E. M. Beck

Racial violence and black migration in the American south 1910 to 1930.

We test a model of reciprocal causation between racial violence and black net out-migration from southern [U.S.] counties during the era of the Great Migration. Using county-level data for ten southern states including a new inventory of southern lynchings we find support for the model during two decades 1910-1920 and 1920-1930. Out-migration of blacks was heaviest from counties where more lynchings had occurred and in turn counties that witnessed relatively more out-migration of blacks experienced fewer lynchings of blacks. We conclude that mob violence was an important social force driving blacks from certain areas of the South. (EXCERPT)

Guess Who's Coming to Town: White Supremacy, Ethnic Competition, and Social Change

Abstract This paper is an attempt to understand more thoroughly the dynamics of white racist movements by exploring the socioeconomic factors associated with communities targeted by the Ku Klux Klan for their public activities. Ethnic competition theory is utilized to provide clues for understanding which social environments are conducive to formation of racist and white nationalist movements. Locational data on almost 900 incidents of white supremacy activity in the American South that occurred between 1980 and 1990 are used to explore the empirical relationship between competition, social change, and white supremacy. Using data on all counties in the South, it was found that in static models, there was no support for linking ethnic competition to Klan activity, but in dynamic models there was evidence that coupled white supremacy activity to communities where Asians and Hispanics were increasing their relative share of resources.

Black Flight: Lethal Violence and the Great Migration, 1900-1930

After decades of relative residential stability, southern blacks began migrating in striking numbers following the turn of the twentieth century. Reconstruction and Redemption saw a fair amount of short-distance movement as black tenant farmers exchanged one landlord for another in search of favorable financial arrangements. Some blacks moved across state lines, generally toward the Southwest, in pursuit of King Cotton and the livelihood it promised. However, these population movements pale in comparison with the massive migration of southern blacks during the first half of this century.

Targeting Lynch Victims: Social Marginality or Status Transgressions?

This article presents the first evidence based on a newly-compiled database of known lynch victims. Using information from the original census enumerators’ manuscripts, we identify individual- and household-level characteristics of more than 900 black males lynched in 10 southern states between 1882 and 1929. First, we use the information for successfully linked cases to present a profile of individual- and household-level characteristics of a large sample of lynch victims. Second, we compare these characteristics with a randomly-generated sample of black men living in the counties where lynchings occurred. We use our findings from this comparative analysis to assess the empirical support for alternative theoretical perspectives on the selection of individuals as victims of southern mob violence. Third, we consider whether the individual-level risk factors for being targeted as a lynch victim varied substantially over time or across space. Our results demonstrate that victims were generally less embedded within the social and economic fabric of their communities than were other black men. This suggests that social marginality increased the likelihood of being targeted for lynching. These findings are generally consistent across decades and within different sociodemographic contexts.

Personalizing Lynch Victims: A New Database to Support the Study of Mob Violence

The authors describe the development of a data source that facilitates the inclusion of individual victims and their characteristics in the study of lynching in the southern United States. Using an inventory of 2,800 lynch victims from 10 states between 1882 and 1930, they develop a methodological approach that allows them to locate victims in the census immediately preceding the lynching. The database will include census information on the victim and all household members. The final product will include census manuscripts, research notes, and supporting documentation used to identify each victim. The authors outline (1) steps taken to identify victims, (2) challenges encountered and solutions developed, (3) plans for publicly disseminating the database, and (4) discussion of investigations that the new database will support.

Strangers, Community Miscreants, or Locals: Who Were the Black Victims of Mob Violence?

Abstract Lynch mob violence was common in the American South between 1880 and 1930 and has been extensively studied by social scientists. Some have asserted that the victims of lynchings were more likely to be strangers in their communities because of their weak ties to the local social structure. In this article, the authors examined critically the evidence offered to support that hypothesis and found it wanting. Further, using data from lynchings in Georgia, the authors present evidence demonstrating that the majority of victims of lynchings were neither strangers nor marginalized members of their communities.

Contested terrain: : The state versus threatened lynch mob violence

Prior research on mob violence in the American South has focused on lynchings that were successfully completed. Here, the authors explore new territory by studying the relationship between state interventions in threatened mob violence and industrial expansion in the South. Using a newly available inventory of lynching threats, they find that the frequency of extraordinary state interventions to avoid mob violence between 1880 and 1909 was positively related to the strength of the manufacturing sector within counties and negatively related to the prevalence of a “Deep South cotton culture.” The authors’ research offers support for the hypothesis that mob violence was incompatible with the image of the “New South” and that contradiction motivated state authorities to make extraordinary interventions when lynching was threatened.

Migration and protest in the Jim Crow South

The Great Migration and the Civil Rights Movement were two pivotal events experienced by the southern African American population during the 20th Century. Each has received considerable attention by social scientists and historians, and a possible connection between the two phenomena has been speculated. However, no systematic investigation of the effect of migration on protest during the Jim Crow era has been conducted. In this study we use data for 333 southern communities to examine the relationship between youthful black migration between 1950 and 1960 and the occurrence of sit-ins early in 1960. We find a strong positive, non-linear, relationship between net-migration and the likelihood of a sit-in which can be explained by two sets of mediating influences: local demographic conditions and local organizational presence. Our findings offer strong empirical support for an association between southern black migration and protest during Jim Crow and suggest the value of considering the influence of demographic forces on collective action.

Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations By David Fort Godshalk University of North Carolina Press, 2005. 365 pages.

will have their own particular quibbles. My overall assessment, however, is that Jenkins is an excellent ethnographer and this book displays the hallmarks of good religious ethnography: a concrete empirical focus examined through different lenses that, taken together, tell an interesting story about religion in contemporary society. The story is not as straightforward as a linear regression model, and I suspect the final chapter on ICOC is not yet written, but Awesome Families definitely repays the investment of a close reading.