Lynching: Selected References
Compiled by Eric Kofi Acree, Africana Librarian
Africana Library, Cornell University
Books:
Allen, James. 2000. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Twin Palms.
Without Sanctuary: Photographs & Postcards of Lynching in America -- http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/
Ames, Jessie D. 1973. The Changing Character of Lynching; Review of Lynching, 1931-1941, With a Discussion of Recent Developments in This Field. New York: AMS Press.
Apel, Dora. 2004. Imagery of Lynching: Black Men, White Women, and the Mob. New Brunswick , N.J.: London: Rutgers University Press.
Aptheker, Bettina ed., Jane Addams, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. 1977. Lynching and Rape: An Exchange of Views. New York: American Institute for Marxist Studies.
Bernstein, Patricia. 2005. The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and The Rise of The NAACP. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh.1993. Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Chadbourn, James H., University of North Carolina . School of Law , and Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching. 1933. Lynching and The Law. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Civil Rights Congress (U.S.). 1970. We Charge Genocide; The Historic Petition To The United Nations For Relief From A Crime Of The United States Government Against The Negro People. New York: International Publishers.
Dray, Philip. 2002. At The Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. New York: Random House.
Giddings, Paula J. 2005. Ida: A Sword Among Lions; Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching. New Orleans, Louisiana: Amistad.
Ginzburg, Ralph. 1969. 100 years of Lynchings. New York: Lancer Books. (First published in 1962.)
Hudson-Weems, Clenora. 1994. Emmett Till: The Sacrificial Lamb of the Civil Rights Movement. Troy, Mich.: Bedford Publishers.
Jackson, Jesse, and Bruce Shapiro. 2001. Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future. New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton.
Johnson, Marie R. 1998. 'Of These, One Was a Woman': The Lynching of African American Women, 1885-1946. (Africana Thesis)
Madison, James H. 2001. A Lynching In The Heartland: Race and Memory In America . New York: Palgrave.
Markovitz, Jonathan. 2004. Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Metress, Christopher. 2002. The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 1969. Thirty Years of Lynching In The United States, 1889-1918. New York: Negro Universities Press.
Nelson, Marilyn, and Philippe Lardy. 2005. A Wreath For Emmett Till. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Perkins, Kathy A., and Judith L. Stephens. 1998. Strange Fruit: Plays on Lynching By American Women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Raper, Arthur F., and Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching. 1933. The Tragedy of Lynching. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Rice, Anne P. 2003. Witnessing Lynching: American Writers Respond. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
Shay, Frank. 1938. Judge Lynch, His First Hundred Years. New York: I. Washburn.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, and Chris Benson. 2003. Death of Innocence: The Story of The Hate Crime That Changed America. New York: Random House.
Tolnay, Stewart E., and E. M. Beck. 1995. A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Waldrep, Christopher. 2006. Lynching In America: A History In Documents. New York: New York University Press.
Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 2002. On Lynchings. Amherst , N.Y.: Humanity Books. (First work originally published: Southern Horrors. 1892. Second work originally published: A Red Record. 1895. Third work originally published: Mob Rule in New Orleans. 1900.)
White, Walter F. 1969. Rope and Faggot. New York: Arno Press. (A reprint of the 1929 ed.)
Zangrando, Robert L. 1980. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Visual Materials:
The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. Beauchamp, K. A., Geralds, Y., Dessel, D., Papoulis, J., Cowins, R., & Marshall, S., et al. (2005).New York: Thinkfilm.
This is the film that helped the United States Justice Department reopen the case in which a 14 year-old Chicago boy was lynched in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. Some argue that this lynching touched off the modern civil rights movement. Three months after Till's body was recovered, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.
Awakenings, 1954-1956 [Eyes on the prize]. Blackside, I. (1992). Alexandria, Va.; Los Angeles, Calif.: PBS Home Video; Manufactured and distributed by Pacific Arts.
This film focuses on the 1955 lynching in Mississippi of 14-year-old Emmett Till and the 1955-56 bus boycott which took place in Montgomery, Ala.
Two Towns of Jasper. Dow, W., Williams, M., Latham, J., Miller, S., Bright, D., & Independent Television Service, et al. (2003).[Jasper]. Alexandria, Va.: Two Tone Productions: Distributed by PBS Video.
This film documents the 1998 lynching of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, Texas. Byrd was chained to a pick-up truck and dragged to his death by three white men.
A Lynching in Marion. Garrett, J., Lehman, N., Wisconsin, Educational Communications Board, University of Wisconsin, & Board of Regents, et al. (1995).United States: PBS Video.
In 1930, James Cameron was lynched when he was 16. Sixty-five years later, Cameron recounts in detail the lynching that he survived.
Ida B. Wells a Passion for Justice. Greaves, W., Archambault-Greaves, L., Morrison, T., Freeman, A., PBS Video, & WGBH Educational Foundation, et al. (1989).Alexandria, Va.: PBS Video.
This documentary looks into the life of Ida B. Wells. Arguably the person who single handily began the crusade against the lynching of African Americans.
The Shadow of Hate: A History of Intolerance in America. Guggenheim, C., Gruber, J. L., Bond, J., Guggenheim Productions, & Teaching Tolerance (Project). (1995).Washington, D.C: Guggenheim Productions, Inc.
This film looks into various types of intolerance in the United States. Among them are religious, ethnic, and racial. The historical overview begins in the colonial times and continues to the present day. It does mention atrocities like the 19th century massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee, the World War Two internment of Japanese-Americans, and the Leo Frank lynching in Georgia in 1913.
Strange Fruit. Katz, J. D., California Newsreel, & Independent Television Service. (2002).San Francisco, Calif.: California Newsreel.
This documentary takes a historical look into the anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit,” first made famous by Billie Holiday. Abel Meeropol’s (he used the pseudonym Lewis Allen) a school teacher from the Bronx wrote the poem, and later set it to music. The film examines the development of the song, as well as a look at the history of lynching.
Oscar Micheaux's within our Gates.Micheaux, O., Carli, P., Preer, E., Clements, F., Ruffin, J. D., & Chenault, J. (1993). Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress.
This film may be a response to D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation. It tells the story of a young Black woman who seeks a Northern white patron for a Southern school for Black children. There are scenes of lynching and an attempted white-on-Black rape.
The Murder of Emmett Till. Nelson, S., Smith, M., Braugher, A., Shepard, R., Erskine, L., & Phillips, T., et al. (2003). Boston; Alexandria, Va: WGBH Educational Foundation; PBS Home Video.
This film looks into the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till.
Lynching the Heinous Past. Porseryd, R., Machula, J., Cameron, J., TV 4 (Sweden), & Filmakers Library. (2001). New York: Filmakers Library.
This film gives a historical overview of the discrimination against African-Americans in the enforcement of criminal justice, and in particular the use of the death penalty, in the U.S. from the era of slave codes and lynching through the 1990s and the beating of Rodney King.
