Lynching and Gender

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Current Events & Commentary

See also: #SayHerName

The ‘Lethal Gentleman’: the benevolent sexism behind Dylan Roof’s racism, Lisa Wade in The Conversation, June, 2015 (connects history of lynching to the recent Charleston shooting)

Sexism, Racism, and Terrorism: Roof’s Misuse of Women to Justify Lynching, Juan Cole for Informed Comment, June 20th, 2015

History and Public Scholarship

Black Women Who Were Lynched in America – lists black women lynched during the Jim Crow era, with context and narrative when available, from Henrietta Vinton Davis Memorial blog

Gender and Lynching: The Politics of Memory, book edited by Evelyn Simien

How Racism Tainted Women’s Suffrage, The Root/NPR, March 25th, 2011

Ida B. Wells – profile by PBS, part of their “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow” series

Ladies and Lynching: Southern Women, Civil Rights, and the Rhetoric of Interracial Cooperation, Jordynn Jack and Lucy Massagee, Rhetoric and Public Affairs 14.3 (2011)

The Lynching of African American Women, by Marilyn Kai Jewett, for the Atlanta Daily World, March, 2015

Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching, by Crystal Feimster (2011) – see review from Slate “Book of the Week”

White Women and the Defense of Lynching, Jessie Daniels for RacismReview, February 2014

White Women, Rape, and the Power of Race in Virginia, 1900 – 1960, Lisa Dorr (2004)

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Teaching Resources (see also Teaching About Lynching)

Anti-Lynching Campaigns (1890 – 1942) – general lesson plan, including primary sources, group activity, and essay questions re: anti-lynching. Gender and texts written by women receive substantial coverage.

How did Black Women in the NAACP Promote the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill? – questions, documents, and interpretation from Alexander St. Press.

Southern Women in the Anti-Lynching Campaign – multi-part document-based tasks and essay question from Women’s History/Alexander Street (includes documents and instructions)

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