Introduction

Abstract

The conventional approach to (or master narrative of) American civil rights history has focused almost exclusively on Black male victimhood during the era of lynching, encompassing nearly five decades from 1880-1930. Rather than broaden and deepen our understanding of racial discrimination, however, such an approach often simplifies and distorts the more complex and devastating history of lynching in the United States.2 Indeed, both academic and popular discussions of lynching are dominated by a static, fixed understanding of deprivation that is principally racially based. Far less common is an association of the era with a richer, more nuanced understanding of deprivation that is critical of hierarchal relationships determined by interlocking systems of oppression-namely, racism and sexism.