did little to stop these illegal, vigilante killings. Some Americans, mostly African Americans, were outraged by the lynchings, notably Ida B. Wells who actively spoke out against the lynching practices of her time. Her views were published in several newspapers, and she also wrote a series of pamphlets against lynching, notably Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, which was published in 1892. Wells also courageously started the first anti-lynching campaign in the United States after three of her friends were lynched. However, for the most part, the lynching of African Americans, largely in the South and border states, was institutionalized into the fabric of American society and very few people actively protested the violence.
It should be noted that there were some lynchings in the North and West as well, but nine-tenths of the lynchings took place in the deep South. The reasons given for lynching ranged from minor offenses allegedly committed by African Americans (disputes with a white man, attempting to register to vote) to major crimes (robbery, felonious assault, rape). In many instances, African Americans were lynched solely for reasons of racial prejudice. Many victims of lynch mobs were innocent and falsely accused, as many as one-third according to a study published in 1933 that focused on lynching statistics of the 1920s and early 1930s.
Historian Howard Zinn describes the background that led to the lynching of African Americans. After the Civil War, laws for racial equality were passed, but since African Americans were dependent on privileged whites for employment and the necessities of life, the laws wee meaningless.
The southern white oligarchy used its economic
Power to organize the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist
Groups. Northern politicians began to weigh the advantages
Of the political support of impoverished blacksùmaintained
In voting and office only by forceùagainst...