The Legacy of Lynching? An Empirical Replication and Conceptual Extension

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

“…During the latter half of the nineteenth century, calls to provide blacks greater legal rights challenged this view. In so doing, they created the foundation for racial animus and hostility toward blacks that—through a “cultural and symbolic framework” (King et al (: 293) built on anti‐black sentiment (Jacobs et al ()—scholars have argued has persisted into modern times (Messner et al ; Gabriel and Tolnay ; see, generally, Alexander ; Unnever ). Arguably, the most vivid expression of hostility came in the form of lynchings in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Ginzburg ; Tolnay and Beck ).…”

“…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 this view, lynchings provided a reflection of a broader racial tension that governed whites' views of blacks. The penetration of this tension in communities in turn created the foundation for a legacy and culture of racial hatred that could resurface in subsequent decades (Carrigan 2004;Clarke 1998;Durso and Jacobs 2013;Frazier 2015;Gabriel and Tolnay 2017). King et al (2009: 292) have, for example, argued that the "racial antagonism" embodied by lynchings "tends to be deeply ingrained in culture (i.e., it dies hard)," and thus continue to influence modern racial dynamics.…”

“…As Markovitz (: xvii) has argued, “lynchings were never entirely confined to the physical realm and were instead always intended to be seen as a metaphor for race relations,” and this metaphor “has resurfaced, changed, and been deployed over time.” In this view, lynchings provided a reflection of a broader racial tension that governed whites' views of blacks. The penetration of this tension in communities in turn created the foundation for a legacy and culture of racial hatred that could resurface in subsequent decades (Carrigan ; Clarke ; Durso and Jacobs ; Frazier ; Gabriel and Tolnay ). King et al (: 292) have, for example, argued that the “racial antagonism” embodied by lynchings “tends to be deeply ingrained in culture (i.e., it dies hard),” and thus continue to influence modern racial dynamics.…”

“…It suggests that lynchings have contributed to views among whites that blacks present a potent criminal threat to society and, beyond that, a criminal threat specifically to whites (see, e.g., Durso and Jacobs ; King et al ; Stewart et al ). Not least, scholarship on lynchings and racial threat underscores the potential for threat mechanisms to be amplified by social context (see, generally, DeFina and Hannon ; Gabriel and Tolnay ; Jackson ; Jacobs et al ; Mears et al ; Welch et al ).…”