Lynching, Black Culture and Memory

Dehumanizing narratives of black male bodies drove the lynching epidemic that claimed thousands of African American lives between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.  Dr. Karlos K. Hill, author of Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory, explains how African American political and cultural actors fought back against this reign of terror with their own humanizing and heroic narratives of lynched black bodies.  Remembering lynched black bodies in ways that encouraged empathy or instilled sentiments pride was a means of finding empowering usable pasts during one of the darkest chapters in American history.