ABSTRACT
From 1882 to 1981, approximately 4,800 African Americans were lynched.1 White men and women who were otherwise law abiding citizens committed these bloodthirsty murders to reinforce white supremacist ideology. Perhaps nothing represented a challenge to white supremacy more than the idea of black male sexual desire for white women, and therefore trumped up charges of rape were often cited as the justifi cation for lawless brutality against black men. At public lynchings, crowds participated in many ritual acts of violence, including torture, dismemberment, and the collection of body parts as souvenirs. In addition, photographers, both amateur and professional, took photographs of these events and sold reproductions, sometimes in the form of postcards. Like the body parts that served as mementos, these images inhabit a peculiar mixture of public and private spaces, from dime-store windows and newspapers to sock drawers and family albums. These photographs were not merely records of the event, but rather as Amy Louise Wood notes, they were part of the lynching ritual itself.2 The photographs served as evidence of white supremacy, and as part of a shared communal experience of that identity.3 At the same time, such images terrorized blacks to whom, the tortured bodies served as possibilities for the self-examples of what might happen if any white person accused them of trespassing on the steadfast rules of Jim Crow.
