Waltham Public Library - A Year of Black History: An American Horror Story, The History of Racial Terror Lynchings

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVRpd8jNpZ4

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, white supremacists used lynching to terrorize and, by extension, oppress African Americans. Despite anti-lynching activists’ best efforts, this lethal form of policing Blacks continued up through the mid-twentieth century, culminating in the 1955 lynching of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till. While horrific, this history is a key chapter in our national story that warrants continued and careful attention.

Dr. Brenna Greer, associate professor of Wellesley College, will trace how and why lynching became a tool of white supremacy following the end of slavery and how this development shaped the life on both sides of the color-line. In the process, she will detail aspects of this history that are often overlooked, including the relationship of racial terror lynchings to early American leisure, consumer, and visual culture, shifting demographics in the twentieth century United States, present-day law enforcement, and teaching.