The Making of a Lynching Culture

The Making of a Lynching Culture book review

by Jim Potter

I learned a long time ago that when horse thieves of any ethnicity or race were captured in the American Frontier, especially the American West, many met their maker at the end of a rope, hanging from a tree. I was also aware that the Ku Klux Klan terrorized people, especially Blacks, by intimidation that included lynching.

Thanks to William D. Carrigan, author of The Making of a Lynching Culture: Violence and Vigilantism in Central Texas, 1836-1916 (University of Illinois Press, 2004), I have a better understanding of how and why white Americans tolerated extreme violence in their communities. In central Texas, lynching was acceptable when the powerful white majority perceived a threat to their political, economic, or social authority.

After reading Carrigan’s meticulously researched and skillfully written book, I have a much better understanding how the act of mob violence was accepted as a way of securing “justice” despite its brutality.

Targets of lynchings by vigilantes in central Texas after the Civil War started with whites, then concentrated on Blacks, and finally, Mexican immigrants.

I especially appreciated author Carrigan examining people who had the courage to stand up to vigilantes who attempted—and sometimes succeeded—to stop lynchings.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”

Happy researching and writing,