TRAUMA AND THE LEGACY OF LYNCHING

Black History Month
Salute To Equal Justice Initiative's Report
Lynching In America
Chapter 6
TRAUMA AND THE LEGACY OF LYNCHING

The level and type of violence that characterized lynching went beyond “ordinary modes of execution and punishment,” as historian Leon F. Litwack explains. “The story of a lynching [] is more than the simple fact of a Black man or woman hanged by the neck. It is the story of slow, methodical, sadistic, often highly inventive forms of torture and mutilation.” Whether the victims were family members, friends, classmates, acquaintances, or strangers, African Americans who witnessed or heard about a lynching survived a deeply traumatic event and suffered a complex psychological harm.