1883, twenty men stormed the jail in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, kidnapped Henderson Lee, a black man charged with larceny, and hanged him. Events like this occurred thousands of times across the American South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, yet we know scarcely more about any of these other victims than we do about Henderson Lee. Drawing on new sources to provide the most comprehensive portrait of the men and women lynched in the American South, Amy Bailey and Stewart Tolnay's revealing profiles and careful analysis begin to restore the identities of--and lend dignity to--hundreds of lynching victims about whom we have known little more than their names and alleged offenses. Comparing victims' characteristics to those of African American men who were not lynched, Bailey and Tolnay identify the factors that made them more vulnerable to being targeted by mobs, including how old they were; what work they did; their marital status, place of birth, and literacy; and whether they lived in the margins of their communities or possessed higher social status. Assessing these factors in the context of current scholarship on mob violence and reports on the little-studied women and white men who were murdered in similar circumstances, this monumental work brings unprecedented clarity to our understanding of lynching and its victims.

Contributor Bio:  Bailey, Amy Kate Amy Bailey is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Contributor Bio:  Tolnay, Stewart E Stewart Tolnay is S. Frank Miyamoto Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington.