Doing Violence, Making Race: Southern Lynching and White Racial Group Formation

Abstract

This article presents a theoretical framework of how intergroup violence may figure into the activation and maintenance of group categories, boundaries, and identities, as well as the mediating role played by organizations in such processes. The framework's analytical advantages are demonstrated in an application to southern lynchings. Findings from event- and community-level analyses suggest that "public" lynchings, carried out by larger mobs with ceremonial violence, but not "private" ones, perpetrated by smaller bands without public or ceremonial violence, fed off and into the racial group boundaries, categories, and identities promoted by the southern Democratic Party at the turn of the 20th century and on which the emerging Jim Crow system rested. Highlighting that racialized inequalities cannot be properly understood apart from collective processes of racial group boundary and identity making, the article offers clues to the mechanisms by which past racial domination influences contemporary race relations.

Retracted: Lynchings, Racial Threat, and Whites’ Punitive Views Toward Blacks

“…In taking heed of this fact, scholars have sought to understand whether and how historical forces associated with these divides may exert a lasting influence (Campbell, Vogel, and Williams, ). One prominent line of research, grounded in racial threat theory, has centered on the potential for lynchings during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the culture that such incidents reflected and reinforced, to affect modern‐day formal social control efforts (Jacobs, Malone, and Iles, ; King, Messner, and Baller, ; Messner, Baumer, and Rosenfeld, ; Porter, Howell, and Hempel, ; Smângs, ).…”

Retracted: A Legacy of Lynchings: Perceived Black Criminal Threat Among Whites

“…In a related vein, there is a need for research that isolates the mechanisms that allow for the cultural transmission of views that whites hold about blacks. Smângs (: 1368), for example, has argued that “racial inequalities, whether in the past or present, cannot be understood apart from processes of racial category, boundary, and identify formation.” And Gabriel and Tolnay () have underscored the importance of investigating factors, such as legal rulings and residential heterogeneity, that may attenuate the effects of lynching. Connecting past lynching practices and these processes—including the dynamics and salience of identity formation and the transmission or inhibition of racial animus—to contemporary whites' views of blacks and black criminality constitutes a critical avenue of inquiry for future research (DeFina and Hannon ; King and Wheelock ; Petersen and Ward ).…”

“…In a related vein, there is a need for research that isolates the mechanisms that allow for the cultural transmission of views that whites hold about blacks. Smângs (2016Smângs ( : 1368, for example, has argued that "racial inequalities, whether in the past or present, cannot be understood apart from processes of racial category, boundary, and identify formation." And Gabriel and Tolnay (2017) have underscored the importance of investigating factors, such as legal rulings and residential heterogeneity, that may attenuate the effects of lynching.…”

“…Research on lynchings has emphasized the salience of lynchings for exemplifying and supporting a culture of racial animus and hostility toward blacks that exerts a persisting influence on race relations in contemporary America (DeFina and Hannon ; Durso and Jacobs ; Jacobs et al , ; King et al ; Messner et al ; Porter ; Porter et al ; Smângs ; Stewart et al ). Many studies in this tradition highlight the salience of racial threat for explaining how the racial animus exemplified by lynchings contributes to modern‐day whites' views about and reactions to blacks.…”

“…Please direct all correspondence to Daniel P. Mears, Florida State University, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 112 South Copeland Street, Eppes Hall, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1273;e-mail: dmears@fsu.edu. and hostility toward blacks that exerts a persisting influence on race relations in contemporary America (DeFina and Hannon 2011;Durso and Jacobs 2013;Jacobs et al 2005Jacobs et al , 2012King et al 2009;Messner et al 2005;Porter 2011;Porter et al 2014;Smângs 2016;Stewart et al 2018). Many studies in this tradition highlight the salience of racial threat for explaining how the racial animus exemplified by lynchings contributes to modern-day whites' views about and reactions to blacks.…”