A new study in the Spring 2012 issue of the Sociological Quarterly makes the connection between lynchings and recent prison admissions. The authors find that “U.S. jurisdictions with the highest lynching rates now seem to imprison more of their residents (Jacobs et. al, p.167).” They offer a number of hypotheses for this association including the political climate of the states and the racial concentration of people of color. One of the conclusions is that racial antagonism is enduring and can basically take new forms in different eras. Today’s mass incarceration “may be employed to achieve the same ends as the illicit killings used in the distant past (p.170).”

My friend Jane went to the National Archives a few days ago. She was researching something else but came across this document that lists the numbers of people lynched in America between 1900 and 1945. She kindly took a photo of the document to share with me and I decided to share the images with you. [Some may be surprised at the numbers of white people who were lynched.]