Lynching was a national crime. But it obsessed the South. W. Fitzhugh Brundage's multidisciplinary approach to the complex nature of lynching delves into the such extrajudicial murders in two states: Virginia, the southern state with the fewest lynchings; and Georgia, where 460 lynchings made the state a measure of race relations in the Deep South. Brundage's analysis addresses three central questions: How can we explain variations in lynching over regions and time periods? To what extent was lynching a social ritual that affirmed traditional white values and white supremacy? And, what were the causes of the decline of lynching at the end of the 1920s?

A groundbreaking study, Lynching in the New South is a classic portrait of the tradition of violence that poisoned American life.

W. Fitzhugh Brundage is William Umstead Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina. His books include Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition and The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory.

Acknowledgments / xi
Introduction / 1
1 Mobs and Ritual / 17
2 "To Draw the Line": Crimes and Victims / 49
3 "When White Men Merit Lynching" / 86
4 The Geography of Lynching in Georgia / 103
5 The Geography of Lynching in Virginia / 140
6 "We Live in an Age of Lawlessness": The Response to Lynching in Virginia / 161
7 The Struggle against Lynching in Georgia, 1880-1910 / 191
8 Turning the Tide: Opposition to Lynching in Georgia, 1910-30 / 208
Epilogue The Passing of a Tradition / 245
Appendixes / 261
Notes / 303
Index / 369