Chapter 10: Teaching In An Age Of State-Sanctioned Lynching: Employing Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy to Respond to Persistent Social Inequity

After the abolition of U.S. chattel slavery, particularly between 1877 and 1950, White Americans lynched 3,959 Black Americans across 10 southern states (Equal Justice Initiative, 2015). The “crime” these Black people committed included rape, arguing with White men, and eloping with White women. Tolnay and Beck (1992) theorized three reasons why there was a rise in lynching post-Emancipation: European American’s desire to maintain social order over African Americans through terrorism; to reduce Black economic and political competition; to preserve the White aristocracy. Those European Americans who executed vigilante justice (i.e., lynching) against Black communities attempted to halt any social and economic progress that Blacks had gained post-Emancipation.